Kyle - 4/2/12

hey Everyone,

 

april fools no email today...

 

ha just kidding, so this past week has gone by really really quick!

We Moved into our new appartment on tuesday. Elder bevan and i are the only ones living in the cactus appartment. its nice to be back down to no roommates, it helps me focus on being motivated to work hard through the whole day, and not have time here and there to just chill with other elders.

our appartment is a really open spacious area! after alot of cleanup i am very happy with the change.

also, we had a really cool miracle on wednesday! the second day we were there.

A lady in our ward, who is very less active. she came up to US and asked if she could set up an appointment for friday evening. We were very shocked because she hasn't ever been very nice to other members of the ward. That friday we went to her house and she seemed pretty excited to see us, she had been having a really rough week because it was just over a year that her husband passed away, ironicly on the 16th of march. Anyways, she proceeded to tell us that she hasn't met with the missionaries in over 3 years! and that she absolutly hated them! so that right there testifies to me, of why elder bevan and i were just switched over to the north "A" side of the same ward. We talked some more with her, and she opened up to us alot! we encouraged her to pray, and we are going to teach her how to pray tuesday at our next appointment. We are very excited to be working with her! Total miracle!

 

We are focusing on visiting all of the members on our side of the ward that we dont know, and to see some of the active members to try and get refferals from them. i am very excited for the new area and what not! so i hope to have more miracles to come!

 

General conference went by super quick this time!! We weren't able to set up times to watch it at members homes, so we just went to the church building that we meet at to watch it. sounds like everyone liked the talk on "Stop it" from ukdorf, totally spelled that wrong. I enjoyed the talk on how we should really remember to excercise our priesthood. it is something that i have learned alot about on my mission, and i always try and help the wards become more motivated to do hometeaching, and volunteer for different assignments.

 

Dad, good job on finishing the race! Sounds like it was a big mess! I am proud of you for continuing on at the times you wanted to quit, because yes ames and i would've never let that one go! ha just kidding. You are one crazy man dad! i lookup to you alot! even if you dont think i do.

 

I love you all, and hope all is well back home! Time keeps going really fast in the mission! Buckle down! because ames and i are gettin close to hittin one year in the mission!!

 

Love, Elder Kyle Ettinger

 

Ames - 4/2/12

I cant believe that it is April already. What happened to march? not to even mention january or febuary. Crazy.
At the same time though it seems like time is slowing down the closer that we get to that year mark. Will we ever make it? Time will tell.
Its been quite a change not having Elder Ranger around. I dont like taking over areas let alone after only six weeks in the area. Its hard to be the one making all the decisions and planning the days out. O well, it makes you learn the area really well and really fast. 
Congrats to dad on his race. Im glad that you persevered and finished the race. I think you would have given yourself a hard time as well on that one :D
I really liked conference. Always really good. I really liked Elder Hollands talk with the call to step up. That was really good. There are alot of things that we can all be doing better than we are. I also liked in preisthood session when someone talked about being the worthy priesthood holder in your home. I thought of dads example our whole lives of being ready to serve when called upon to give blessings and other things. Kim and clyde also came to mind. All awesome examples.
Elder Woodland is really cool. I'm back to laughing all the time! . . .  Elder Woodland and i are going to have a sweet transfer. 
This last week was a pretty slow one as far as the work goes. Taking over the area and also having conference didnt help our work out too much. But we have some sweet referals for some non-members as well as a couple less actives so we have some direction to go this week. Pretty psyched for it. 
Not a whole lot else going on. Hopefully ill have some cooler stuff to report on next week :D
Love you all!
Elder Ettinger

I am leaving Rialto 1st B! - Kyle 3/26/12

Hello everyone,

Man i cant believe we have transfers already! We got the calls on saturday obviously, and elder bevan and i are both being transfered, and our ward mates are also both being transfered! So our ward itself will get 4 new missionaries tomorrow!!  i also heard from our zone leaders that i am to leave all of my packed stuff in my appartment. So i am pretty sure that i am going to be staying in rialto zone, but maybe serving in a different ward. i sure hope i just dont switch sides and go to the "A" area of the same ward! i would be quite upset for packing all my stuff and moving like 3 blocks down the road ha! but hopefully president is inspired enough to send me where i am needed to go.

Our ward had a baptism last saturday! i was able to teach her about 3 times over the course of the 3 months that i have been here. Even though she wasnt really my investigator since she was in the other elders half of the ward. But i was also able to stand in when she was given the holy ghost on sunday!!

Then a few hours later, elder bowler and i were able to be companions for the rest of the day, and go up to applevalley to our last area, and go to a baptism that they were having. it was way fun to go back up to the desert.

Last friday, we were very thrilled to be able to build and complete playset number 2! for a family in the ward. they fed us breakfast, and we got right to work! with a lunch break in between, about 5 or 6 hours later we had finished! its really fun building those things! i am for sure getting a play set when i am married and have kids!

I am pretty excited to be getting a new companion, a new area, and hopefully more missionary work than what i have had in the past!!

Sounds like everyone is doing well! Good luck mom on your shac race!

Dad, i was bragging about you the other day when a  member said he was maybe doing a marathon, i told him that you completed the iron man and a bunch of other marathons, including the one in japan ha!

I hope everyone has a great week! be safe and have a good time! i am looking forward to this next transfer!! Time is just going to fast!!

Love you all

Elder Kyle Ettinger

                                                              Kyle's new place:

New Companions - Ames 3/27/12

So Elder Ranger is transfering away from Sierra Vista 5th ward. Kind of a bummer because it was a ton of fun serving with him. Id say he is my second favorite companion. Elder Sims is still number one. This is his last transfer, he goes home in the begining of may, gonna miss that kid.

My new companion is Elder Woodland, we were in the same zone when i first got to marana, he seems like a pretty cool kid and i think that we are going to do really well together. We are going to bike our butts off :D

This past week was a pretty neat week. When we were up in Tucson for one of elder rangers appointments we got a call from a member of the ward saying that they were bringing a couple of friends to church and they wanted us to meet them. They are both non-members and the lady got up and bore her testimony in sacrament! (Our fast sunday was this last week due to confrence) She bore an awesome testimony about christ. Really cool. Their member friends moved up to utah yesterday though, so we are working really hard making sure they transition well to another family in the ward so we can start teaching them soon. I love the Miracles that are happening. We also got a call from anohter member of the ward that wanted us to teach and baptize his daughter while she was in town and she leaves on saturday! I had to call President Killpack to get special permission which he didnt give us. She has to be taught and baptized where she has permanent residence. I wasnt surprised that it wasnt going to work out. So now we get to crush this guys dreams of his daughter getting baptized this week. Awesome.

Im super psyched about Confrence this week. For the first time ever i have prepared a couple questions before hand and so im super excited to see what kind of answers i can get :D.

Glad to hear that all is going well back home. Good luck with all the races! I miss going to the races and cheering on the runners and what not. Make sure you let us know what jaxon will be serving! thats allways fun stuff.

Loving my mission.

God Speed.

Elder Ettinger

 

P-day activity

New way to use a toaster

Sierra Vista weather

No More Teenagers! Ames 3/19/12

Its pretty crazy that kyle and i are no longer teenagers, I still remember the day we turned 13. We got Incredibles for our birthday and had a party with the mickelsons and ferwerdas and brittan was there as well. Good Times.

This year on 3/16 we had a zone training, what an awesome way to spend a birthday... The training was really good and our zone needed to hear alot of what president killpack and the other speakers had to say, but sitting and listening for four hours isnt what i call a fun birthday.

We had two other birthdays this week in our zone. Pretty much unheard of having that many Birthdays in the same week in the same zone. So we all got together and had a lunch BBQ one of the days. We all chipped in diffrent parts of the food. I provided the cake :D which turned out really well :D

We had a pretty slow week this week with the missionary work, When i first got here we had like 9ish investigators, and we have had to weed it down quite a bit and focus on those who are really ready to accept the gospel, so we are down to like 2 now. Our finding efforts are lacking at this point, thats what most of our training was on this week. Finding is obviously one of the most important aspects of missionary work, but at the same time it is easily the hardest part. Working with members is the easiest way to find news, but its hard to build the members faith to ask their friends to meet with us. We are going to need to put an extra focus on finding this next transfer. (Next time i email we will be into the next transfer. NUTS!)

This last week we were only able to teach one good solid lesson, The Law of Chastity... This is by far my favorite lesson to teach. You have to be very bold and forward with how you present it and so it makes teaching super duper easy. We taught it to our 19 year old gator, She accepted it super well and agreed with us on its importance. Super cool. This week we are teaching her the Word of Wisdom. Should be fun :D

Thanks to everyone that sent packages and letters and what not. Loved them all. Im going to have to say my favorite one though is my Sonicare Toothbrush. Pretty much the coolest thing ever. It vibrates so fast that you can barely feel it moving, and it feels like you just got out of the dentist every time you brush! I just picked up some extra whitening toothpaste today too. Stoked about that. (if you couldnt tell im in a teeth kinda mindset :D )

Also, i was glancing through the confrence Endsign this week. (Ensine as dad would say) I decided that i want to be a "Confrence Photographer" it looks like so much fun :D or just be a photographer for the church in general. I miss going on random photoshoots by myself, they were awesome times to just think to myself.

Today it is snowing in Sierra Vista.. not to stoked about it. Yesterday we had to bike only a couple miles to dinner, but it was in super bad winds and rain. we showed up totaly soaked. It was really humbling i sang the song ♪♫ " The winds and the waves shall obay thy will, peace be still, peace be sill" ♫♪ the whole way there. It didnt make the rain stop but it made it at least a little amusing.

You allways have to find fun in the work.

 The Blue Angel pictures are pretty sweet. DId you take my camera? you should have. Feel free to use it when ever. If you break it i expect the new and updated version when i get home though :D

Hope all is well in STG!

Love you all so much!

Elder Ettinger Sr. (as opposed to kyle being the jr. =P )

Kyle 3/19/12

hello Family!

 

Wow i cant believe that ames and i are 20 years old now! the time sure keeps flying by! especially out here in the mission field!!

 

thanks for all of the birthday presents and what not! i got mom and dads package super early since it was sent from applevalley! i took the gifts out of the box and kept them on my desk for almost a whole week before i could open them. that strenghened my patience ha! it was also funny because my roommates decided to hide them all! and it took me 2 days to find them all again. marens package was also really fun! i enjoy the CD and all of the small toys! good times we have had with those plastic bubble things!! thanks so much!

i also got an awesome package from kimberli, she sent me two ties, some legos, and some really cool custom made stuff with some photoshoot pictures that her and her friend did. pretty awesome!!

oh i didn't mention that i actually opened everyones presents on the morning of the 17th! because the 16th (and 15th) i had a leadership meeting that was from 8:00 to 5:00!! so i only had time to eat dinner both days, and then off to bed once i got home.

I REALLY loved the chance i got to see kim nelson! we went to lunch together, and i got permission for it to just be Kim, austin, and myself. i left my companion with some other missionaries. so it was a good time to catch up and whatnot.

Ames and i talked on the phone for about an hour the night of our birthday! that was a really fun time as well! We got to talk about our missions, and the good memories we have had along the way up to where we are in life now. it was way fun! ha dont be jealous!

 

We went on a cool hike today that had about a 65 foot waterfall at the end of it. i kept looking up at the top and saying to myself "i'll bet 20 bucks that there are some solid rapelling anchors at the top of that beast!!" i wanted to rapell down it SO bad!!

 

Today we also had an appointment with our investigator, who didnt let us teach him, and he told us that he is going to stick with his own religion. That was a pretty big damper on the day! but we just gotta have the faith to continue to find new people to teach.

 

Mom, my training is almost over! it has been a super quick 2 transfers that is for sure! i am to the point that i need to get a new companion. And i really dont think i am wanting to train a new missionary again. i need to learn more about how to teach and find new people. since i havn't been able to do much of that in my last area.

 

Being a district leader has brought alot of stress to my mission. It has taught me alot, but i really need a break from it for awhile so i can recouperate or something.

 

For easter, please dont send a ton of candy! i dont need it in my growing body!! maybe just some nice pictures of the yard or something ha! i dunno! i want a nice picture of the red rocks in st george to put on my desk. that'll be a good easter gift i guess.

 

Thats way tight that you guys got to see the blue angels! looks like it was a ton of fun! ha did you find any neat fossils on the hill?? Did you get to drive the truck clear to the top of the hill and not have to get out and hike it? sure hope so!

 

Thanks for everyones love and support!! It helps me stay positive and find the good in all things! i am excited for this next week. We get to put together another play set in someones back yard!! the ward calles us missionaries the "Playground experts".

 

love you all!

love, Elder Kyle Ettinger