Kyle 8/15/11

Hello Everyone,

So this past week just flew on by! It was pretty awesome!

We went out tracting on wednesday morning and got into a house with a girl named katelyn, she seemed pretty interested in what we had to say! and we got to set up another appointment for this up coming thursday! so we're pretty stoked about it!

Our other investigator kayla, isn't super excited about us ever coming over, whenever we get in her house she's always busy and can't talk long, so we set up an appointment, and she keeps bailing on us! so we're just gonna give her some space to chill and we'll try and contact her again in a few weeks.

So i've become somewhat attached to a younger couple in the ward, he and his brother recently got married about 7 or 8 months ago. well, this past month BOTH of them are now single guys! i'm so ticked off! one of the brothers john, his wife just left one night and took all of her stuff and no one has seen her for the longest time! its so upsetting! we're gonna make occasional stops to their house and let them know we're there to help... oh and they're gonna be laying a whole back yard with sod soon!! Woo!! i'm so excited for doing that! Bishop has me well trained for it!

my companion and i have been getting along more and more as i keep my mouth shut more and more ha. He's just not a sarcastic person, and he always relates EVERYTHING i say to the gospel! basically to make me always feel quilty. oh well!

Sounds like everyone else had a blast on the river trip! i'm excited to see pictures of it! gotta love mail!

We're about to head out to get our hair cut! i'm gonna get mine cut as short as the mission standards allow.

have a great week everyone! you're all in my prayers! and missions are so fun!

Much love, Elder Kyle Ettinger

p.s we'll be 3 months this thursday! Party on!

Kyle 8/7/11

Hello Everyone,

So this week has actually been better than the past few as far as the missionary work goes.

We still haven't got the chance to go see kayla, but we really need to get that going! Because she seems like she really wants to learn! But, shes so busy with work and school also starts this week. So i hope we can get something going again with her. we shall see!!

We got a referal text from the MTC, someone in our area requested a book of mormon, so we instantly dropped what we were doing and headed over to his house. He said he had been to that "Cove fort" place in Utah?. i couldn't remember where it was. He said all he could remember is signing up for a free gift. So he really didn't even know that he was getting the book of mormon. But, we plan to try and take him a lamb of god dvd as well. SO maybe we'll get into his house this time.

Our main focus and success this week was updating our ward directory. By finding out who had all moved out of the ward. We have found this last week that over 15 families have moved out! So now we know not to waste our time assigning them home teachers! No wonder our ward turn out is so low! The people who should be coming aren't even there!! Crazy!

Today we're emailing at a widow members home, and doing laundry. Her husband loved cars! So she has like 10 different porche's and a ton of motorcycles to! i was like in heaven! i'm gonna head back out to her shop to look around more after my emailing.

The picture i sent of my desk was a few days before a p-day, where i got to finally buy a CD player to use. So now i do have one. Maren sent us a couple different CD's awhile back. As of right now, my companion will only let me listen to the church one! and no disney because he's so strict with it. Thanks for sending the package! i'm excited to get it!

I love you all! Thanks for the prayers and advice and everything!

Take it easy now!

love, Elder Kyle Ettinger

Missionary Mail Ames - 8/8/11

Not a whole lot going on this week, as far as investegators go we are just the same as last week, although one of the campbell boys bore his testimony yesterday, i didnt get to hear it because i was in 5th ward, but elder sims said it was really cool, and the bishop later told us that his testimony answered some lady in the wards prayers! so that was pretty cool, Other than that we have just been doing some more member lessons this week, i think we got 13 more in. So at least the members are getting a little more excited about the work in the area. so just a few things that i wrote down to mention in my email this week: I broke a members chair at a dinner appointment this last week, i leaned over a little too far, and next thing I knew i was on the floor! haha, it must just run in the family. I also dropped my planner in the freaking toilet! and as kyle knows, your planner out in the field is pretty much your life. haha so i had to get a new one. good thing we were only a week into the transfer. So i was going to attach some pictures but since you want we to send some ill just do that instead, and then i can write some little notes on the back of them. Ill send you a good amount.

Thats pretty much it for this week, have a good one!
Love you all!
Elder Ettinger

Photos from Kyle

This is one of Kyle's mission service activities.
Bishop Cooper and Clyde prepared him well.

Kyle's first district in Apple Valley
?, Elder Bowler, ? Kyle

Elder Riley, Kyle's new companion,  and Elder Ettinger with
the mission bear and Kyle's Greenie cake.

Hello All - Kyle 8/1/11

Hello all,

 

So this week has been pretty much the same in the village ward, not much work going on. but a few cool things to report.

 

Our investigator kayla bailed on us, so we tried going back the next day to see if she was home! she was! but, we only got to chat with her for about ten minutes or so.

We are still trying to contact the less actives in our ward, and there are just hundreds to go through! its so crazy how not updating your ward directory wastes time for us as missionaries!

We have a cool family in the ward, a fomer bishop brother cannon. They're the ones i told you about a few weeks ago in an email, saying how they knew the snyders in our stake...

well, they're going back to st george in october, and i gave them our home address, so they could meet the parents of the missionary in their area. I was excited to tell them about where we live and how it would be legit to have them see you guys. Anyways, i'm planning on printing out some pictures to send home today after email time.

 

Today for p-day, we got to go on this sweet hike with a small waterfall and stuff! pretty exciting! and the weather was way nice!

 

Speaking of weather! we were taking a nap during lunch on a nice sunny day, and all the sudden i woke up to the loud thunder??.... Look out the window, and it was just dumping rain! it was super random! but it was nice to! because it helps cool off the desert! but, after the rain its always super gross and humid.

 

Elder Riley and i.... Not getting along as well as elder bowler and i. But, i think its my sarcasm that dad warned me about before going out on my mission. I'm trying not to joke around as much. To not offend him anymore than i probably have already. But, we're still doing our best to work hard and get lots of less actives visited!

 

Sorry this week doesn't have much to report! It sounds like everyone else is doing great!

 

Thanks for all of the support and love and awesome emails! its something i look forward to.

 

enjoy your week!, love, Elder Kyle Ettinger

YO YO! Ames 8/1/11

So the yo yo subject line comes from one of my ward mission leaders, he always says yo yo or hey hey when we call him on the phone. And i guess while im on the topic, Last week dad mentioned about the mormon message about the two kids from Safford and thatcher high schools, im assuming that you read about it in the new era? if not go look in there cuz there is an article in there about it. I have seen the new convert kid at the local car wash where he works and where we get free car washes =D. also, The "Brother Palmer" that is mentioned is my ward mission leader, he is so tight, we went by his house this last week and milked his goats haha. That story is cool and all, but being here in thatcher you learn of the real story haha, the kid that baptized his friend as of right now isnt going on a mission, he is staying home for his girlfriend. . . .  like come on, there has to be some law written in heaven that is irrevocably decreed that you cant be in the new era and not go on a mission. what kind of example is he setting for his new convert friend, i would say a pretty bad one!... moving on. This week elder sims said, "This was the worst week for reporting numbers of my whole mission, but it wasnt the least productive" We only taught 2 lessons the whole week to our investigators, and both were at bobs. I'll talk about the campbells in a minute. So why was it a productive week you ask? well we are starting a new way at approaching the work in this area, We are teaching a short lesson to the members of our wards what we call the "Member Miracle lesson" Which basically challenges them to pray for a miracle to happen so that they can share the gospel with a less active or non member friend. it was from this lesson that we were able to start teaching bob a month and a half ago now, so we decided to take it to the next level, This past week we have taught said lesson to 19 diffrent families. and some of them chose to focus on more then one person, so there are like 25 diffrent people being prayed for in every family and personal prayer this week. and elder sims and i are praying with the families so we have a white board with all the names down that we have to read becasue there are too many names to remember :D we are so excited to see the miracles just start pouring in :D like i said we have taught it 19 times and we have at least 5 more this week and we call people every day to set up more appointments. So on to the campbell family, The boys didnt get baptized this last saturday, buzz kill. sister campbell told the boys on sunday that they needed to get permission from their dad to be baptized that next weekend, (Up to this point bro campbell said it was ok if they took the lessons and could honestly tell him that they had a testimony) well they went and asked and i guess he flat out said no and sister campbell told us not to come over for a week to give him some space, so we really have no idea what to do. a couple of families from the member lesson thing are praying for bro campbell, so we hope to see some miracles soon =/. On a more crazy coincidence note, we had dinner last night with the hatch family in our ward, check this out: They have a set of Identical twins, and yes, they were born ten weeks early. You think that is cool? well its not as cool as the fact that they have a daughter named maren!! spelled the same way! I was freaking out! and to put some icing on the cake, they know some people in our stake that kyle and i went to high school with. Robert and Raymand Patterson's family, yea the mom of this family lived next to the pattersons when they lived in Vegas. What the freak? So thats my fun little story for the week. We start doing some follow up appointments with the members this week ill let you all know what goes down!

Today for p-day we are going to Fry mesa, its a little mesa just south of the gila, The weather is always cooler up there, and we are going to go hike around a lake, and maybe do some fishing. and naturaly im going to have to skip some rocks =D. other then that though we usualy just play some basketball, which im not so good at but i like playing and getting better so its good too.;

Much love

> Elder Ettinger <

ps. Im so glad i just remembered this, Dont send any more mail to the cota appartments!!!!!! we now have a po box, but in order to stop having all these mail issues, just send the mail to the mission office in tucson. 

Kyle 7/25/11

Hello everyone,

 

So i'm also staying in the village ward as i told everyone last week, i went down the hill to pick up my new companion, his name is elder Riley, he's a pretty cool kid, he's from knoxville, tenessee. We get along pretty well i guess you could say, but, we don't have a whole lot of things in common compared to elder bowler and myself.

 

This past week wasn't super successful as far as missionary work goes, To answer a couple questions, our investigator kayla, we have our second lesson with her this up coming thrusday and i'm really excited about it! we're gonna teach the plan or salvation! and its gonna be legit! i drew out my own picture flash card things for each step of the plan. I think it should go pretty well.

 

During the week, i think last wednesday, i got into my first Bash with a lady at the door as we were tracting.  . . .  It was a good learning experience.

 

Most of the rest of the week was slow tracting and trying to visit less actives like usual, on the 23 of july we had a stake pioneer day thing at one of our church buildings, i made my own homemade rope!! pretty sweet i know!, we also had games and music and things. Elder riley and myself were in charge of helping the kids make their ropes. it was some good fun

 

I think our p-day activity today is volleyball, but i havn't heard anything from the zone leaders recently, so i dunno if it'll even go through. I want to do more hikes compared to sports. When lame sports are being played at the church gym, i often times go find the relief society room and play piano for the time that we're there. Its more fun for me.

 

Thanks for showing pictures of the yard and mom's huge garden that is growing and growing quite fast!! Thats always cool to see.

 

i got a post card from wisconsin i think it was, but i only got one, so i'm not sure if you sent another one. Mail always gets messed up during transfers. But its back to normal now.

 

The day of transfers, with my new companion elder Riley, i totally blew through a stop sign while driving on accident and it was super scary! The next day, i turned on a blind corner, and the car coming towards me had to swerve out of the way and totally slid off the road and started cussing me out BIG time!! Both little events about made me pee my pants! but dont worry i'm safe!!

 

I love you all so much! thanks for the support you give me! Life goes on here in applevalley!

 

Love, Elder Kyle Ettinger