Great Week!

Friends and family,

Hello hello! Another week down I guess!! This week was pretty interesting haha. Oh yeah so a lot a lot happened!! So for pday last week we had nerf wars as a zone it was so much fun!! Holy cow! We played this really cool zombie game and it was just intense! Yeah we
had a good week this week too! On Monday night we got into this huge bash with one of our investigators and our ward mission leader. It was great:) on Tuesday we had district meetings and then I went on exchanges with Elder Franco over in the Belmont ridge Ward. Here is a
cool fact. The Belmont ridge Ward is the smallest Ward east of the Mississippi River. Pretty awesome huh?! Yeah we had good fun and the belmont area is a bike area and we found some super sick people we found
this guy named Justin and also Omar. They are really prepared.... holy cow
so hopefully they will come to church! Wednesday was actually a pretty sweet day! We organized some zone service and we were out around the centerville area and just clearing brush and trees off of this guys
property. He gave us some machetes! They were so fun to use I felt like that guy off of Tarzan hahaha. I was swinging it like a mad man!
After we had zone service which went until 3 in the afternoon
we went to the mission office to get supplies for the zone. I love going to the office cause you can hangout with the senior couples and maybe see president and the other zone leaders:) it's the best but it
takes a while to drive from ashburn to Burke. I love being a
missionary...it's the best experience I've ever had. Anyways Thursday was a fun day because I got to go on exchanges again with Elder Gonzalez. He is a stud. He is a Spanish missionary so he had no idea
what was going on in the English program haha he was so scared to talk
to white people. I got a real kick out of it! It was cool to spend the day with him. It's weird though... Every time I go on exchanges all of our appointments fall through...I think that the Lord wants me to go
find more...hahah I really like finding though so that's cool with me! So Friday was a pretty good day though we had leadership meeting where we train the district leaders then we had lunch with the assistants! But before all that I dared my companion Elder Blanchard to eat 36 cups of snack pack he only ate 14 hahahahahaha he threw up
so badly hahahahahaha oh my goodness. But that night we taught Christopher Fuentes he is the 9 year old we have been working with. He is so freaking smart! He taught us the whole,gospel of Jesus Christ
lesson. Heck yeah! He wants to be baptized but his mom won't let him until he knows more...so we will work with her too! Saturday was the best day of this week by far though...we had a zone wide finding fest.
At 10 in the morning we gathered the zone and Elder Blanchard and I
made a trophy with a football on it. And we presented it to them! It
was so sick!!! I have a picture of it! We saw so many miracles that day. It was so awesome. The sisters so knocked into somebody in ourarea and she wants to get baptized!! Heck yeah! We found 23 new
investigators as a zone:) so we are pretty happy it was good for everyone. Okay...this is where my letter gets good....Elder Blanchard
(my companion) got a call from President Huntsman.....he is the new ap! He had all day to pack. We dropped him off at the office so now he is gone :/ I miss him already. But I had the Belmont ridge
elders with me and I drove to Alexandria to go visit my recent convert JACKIE!!! She is so awesome!!! Holy cow!! And then after that I picked up my new companion Elder Holdaway! He is so sick! We are getting along great! It's been a good week! Hope everything is going well back
home! Miss you all!!
Love
Elder Routsong

Nerf Wars

Hello hello!

How is everyone this week! Kari Kari I hope that you are adjusting to
living in the good old U.S. Of A baby!!! This week was pretty good we were actually pretty busy! It went by fast! We met with a lot of people this week! After pdaylast week we had a lesson with this guy named Ernesto...he knows the bible quite well...it was terrible and
the spirit was not in that lesson because he just wanted to bash with us. Oh well it's all good! Tuesday we had exchanges and I was with Elder Yeager from the Centerville area ! He is a new missionary so I
had the privilege to train him it was awesome! He kept doing this weird robot dance hahah it was weird...hahaha. We also zone training
with Elder Blanchard and I had to train the zone on one of the fundamentals from preach my gospel. I was so nervous!!! Ahhhhh! But it
went great! We talked about Enos and how when we understand the atonement it makes us want to share it with others. Wednesday we had the chance to teach Christopher Fuentes the Plan of Salvation it was
such a great time and he is so smart! He is only 9 years old but he laid out the entire plan of salvation and told us step by step what happens!! It was so crazy! We had the chance to go on exchanges with the assistants which meant I got to go with Elder Adair
my trainer! It was so sweet! We had to do some young single adult tracting and contacting! It was pretty crazy! We went on to the campus of George Mason and also nova! Darn it was so crazy! People were not
very nice to us!!  The next day was a good day we weekly planned and we taught this really cool Brazilian lady who makes that weird cheese
bread that you and Keith like momma j! It was pretty cool hearing Portuguese again! We also had a less active come over to our house and patch a hole in our wall from past missionaries. His name is brother
Rodrigues and he is a stud he doesn't really like missionaries but he seems to be opening up to us so that is pretty cool! I'm glad that he
is making progress! We had the chance to teach Josh Moore and he is so great we were teaching him how the Book of Mormon and the
bible go together! It was an awesome lesson! Sunday was great we had
an excellent fast and testimony meeting and a member in our ward gave the greatest testimony I had ever heard. Then we got to spend the
third hour with the deacons quorum teaching them about service. That night we had a powerful lesson with Ronnie who is a less active and thinks that God is being unfair to him. I felt so great coming out of
that lesson I learned so much. Ronnie had just been released from prison on false charges and was not treated fairly in prison. But we taught him about when Joseph smith was in Liberty jail and the
hardships that he went through. Wow it was great. This week was pretty good! We also had our zone activity today and we had nerf wars at the
church:) it was a lot of fun!! I hope that you all have a great week
and I miss you all very much!! Love ya!!
Elder Routsong

A good week!

Friends and family!

How is everyone doing this week!? First things first...WELCOME HOME KARI! I hope that you and the family are enjoying your trip in Bolivia! Don't get stolen and don't get sick! Oh! And also, don't let anyone put anything gross on dads shoes hahahah. This week...has been straight crazy. So Monday was a pretty darn interesting day. I know that my mom will not like this story I'm about to tell but I'll tell it anyways cause it was cool. On Monday we were playing football with the elders of the zone. It was going great and we were all having fun. Until I dove to tag Elder Haddon.... Hahaha when I dove to tag him I'm got the back part of his plastic cleat to my nose and mouth. Straight terrible. I don't think I have bled so much in my entire 21 years on this earth. It was bad. Hahaha the first thing that came through my mind when I was on the ground dying was the thought...we have interviews with president tomorrow.....DANGIT! So we went home and I iced my kicked in face for the rest of the day. Finally I called sister Ito (the mission nurse) and she sent me to the nearest urgent care. It was terrible for some reason there the doctor was treating me like a 6 year old. Haha here I am with a busted face wearing a little bib..pretty funny right? I have pictures. But it was cool because they took X-rays of my nose and such and it turns out that I have a slight fracture at the bottom part of my nose! So my lip and face have been pretty swollen since Monday! Hahahah yeah it's been interesting. So I learned not to dive while playing touch football. Pretty awesome story right? I thought so. That night I went to bed right at 9 haha. Then we woke up for interviews on Tuesday! President walks in and right up to me and says "Elder Routsong I heard you had a little bit of an accident yesterday!" Haha he actually thought it was pretty funny! That was good! But my interview with president was so awesome!!! We talked about how I was doing for most of the interview and I told him that I was stressed being a new and young zone leader. He said "I know I am pushing you! But I know you can handle it!" It was pretty awesome! President Huntsman is truly inspired and I am so grateful that he is my mission president! Every time I am around him I always learn something new! And interviews are like the best things In the mission. The rest of this week has been pretty good on Wednesday we didn't really get alot done because all of our appointments cancelled on us... I think we had like 7 appointments cancel on us this week! Pretty crazy. Thursday we went on exchanges with the Centerville 2 elders! We also had Mlc (missionary leadership council) it was crazy. I didn't say a word the whole time cause there was so much going on! Most of it went right over my head so I have a lot to learn! The mission is really good at teaching people to be humble! Haha  Elder Elya came to tall cedars with me! Turns our he is from Parker Colorado!! We spent the rest of the night talking about how much we love Colorado and how it is the best state ever! It was great! Before that we taught a less active family and we read 1 Nephi 17 with them and they drew pictures with them it was a great lesson! Friday we had another couple lessons fall through and everyone was freaking out about the apparent hurricane that was over the Bahamas. We actually got a lot of hard rain! I think it rained continually from Thursday afternoon to Sunday morning! So that was pretty cool! As we all know that conference was this week Elder Blanchard and I spent the whole Saturday and Sunday watching conference! Now...for a missionary general conference is like the super bowl. People made us so many snacks and gave us so much candy it was crazy. So we are pretty wrecked right now. But I have to say that I am way excited to hear more from Elder Renlund! He is amazing and I am really glad that he was called to be an apostle! Anyways yeah that was my crazy and fun week! I hope that you all are doing great and stay happy! Have a great week! KARI don't get mom and dad killed In the ghetto of Bolivia!! Love you!!

Elder Routsong