Photos from Kyle

Kyle and Elder Q.

Ames - 12/11/12

Im going to appologize up front this email is going to be super short.
We have zone trainging in like 15 minutes and this was our only time to email this week. 
Yesterday for pday we went down to the Gila Valley, which is like 40 minutes from clifton, and we got to play sports with those elders down there. Alos, i got to see L O again, he was the Thatcher Quarterback that we got to teach while i was there. It was the first time that i got to see him since leaving the valley. He went through the Temple a month or so ago and he is leaving on his mission in four weeks! its so crazy! we are going down to the temple next week and he is going to come to the session as well. Super Stoked. 
Things are really slow here in the clifton merenci area, the ward isnt nearly as missionary minded as Tortolita ward was. Definatly took that for granted. its all good though. we will see what happens.
For Chirstmas Calls kyle was thinking of 2 oclock. that would be 3 here in az and ut. That should work just fine for me. Will we just need to do a three way call? My phone, kyles phone and one of you guys? i think that should work. 
Have a great week. Cant wait to chat it up again! i cant believe its been 7 months since the last time we called!
much love,
elder Ettinger

Kyle - 12/10/12

Dear Family,

Let the work in Hesperia continue!!!!

i am so so stoked for this next transfer! My new companion is elder j Q., he is from Battleground, washington. which is near vancouver i guess.

He was in my zone my very first transfer of the mission, one transfer when i first came to hesperia, then he came back to hesperia last transfer as one of our zone leaders. then he was being transfered. I was so mad because it was gonna be the third time we were only in the same zone for 6 weeks. but then at transfers we were both blown away to see that we were made companions for his last 6 weeks of his mission! later he told me that he requested to president to be my companion for his last transfer! it was really cool, because president actually made it happen! he doesnt usually follow through with companion requests. So we are way excited!

Since this transfer started we have just been getting more and more people to work with, and its only the 1st week that is over!

we have 3 new baptism dates that we set up all this last week! We also got a ton of contacts (a contact is when we just talk to the people on the street or at the door) we planned a transfer goal to get 600 contacts in the next 6 weeks. This is the most i have EVER planned for in my mission. Well, last week we got a total of 101 in just the 5 days we had this week! Pretty awesome! we are heading strong towards our goal!

sounds like everyone is having a good time! i am so so excited for maren to be able to go back to st george finally, and not have to live alone from there on out. :) That makes me really happy!!

Question, can we start talking about a time to be calling the family on christmas? Because its on a tuesday, we can call anytime during the day. i just need to know what will work best for when we start asking members to use there phones. Ames and i can set up the calls like we have done in the past.

I am glad that you guys got a better tree this year, last years tree was nothing to miss out on thats for sure. ha just kidding. I am excited to be able to get a tree next year when we are home. Can you believe that we almost have only 5 months left? Seems like we were just barely saying goodbye to the postmas the night before we left for the MTC.

Thanks for everyones love and support! glad you liked the christmas card, please share it with maren as well, because i forgot to send her one. I forget she lives out of the state sometimes. my bad. Maren please forgive me.

Have a great week! love Elder kyle Ettinger

Christmas photo from Kyle

Are you for serious? Kyle 12/3/12

Dear Family,

 

So my transfer news is pretty simple, keep the same address you have, because i broke my mission record in an area! i will be spending another transfer in the maple ward! this makes number 6! almost 9 months at the end of this next transfer. My companion elder koyle is getting transfered though, we have had alot of good times being together, but i am excited to see who i am gonna be with next, kinda nervous though!

How is everyone doing? Sounds like we are all getting excited for the Christmas season!

Something i noticed out here, is that everyone says happy holidays, or they are selling holiday trees, its not christmas trees anymore, its sad to see that the world is getting farther and farther from our savior jesus christ! so lame!!

 

Random fact: In our mission, the missionaries that came out in 2011, might be going home a week or two early to there normal departing date. So there is a chance that i may be getting home before mothers day! i will give more detail on that in a few months when the time gets closer. they are doing this because the time in the mtc has been shortened by one week. So they wanna catch up on weeks in the field, it really doesnt make sense to me, but i figured i'd share that anyways.

 

This past week was one of the happiest and favorites of my entire mission, we were able to teach two lessons and get one new investigator. But thats not the best part.

We got an interesting call from some other elders, a guy in our area that isnt a member, called all the bishops randomly in the phonebook, until one answered. He said that he was getting ready to end his life, and he made one last phone call to a bishop before he chose that second option. We drove down to his hotel as soon as possible, elder koyle and i were really really nervous about what to say or do, to help this guy out. I was really nervous about this guy killing himself in front of us.

We both kept prayers in our hearts,m and decided to just listen to what he had to say.

We ended up teaching the last part of the plan of salvation, focusing on the kingdoms of heaven. He cried alot, and thanked us alot for just coming to talk to him on a spiritual level. He told us that he was sure glad that he gave the one last chance to make a call to a bishop that answered, because he told us that we had given him alot of strength. This experience was the most love i have ever had for someone on my mission, right now a bishop is giving him some help, and he is gonna be in contact with the employment specialist in the stake. I am so so happy to be able to do missionary work here in our mission its so awesome!!

Thanks mom for the idea for your christmas present, i still wanna send something to you guys though. i will figure something out.

I am excited to be able to go to the dickens festival when i get home. Sounds like you guys had alot of fun going there, even though your little kiddies had some problems with sound and what not.

Thanks everyone for their love and support! its so great! i love you all so much!

Keep being safe and have fun! i keep you in my prayers all the time!

Love, Elder Kyle Ettinger

 

Ames 11/26/12 Winding down in Tortolita

So first of all, im emailing on Gmails new "Compose" layout. not quite sure if i like it or not. it makes it look alot like a chat menu. The place where i am typing is a box on the bottom right side of my imbox so that i can type up an email and check other emails at the same time. this preview thing also said that you can type multiple emails at once... who would want to confuse two diffrent emails at the same time. i would imagine that you would end up sending the wrong stuff to the wrong people haha. so im going to just stick with writting one email at a time.

This last week was the BEST week we have had here in the tortolita ward since i have been here. Our investigator J.... agreed to be baptized on december 22nd and he is reall y really excited for it :) he is telling everyone who will listen that he is getting baptized. He had some really awesome spiritual experiences this last week that have given him that back bone for his testimony. He doesnt live within our ward boundaries so we will be passing him over to some other missionaries here in the zone but it has been such a great time being able to help him start his journey in the gospel.

I agree with dad, im thinking that both kyle and i will be getting a transfer call, hence my subject line. Its bitter sweet really, Im excited to see where the next phase of my missionary service takes me. But at the same time it will be sad leaving this ward, its for sure my favorite ward. I was able to see it grow from practicaly nothing into a working area that will be able to hold up for quite some time :)  Its really nice being able to think that i will be leaving this area better then i found it. Thats one of the things i learned in scouts :)

So some sad news in the past couple week, Our good friend Dave Lunt has been reliesed as a counciler in the mission presidency. He served for five years and served with three diffrent mission presidents. He was a really cool dude. I will continue to keep some tabs on him when i visit the Gila Valley or if i ever get transfered back there.

Thanks mom for the package, i thought that it was funny because last week i asked for some almond roca in my email and then later that day i get a package that had some! it was tasty. The bread makes awesome toast especialy with that honey butter. yum yum.

I also got a memory card from kyle this week. Its fun sending pictures and videos back and forth so we can better see whats going on with eachothers mission.

Thanks Giving was pretty good, nothing really special, just too much food and lots of left over pie. Just another day i suppose haha.

Thanks so much to all of you for your love and support and prayers.

Much love,

Elder Ettinger

 

Kyle - 11/25/12

Hey everyone,

 

okay i gotta answer the questions first

 

My thanksgiving was really fun, our zone leaders came to our dinner as well.

We did some "Slacklining" that was hooked up to their tree. It was super difficult!

Its where you try and balance on a small "tiedown" type rope, and walk from one tree to the other. The one we did was about 2 feet off the ground. But pro's do it across buildings

and do flips and stuff! super nuts! but way fun. lots of food and i felt like i gained a ton of weight but i didnt.

 

Dad, i didnt really know what to say about you guys racing with . . .  from my work.

I thought it was pretty cool that its such a small world, that our family keeps meeting people that other members of the family know. Ya know?

I have decided that i am going to be more patient when i get back to work. i have learned alot about patience and christlike love on my mission. So i hope to be better at that when i get home.

 

mom, the package was awesome! just what i needed to make my day a little better!

The bread did well in the mail. Tasted like it was just made a couple days earlier, the honeybutter was way good to! so thanks for that.

Also, i found out that lapel pins are approved for our suitcoats, so you can send one if thats something you had in mind.

 

Sounds like the wedding prep is super nuts and alot of work! Part of me wishes that i could be home to help out with some stuff. But i am not complaining that i got out of the work....ha just kidding.

Did the family do any black friday shopping? Ha sounds like ames and i did.

One thing i bought was a new memory card for my camera, a 16gig card was only 8 bucks! super steal of a deal! i love saving money!

 

I hope everyone is having fun and is staying safe!

Thanks for the love and support that you all give me!

Hope everyone finds the joy in the holiday season!

Not gonna lie, kinda glad its my last christmas away from home.

It just isnt the same not being with the family for all of our fun traditions.

But serving the lord is such an awesome opportunity that the twins have!

Love you all, talk to you next week!

Love, Elder Kyle Ettinger

 

p.s..i totally was thinking about the

dickens fest. the other day. and the jubblee of trees. ha good times

Good luck mom with your violin kids at the festival! Pretend that we are there supporting you in the crowd!

 

Thanksgiving Week! Kyle 11/19/12

Good morning family,

Man everyone seemed to have a ton of awesome stories this past week!

Not gonna lie i think marens was by far the coolest! Recieving a mission call directly from the prophet on the phone! and then being told that your mission call is going to be in china! where no one else has ever been, and THEN your mission will be three years! Thats so crazy!!! I was freaking out, i am going to be telling all the missionaries that i can!

The week for us was pretty good, we got a new ward mission leader that i am really really excited about! he is so awesome! kinda funny because his brother was elder koyles ward mission leader back in applevalley. Small world i guess. We went out with Brother fast this past friday and tried to see some of our potential 15 names people, the less actives that we try and get lessons set up with. It went well, we talked to a few of them, and found out who was really interested and who wasnt. always doing alot of "Siffting" as missionaries, i think ames cam testify of that.

thanks again everyone for there love and support!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING (on thursday)

Dad...seriously?? Dont be trunky! focus on the lords work in St.George!

I love you all so much and am looking forward to hearing from you guys on christmas!!

Take care!

Love, Elder Kyle Ettinger

Thanksgiving is going to be super fun i think. Last year i had 3 dinner appointments, this year we are only going to one, no matter what. We are eating with the P.... family, who is super awesome! they are into alot of outdoors things like our family. So its pretty cool. in fact, bro p.... is gonna take us to a rock climbing wall in victorville for our last p-day of this transfer. Should be kinda fun! havent been in a harness for like 2 years though ha

Christmas, i dont really know of anything that i'd like to get, i told mom to just get me some new ties, just a couple though because i have a ton of them now. But new ones are always fun. Mom and dad, what would you guys like for christmas? Ames anything you'd like?...maren, i told you already i think, but your presents are tied in with your wedding gifts i hope thats alright. Elder koyle and i are gonna try and get some christmas cards made up before the end of this transfer. So i may do that this year.

I am so happy to hear that our family is doing such great member missionary work in st george, UT and Durham, NC That word durham sounds pretty familiar, where have i heard that before? ha jk

Tha

18 Months! Ames 11/19/12

Kyle and I hit 18 months as a missionary sunday. i cant belive that we have made it this far. i thought for sure that the second coming would have happend by now haha.

This week was really cool. Fast forward to sunday though because that was by far the coolest day this week.

So we go to church and remember that kid that we talked to at the stake BBQ a few weeks ago? well he showed up to church today! and the first thing he does is pull out the book of mormon that we gave to him and shows us a scripture at the end of Mosiah. A little confused i ask, "We left you a chapter in 3rd Nephi. did you start from the begining and read to here?"  "Yep" was the reply that i got! before the end of church he finished mosiah and was ready to read alma! He is a stud. Then durring priesthood opening exercises he sat with us and asked a couple questions about the temple, which we answered and then he asked, "I would really like it if you guys could do like bible lessons with me, could you do that?" Hmmm. well it just so happens that we as missionaries have these lessons that we teach people :) AMAZING experience. now, fast forward to later that afternoon. We are over at a less actives and he has a story to tell us. In the past he has explained how he is very anilitical and so he has had a really hard time with faith. Well this last weekend he had a friend whos server at work went down because of a power outage and he was pretty sure he lost two years worth of data that had never been backed up. If this information didnt get recovered this guys buisness would fail. (Quite the task right... no pressure) Before C... left to go work on it, he said a little prayer asking for guidence to help his friend. After a full nights work trying to get the memory recoverd nothing seemed to be working out. Then all at once, both men got the same idea at the same time and said it out loud at the same time. They tried it and were able to recover all of the data and get they guy back online. C.... told us that this was the first spiritual experience where he could honestly say there was someone helping him out. Its really interesting how the spirit works for each of us. Some people can just say a prayer and get a feeling. for others, a server needs to go down :) It was a really fun week.

Im really excited for thanksgiving this week. We are eating with a really cool family and we will hopfully be taking our investigator with us as well. Should be good.

Love you all so much!

Elder Ettinger