Posts for bike

Chapter 18: The wild blue yonder

2010 March 08

So all of you that have been counting can guess really easy what I've been up to this morning. It's been a little weird. I'm not sure if everything fits in one bag yet, but it turns out I can do 2 bags if I need to, so not a huge deal. I found it really ironic this morning when Elder Mismash told me that I'm too trunky as I'm packing my bags... really? Anyways, we had an ok week, although mainly because we were busy Sunday. Pretty much everybody was sick or had other issues the whole week. Not ...

Last week

2010 March 01

Ok, not a really exciting week. We didn't have a whole lot going on, and we had a bit of a cold going around the apartment. That always seems to put a damper on things. We did, however, manage to find a couple of new investigators this week, although mainly by accident, in that they started talking to the spanish missionaries when they were walking to their car. I guess on that front it was pretty exciting. This week looks to be pretty good. We've got a temple trip for all the going home people, and then I've got my ...

Zone Conference! 2 weeks?

2010 February 22

Ok, so this has been an exciting week in some ways, and not very interesting in other ways. The interesting part was that we had zone conference. It was at the Twain building, which is kind of funny, since my first, third and fourth ones were there, too. We had all 5 zones here in Vegas there, since we actually had that general authority tour that they'd been telling us we were going to have since November. We had Elder Spencer V. Jones of the Seventy (2nd quorum) visiting. It was a pretty fun meeting, and it was nice to ...

Good week. 3 left.

2010 February 15

Ok, so they went and changed my email address for the next 3 weeks. The new one is michaell@myldsmail.net (Kind of silly, I know). We're now using gmail internally, which is a whole lot more responsive than the old system (written by Novell). Anyways, this week was pretty awesome in that we had a baptism... It's really fun to see when people are excited and growing in the gospel. I think that's probably one of the most rewarding things about being here, just being able to see that firsthand. It really made my week. Besides that, we also had another ...

Good week. 3 left.

2010 February 15

Ok, so they went and changed my email address for the next 3 weeks. The new one is michaell@myldsmail.net (Kind of silly, I know). We're now using gmail internally, which is a whole lot more responsive than the old system (written by Novell).

Time flies...

2010 February 08

This week was actually really good. We had a whole 9 lessons (Yay!! this area is coming back to life!), and we're getting pretty excited about the baptism we have this week. So, I thought we might be updgrading to the new myldsmail, and we are, but first it has to decide to actually migrate me. Oy vey. Anyways, stay tuned for a possibly new email address. Anyways, this weekend was pretty awesome because one of our less-active families had their son baptized, and we got one of our investigators there, and she's getting baptized this week, and she went ...

Temple Trip, other fun stuff

2010 February 03

So it's been a pretty good week. We've gotten pretty much all settled now, which is nice. The work is going pretty well, and we're looking forward to a baptism at the end of next week. Things are looking pretty good from that front. We had a missionary farewell this week--there's a guy from our ward going to the Washington Spokane mission. That made our sacrament meeting extra packed... all the way into the second overflow. We've had pretty high attendance for the past couple of weeks, although I'm not really sure why that is... This morning we had our ...

Chapter 17: One more go around

2010 January 25

So, transfers is up again, and I'm staying here for the last little bit, but Elder Ostler is leaving me. He's going to Lakes Ward (the west half of my second area). My new companion is Elder Paul. He's been out about 9 months, and is coming from my old Highland Hills area (Aliante & Waterfall wards). Beyond that, we had two pretty interesting events this week. The first was zone conference, which was supposed to be a general authority tour, but ended up just being a really big zone conference because the tour got canceled. It was still pretty ...

Running out of titles...

2010 January 18

So, It's been another interesting week. Actually, things are looking pretty good right now. We've got a bunch of people that we either just started teaching, or a just about to start teaching, which makes things pretty exciting. We've also got zone conference (with a visiting Seventy) this week, and transfer calls at the end of the week. Other than the work, not much else has been going on. After all the holiday stuff, things are really quiet. Well, maybe just more routine. The weather's been ok. It's "cold" and rainy today. We're usually in sweaters these days, although mainly ...

Quiet half-week.

2010 January 11

So, since Wednesday there really hasn't been that much going on. I think we're pretty much back to normal, but not much has happened. We've got a bit of a shortage of investigators right now. We didn't have any at church this week either, which is a little depressing. Hopefully we can get that to change for this next week. Other than that, things have been going ok. We have some new people that we're set to start teaching today, and a bunch of people to follow-up on, so we should be able to keep busy. I don't know, there's ...

New Year

2010 January 06

So this week was pretty quiet at first. We got a little bit of work done to start, but we were a bit under the weather Thursday. Friday was quiet. Probably about the quietest New Years Day I've had. We pretty much stayed put because neither Elder Ostler nor Elder Ethington were feeling too good. Actually Friday night turned a little interesting, mainly because we ended up having to take Elder Ostler in to the hospital at about 2 in the morning. That killed the rest of the week, and is also why this update is a little late. In ...

Title 31415962: Quiet time

2009 December 28

Well, this week was all nice and exciting on some things (phone call! yay!), and really boring on other things (nothing to do... boo!). We had a little bit of luck tracting this week... we had some good conversations. We've also got a couple of people to check back on in a little while, and hopefully that will lead to something. We also got asked to speak in church, which went pretty well (especially considering that I got a bit under the weather and was pretty sure I was going to fall asleep right beforehand). We've had a bit of ...

Christmas time in Las Vegas

2009 December 21

So this has been a pretty fun week. It warmed up a bit, and we've had some pretty fun days... between a little bit more mobility, and getting a hold of some people that we hadn't seen in a while or that I hadn't really met yet, we've been doing good. We've also had a few christmas related activities, like the ward christmas party and the christmas musical sacrament meeting and caroling... it's just a lot of fun. It's kind of wierd in some ways, but I feel like, at least to a degree, I'm at home with where I ...

Chapter 16:

2009 December 14

Ok, so this has been a wierd week, especially with zone conference and seeing all the people going home... it's just odd. Last night and this morning, Elder Pruitt was packing, and that felt really wierd. It just feels wierd all around. Transfers decided to skip me this time, so me and Elder Ostler are staying for another 6 weeks. I'm pretty happy about that--we're getting along pretty well and I really like this ward, and I just don't need any extra changes this transfer. A whole bunch of other people in the zone are moving... it's pretty extensive. We ...

Title 92: the cold 21 month time

2009 December 07

So, 2 days ago marked 21 months. That's a pretty strange thought. In a week, the transfer will be over, and a whole bunch of people go home. It almost feels like the world is about to change a lot, but in some ways it doesn't feel like it. The mission is a funny place, and I've only got 3 months before I have to go back to the real world. That's a pretty scary thought. Ok, no more thinking about that... In other news, it's still "cold" here. We've even had a couple of nights where it's been below ...

Thanksgiving #2...

2009 November 30

Well, it's been a pretty quiet week. As thanksgiving usually is, although there are a couple of fun things... Turkey Bowl #2! We got 2nd place (Tule Springs pretty much walked away with 1st, and we tied for 2nd). Pretty fun--down here you get to see pretty much everybody. It makes for a pretty huge group of missionaries. That was pretty much all the excitement for the week, though. We had a couple of lessons, and we're hoping we'll be able to manage a few this week. It's still not horribly cold (actually it's gotten slightly warmer), and this week ...

Crazy world.

2009 November 23

Well, this has been an interesting week in many ways. To start off, Tuesday, we had a small shuffle of missionaries, and now we have Elder Mismash in our apartment instead of Elder Modawell. I'm not really sure what happened there, but here we are. That has led to a bit of adjustment (add that we're still trying to get the apartment fixed up), although I think we're doing ok. Not a whole lot of work right now, although there are a few things that should start happening really soon. This is the boring phase of things, usually before things ...

Stake Conference, biking up hills, etc...

2009 November 16

As it often is after a wednesday emailing session, not a whole lot has happened in the past 5 days (compared with the preceding 9). Especially since my companion was under the weather for a couple of days, so we weren't able to get a whole lot done. We did have stake conference, though. We had a few people there, mainly recent converts. It's a pretty big stake right now. There were a couple of really good talks, including one that answered a couple of things I'd been pondering a lot lately. So it was pretty sweet. That hill is ...

Falling into Summerlin...

2009 November 11

So I'm finally starting to get settled here. My new area is nice--it's on the west side of Vegas, although it doesn't go all the way to the edge. We have Cimarron ward, which covers Desert Shores, part of Sun City Summerlin, and part of The Trails (a Summerlin Village), and some other miscellaneous territory (between Buffalo and the 95 and Lake Mead and Cheyenne). This ward is pretty hilly, especially if we go all the way up to the Trails area (up near Lake Mead and Anasazi). By hilly, I mean that the farther west yo go, the farther ...

Chapter 15: Resettling

2009 November 02

And, once again, transfers is upon us. Things have been tweaked a little bit, and my replacement in this area will be here this afternoon--they've decided to have the people who have to come down from the north come on monday instead of wednesday. I won't be moving 'til tomorrow morning though... which leads to the transfer call line: Elder Larsen to Redrock as Sr. Comp with Elder Ostler on a bike. Covering: Cimmarron Yep. Area #7. Given that I've only got 3 more transfers left, this might be the last one. It feels kind-of wierd. Anyways, my new area ...

Temperature spike...

2009 October 26

Yep, it got a bit warmer than we'd like this past week. It's always interesting to be here, as the weather seems to have a mind of its own. It will probably drop again pretty soon, though, since apparently it gets quite a bit colder after Halloween. Work wise, not a whole lot that was interesting, although we do finally have somebody with a baptismal date (after 11 weeks in the area... coming from dead zero is a long process), and we had 3 people at church this week. Not a whole lot on the teaching side, though, due to ...

Zone Conference, other stuff...

2009 October 19

So this week has been pretty quiet, although things continue to get busier. I'm not really sure if I can describe it really well--I'm short on words right now. We had Zone Conference this week, and it told me a couple of things that I ought to do to make me a little bit more effective in my work. I guess that's the main idea with most of them, but this one didn't have much in the way of distractions. They also decided to shorten them a bit, which actually turned out to be a pretty good idea--it removed a ...

Cool October breezes...

2009 October 12

This week has been pretty busy -- between service projects and a couple of lessosn, it's been normal-ish. The work is going pretty well -- we're busier than we were, and we're hopefully going to stay that way. We're looking at probably another couple of new investigators this week. Yay! We had some fun this week with our ward talent show. Elder Sorenson went and wrote some alternate lyrics to "I can go the distance" from Hercules, and sung that -- I added some random commentary (and helped a little with the lyrics). It was pretty fun. I've come to ...

19 months, Conference #4, relocating...

2009 October 05

So this has been a busier week than we've had in a while. 3 lessosns, and we're picking up a bunch more things to do. It's a lot easier when things are rolling a little bit -- there's more of a reason to push. We picked up a new investigator (the sisters had been teaching her, but she actually lives in our ward), and will probably get another 2 tomorrow (we're pretty excited about that). In terms of landmarks, today is 19 months since I went into the MTC. Crazy. Also, this was my last General Conference out here. That ...

Pushing things...

2009 September 28

So, the temperature decided to spike a bunch this weekend, but it looks like we'll be falling into the 70s this week. That's pretty abrupt... Before the weekend, the weather was ok, though. We get to move again this week... we haven't heard much as to where we're going yet, but hopefully they'll figure that out soon. I figure they've got at least one possible (although slightly unpleasant) backup in case everything else fails, but it sounds like there are a couple of other possiblities, too, so we should be ok. The work has been going a little better. We ...

Chapter 14: Rebooting again

2009 September 21

NOTE: The other update that just showed up is last weeks... it perished in a log file explosion. I just resent it without putting a note on it or anything. So, once again, transfers is upon us. And this time, I'm staying. Elder Crump is done, so he's going back to Kentucky. Pretty crazy... My new companion has been out for a transfer... so he got to Vegas 6 weeks ago. I'll be his 2nd trainer. Not entirely expected, but should be fine. I've been working on getting some work going so that it isn't too depressing for the first ...

Cooling off?

2009 September 08

I have to say that this comes on a Tuesday mainly because it couldn't come on a Monday. Labor Day is always a little wierd for us. There really hasn't been much excitement this week. We had splits with our DL this week (Elder Ortiz -- he's from Maryland), and Zone Conference (on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively). Splits was fun... I got a really funny picture of what the north part of our area looks like. It's actually just northwest of Durango and Moccasin (in case you'd like to know where all that is... Beyond that, we didn't teach much ...

Chapter 13: Another long road

2009 August 10

Elder Larsen to Elkhorn Springs with Elder Crump on a bike. Covering: Silverstone. Yep, here we go again. I'm going back to Tule Springs Zone (that's where my last area was, too) on bike. This time it's a little different, as I'm with somebody who's been out a long time (he goes home in 6 weeks... so I'll be going on to companion #11 pretty soon afterwards). It's still North Vegas, and it's August, so it'll be warm (forecast for the early part of this week is 103-105 for the high, with lows in the 80s. Yay. The other odd ...

Sick-age... bleh.

2009 March 23

This has felt like a really long week. I've been under the weather for a good portion of the week, so there wasn't a lot that happened (although it wasn't necessarily that I was sick that made nothing happen), at least in terms of progress in the area. We had interviews with President on Wednesday, and Zone Conference on Thursday. That's seriously the largest group of missionaries I've seen in about 6 months (we had Redrock, Lone Mountain, and Tule Springs zones all together... it was huge). A lot of really good stuff. We didn't really have all that much ...