11 Months!

What a long week. But a good one! We were so drained, as soon as p-day started today, we pretty much laid on the floor.  

Monday, we went on another hike with some members from our ward, which was pretty fun! We went back to the tunnels again. We love it there. At FHE that night, the ward played HUMAN ANGRY BIRDS (Carson will love this). It was pretty funny to watch.

Tuesday we had District Meeting, as usual. We worked on our map, and finally got it finished (hooray for actually knowing where our area is). We got to go and help feed the homeless at a church downtown. It was really fun, there were GIANT pots and we made a TON of food in them for the people. It was sweet. That night we had an amazing lesson with Ken. That morning, we really felt like the Elder's that passed him off to us should be there. They came to the lesson too. Ken just asked questions about the history and really hard stuff about The Book of Mormon. Of course that was one of the Elder's forte, so he took over and answered all his questions perfectly. What a blessing. During the whole lesson I felt sooooo sick. I was pretty much just praying that I wouldn't throw up during the lesson.  So of course as soon as the lesson was over, Sister Cook and I RAN outside to the car, drove down the street, and I made her blast Mo-Tab while I spewed our dinner on the side of the road. But, on the bright side, we got out of doing exchanges that night... 

Wednesday we took a few members out with us to contact potential investigators. It was so embarrassing because they were people we had never tried to contact, so we were just following our GPS. At one point, the GPS took us back to Anthem... Yeah. We apologized like 5475409 times to our member, but he'll probably never come out with us again, hahaha. We did some more contacting in Boulder City that night, had dinner at our Bishop's house. I got sick again. We had coordination meeting and then a few lessons. We met with Ivanneth, and there was a skirt party going on... talk about tempting for a sister missionary... But guess who walked away empty handed? THIS KID. You should be proud mom. Some of the skirts were even called "Cassie Skirts". They literally HAD my name on them.  We've been meeting with a less active and we went to his house after that. We read the "You Were Born to Lead, You Were Born for Glory" talk by Sheri L Dew. It was awesome. If you haven't read that talk, you should. It'll pretty much make you feel like a trillion dollars. 

That night we went to meet with Steve, an investigator. We have been a little worried about teaching him about the word of wisdom... But we taught it. At first, he was like, "yeah, I'm never giving up coffee." But as we talked about it, he said he would try to drink a little less. The next morning, he texted us and said he stopped drinking coffee completely. YES! We were sooooo excited! 

Thursday was long. Good lesson with another less active, read the same talk. We met with Eddie, who we are pretty sure just doesn't get it. We had dinner, and then went to Institute. I remember it was a terrible day, and I'm reading my journal right now, but I can't remember why it was so bad.  That night we went to Institute, we were supposed to be meeting someone there. We checked in the classrooms and she wasn't there. We looked in the last one, and no luck. But then, I heard some noise in the classroom, and the door burst open, and all of a sudden, someone was hugging me. IT WAS MISSY!!!!!!! BEST DAY EVER! I was so happy that I cried! She was there for Institute, and Ben was there too! Ahhhh! We talked and talked and talked. I was so happy - definitely a tender mercy. 

Friday was good. We met with one of our less actives in the morning to read the scriptures. Weekly planned. Then, we went to Boulder City for a lesson with Nick, who we haven't been able to get a hold of. He wasn't there, so we waited for him to come home. He was really in and out while we were talking to him and his friend, and then he was being really awkward and asking when we would let him take us on dates... so we're just going to give him back to the Elders. Then, we had the best restoration lesson EVER with a new investigator named Alan! A girl in our ward invited him to church and to take the lessons! We committed him to baptism, and the spirit in that lesson was so strong. We got out of the apartment at the end, and Sister Cook and I ran to the car, got in, and screamed. We were so, so happy! Then we had another awesome lesson with Ken. We taught him the 10 Commandments and Law of Chastity. He loved it and it was really good. We taught him the hand signals to the 10 commandments, and when we got to the not killing commandment, we all got a little off track talking about knives and stuff (the Elders... hahah). Elder McMullin showed us his pocket knives... yes, we know, off topic. Afterwards, he told me that we should have a knife, just in case for when we are walking around at night, so he gave me one of his.  It was really funny. I didn't know what to do with it, so I just put it in my bag. After that, we met for exchanges! 

Saturday, I was with Sister Baker in Black Mountain. She was companions with Sister Cook in the MTC. She is also from Michigan! So we had a lot of fun talking about that. She is really sweet. She is really inspiring. She has had a really hard past couple of years. Her mom passed away from cancer, and her dad (who is less active) told her that she shouldn't go on a mission, and when she told him that she had to go on one, he said that she doesn't have a home to come back to. My heart hurt for her, but it was really cool to see that despite all of that, she still chose to serve the Lord. We had a great day, filled with miracles! We invited a ton of people to church. And we walked a ton, which was soooo nice since we can't really do that in YSA... Our dinner was interesting. It was so awesome, we had cute bread bowls and soup... so it started out great. Then I was chewing, and all of a sudden something crunched really hard in my mouth. I took it out, and it was GLASS! I HAVE GLASS IN MY STOMACH! What the heck? Yeah. I guess I'm hardcore or something. It was crazy. We had a few lessons and exchanged back. 

Sunday was the craziest day of all. So many ups and downs and just plain draining stuff. We came home that night and fell on the floor. So, in the morning, we got to go to Adrian's patriarchal blessing! It was amazing, and super spiritual. He really wanted us there, and it was so special. I could feel his future children there. Then we went to the hospital. We got a text the night before from a member that said that her mom woke up from a coma in the hospital, and wanted a blessing and to join the church... so we went, of course. We went there and talked with her, and on the way inside we saw one of the member's of our mission presidency. President Cavalleri's wife has been in the hospital for a little while, and all of us missionaries have been praying for her. We saw him and asked him if we could come see her quickly right after - he was thrilled! We got to see them for a few minutes. Later that day he texted us to thank us again, it was so sweet. Then we ran off to church. Ken was there! He had gone to church in the family ward with the Elders and then wanted to come to the Singles Ward. After sacrament meeting, he raised some of his concerns, and we talked with him for TWO HOURS. We completely missed the rest of church, but it was so worth it to talk to him and help him. We are really hoping that we don't lose him. We are meeting with him again on Tuesday night. We were sooo drained after talking to him, we were working so hard. We had a lesson again with Alan, which was super good, then dinner, then a lesson with Jeremy. Jeremy loves the Book of Mormon! It was so cool, he talked about it a lot after we read a chapter! Then a lesson with Nathan, a less active. We pretty much just laughed the whole time, and tried to read a chapter of the BOM. Nathan is too funny. 

Today we have just been hanging out at the apartment. We went to the park with our district and played some ultimate frisbee. Nothing too exciting. 

I love Sister Cook! She is amazing. We have a ton of fun together. Our investigators are all progressing. We just need to find some new ones! Thanks for all the prayers and support!

 I love you!

 

Love, Sister Coltrin

 

Another Awesome Week!

THIS WEEK WAS AWESOME.  

So let’s go back to last Monday. P-day was awesome. Our district decided that we wanted to go on a hike. We all got in our cars and followed Elder Rogers... Who said he knew where he was going... When we crossed the Arizona border we didn't really believe him anymore. Hahaha, it was so funny. So, we finally found the place where we were going - it was right next to Lake Mead.  We were going to find the trails that took us to the tunnels and abandoned railroad tracks. We again followed Elder Rogers and we ended up hiking around in the wilderness for about 45 minutes until we hiked up to the trail.  It was quite an experience, but it was so, so, so fun. We went on the trail that took us through really cool tunnels. It was a really fun day! 

After the hike, we went to get our groceries. A man from the Black Mountain ward paid for all of our groceries! It was so nice! We went to the church to email after that and put our groceries in the church fridge - and of course we forgot them there. So we had the Elder's meet us there to let us in at 8:00 p.m., but we had so many lessons that we forgot to go at 8:00!  They called us at 8:20 and asked where we were. We rushed over to the church.  When we got there they were acting all weird and were making us hurry. Apparently they thought that someone was in the church. Kind of creepy. It was a great Monday though! 

Tuesday was District Meeting. It was Elder Latu's birthday, so we decided to bring a "Happy Birthday" sign that we had in our apartment to hang up for District Meeting. He loved it. He got up and said that no one had made a big deal of his birthday since he was 10. It was so awesome. Sister Cook and I looked at each other and instantly knew that we had to make him a birthday cake. We felt like we should cancel our lesson that we had with a less active member. It was so weird. But we did it, and made him a cake (the rest of this story will be finished in Thursday's description). That day we had 6 lessons with investigators - we were running around like crazy. That night we had 2 pass-off lessons in Boulder City with Elder Fuller and Elder Knight. We got 2 new investigators from it! The first one said he couldn't make the lesson, and then we saw someone walking, so Elder Fuller ran over to street contact him, and it ended up being the investigator! Hahahah! It was so funny. 

Wednesday was interviews! Everyone really opened up during them – all of our district told really cool and spiritual stories. I love getting to talk to President and Sister Neider. We had a lesson in Boulder City with one of the new investigators. It went really well at first - we met with him on the Elder's porch. Then at the end when we were trying to set up another appointment, he got realllllly awkward and he bowed down and backed down the stairs - it was so funny later. 

Thursday was great!! So, the day when we were supposed to meet with the less active member and we cancelled the lesson, Thursday we found out why we did that. We went that morning and he sat down and totally opened up to us. He told us that he wants to use the Atonement in his life and get his life back in order. He has made a few mistakes, and he really wants to be clean. He told us that he was glad that we cancelled on Tuesday because he wasn't ready to change that morning. It was awesome and we knew that we were inspired to cancel the lesson because he wasn't ready. It was really cool. He met with the Bishop at church that night. When we were there, we saw a Sister that just got off the plane from Costa Rica and she had come to the church with her family to be released as a missionary. It made me so sad! I can't believe I have been on a mission for 11 months - almost a year! 

Friday we went and read scriptures with the less active member. He really is trying to change, it's awesome. A member cut our hair during our lunch time. We had a few really awesome lessons. 

Saturday was a little off, we had a few lessons fall through. Then we went to do weekly planning. We wanted to do it outside, so we moved our outdoor table to our back porch, and got the things we needed. For whatever reason, I locked our front door, and as soon as I closed the back door - I realized that we were locked out. We had to be at the church in 2 hours and we didn't have our car key or house key!! We were frantically running around the house, taking the screens off our windows to see if we could climb in a window - unfortunately all of them were locked. We were outside for about an hour, and Adrian came and broke into our door with a knife. The home owner was on vacation, so he couldn't have helped us - we were freaking out!  It was crazy! We ran inside, changed, and went to the church. 

We had THREE baptisms on Saturday! Nicole, Ivanneth, and Alainya. It was really awesome. We were at the church for so long, since they all had their own services. It was a really spiritual evening! 

Sunday was EASTER! We got to go to Bishop's house for breakfast and some fun. We had church, and then we went to the Why I Believe fireside. Then we had Easter Dinner at Adrian's! Great day. I love Easter. I am so grateful for my Savior and all He has done for me. If you get a chance, visit easter.mormon.org and watch the Because of Him video! It is amazing. 

Today for P-day we went on a hike again with some of our members. It was really fun! 

Our area is amazing! We have such great investigators: 

Nick Tellas: Really excited to be baptized on May 3! He is so receptive to the Spirit. 

Nick Twist: Also amazing, and really funny. 

Jeremy: Baptismal date on May 17. 

Ken: We had an AWESOME lesson with Ken this week. He basically taught us the Plan of Salvation. He read a Word of Wisdom pamphlet and then started to live it on his own. He can already tell the difference in his life - he is amazing. 

Eddie: He has been sick lately, but he loves to read the Book of Mormon, and he loves to feel the Spirit.

Steve P: He is fun to meet with. We have had some good lessons with him, he doesn't talk much, but when he does, he totally shows that he gets it. 

There are some more, but we haven't met with them recently. 

I love it here.  I love my companion and my calling. I love being a missionary. 

Seriously though, if you haven't already, go to easter.mormon.org and share the Because of Him video on your Facebook or Twitter! Share the Gospel :) 

Have a great week! Love you!

 

Love, Sister Coltrin

 

P.S.  Sorry there are not more pictures today, it's hard to send pictures from these computers.

 

 

 

 

Birthday Cake for Elder Latu

 

 

A meal we didn't hear about?!?

 

 

Easter Sunday at the Bishop's house

 

 

Hiking by Lake Mead

 

 

On our way to the "Why I Believe" Fireside

 

 

There Is So Much Work Here - I Love It!

Guess what! I finally started writing in my journal again, so I'll have a way better email this week, because I can actually remember things that have happened! Yay for being diligent in journal writing for once on my mission!  

This week has been super awesome! Monday night we went to Family Home Evening at the park with our ward, it was fun to meet people and see that whole ward together. 

Tuesday morning our alarm didn't work! We slept until 7:30, which was kind of a blessing in disguise. Luckily we can get ready fast, so we got ready and had studies as usual. We had district meeting, and after that we checked our phone and we had a missed call and a voicemail. We listened to the voicemail, and it was a man named Dennis who pretty much said, "Hey, I got your phone number from a friend.  I really want to turn my life around and I'm looking to join your church. Please call me back." We just stared at each other, called him right back, and set up an appointment for that afternoon. We went over and had a lesson with him - he's been battling a drug addiction and had a sincere desire to change, it was a really powerful lesson. We handed him over to the family ward sister's, since he was 38, but it was a really cool experience! That night we went over to Adrian's house for dinner and we had banana pancakes - yum! 

Wednesday we did service and helped someone clean their house and yard and feed their animals. We had dinner at our Bishop's house, coordination meeting, and then a few lessons. We met with one of our less actives. He is amazing. He struggles because he feels like he isn't good enough to go to church, and he feels like he has failed his Father in Heaven. He really opened up to us. We got to talk to him about the importance of church and of how much our Heavenly Father loves us. It was such an awesome lesson. 

Thursday we had a lesson with Eddie - he is really receptive and sensitive to the spirit. He had terrible reading comprehension, but he understands when we read the scriptures. It is awesome! He understands that Heavenly Father is helping him. We also got to go to Institute that night and I got to see Stacy Conger, from Temple View! It was so good to see her again! 

Friday was the best day ever - we got to go to the temple and Karleah Lee took us!! She picked us up and we got to go and do a lot of things at the temple. It was such a peaceful and happy day! I was so happy to see Sister Lee, I wanted to cry!  We had a lesson with Jeremy again, and his two roommates were there. Adrian came with us, and he used to know all of them, so we convinced the two roommates to stay. The lesson was AMAZING. The spirit was so strong, and we talked about the Book of Mormon and had a little talk about the Restoration. They totally felt the spirit. They even said they would come to the next lesson if they were at home.

Saturday was great too! Sister Cook and I made goals, had weekly planning, contacted some potentials, and then had lessons pretty much every hour! We had a lesson with Jeremy again and we talked about the Plan of Salvation. One of his roommates was gone, but the other woke up, realized we were there, and then he came down to join in! We had lessons with Alainya, Nick, and Nicole (which was at the park, and it was beautiful out)! I love Vegas weather, by the way. It's like 80 here already - and we're soaking it up, until it hits the 100's at least! We had a quick dinner at Adrian's house, and then went to our last lesson. Our last lesson was a pass off lesson from some of the Elder's. We plugged in the address to our GPS, and we followed its route. It took us out to Boulder City (which is our area, it's just really far away), and then it told us that we were in the wrong place... apparently the address was in Henderson, but our GPS freaked out! We were so late, it was bad, but they were all just cracking jokes about us, hahaha. It was with a guy named Ken, who is looking for good morals and good friends. He already watched Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration! By himself! It was awesome! Such a good lesson! We all talked for a little bit afterwards and then went home. GREAT DAY! 

Sunday was our Easter Program at church. Ken came and stayed for all three hours! He loved it, and everyone was super nice to him! We had dinner with a member who had a friend there that wants to meet with us, and then we had a few other lessons. Some of the Sister's accidentally pocket dialed us, and they were street contacting - it was so funny, we listened for the whole street contact and then texted them afterwards! It was hilarious. 

There is so much work here! We are so busy all the time, we had 3 baptisms this weekend, and we have lessons planned for almost every hour all week already! 

I love Sister Cook so much! Oh, one highlight of the week... Sister Cook wanted to dye her hair blonde, so we did... and it was so horrible! It turned bright orange! She wanted it though! So she gave it one night, and then woke up and said, "Sister, I can't even go out in public like this..." So we dyed it back brown... but ran out of dye halfway through, and had to go to the store with her hair HALF BROWN and HALF ORANGE. She was like, "I look like Cruella De Vil!" Hahahaha, I was laughing so, so, so hard. I made her let me take a picture - which I will send next week. It was so funny. We get along great and have an awesome bond. I love her.

Have a great week! I love you all!

 

Love, Sister Coltrin

 

 

 

 

 

 

I HELD A SNAKE!

"I was freaking out, but i finally said, "I'LL DO IT!"

I am awesome...but I may have cried a little before I did it."

 

Eldorado

Last week was probably one of the hardest weeks of my mission! It was so heart-breaking to say goodbye to the Paseo Verde Ward. I love those people and it was hard to leave those who had become my family. They will forever be in my heart! I do love it here in Eldorado though! It is so fun to be serving in a YSA Ward again. We have so many investigators and there is so much work to do here.  

First of all, I LOVE my companion. She is super cute and really fun! She has been out for 3 months. She is from Bainbridge Island, Washington. We have a blast together! We live in a less active member's guest house - it is SUPER nice. It's like living in a mini house! Wood floors, granite countertops, and a waterfall in our front yard! You'd hardly believe that we are serving in the more "humble parts" of town. 

Monday was my last p-day in Anthem. I can't even remember what we did, to be honest. Probably played sports and wrote in each other's journals. Typical. Then Sister Gelabert came with me so that I could say goodbye to the people in my ward. I ended up sobbing in the car for most of the night - it was a pretty rough day. I couldn't even hold in the tears until the car when we were at the Lee's! Man do I love them. 

Tuesday morning we transferred. It was a bit delayed since there was so much going on, but I finally got to Eldorado with my sweet, new companion, Sister Cook, and we went to work! We had a few lessons that day, unpacked my stuff, and got to know each other a little bit. 

Wednesday we worked on organizing our area. We don't even have a map that tells us where our area is! We have been getting onto LDS.org to look at the stake boundaries so that we can see where our area is. We cover 3 stakes in our YSA Ward (Eldorado, Black Mountain, and Lake Mead) and the area is HUGE. We had a lesson with one of our investigators, Nicole. She is getting baptized on April 19th! She is really awesome and really sweet. She is dating one of our members. We also had dinner at our Bishop's house that night. He is super nice and their family is fun. After that we had coordination meeting, so I got to meet a few more of our members. 

Thursday we had district meeting, worked on our map, and had lessons with Nicole, and another investigator, Alainya. Alainya is also getting baptized on the 19th. She got to go to General Conference in Salt Lake City this weekend! What an amazing experience for her. That night we had Institute with Recent Converts and Investigators. 

Friday we had 3 lessons with Nicole, Nick, and Steve. Nick has been investigating for a while and comes to church with his less active friend. He is really nice. They really like to have their lessons at the park, so we went to the park with him and his friend, Marissa. It was SO windy.  We had dinner with Adrian, a recent convert that goes out to teach with us all the time. Then we had a lesson with Steve. We had it in his garage. He has 2 bat-mobiles! Hahaah! 

Saturday we had banana pancakes at a member's house and got to watch General Conference! It was so good! We also got to watch the Priesthood session.  It was funny. We had a lesson with Eddie that night. His dad, Ed, was there and he pretty much just downed conference the whole time. And then he told us that he would rather have the Elder's there. I was getting a little angry - but Adrian defended us and did it in a really Christlike way. We were all able to testify of the Savior and of our Prophet, it was really awesome. 

Sunday was General Conference again! And then we had lessons with Ivanneth, another investigator that is getting baptized on the 19^th too. She had us over because she and her member boyfriend had just gotten engaged! It was really exciting - they are going to get married a year from her baptismal date. We had another lesson with Nick, and then one with an investigator named Jeremy. We have been reading the Book of Mormon with a lot of these investigators and it's really great to read with them and help them understand. 

In other news - Sister Reynolds got her mission call!!! She is going to the Oregon Eugine Mission! I am so excited for her. She is so sweet and I miss her. 

I am so excited to be here. I love being a missionary. Have a great week!

 

Love, Sister Coltrin

 

 

 

 

 

Our awesome kitchen

 

 

 

Sister Cook and Sister Coltrin

 

 

 

 

Sister Coltrin and Sister Cook teaching all of God's creations