6 Month's down

Everyone,

Hello hello! How is everyone doing this wonderful week? I'm doing pretty good. I really can't believe that I have already been gone for 6 months though... That's pretty crazy. This week has been a little rocky for us! We have been working hard it's just that all of our really good appointments cancelled on us! Dangit! We have been tracting  a whole lot and meeting some pretty interesting people hahahah so being a zone leader is pretty stressful haha it's probably been one of the most humbling experiences of my life. I really have no clue what I'm doing...haha but that's how life is! I'm really glad that I get to do what I am doing:) so I'll jump in to this week! First off Elder Blanchard...love this guy! He is a great missionary and is teaching me a lot. Monday we played dodgeball and basketball it was really fun we had like 40 elders there and we were just wrecking each other!! That night after pday we met the Williamsons a less active family..holy crud they are so funny! We were talking to sister Williamson about the tree of life and she goes off on politics and when brother Williamson asks her what religion Bill Clinton was....she turns to him and yells...A PERVERT!! Hahahaha after that lesson we have been working with an eternigator ( somebody who has been investigating the church for a long time) his name is Ernesto and he knows his bible very very well... Holy cow. He is really great though. He has highlighted the Book of Mormon all over the place he is great and I hope that he makes the decision to get baptized because he would make such an awesome gospel doctrine teacher... Seriously. On Tuesday we had district meetings and it was nice to not have to prepare anything cause I'm not a district leader anymore! Yussss. Elder Strawn is our district leader and he does a super awesome job! That night we had all of our lessons fall through so we called President Huntsman and asked if we could play basketball at the church with our elder quorum cause they bring like 4 non members... And president said yes! It was awesome playing some old man church basketball! And yes...old man strength exists... Holy cow it's awesome! On Wednesday we taught this little girl preparing for baptism in January. The Phans! They are awesome! On Thursday we had a leadership meeting and we taught the district leaders about key indicators and it was a good training we also planned our zone activity and finding fury! It was awesome! That evening we taught a Anmol and Indu the restoration and they seemed to like eternal families! They are awesome and some of the most humble people I've ever met! They are awesome! Friday and Saturday were both pretty hard days where we had nothing going on cause appointments fell through it was terrible! On the bright side Friday was officially my 6 month mark from leaving home...it's kinda crazy how fast that it's going. Wow! Sunday was good I felt like in church the messages were all for me. And I figured out my favorite book in the Book of Mormon. Enos... That's my favorite! I love his experience that he has with the atonement! Gah it was just a great sacrament meeting. That afternoon we taught Morgan Thompson she is awesome. Holy cow her parents hate religion and just don't want anything to do with it. Morgan just graduated high school and is looking for answers...get this...she has been helping a lady in our Ward teach primary for 2 months. She shows up every Sunday to church at least 15 minutes early. Seriously what 18  year old girl goes to church 15 minutes early. She is prepared. We taught her the restoration and she is thinking about being baptized! That evening we found this awesome guy who isn't interested at all. His name is Jerry. Dude is hilarious we talked to him at his door for like half an hour. He was complaining about gay marriage and turns to us and says " homie ain't gonna do that!!" Haha it was so funny! Then he was talking about the Catholic Church and how much he hates it and Elder Blanchard are just sitting there like uhhhhhhhh. Haha finally he steps up to me and shakes my hand and says " my name is Jerry AND DONT YOU EVER FORGET IT!!" Hahahaha dude was crazy! He was an old guy with a handle bar mustache. Seriously the best part of the week was that dude.. Total bro. Hahaha  anyways that's my week! Love you all thanks for being so awesome!!! Have a great week!! I miss you all!!

Elder Routsong 

Picture...... burning tie tradition.... burn a tie after 6 months..... sorry mom

Well..... I'm a Zone Leader now... And I live in a town house!

Hello hello everyone! 

I really hope that everything is going good back in the homeland! I love seeing your emails and pictures throughout the week! It's so good that you all are doing good! I MISS YOU! So after pday last week I was just super exhausted but we went out and we worked super hard! This past week has just really been a blur for me...there was a lot that happened and a few big changes. So if I ramble in this letter just know that's the reason why! So Tuesday was a super crazy day! We had nothing really going on in the morning except we went to go see doctor Adams over In the Vienna Ward so that he could fix my old man back...grrr! It felt sooo good though and it actually got me through the rest of the week! That evening we decided to go and see a member in our Ward who has been struggling after getting a double lung transplant and as we were pulling up we get a call from president Huntsman............ We almost died. But it was a good call!!! President told Elder Snow that he will be training and that I will be a ZONE LEADER! What the actual heck!? Seriously... I thought I was just going to stay a district leader in Vint hill. So yeah that's pretty darn crazy and most of the reason why I am overwhelmed! Haha but it's a good thing!! So Wednesday has probably been one of my favorite days of the mission so far! I conducted district meetings and I talked about the power of the atonement...I love the atonement!!! It's the reason why I am out serving my mission! Anyways... I taught about that and then we drove to Haymarket to have a district bbq! It was so much fun! I was grillmaster and I tried to be as good as my dad is in the grill! I marinated some chicken and cooked some burgers! So mama you would be proud I hope! Haha after that bbq we went back to the apartment and I had to pack up all my stuff! That evening we went and said bye to the bishop and then had a wonderful and very powerful lesson with my investigator Kathy! She is the best! She was sad that I was leaving when we were walking up to the door she said "how dare you leave!" She is so awesome!!!!  Then on Thursday I figured out I was going to be the Centerville zone leader with Elder Blanchard!! That guy is so sick! I love him! He is actually my step brother in the mission! And wait...it gets better...I live in a TOWN HOME! It's so sweet we have a three story townhouse to ourselves... Living the highlife I guess... I am In the Tall Cedars area and it's in Loudoun country...the richest county in the country...heck yeah! So life is going good! Just pretty overwhelmed with being a zone leader. So this area we are working with several less active families! The Fuentes family is one of them and their son Christopher isn't a member and we invited him to be baptized but his momma j won't let us. So awkward... But anyways this was awesome and I am doing pretty well! My grandson is Elder Evans and he is from ST George but I don't know much about him! He seems cool though! Anyways that's all that's going on with me!! Have a great week and know that I love you all and miss you very much!!

Love 

Elder Routsong 

Life in Virginia

Everyone!

Hey hey how is everyone doing this wonderful week! Holy cow this week was pretty intense and a lot of fun as well!! Haha it was one of those weeks that took forever though! Also, I've been 21 for an entire week... Geeze that's crazy. Happy birthday to Matthew! Love ya buddy! Yeah this week was pretty darn good it just felt like an eternity! So after pday last week we went over to a recent convert house to celebrate my birthday it was great and I love that family!! Then we visited the Blackmon family and they are studs! On Tuesday we had zone training and it was a really spiritual experience! It was about how we as missionaries only help people with the gospel and invite them to live the gospel the rest is on them! That evening we had dinner with an awesome family the Chunns they are so sweet! Brother Chunn bore a very powerful testimony about the power of the atonement and I was blown away! I love them! That night we taught Beth and Shawn and they basically dropped us...but we aren't giving up on them!! They are too solid to drop us! We are inviting them to the why I believe fireside at the end of the month! Wednesday was another good day this week! Holy cow we got a call from brother Sontos turns out mom is moving in with him. It's kind of a sad story has been divorcing her and taking everything that she ever has. But we helped brother Sontos move some stuff out of his attic and it was really fun because brother Sontos is awesome!  So after we moved some stuff from his attic into  his storage unit  a lady that was driving by saw us loading stuff up and it turns out it was Sister Allred from the Kingstown Ward!! So we had some time to talk about Jackie Merry Secombre. Turns out she's doing pretty well figured out she's going to speak at the new and returning member fire side( turns out she got nervous of something and didn't end up speaking) dangit!  I miss Kingstowne! Anyways, we met Cathy and she was so happy to have  help we even offered to help her paint up the house and she accepted! It was great! That evening we went over to kingsleys house with brother Burge and we taught him the importance of following the ten commandments and also the law of chasity! It was such a great lesson and I felt the spirit so strongly holy cow!! He has quit drinking alcohol the  last two weeks and I've really seen a change in him! I'm so happy! I hope he gets baptized soon!  Thursday was a pretty busy day we had return and report which is a meeting where we talk about how our area is going if we are training a new missionary and we got to see president! I was so happy to see them! I love every second that they are around!! Then right after the meeting we drove to Gainesville to go to a choir rehearsal because we are singing at this big fireside coming up at the end of the month! It was actually really fun...and I hate singing... So that says something... Maybe I'm just changing... Weird. But yeah it was a lot of fun!!! Friday was such a sick day we spent the whole morning working on this farm as a zone! It was so much fun! Elder snow and I just worked the whole time tearing down this chicken coup! It was so dope! At the end we got to knock it down with this huge tractor! I wish I could of gotten some pictures of it! Dang it was so much fun! That evening the Haymarket sisters called us and we got to give a blessing to one of their people that they are working with! She said that she was looking forward to her blessing all day long and we finally gave it to her and she started to cry! It was awesome:)  Saturday we did some service for brother McLaughlin and helped him lay some tile in his house! He is a stud. Then we had a district blitz and we all got shut down by the people so that wasn't very much fun hahah but Sunday was by far my favorite day this week!!!! After Ward council I walk out and I see brother Sprengle! From Colorado!! That's so awesome!! It was really good to see him!! But we also had an investigator Cathy the lady that I talked about earlier! She came to gospel principals with us and she started to cry and say how good of missionaries we were and how excited she is to learn more about Christ and his atonement...I was speechless...it was such an amazing experience... I'm grateful for Cathy and for the time that I get to teach her and be a part of her conversion!! It is so wonderful! I hope everything is going great at home and you are all enjoying life! Stay happy! Thank you for all that you do for me!!!:)

Love 

Elder Routsong 

Another Great week!

Family and friends!

Hello hello! How is everyone doing!? This week was pretty good! We had a lot a lot of unexpected service! This was great! For pday on Monday we went to President Huntsman"s house for a zone activity! It was so much fun! Literally played volleyball as a zone the whole time! It was super super fun! After pday we went to go and teach the Wampler family! They are great people! We taught them about sharing the gospel with their friends because school just started last week! Pretty crazy! Everyone back home has been in school for what seems like a century! On Tuesday we went up to Vienna to get my back looked at! It's doing okay just getting it realigned every week! Then we had to go get new tires for our car...it took forever! We were in Gainesville and decided to do some tracting while we waited for our car! We found this sweet lady named Louise for the Gainesville sisters! I'm jealous! She is so awesome! Then we taught a great family,named the Williams they are less active! Wednesday was a pretty good day though! We had district meeting and it went pretty well:)  That afternoon we taught this guy named Robert and invited him to be baptized! He said yes! He said it's like he is sick at the hospital and we as the church have the medicine! That's so awesome! Too bad he is moving October 5th! Dangit!!! That evening Elder Jones and I went to go help this  family move in! It was so much fun! They were straight crazy! We said a prayer with them and invited them to the why I believe fireside! It's going o be sweet to see them there! Before the move though I helped this lady change a tire on her car that rusted on to it! I thought I was going to take the car off the jack cause I had both my feet up on the car pulling the tire off! Haha but I got it off! Yes!! The only highlight for Saturday was just this guy was off to the side of the road and he didn't have any gas and was late to work...Elder Snow and I went to get him some gas! They really appreciated it and it made me feel really good! We had a lot of good conversations this week but nothing really happened other than that! We had some good times with members and all! It's been so hot this week! We walked pretty much every single day! It was crazy hot outside... Holy cow I wanted to die! Lots of members bought us food and stuff so it was great!  Sunday was good we had tropical church! None of our investigators came! I was pretty upset about that! MOM and Family! I got your stuff throughout the week! Thank you so much! It's made my week! I'm so thankful for you all!! Thanks for all that you do for me and the great examples that you are!! Anyways that's this week! Sorry this letter was all over the place!! My birthday is going good we went bowling and are playing some dodgeball! It's been a lot a lot of fun. I can't believe I'm 21... Geeze I'm too old...HAVE A GREAT WEEK LOVE YOU!! Sorry for the crazy out of track letter! Trying to type while dodgeballs are flying past! Love you,

Elder Routsong 

Vint Hill

Hello friends and family! 

How are you all doing his wonderful amazing awesome week!! For pday last week we went to the zoo! It was so sweet! The pandas were a big deal there because they just recently had babies! It was dope. Right after pday we had a lesson with a less active who is so awesome and her kids are really sweet too! We taught them the plan of salvation and it was just a super super powerful lesson! They loved it! I also told them to watch the baby monkey riding backwards on a pig video...hopefully they watched it hahah. Tuesday we had a pretty boring boring day gah!! But we taught a lesson about the priesthood  to a lessand he loved it! We gave him section 84 of the doctrine and covenants to read! His name is Tom. He is a pro. Love that dude.  Also in the morning we did some service for a less active named dan! He is a sicko! He has this huge hobby farm. It's just filled with a bunch of crap! I felt like I was in a grand theft auto mission cause of all the swearing that was going on there! It was fun though :) we helped him fix up this really old Cadillac! Wednesday was a sick day! We had district meetings and I had this awesome lesson planned about the atonement to teach but that morning as I was reading from the Book of Mormon out of Helaman I felt like we should read Helaman chapter 5! It was such a good conversation we had about it! It talks about Nephi and Lehis missionary work among the lamanites! I related it to our missionary work in the dc south mission! Best mission in the world...suckers! After district meeting we had exchanges with the zone leaders! I got to spend the rest of the time with elder Christensen! He is so awesome! We had to run to the office for supplies and it was just a good time! That evening we found some kids playing basketball they were so ghetto...I didn't understand a single word that they were saying..."we gon play five ya hur!" Or something crazy like that hahah. It was fun they asked us about or missionary work and this random old guy walks up to me and asks if I have Tik takes cause I'm wearing dress pants...hahahah so funny! We then walked around the city of Manassas for awhile street contacting! It was a good time and I learned a lot from elder Christensen! Great missionary! Thursday was great we taught tony and Kingsley and Kingsley is still on track to be baptized! We committed him to life the word of wisdom which is a huge accomplishment...hahaha tony dropped us.. Darn oh well though that's how missionary work goes. On Friday we had a lesson and our ward mission leader was with us  but it fell through. We were really depressed but I remembered president telling us that if we had a lesson scheduled and it fell through you still need to teach the lesson and the lord will prepare a way for you to teach the lesson. I frantically was looking for people to teach! Elder snow and I thought we would take our ward mission leader over to a part member family and we taught them! It was a victory for us. He really likes us now and he is a Broncos fan so... Yes. So Saturday was by far the best day of this entire week! We went on a zone FINDING FURY! Which means that the whole zone is going to tract from 12-9 yes that's right... Noon till 9 at night! It was crazy. We had exchanges and everything set up! So from noon till 5 I was with elder Justicen. He is a Spanish elder so I mostly went around the entire day tryi to speak the little Spanish I know. Needless to say I was laughed at pretty hardcore...ha it was very embarrassing.  But we had a great time! A member even bought us some slurpees! We all met up as a zone for dinner and played some knockout and ate sandwiches! Wow that was the best dinner of my mission so far. I don't think I have laughed that hard in awhile...we have some funny missionaries here in the centerville zone. That evening I was with elder jones a zone leader! He is a sicko! I love elder jones! We were working in the Haymarket area tracting and we were let in by this guy named Kenny! He grew up in mobile Alabama and he is childhood friends with CJ MOSLEY and AJ MCCARRON! Holy crud. Elder jones and I flipped out! He is a good Christian man too! We taught him the respiration and as o was quoting the first vision he started to cry his eyes out...this big guy starts to ball his eyes out... We committed him to be baptized and he accepted! The Haymarket sisters are lucky to have that guy. He is great. I felt the spirit so strongly when we taught him. After we taught him we went over to Gainesville where this old man got in my face and started yelling at me. I was ticked. Whenhe was done yelling I knocked he door next to his and he called the police on us haha. Oh people. Why you gotta be so mean...? Then we were working in our area and the poor sister missionaries got the police called on them too! Geeze! Anyways Saturday was a great day! And so was Sunday! We didn't do much except for walk for miles and miles.. But it was great! Anyways that was my week! I hope that life at home is going very very good! I miss you all and please send me pictures! Have a great week! Geese next pday I will be turning 21...wow I'll be a dinosaur... BLAH! LOVE YOU!

Elder Routsong 

Life in Vint Hill

Family and friends!!

Hello hello! How is everyone doing this great week! I'm doing pretty well here in good ole Manassas Virginia! We have been working pretty hard this week!  This is one of those weeks where I can't remember a whole lot that happened! But I'll try my best!! So on pday last week we played some ultimate frisbee! It was 95 degrees out and sunny and humid...it was straight terrible holy cow. We were all drenched in sweat after like 5 minutes of playing and I got sunburnt so badly... Holy cow! It was fun though we also got to play some football! It was banned in the mission not too long ago but president brought it back! Yesss. That evening we taught a less active in our ward about eternal families and she really was happy about it!:) on Tuesday we had to clean our nasty car for zone conference...it was so gross! We took it to the car wash and did the works. It was weird doing that for a different car than for your car mom...hahahaha that night we saw this awesome family from our ward named the Milans! They are so sick! They are from Lima Peru and are going to make me some good Peruvian food! They are also going to take something to Stanley for me when they go and visit next month! Stanley be waiting for somebody to bring you a package! Also! There is a family that is going to make me Bolivian food Kari!! I'm stoked about that!! I hope that it is good! On Wednesday we had zone conference! It basically was all day! It was such a great experience! We had our cars checked in the morning and then we were in the sudley building the rest of the afternoon! President and sister huntsman gave some pretty good advice to us! They are wonderful and I really do love every chance I get to see them!! That night we went and taught an awesome family the restoration! Beth and Shawn plus their 4 kids... They are catholic and super super great people! They took the restoration very well but unfortunate they are out of town this week! Dangit! But Shawn was sitting there the whole time going "this makes sense!!" Haha it was so awesome! We hope that we can see them next week!!:) on Thursday there was this huge thunder and rain storm! Holy cow I thought it was like a hurricane it was so bad! We had dinner with a less active during the storm but the whole house was shaking and it was crazy! Friday was a pretty good day! We had a lesson with one of our investigators named Norman! Every time we teach him I feel the spirit!! Too bad he isn't making a habit to come to church! Gah! We are working on it though!! Saturday we helped out a member of our ward tile his kitchen! It was so much fun! My knees and back are straight dead from it but it was still a lot a lot of fun!!:)  then we had dinner with a lady named sister nham and her husband! Her husband is Buddhist but is very spiritual! We taught them about how God entices and invites us to do right in our lives like live the gospel! It was a great lesson and they were asking so many questions we didn't get out of the house till 8! It was so great though! Sunday was a pretty typical day we had  church and then we had dinner with bishop Wightman and his family! They are so awesome! They are probably my favorite family here in the Vint hill ward! That night brother McLaughlin drove us to a skate priesthood meeting! It was a very spiritual experience and elder snow got to see his friend from school so that was pretty cool! President Dion who is the stake president gave an awesome talk about the duties of the priesthood and the oath and covenant of he priesthood! Gosh darn it was awesome I think I took like full page of notes haha it was very very cool! This week was pretty good! I heard that emilee lost her two front teeth!! Poor Emmy!!! Wow everyone I turn 21 on the 7th....I'm turning into a dinosaur...feel free to send gifts;) haha I'm just kidding! Hope you all have a great week back at home and know that I miss you all and love you all!! Have a great week!!!

Elder Routsong