WEEK #29 - Land's End Life!

Week 29 already, holy cow. What a goofy and flippin awesome week! :) Land's End has been different from Rita but still pretty fun!

Monday: February 3rd

Today was the second time I've ever had Zone sports on pday. Last time I had only been in the mission field for 4 days, haha! In Rita we never went because it would've been a two hour drive... like all things in Rita! It was great to see the Zone and get to know them. My family were all super excited and laughing when they heard I got transferred to Grand Junction, haha! We've been through that place SOO many times growing up. I always thought it was just a hot, desert gas station... and now I'm a missionary in it! :) We had a good lesson with Daniel, he's 12 and super cool. We're hoping to get him baptized in March!

Maverick! Look at all those spitz

CRAZY STORY:

At the local Maverick just a block away from our apartment there was a shooting between a couple of people cause they were fighting about the Super Bowl. One guy was fatally wounded and another was injured pretty bad. Crazy things happen here in Grand Junction! This is the third shooting that's happened here within a few blocks of our apartment in the course of a WEEK. So saddening. 

Tuesday: February 4th

Had a mission wide zoom call and then went straight into the ZL training at combined District council. It was good, we were able to get a lot of principles across to the Zone! :) We were blessed to meet this cool lady named Dayrest. We taught her the focus this Gospel has on families and the peace that is found in the Book of Mormon! She got really excited to learn more and we committing her to reading more in the Book of Mormon to found out this truth for herself! What a unique opportunity we ALL have to seek personal revelation for our own lives and discover so many new joys the Lord has in store for us as we Follow Him! The AP's (Assistants to the President) stayed the night with us. That was funny, it's good to see that we are all just missionaries trying to do the right thing. Those two Elder Neeley and Elder Finch are awesome. 

Wednesday: February 5th

We had a MLC zoom call today and then interviews with President Rees. Me and Elder Kofford do a lot of short bursts of tracting. We knock a few houses on one street and a few on another. It mixes things up and we get to walk and be out and about. I like it :) We met this cool girl named Molly, she gladly took a Book of Mormon and seemed interested. I always love seeing the fruits of our efforts, sometimes it's not always like that. Some days the Lord just intends us to work hard and not care about whether there is any result of our efforts. I know the Lord has guided me personally to specific people that I can relate to and help deepen their conversion to Christ! What greater privilege is there than to bear the name of our Savior?

GJ is known for having vast amounts of orchards!

Thursday: February 6th

Did some service at a local children's hunger business. Then we went to Train the Leaders with President and all the new district/zone leaders. It was a really great meeting! We then knocked on a bunch of doors and met this lady named Carol. She is super sweet and actually talked with the sister missionaries in SLC! We setup a time to meet again. Went by Rainy again and she was actually home! She said she hadn't read what we asked her to but when we started talking about how much peace/comfort doing so brings us she started crying. We bore testimony to her that the power of Christ's peace is real! He can heal ANY broken heart because He loves each of us. Rainy thanked us and seemed to have a renewed commitment to meeting with us. She's needed peace in her life for a long time. 

Friday: February 7th

Elder Kofford and I felt prompted to knock this dark house and it opened to this lady named Misty who was praying for a sign from God about what path she needed to take in her life! We introduced the Book of Mormon as another set of scripture that Heavenly Father revealed to mankind to help answer questions of the soul and bring that direction she was looking for. What a cool miracle! :) We had dinner with some members... gosh, I swear I'm going to get SO FAT over here in Land's End, haha! I'm too used to bread, cereal, and pretzels. Strand me on an island with those and I'll be just fine ;) 

Saturday: February 8th

Today was good, we had an old hardcore Marine guy call us and ask Elder Kofford, "Is Elder LaRose still your companion? I want him to drop down and do 100 diamond pushups" Haha! Today it was flippin 55 degrees in Grand Junction, I had a short sleeve on... in February!!  Haha, what the heck is this Grand Junction.

 55°... in February! 

At night we went tracting and this lady heard us knock on the door, saw that we were missionaries, turn on the porch light and started flickering the light on and off super fast as a signal for us to go away... haha! Some crazy weird people over here. Also met a member who was from the one and only place of Blanding! (Some backstory, Monticello and Blanding have been very bitter rivals for the longest time) We had good fun poking at each other's home town, but don't worry I roasted Blanding pretty good. Monticello is best, Go Buckaroos! :)

Sunday: February 9th

Sunday is always a special day. I love partaking of the sacrament, such beautiful symbolism. Bishop Smith, who's over the Land's End ward, got up during sacrament meeting and said, "We have a new missionary in the ward. Is he here? I'm going to invite him to come up here and have him bear his testimony and introduce himself" Dannnng, callout! Haha :) That was awesome to bear my testimony on the spot like that. We had a good lesson with Hank and Stacy then we went back to Brother Laws the Blanding-ite! We went over Come Follow Me (scripture study program) and had a great discussion. We both can't help but tease each other and throw a little mud back and forth between Monticello and Blanding ;) One old guy asked me and Elder Kofford for our first names. He then said, "Keldon and Makoy?! You guys sound like a couple of outlaws from the wild west" Haha, I love this ward!

Beautiful painting of hometown Monticello temple by Sister Wynn

Sooo many more people over here than in Rita, but I'm kinda liking Grand Junction. It can't ever top a trailerhome in the middle of the wilderness though... ;)

Have a great week,

Love you all,

Elder LaRose

Sorry not too many pictures this week, super busy! :)

My NEW ADDRESS is:

2946 D Rd. Apt #D-3

Grand Junction, CO 81504

Mailbox - #15

Love,

Elder LaRose 

keldon.larose@missionary.org