Langley Ward

Friends and family!

How is everyone doing this lovely week?! wow it seems like these
Mondays just keep flying by so dang fast! and I cant believe that
tomorrow is the start of March! Thats just plain nuts! this week was
pretty good for us though! I got to see a miracle on Sunday but we will
get to that later! For pday last week we just played some basketball
in Annandale for basically the entire day! I'm getting better and
better. Monday night we went bowling with a family for family home
evening. It was pretty sweet! Bowled a 120 so that was pretty cool.
Tuesday was a pretty sweet day we went down to Ft Belvoir on exchanges
with the assistants. It was awesome. Ft Belvoir is so sweet. I was
with my former companion Elder Blanchard. It was a good time we had a
solid day we just went finding! Then we went to outback for dinner!
That night we had a fun time talking and joking around with the
assistants. Wednesday nothing much happened just went to physical
therapy it was awesome. I totally want to go to school for it.
Thursday we went to the office so it was a normal day! Friday we had
to get our car fixed and we had nothing to do so we weekly planned for
a long time. It was boring but it's all good! Saturday was such a good
day though! We had our zone finding fest! So we literally tracted the
entire day. It was so sweet. I taught two first lessons to Max and
Terasinia. Ha it was so awesome!  They were super nice and the
Tyron's wards missionaries are going to meet with Her! That night we had dinner with a member and shared our ysa mission plan and he accepted
and was pretty excited about doing some missionary work! Things are good! Sunday was a miracle though! The Cooley family was baptized in
the Arlington 2nd Ward there was 7 people baptized at the same time...
It was so amazing. Coolest baptism I've ever been to! So that was
basically it! I'm doing good and miss you all so much! Have a wonderful week! Love you!

Tommy's Baptism!

Everyone!
How is everyone doing this week?! Life in Virginia is going pretty
well! Learning so much here and meeting some pretty awesome people.
Last pday was kinda a lame one! We got snowed in and couldn't drive. I
had some bad cabin fever! Hahaha but we got through it! The freezing
rain here is pretty crazy though!  Tuesday morning we played some
basketball with the Oakton elders. It was super fun cause they are
really good! I'm getting better and better at ballin out here...it's
like all I do in my free time hahaha. Because we weren't allowed to
leave the house on Monday we got some time to go to the grocery store
on Tuesday afternoon. I also hit up the quicksilver outlet and they
were closing so everything was 80% off...it was nice. That evening we
met with an investigator from the Brambleton Ward named Trey. He is
awesome. He is a big history buff and also served in the marine core.
I'm super happy he is getting baptized he will be great! Wednesday we
had zone training. I was super nervous for it this time around even
though I've given a lot. It went pretty well though. We presented on
how to deal with stress and also our purpose as missionaries.
Everything we do should be focused on the life of the Savior, the
atonement, the resurrection, and the restoration of the priesthood
and temple ordinances. If we aren't helping people understand those
key principals than they cannot progress! After zone training I went
on exchanges with Elder Bouck In the Vienna Ward. We worked super
hard! I love being on foot as a missionary being in a car area isn't
the same... We talked to people at the metro for awhile and then some
Jehovah witness came up to us and wanted to bash with us. I was like
nah. But we did talk and they turned out to be pretty nice. We just
have different views. They talked to us for like an hour. We then came
back for some dinner. We made Elder Bouck drink a pizza smoothie
hahahahaha we blended up a totinos pizza with ranch, Alfredo sauce and
milk. Hahahahaha it was so nasty! Elder Bouck said it wasn't that bad
but it looked so nasty! Hahahaha it was hilarious. Thursday we taught
 a less active in our ward. The lessons with him are always
frustrating cause he tries to talk about the weirdest stuff. For
example he wanted to talk to us about space vampires and how we can't
see them cause telescopes have mirrors in them...hahaha gah it's
frustrating. But we all still feel the spirit when we read with him
and pray with him. That night we went to the Cheesecake Factory with
Dustin and the sisters. It was dang fun. Dustin was inactive and is
now returning to Church. He is my favorite. He plays semi pro football
in Maryland as a wide receiver. He is a boss. So that was a fun time.
Friday we had weekly planning and then we went to Marie's house. She
is awesome. She's from Sierra Leone. She made us peanut butter soup.
I've heard about this stuff my whole mission about how nasty it is.
But people are wrong. It is dang good. I was pounding it. African food
is like a hit or miss. Peanut butter soup is so dang good. Saturday
was my favorite day of this week though. We drove up to Ashburn for
Tommys baptism. Tommy is an amazing young man and I am so happy that I
got to be a part of his conversion to the gospel. He is 12 years old
and is going to do amazing things in his life. He is so focused on the
scriptures and becoming a better person. He is a great example to me.
His baptism was very spiritual and happy moment for all of us that
worked with him. What a great day. I love being a missionary for
moments like that! As we walked out of the baptism Elder Perkins of
the quorum of the 70 walked in the building. We got to see him and
feel of his wonderful spirit. So awesome! That afternoon we played
some football with Dustin. It was a good time he took us to Freddy's
afterward and we talked about missionary work with him. Dustin is a
bro. On Sunday we taught this Muslim guy who wasn't very interested.
He just wanted to talk about Muslim Faith for 4 hours. But we
committed him to read and pray about the Book of Mormon so that was
pretty cool. This week was just awesome. The mission is so hard
sometimes but the experiences I had this week make it so worth it. I
miss each of you so much! I hope you have a wonderful week!
Love
Elder Routsong

2016!

Friends and family!

Hello hello hello! Happy 2016 everyone! I hope everyone's New Years
was wonderful and adjusting to 2016 is going great! This past week was
alright we didn't have a lot planned and it was kind of a struggle but
we stayed faithful and kept working!! For pday last week we had a
return missionary from our Ward make a ton of foam swords and shields
and we just did battle...it was freaking fun! We just Wrecked each
other. It was a nice stress reliever hahahaha. Pday is always nice:)
but yeah we had no appointments that night! We just tracted and tried
to contact some potentials! Then on Tuesday we had zone portion and
district meetings. It was cool because each district was in the same
building and we got to bounce around to each of the district meetings!
I really like being with the whole zone we always have a lot of fun!
During chantillys district meeting they talked a lot about being on
the same page in your companionship. It was really cool cause I leaned
a lot more to do with my future missionary companions so I am pretty
excited. That night we got to play some serious basketball with our
elders quorum it was awesome these guys are total member missionaries
because they bring like 10 non members to play ball with them. So we
try to teach little things to them during breaks and getting water and
stuff like that. We met this less active named mark and are going to
teach him and his non member family sometime this week. I'm very
excited for it! It was a miracle that we have been looking for here!
Wednesday was an alright day for me. We saw no success but I went on
exchanges with elder haddon one of my buddies I served around in
Alexandria 8 months ago! It was fun we got to catch up on a lot and
work super hard! Thursday was a pretty good day though! We had
leadership meeting and talked a lot about key indicators and shot some
hoops for lunch so it was pretty cool! We then went on exchanges with
some elders that have been struggling in our zone and it was really
really good. I love spending time with these elders too I'm sad that
they aren't doing the best but I'm glad that I get to help them in
whatever way I can! Serving is the true way to lose yourself out here!
I love it. For our New Years activity sister huntsman picked the best
two years for us to watch...I was a little ticked off about it but it
was just nice to watch any movie hahah we had a fun time and we all
played this really cool card game called werewolf after! It was dang
fun! A lot different than any New Years I've had! We didn't get to
sleep till like 1 and I was dying the next day! Blah! Nothing really
happened on Friday we just weekly planned and nobody wanted to talk to
us haha it was kinda lame. Then on Saturday we met this man named
shush from southern India. He was a referral from the sisters in
Maryland. It was so awesome we helped him paint the whole inside of
his house! He has two kids named mahi and debanch they are stinking
cool it's like a little Indian version of Emilee mom! Hahahah they are
adorable. The only thing we did that day was paint for him and teach
him while we were painting. They fed us some real Indian food...it was
interesting...then for Sunday I bore my testimony and went back to
painting at his house it was s good week! Lots of interesting stuff
and mostly people didn't want to talk to is but we still found success
even though it was way hard!! Love you all!!!!
Love elder Routsong

Merry Christmas

Friends and family!

Hello hello I hope that everyone is doing very very well and had a
very merry Christmas!! This past week was pretty cool!! last pday the
entire mission got together and we played some intense basketball! I'm
getting pretty good...😎 haha but it was really fun even president
huntsman played for a little while. After basketball we all went to
firehouse subs that place is mighty good. Then that night we taught
one of our investigators Brian. To be honest...we didn't know what to
teach him and my mind went blank during the lesson. But we followed
the spirit and taught him about building faith in Christ. It was a
really good lesson and he learned a lot. We are going to go back and
see him this evening! On Tuesday we had interviews with president!
Being a zone leader during interviews is pretty exhausting. We were at
the Centreville building from 9-4 p.m. It was way long. We got to
practice teach and train all the missionaries in our zone
individually. The assistants to the president helped us out too. It
was so much work! But we got to spend a lot of time with president so
that's always nice and he took us out to chipotle for lunch so that
was a score. President was telling us some funny stories about his
family haha. Dude is funny. But after interviews we taught an less
active and it was awkward cause he didn't really like us so we taught
a brief lesson and found out he loves Star Wars so we talked about
that for awhile haha. Then we played basketball with the elders quorum
and there were 8 non members there so we played with them and talked
to them a lot. It's a pretty cool experience. So the rest of this week
was pretty special to me so hopefully I can correctly put it into
words. Wednesday morning I had a doctors appointment and the results
weren't what I expected so I was pretty nervous the rest of the day.
But that evening we had a lesson with our most progressing
investigator she is awesome. She wants to be baptized but is super shy
and won't tell us ha. But she is awesome. After that we had a zone
Christmas fireside and we sang carols and bore our testimonies. It was
my privilege to give my testimony at the end of the meeting. The
elders and sisters all felt the spirit during the meeting. It was the
most spiritual meeting I've had my entire mission at this point. Such
a cool experience. Then on Thursday morning we had breakfast with one
of my favorite families in my last Ward they invited a ton of
missionaries and it was a good time for all of us. Then we hit the
road to drive to Maryland to the temple. Most of the mission was
singing in a choir for the Christmas Eve temple show. And I got signed
up to help with parking...it was dang fun though. I got to spend time
with elder jones one of my favorite missionaries out here. We made it
fun even though it was 70'degrees and humid outside....but I'm glad
that I got to spend Christmas Eve doing service for others. There was
a lot of things I would of rather been doing but I'm very grateful
that i got to serve it brought s feeling of peace to me. My reward was
getting to race down the beltway at 80 miles an hour home 😎 Christmas
morning was fun! We had breakfast with the friend family and I loved
my new watch mom and dad! Thanks for all the presents!! I then got to
skype home! It was awesome! I miss you all very much but you all
looked great! I especially missed kari. Then we had lunch with the
smiths and we had a blast with them they are an awesome family. We
then had a feast with the Inman family and played apples to apples.
Christmas was fun! It was cool to celebrate the right way. Focusing on
the savior. It felt so amazing to celebrate that way away from all the
temporal presents. Then elder holdaway and I stayed but till midnight
laying ping pong on our kitchen table ha. Saturday was boring we just
weekly planned. Yesterday was awesome...one of my investigators in
Vint hill was baptized. Jordan onjis! He is so awesome and his baptism
was so special. I was very happy and we all felt the special spirit at
Jordans baptism. Anyways that was my week I loved it!! I miss and love
you all!!
Love
Elder Routsong