Birthday Week! Ames 3/12/12

So this last week was a pretty slow one as far as the missionary work goes. but all in all it was still a pretty good week.

We had a Gator that decided to move to San Diego and then moved two days later. We were able to get her phone numbers for the bishop of her new ward and such so she can find the missionaries again, i hope that she is able to stick with it in the move.

its crazy that kyle and i are turning 20 this week! i remember when we turned 8 years old and how that was such a big deal becasue we could be baptized and such. that was twelve years ago! This week is also the birthday week for two other missionaries in the zone. So we are going to be having some sort of birthday shin dig this week. Im glad you sent all the party supplies because now we can have a legit party.

So this week we went up to Tucson for an appointment elder ranger had, while we were up there we were going to stop up at the mission office to pick some stuff up for the zone and also to drop off some records. On our way there, i saw some smoke coming from underneath the truck, hmmm i thought, no big deal, there is a really crapy car infront of me it must be their exhaust or something. A few blocks later, sitting at another light i saw a little bit of smoke come up over the hood from the right side. Again, hhmm its not billowing so there must not be too big of an issue. The yet again and another light it happend again and my companion saw it as well. So i decided to call an audibul and turn into the parking lot that was conveniently next to me. Park in a stall and popped the hood to use my savvy mechanic skills. Open it up, Smoke. Everywhere!!! turns out that one of the heater tubes broke off of its bracket and so there was coolant all over the place just burning up! Usualy i would call kyle, but instead i called Elder Nystrom back in sierra vista who is bomb at cars like kyle. He used another truck at his end and i walked him to the problem over the phone. Pretty crazy. We ended up having to wait an hour and a half for a tow truck and we got to spend those few hours with the Vehicle Cordinator who  was actualy really nice about the whole thing. Fun Stuff.

Caving last week was really fun, the caves were HUGE! really big open rooms and stuff. I wasnt able to get pictures of the inside that were any good because it was really dusty inside.

Hope you all have an awesome week.

Love you all!

Elder Ettinger

US border

P-day fun

The broken-down truck 

Birthday Week! Kyle 3/12/12

Hello Everyone,

So This past week has been pretty awesome!

We were able to meet with our investigator last thursday, he said that he is coninuing to read the book of mormon, and that he wants to start including his family in reading, but he cant seem to get them interested. We told him to try and read Alma 32 with them. Where it compares the B.o,m to a seed, and you plant the seed and what not. So we are hoping that they will be open to reading with him. we also scheduled a time to meet with his whole family a week from today!!

So some really exciting news! i Got a little suprise visit today from an old friend, ames is gonna be SUPER ticked!!.. Guess who stopped by??...Kim Nelson!!!!!!! haha! he called me on a missionaries phone and said ,"Hey i am at your appartment! Get your butt home!" ha! it was super fun being able to see kim again! and austin! who is growing up a ton! that kid is super tall now!. We got a picture together that i will send to you in the email.

We have been able to do two different service projects, one was putting up a swing set, that took 4 missionaries and the member 8 hours to complete! it was a way fun time though. And another member in the ward found out that we were "swing set experts" and wants us to come over and help build theirs as well!!

the other project was being able to use a chainsaw again! we cut up a ton of logs and hauled them off this guys property. It was also a ton of fun! i think we were helping him for about 4 hours!

Service is so fun! and its something i am always looking forward to!

Thanks for the birthday presents that you sent! i am excited to turn 20! its crazy! ha however i do have a leadership meeting on the 15th AND 16th that i am not looking forward to! but oh well, it is what it is.

Thats crazy that mom and dad were in apple valley!! Ha! and that you met elder hudak and fisk. Hudak was in this zone last transfer, and fisk was in apple valley when i was there. Good times!

We also were able to go up to lake arrowhead last saturday, we stopped by tims house, and got some pictures. It took me back to the good ol family reunion! ha! i was hoping tim wouldn've been able to come up, but he was busy.

thanks for all of the love and support you give me! thanks kim nelson for stopping by and saying hi! that was pretty epic!

Talk to you when i am twenty!

love, Elder Kyle Ettinger

Elder Ettinger with Kim Nelson

Elders Ettinger, Bindrup, La'ulusa, and Bowler at Lake Arrowhead

In front of Uncle Tim's house

Half way through the transfer Ames 3/4/12

I cant believe that we are allready halfway through this transfer! is it me or does time seem to just be speeding up? i submit that it is.

This week was an awesome week. Mainly because we eneded it off on saturday with a baptism! They are allways fun to go to. I didnt teach the kid all that much so i dont think i will claim him as one of my baptisms, but it was still good to see one more person enter in by the gate. (Thats a scripture reference for you non-scriptorians ;) ) other than that our week was pretty lame, lots of dropped appointments, always a pretty frustraiting event.

Super stoked that maren got accepted and Chapel HIll, i met someone in my ward that has a son just about to finish up there. Blind date maren? haha jk

So i got a new drivers licence this week! im now a citizen of arizona! joy. And i did get my new debit card from mom, still waiting for my missionary one though. it should be here in the next few days though. I also had an interview with president killpack for a new temple recomend. So my new identity is slowly forming again. Funny story though, i just found out last night that my wallet was found... talk about horrible timing. But since everything was cancelled in it it is pretty much no good anyway. So now i have two drivers licences. Its like i have two personas :D I dont have it yet though, its still down in douglas where i lost it at a members home. Apparently one of their younger sons found it and thought that it was something he could keep. He then would always tell his parents that he could pay for stuff with his credit card. They thought he was just joking unitl one time he actualy pulled one out of his pocket! haha i think that story itself is worth all of the trouble :D

Today for pday we will be going hiking in some caves, that should be fun. Ill send some pictures next week.

I agree with kyle, missions are the funnest things ever. I got an email from Bishop today saying that a few of the priests are really close to submitting papers. thats awesome.

I have grown so much in the last year its just crazy. I feel like i have recived much more than i have put in thats for sure.

 

love you all so much!

God Speed!

Elder Ettinger

Kyle 4/5/12

Man the time keeps flying by! just like ames said, i cant believe we are already halfway through this transfer! it seems like i just started my training with elder bevan, and we were halfway through the past transfer!

 

I am really looking forward to the 20th birthday! I love being able to ask members to feed you on a certain day. 

 

okay so this past week was SUPER dumb! Our lesson with our legit gator fell through, so we were only able to do some contacting this week. and try and get referals from members. Called"MRRs" member referal requests. But we did have some fun tracting this past week. there was a day that i was able to borrow another elders dog whistle, its electronic. and scares little dogs like crazy! so we can now go into fenced yards with dogs! you just press the button and they run away from you in mass confusion! its so fun! makes me laugh everytime! its also fun to scare the dogs away from the door when the owner is talking to you at the door. You just keep the whistle in your pocket and press the button. ha

Anyways, i gotta clarify something before everyone thinks i was swimming! ha

We went and hiked up to a waterfall, where the path wasnt even by the water. then Elder la'ulusa and myself took of our shoes. And just put our feet in the water. then i got the picture of me standing in part of the small waterfall. To me, that is not considered swimming. So i think mom should put the cool picture on the blog please.

 

We are going on a different hike today called "lytle creek" it also has a waterfall at the end of the hike. and i plan on getting some cool pictures at that one as well.

 

Congrats to maren on getting accepted to the north Caralina school! thats crazy awesome! let us know maren when you go to that school and stuff! i hope we will be able to see you lots once ames and i get off our mission in less than 15 months! holy cow!

 

thanks for everyones love and support! i am excited to continue on with the mission!! woo!

Love, Elder Kyle Ettinger

Kyle - 2/27/12

Hey there family!

Man it feels like it has been forever since ive been able to email! it feels like i haven't emailed this whole transfer.

I wasn't able to email because of presidents day last week. Sometimes our mission president lets us email on the tuesday after. But this time we werent allowed to. so i had to wait forever and day to get back on and email.

It took me about twenty minutes to read all of the emails and now i can tell you i may not get to all of the questions asked since there were so many of them.

The past two weeks have had its ups and downs. We were able to find a new investigator that we like to call "Golden". She was a refferal from the spanish missionaries that we live with. Because we have the same boundries as the spanish elders. We can go out tracting in the same areas. and find both spanish and english people to teach. At the same time. Its really fun to go tracting with the spanish elders. Anyways, our investigator has a sister that is a member of the church that lives in New york. Her sister has been telling her to try and find the mormon church. And she has always been unsuccessful. However, we have found her, and now she has found us! We taught her last tuesday about the doctrine of christ. Which are the 5 steps to returning to live with heavenly father again. It was a really great lesson, and she said she wanted to learn more! so we are going back tomorrow to teach another lesson. Probably the restoration.

The reason that she is golden, is because she knows that she needs to be baptised again, because her first baptism was as a little little child. and she wants to make the true desicion to follow jesus christ. So we are pretty stoked.

Thats a real bummer that ames lost his wallet! hopefully he can get his stuff soon. I'm really excited for march to come! i'll be able to get more mission funds! so i can eat again . it always seems like my money disappears super fast! its really annoying.

So i am going to be able to go up to lake arrowhead in march! i'm so excited! i am gonna get some permission to try and get ahold of tim, and see if we can stop by his house and get a picture and catch up a bit. Yes you should all be jealous! i wanna rub it in as much as i can.

Today for p-day we are going bowling! Elder Bowler knows of a place in the city of san bernardino that has one dollar shoe rentals and one dollar games! so its gonna be way sweet!

Gongrats to maren for getting her interviews done! thats pretty awesome! Now you can catch up with all of your school work!

I hope everyone is doing well!! staying safe and having fun! Right now it is slightly sprinkling in rialto, i was way jealous to hear about the snow and hail in ames' mission! i dont think i'm gonna be able to touch snow for a really long time!! The weather here in california is really dumb!

I love all of you! thanks for the support you give me! My mission is teaching me so much! and its such a fun thing!! So if any of the young men in the ward say.."oh i dunno, a mission seems scary". Just tell them to man up, because a mission is SO much fun! being able to testify to what i know. Is the coolest thing ever!

Later! love, elder kyle ettinger

"Rim of the World"  overlooking San Bernardino

Windy Sierra Vista - Ames 2/27/12

Sierra Vista has ALOT of wind. I do not like the wind at all, especialy on a bike, it makes riding so much harder than in needs to be! Also, there is a slight downgrade away from our appartment to the rest of our area. That also means that every night without fail we have to go up hill to get home, such a bummer.

This week was a pretty good week. We were able to set up the Baptisimal program for a Baptism this weekend. We were also able to set a baptismal date for another one of our investigators. So this week was a pretty fun one. Not a whole lot of finding new investigators though. That is definitly the hardest part of missionary work, finding new people to teach. Thats pretty crazy though that random guy knew the zockles... i dont even remember contacting a guy named craig and even talking about dad running the ironman? Thats really cool though.

Today for Pday we are going to go to tombstone. Iv heard fun things about it. so that should be cool. Its such a bummer not having a wallet though, I litteraly am a missionary withough purse or script haha. not having money is stressfull, i dont know how im going to find food for the next week. :( im sure i will live though.

Whats with not hearing from kyle for so long? that bum

So do you think that i could get two drivers licences? that would be pretty cool.

Speaking of, There is a guy  that works for the FBI, and we were talking last night at a ward devotional, and i learned that he has multipul Alias' (Spelling?) like he said he has throw away ones that are just like a one time use. and then ones that have full credit reports and all that leagal stuff that have taken years to make! pretty sweet stuff. The FBI sounds pretty fun =D

Congrats to Maren for finishing all those Interviews, i like to brag about you all the time =)

Love you all lots and lots!

God Speed,

Elder Ettinger

ps, one quick request:

Dad you should give me some information on red dog and being in the air force, he was in the air force right? there is a guy in my ward that was interested. He said if he had his Birthday and name he could look him up at this Veterans place he is a part of.

Ames - 2/21/12

so this week was a so-so week. Im still learning where everything is and who everyone is. i dont like moving to a new area. just for those reasons.

Church was good on sunday though. Met lots of new people, the memebrs here are really awsome so no complaints. And biking has been going a ton better ever since that first day.

Funny story this week. We were getting a ride home from our dinner appointment, and we were behind a obvioulsy drunk driver, who was all over the road and hit a curb and blew out the front right tire of the car! so the member called it in to 911 and gave a good description of the car and we followed it into a gas station parking lot waiting for the cops to come and do their thing. After about 5 minutes they showed up and talked to the lady. turns out she wasnt drunk at all but texting! it was this total barbie girl that probably was a terrible driver in the first place! geeze. Pretty funny. dinner and a show that night.

So some more news... I lost my wallet yesterday... Super stressful. We went down to douglas with some other elders to chill there for pday. its a border town about 50 minutes away from sierra vista, but its still within our zone. Well it must have fallen out of my pocket because its gone and i dont think its coming back super duper stressfull :(. Luckily there was no cash in it, just credit cards and stuff. still pretty annoying though. Also, there were those medical cards mom gave us before the mission in there as well. is that bad? i sure hope not.

So all in all this week did end up all the fun. but there were some fun times along the way.

sounds like you all are doing great back home. Keep up the good work!

Love you all.

Elder Ettinger

ps. Dad remember when kyle and i were kids and we would work on projects with you? i loved going to lowes or home depot and playing hide and seek with kyle while you gathered all the stuff we needed. Good times!