Ames - 3/5/13

Hey mom and dad, so im just going to email everyone separate today, change things up a bit ya know?

 

Glad to hear that dads Dissertation went well!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can hear the phone calls already, "Is Doctor Lockeee Home?" hahaha

 

my Weeks been good. we got to start teaching some unbaptized children this last week and had a second lesson with them yesterday. they are super fun kids and the family is cool too. Both the parents served missions so we talk mission stuff all the time.

Whenever people find out how long iv been on my mission they get all excited that i only have a few months left. Its sad! ha. I wish that I would have just lied from the first day i got into the ward and just said like 10 months or something. People in AZ especialy like to say  "oh, your on the down hill slope" I think i have heard that a thousand times. haha.

.... there is a lady that is arguing with the librarian about some dumb time limit on the computers and i cant concentrait or even think haha....

ok she finaly left.

.................

Other than that there isnt a whole lot that i would need out here. plus i dont want to just have to turn around and have to bring it back home in a few months. Whatever you think is best though.

So my mission secratary called and told me George was wanting to come visit. I was sad that we wernt able to meet up.

Hope all is going well for you.

Im excited to see you soon!!!!!!!

elder Ettinger

Kyle - 3/4/13

Hey family,

This past week was alright, we tried to do alot of visits with less active families, but not a whole lot of people were home.

This past week i met two different sets of twins. Both were older guys in the ward, it was fun to talk about twin stuff

with him. our young mens leader in the ward was a twin, and his brother was in active in the church. it made me really

confused, i couldn't ever imagine my twin brother being way strong in the church and me not ya know? we are the same

person on in inside, well DNA at least. Why wouldn't both be active in the church? kinda funny to think about.

Both of those twin brothers are way in to collecting cars. one of there sons name is kyle, and he plays the drums, 

thought that was funny because the drummer in my last ward, his name was kyle as well.

There are also a total of 4 youth named kyle in this ward. the irony is just funny to me.

Elder m and i are getting along well, we are trying to really build the ward trust, basically what i've done my

whole mission. But i am okay with it.

Dad good job on the ol' defensive end of your work. Did you hold back the line well? i feel like you would be playing

football, not presenting a report to someone ha. But i  really am proud of you! you are so awesome dad!

i actually have been givin some thought towards agriculture/landscaping. 

its crazy to think that it is already march, and that i will be 21 in two weeks! My missionary friend elder kyle c

(lots of kyles in this email) his birthday is next sunday. So it'll be fun to celebrate with him.

I really cant think of any birthday requests. i think if you just send a few things that is fine. but maybe it would

be better to save the gifts and ames and i can get them once we get home. we are trying de-clutter before going home

in a few months.

thanks for the love and the prayers! it means alot to me! i am so stoked to see you guys again! 

Love, Elder kyle Ettinger

Kyle - 2/25/13

Dear Family,

man everyone is freaking out not knowing where i went! i hope to get transfered again just to make you all wait and learn patience! ha just kidding

So i was transfered to the rancho cucamonga zone! which is obviously down in the valley I am serving in the hillside ward! it is a really skinny but super long ward. it is about 1 mile wide and almost 4 miles long. We also have a car in this area. But like usual, i always get put in car areas, where the car has problems. The whole rear end was crushed last month, and we will probably be on bike for a week or so next week when the car is taken to the shop. its whatever though.

 My first thoughts for why i was transfered here is because i need to work on being humble. i noticed that i am coveting everyones cars in this ward! Our bishop has a mustang GT 500, our ward mission leader also has one. And a few other members i met have some really sweet classic cars. i am obviously in the most rich area of our mission now! its actually really awesome! First couple hours being in my area we passed a lamborghini in a parking lot.

Something i like about our car is that we have a bluetooth radio in it. so whenever we get phone calls we can answer it through the car. super fun! im pretty sure moms car at home can do that to.

Dad Good luck tomorrow with your defending disertation! i will for sure pray extra hard for you!

Funny small world moment. The first person i met in the ward, doing service for an older lady. use to live in st george, his brother lives in Bloomington hills as well. i dont remember his name though. Also, the older lady that we helped out, use to live in clifton where ames is serving. What the heck? ha pretty funny

My new companions name is Elder M, he is from springville UT. He will be out 12 months in two weeks or so. His trainer was elder q, my companion a few months ago. the Connections in the mission are so funny sometimes.

Random note that mom will enjoy, we live about 5 minutes away from the ONLY trader Joes in the mission. mom do you have any requests??

So the mission news, like mom said, the san bernardino mission will no longer exist as of july 1st. We are losing the Rialto, Fontana, and San Bernardino zones to the new redlands mission, but we are also getting the Chino stake that is gonna be the most south west part of our mission. We were also told that the missionaries serving in the 3 zones that we are losing, when the july 1st transfer hits, will automatically change missions! super sad! i am kinda glad i wont be here when that happens, because splitting up from my friends would be pretty lame!

dad i am super happy to hear that you talked about the church with the guy on the plane! i am so excited to be able to do more member missionary work once i get home! it will be pretty awesome!

Well i think that is about it! thanks for everyones support and love! it

means so much to me! i am doing well in my new ward! and loving the area quite a bit!

Have an awesome week and we will talk to ya next week!

love, Elder Kyle Ettinger

Ames - 2/25/13

So, it snowed here in Clifton this week as well, actualy it snowed twice. Being here in arizona has made me super wimpy when it comes to the cold. The days it snowed were so not fun. IT was really cold and really windy which made it seem all the colder. Not fun. We had to go to Tucson this week and the whole way up there was at least two to three inches of snow on the sides of the road. That is very not normal for here. Iv done that drive tons of times on the mission and im used to seeing it just brown with some shrubery here and there. Not all of this gross white stuff ;) The only good thing snow can be used for is Snowboarding. Thats it. No acceptions to the rule.

This week was a pretty good one for us. Taking over areas is never fun for me. You have to piggyback the whole area until your new companion knows enough to give some valid input. So thats been a little tough but iv done it four other times so the fifth shouldnt be so bad. We were able to teach our investigators a lesson this week. They dropped their Baptism date though :( Honestly they werent really ready for it anyway so we are just going to keep working with them and see if they will be prepared in a month or so. They arnt making the Gospel a priority and not keeping commitments so they arent going to recieve an answer until they do. So we will see. In better news though, we had two different families this week talk to their home teachers or visiting teachers and request that the missionaries come by to help them. One is a less active and the other family has two unbaptized children that we will be teaching :) Its really awesome when the lord blesses the area with things like this that just come out of the wood works. So this next week is going to be super awesome! Sad news though, There were a couple companionships in our mission that alone had higher key indicators (Numbers) than our entire zone!!! ha, no one really knows what happend, i think its because every companionship in our zone got a transfer call last week so everyone is taking over areas. Im sure we will go back up.

Glad to hear that all is well back home!

Good luck to dad on his Dissertation defence!

Much love,
Elder Ettinger

 

ps.  ♪♫ Where in the Mission is Elder Kyle Ettinger ♪ ♫ (To the Tune of that Carmen San Diego game :) Maren should at least get the reference)

Ames - 2/19/13

Well we had our transfers this week, and we lost Elder Phillips here in the Clifton ward. It was a sad day. Elder Phillips and i got along really great, we got into aruguments just about every other day but it really helped take the tension out of our companionship so we could work better together the rest of the day. It was fun. Im super pumped that i didnt get transfered, i wasnt expecting to get moved but you never know in this buisness. By not being transfered i pretty much solidifyed my staying in the area until i finish up and head home. Im really excited to stay here. lots of great people and there is so much history here. A member took us out to breakfast this morning to say goodbye to Elder Phillips and he told us of an area that the Chinese people used to live at (Back when there was major segregation in the United States) apparently you can go hujnting for old bits of pottery and chinese coins. We are going to get some more information about it and see what we can dig up :)

My new companion is Elder J. He has been out for 14 months. Thats about all I can tell you about him at this point haha, We have only been companions for about two hours. if that. He seems like he is a really good missionary. He is from the rural parts of Idaho so he will fit in really good here in the rural of AZ. Should be fun :)

Here are a couple pictures from the last little bit, The owl lives in an old run down abandoned cotton gin, super fun to explore, its in Duncan. And the other one is of a sign in Duncan :) I dont feel like it needs too much of an explanation.

Im really excited to start up the new transfer, we are going to tear up these little towns!

Thanks all for the love and support,

Elder Ettinger

Kyle - 2/18/13

Dear family,

Man this transfer has gone by so fast! but the last week was deffinatly the slowest of the whole thing. knowing that transfer calls come at the end of the week doesnt really help that at all.

So elder kyle ettinger is finally being transfered out of the maple ward!! i was not suprized but really hoping to stay in this ward for the last two transfers of my mission. I was also called last night and asked to be a district leader again. i am excited to be able to help out more missionaries than just my companion again. Thats what i love most about being a DL, being able to help more people be happy.

i was asked to give the opening prayer in church, i said i would. Then about cried when i was walking off from the pulpit, didnt want my last sunday in the maple ward to ever end.

Then to top it off, some of the primary wrote me "we will miss you" cards. 

i feel like i am leaving from my home ward right now! its been really hard! But i am excited for new adventures.

Lots of missionaries have been telling me lately how they look up to me alot, for being so happy and positive all the time. I sure appreciate knowing that i am not only helping non members, but the missionaries i serve around as well.

This transfer ending has been pretty tough, elder jackson and i are gonna miss being together, man my past two companions have only been with me for 6 weeks back to back! whats with that?? lame!

I am really excited to see something different again, and to be able to again, re-focus my efforts to becoming a better missionary.

Thanks for the emails from everyone! sounds like the family is having alot of fun! i am happy for everybody! 

Mom you are so awesome! i am so proud of the progress you have made riding bike and running! 

Today for p-day we were able to go to a huge bounce house building for completing our zone game (goal). We all played old school games like freeze tag and another game called "infected" it was super fun!! there was one time where i was running full sprint behind the bouncers against the wall, trying to jump over all the blower machines that pump up the jump houses, and i totally caught my backfoot toe on one of them, and wiped out super hard! totally skinned my shin up on the carpet way bad! But all in all we had a good time! we got to spend two hours there messing around.

I will for sure give you guys my new address when i find out where i will be posted. 

Sorry this is kinda boring today. Please forgive me. We dont get a whole lot of time when it is a holiday.

Thanks for your love and support! it means alot to me! 

Love, Elder Kyle Ettinger

p.s..tried to get ahold of sister davis' sister, but it was a no go, and we didnt have time to drive down where she lives. So i may reffer it to the elders that are serving in her ward boundries. Sorry about that.