Bolder Boulder

I love this zone because my companion somehow got permission from Sister Savage to have Zone P-Day every week. Just about every week we play sports together, and last week it was a blast!

Since of the lack of time, and the lack of energy, my senior companion and I asked our greenie to send us her weekly email so we could copy it. The following is from her, with some of my editing;

"It has definitely been a week! We had Zone Conference this week and we had many missionaries that met at the church building for some training. It went from 9am to 5:30pm... We have been teaching about 20 people who are interested in the gospel of Jesus Christ! They are all so different but they all have one thing in common, which is their desire to grow closer to our Heavenly Father. All of them have such great faith and same with the members. I was reading the scriptures and ran across Doctrine & Covenants 4:3 which says "Therefore, if ye have desires to serve God ye are called to the work." I think this is such a great missionary scripture but also a great scripture for those who want to follow God. If we have the desire to follow God and do all that we can to be with Him again, He will guide us in our life and use us to do His work. My companions and I taught Gospel Principles yesterday and taught about Family History work. It was so cool to see a lot of recent concerts tell us stories about how they were able to find relatives on family search that they wanted to bring to the Temple for baptisms. One lady was literally shouting for joy. Ha! 

This week has also been full of laughter. I felt so bad yesterday. We went to a family in our wards home for dinner and their son said something really funny and I couldn't stop laughing. So of course they asked me to say the prayer. In the middle of it my companion Sister Sasagi starts poking my side. (This isn't the first time this has happened) And I started laughing in the middle of the prayer! Sister Williams (the mom) opened her eyes, started laughing, and said re-do! So we started over ha!

This week we also found some new people to teach. They are so welcoming and we were able to set up appointments to meet with them. Its so cool how the Lord hastens His work.

Well I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for my family and their example to me and their testimonies of our Savior Jesus Christ. I'm thankful for the gospel of Jesus Christ. That we have been given the tools such as the Book of Mormon, to grow closer to our Father in Heaven. I'm also thankful for my companions (and ward members) putting up with me and my laugh!"  -Sister Fraser

Shout-outs;

◇I still find sand in my tennis shoes. I'm ready to go back to a beach, sand castles this time!

◇We've been talking about Scotland a lot, and how one of my companions has a family history there.

◇While walking next to stores one day, the song Perfect was playing (but there was a weird beat/rap).

◇At Zone Conference, this one Elder played "Praise to the Man" on bagpipes. 5 months and then I'll be home 😉😉

◇I feel like it's on a daily basis that we talk about the military with people. 

I love you all!!!!

-Sister Reynolds

1250 Main Street

Broomfield, CO 80020

A grandmother with two kids

The last P-Day of the transfer we were with the Hermanas that were over us. Together we learned some self-defense from a girl named Rob. She's been through a lot of tough situations, so she has a ton of skills under her belt. Rob met us at the church building, and when she arrived I was chilling on-top of a later. At the end of her teaching us she said, pointing to me, "You... I wasn't worried about you... you had something in your eyes." So if any of you want to come after me, you better watch out! ;p

Transfers happened! They moved my out of the city :( My last two companions are training, so that means I've got a grandchild, that was pretty fast. I'm also training again, so now I've got two daughters. My new companions are Sister Sasangi and Sister Fraser. I love them!! Sister Sasangi and I came out together, so it's weird to see her going home this transfer. Sister Fraser is just the sweetest person ever. I do miss my older area, but I'll be back one day! :)

In this area we are with our zone a lot. So far, we had a sports night event, which, of course, I destroyed people at. Also, we had a big service where we helped this one family decorate their house with tooons of Christmas decorations. It was super fun to help out, and the owner put me in charge of people because she knew my theatre history. 

Yesterday we had snow fall and I couldn't be happier. It was SUPER pretty. It was also pretty cold. I'm trying to figure out how to saftely skid on purpose. I can't do it without being dangerous. We'll see what happens though. I promise I won't end up killing anyone. 

Shout-outs;

-Rob was deployed with the Marines at one point. We were talking to her about her time in the military, and there were many things where she said, "I can't tell you that, it's c;classified", it was pretty cool!

-I'm finally starting to like avocados. My taste buds have changed on my mission, and now I'm training myself how to like certain foods. The next thing on the list is learning how to handle spicy and eat seafood.

Reverse Trick or Treat! 🎃🎃

Halloween was a pretty fun day! However, I expected it to be crazier in City Park than it really was. To make this lovely holiday even better, we decided to do some reverse Trick-or-Treat-ing. What we did was go around to different houses of people we knew, and offered them a piece of candy with a picture of Jesus Christ. We also did this for those we saw on the way to those specific people. It was super fun to be apart of Halloween while still being a missionary!
We also carved some pumpkins with Brother and Sister Green, Ryan, and Shawnee. My favorite thing was to gut the pumpkins, I just think that's a blast!  I'm not sure what the finished project of it looks like yet, but we will see them on Tuesday, and I'll let you know how it turned out.
We had to come inside at 7pm. To entertain ourselves, we did what Sister Reynolds' does best, beat everyone at card games! Don't worry, I wasn't toooo competitive or mean. 😉

Fun Restaurant ride. One day, these members wanted to take us out to eat right outside of our zone boundaries. We asked our Zone Leaders if we could have permission to eat there, and they said that we could, but that we should try and get them to give us a ride. They also asked us to try and keep it within an hour, we promised that we would try. The members came over to our house to pick us up, and they showed-up over half an hour later. We got into their car and all squished up in the back seat. Then, we realized that Sister Sansom, who was sitting in the middle, didn't have a seat-belt. We tried to cross the seat-belts over to keep her protected, and that ended not going so well. So on the ride there and the ride back, Sister Jensen and I wore seat-belts and then linked arms with Sister Sansom. It was raining a lot, and our really short member didn't seem like a super safe driver. It's awesome how you can get so close to your missionary companions and do silly and goofy, but not let anyone else in the room notice that you're being odd. With the drive, and the rain, and them being late, and the eating, we had almost a 2.5 hour dinner, it was terrible, but enjoyable!

This week we finally got Bonnie back!! Our wonderful white car gave the wall a little high-five when one of my past companions was driving it, so we had to let it go for a while. We were given a new friend while Bonnie was healing, her name is La/a (said like La-Dash-a). She was great, but I really missed Bonnie. Our Zone Leaders held her hostage for a few days, and then she came back to us!
When we went on exchanges, we rode in a 2016 Ford Fusion. A long long time ago, in August 2017, I drove my first car on the mission for about 4 months, her name was Phoebe. I was told by some people that Phoebe had a lot of miles on her, so they gave her away. When we were on exchanges, I checked the mileage log on the car we were in, and sure enough, my name was on 4 of those sheets, and I was able to reconnect with Phoebe.

Exchanges was super fun! I was able to go to a different area with a Spanish-speaking Sister!! We taught someone in Spanish, and I read through El Libro de Mormon with them. I'm slowly trying to learn Spanish again. I was actually slightly impressed with myself because I was able to understand just about everything in the lesson. I'm hoping that one day, I will have a Spanish companion, or a companion who needs language study so that I can up my game on my current knowledge of Spanish. It's a process. "By small and simple things, great things shall come to past" "line upon line, precept upon precept" 

Shout-outs;
¤Girl who dressed-up as Arthur~ My whole mission, no one has ever talked about that show. This week, it was brought up quite a few times with different people! Know that I miss and love you mom!!
¤My Psych fans~ There are two wonderful people in really close with who bought pineapple onesies, so funny.
¤OBX Man~ At a time when I really needed a friend, I saw an OBX sticker on the back of someone's car. Thanks for all the fun adventures!
¤Madre~ thanks for hooking me up with the pumpkin seeds recipe. I cooked some and shared the love with others :)
¤Napoleon Dynamite fans~ When my companions and I were at someone's doctor's appointment, we saw their doctor dressed-up as Rex on Halloween.
¤During exchanges, I read the Book of Mormon in Spanish and understood most of the things we were taking about.
¤Parents!~ A Hermana came over to our place, and she was super psyched to have permission to turn back time and play my flute. Thanks for making the day of so many people.
¤Poker Padre~ One of my companions asked me to play/re-teach her how to play poker. I'm more than happy for a Texas Hold'em game any day!!

Sister Reynolds :)
1250 Main Street
Broomfield, CO 80020

"6 Months Til.. [The End of My (first, full-time) Mission]"

This week we hit an exciting mark! On the 26th, Sister Sansom hit her month mark being in Colorado, Sister Jensen had her gentile birthday (she's now 20), and it was also the day I go home, in 6 more months. Super cool that it was a special day all around!!

Last Monday we had Zone P-day! Zone P-day is usually my all-time favorite P-day of the transfer. The Sisters in our Zone love playing ball. Our Zone Leaders decided that we were going to do "The Bowes Bowl". Elder Bowes is completing his mission, and it was his last Zone P-day, so they named it after him. They split the zone up into two teams, and they made my crazy companions team captains (they said it was because they're so tall, and they've seen us play ball together and knew that we were actually pretty good). First we played tag football, seriously my favorite game to play on a mission, because Sisters can tag Elders, but they can't tag us. As a result, the Elders will give us the ball most of the time, and all you have to do is have a bunch of Elders around you to block the Sisters, and be able to out-run the other sisters, super easy for me. We also played soccer, and kickball. It was an amazing work-out! Would do it again so fast!! :)

Another thing that was pretty amazing was the baptism we were able to witness for Sherry Stetzer. She is officially a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I love the love she has for the gospel, how much she's grown, and just how happy she was. I'm so proud of her making these promises to God and her wonderful desire to serve Him. However, since she is baptized, this is when we slowly have to be turning her over to the ward more and more. She's in the City Park Ward, so she is a little crazy, but she fits in so perfectly, so she's gaining a lot of friends. Also, this means that we can no longer attended ARP (Addiction Recovery Program, sponsored by the church) because we have no investigators or anyone we're really teaching with us. It's a super good class though, and I highly recommend it. 

We had dinner this week with someone, Sister Karen Matthews, who needs to have a care taker. Her care taker, Lana?, is Russian, and speaks broken English. She knows our standards, so she kept trying to set me up with this guy she knew. She was telling me that "He don't drink, he don't smoke". We tried to explain that we don't really date when we're out here on missions and she said "you bad girl" because I needed a guy to date and then marry so I could have kids. It was hilarious! When she finally understood the mission rules, she asked for my name and phone number so he could contact me in April. Yesterday we saw Karen and she told me how Lana kept asking her how I was doing and asked where my number is. She said that she'd look for me when I was home. This was the first time someone from Russia tried to ever set me, my companions are still laughing about it. The only reason why they weren't caught in this web, was because they were too tall for this guy. They both wrote about this in their emails, and SIster Jensen's title was called "The Russian Set up".

Sister Jensen doesn't know too much about how to be behind the wheel. This week, we made Sister Jensen drive for a day in the City. We also taught her how to parallel park. Sister Sansom and I would give her instructions, and then she'd be too scared to implement them, so then she wouldn't fit in the parking spot. After about half an hour, she figured out what it felt like. Yesterday, I made her try parking again. Her one day of practice really helped her become pretty decent at doing it, with a little help of course. 

On Saturday we had our Trunk or Treat Ward Halloween Party! For some odd reason, us sisters were asked to be the judges of the chili, and there could only be a first place winner. It was interesting to try all these different kinds of chili, and then have to pick a winner. Surprisingly, there wasn't too many people present at this event. There were a good handful of kids the next day at the adorable primary program!

Shout-outs;

♡Little hands~ At Zone P-day, this humongous Elder tried to teach me how to throw a football, and I completely failed. He blamed it on the size of my hands. Now, you only have slightly bigger hands than I do, so I need your help because you're a football pro. 

♡Farmer boy~ Alright, so now my flowers are dying. Not sure if it's a lost cause because it's becoming winter or if it's because of me. I need your skills with knowing how to not let it die.

♡Foodie~ I think they should've let you be the judge of the chili cook-off. You're a twig now, so I'm not sure if you'd eat it, but it be good for you!

♡Reynolds boys & others~ At the Trunk or Treat, I was talking to someone and I asked them what their favorite Halloween costume has been. She said that one year her husband was scarecrow. I got super excited and thought it was the coolest thing ever... until she said that she was Dorthy. I appreciate how much I've been exposed to the Batman games, movies, etc. Then I tried to explain my pain to the Sisters/my companions, and they didn't understand, so I had to talk to the Elders. 

♡Best Friend~ Saw someone in a stitch costume, made me think of you!

♡Bon Bom~ This week I grew a pumpkin in water, thanks for the toy!

-Sister Reynolds :)

Alvin and the Chipmunks

My companions and I have been trying for a while to figure out what trio the 3 of us represent. We've went through a bunch of movies and tv shows and we were stumped. Finally, while visiting someone who might be interested in talking with us, it clicked. We saw these three giant Chipmunks! Sister Jensen is Simon, the smart guy with glasses. Sister Sansom is Theodore, because he is just so cute and sweet. Of course, I'm Alvin because, in reality, it's all about me (not to mention, when people talk about our stuff, they say "Sister Reynolds ___"). I love my chipmunk sisters!

Tuesday- The day was a pretty normal day of missionary work. At night we came home, and Sister Reynolds was in the middle of showing a cool, magical card tricks, then BOOM! The power goes out! Honestly, I sat there for a second, wondering what I should do. We each grabbed a flashlight, because we are prepared sisters, our phones, and lit up our tiny apartment. When I looked out the window, what did I see? Nothing!! The power was out from as far as we could see. The three of us decided to take a small trip outside to get a chance to look at the starts. We ran into our super funny and nice maintenance guy, and he informed us that in one direction, the power was out for at least 50 blocks/ all the way to the highway. It was really fun not having power, and it only lasted for about an hour. Within that hour, I heard about 7 ambulance sirens go off. Looooove City Park! 😁

Wednesday- Zone Conference! Zone Conference is always such an amazing experience!! We did, however, get shots. It was so funny to watch just about every missionary over-react over them. After Zone Conference we had dinner with a family, and one of their sons was turning 7 soon, so we had a little birthday celebration dinner! It was awesome because no one ever invites us to parties as missionaries.

Thursday- Taught Sherry!! There are so many more principles we need to teach her before she is baptized on the 24th, but she is so prepared! We had an appointment set-up with Angela and Nicole Montiel. Angela totally forgot, so when we came by, Nicole was away with friends. We read the scriptures with Sister Montiel, and right before we were about to leave, Nicole came home. I said "hide!" and Nicole walked inside, and it took her a minute to realize that there were other people at her house, I love that 8 yr-old!!

Friday- Friday morning Vaughn kept texting us, saying how much he loves cookies and that he made some. After hinting that we like cookies too, he invited us over. We were able to teach Vaughn a little about temples, while we ate cookies and I played with his ginormous dog, which his hair went all over my black skirt. While we were with Vaughn, he made the cookies, Tattor became my new best friend, and the Elders came over twice (once to get some papers from us, and then again to get cookies and join in on the lesson). That being said, we were with Vaughn a lot longer than we meant to be, and most places in Downtown requires you to pay at a arking meter. Well... we got a Parking ticket!! We went over about 15 minutes, maybe. I love having so many experiences here!!

Saturday- Sherry had her baptismal interview! This week she has just been beyond happy! It's so amazing to see that light inside of her just glow! I had some questions for my wonderful mission president, President Savage. He gave us a call Saturday morning and asked us to meet him at the Chick-Fil-A right across from where we live. I was more than wiling to meet him there, and all we had to do was walk over. He bought us each a drink and it was super sweet.

Sunday- I was so happy because so many of those I love came to church! Angela and Nicole Montiel, and Vaughn, his daughter, and the daughter's boyfriend!!

In Sister Sansom's mass email she wrote, "The Saga of the Guinea Pig Incident continues ... yet again, poor Sister Jensen has been peed upon this past week. She really shouldn't have laughed so hard the first time it happened to someone else and maybe karma would have allowed her to get peed on less!"

-Sister Reynolds :)

1250 Main Street

Broomfield, CO 80020

Brrr..?

 I finally got to the point where I'm wearing a jacket! I keep calling the weather number and it says that there's a chance of snow, sadly I haven't seen any yet, but I'm going to keep hoping that it will just start falling. I've seen rain, but it's not quite good enough.

One day this week I felt so sick, so I made one of the other sisters drive. While we were stopping-by people, because I'm too stubborn to lay at home and rest, we had to parallel park. Sister Jensen was backing Sister Sansom, and it just wan't going well. I decided to get out of the car and direct Sister Sansom, and she did it on her first try. City Park is a super fun place to teach you many good skills.

As missionaries, we pray on a pretty often basis. With a trio, it was hard keeping tract of who's turn it is to pray. Our solution was the "prayer tie". Our prayer tie is a pink ponytail that we keep around our wrist. The person who says it at the beginning of the day chooses what order it goes in. The person who has it at the end of the day gets to say it first thing the next day. It has worked pretty well, and is super fun to do!

General Conference;

I love General Conference so much and I'm so thankful for all of the talks and the opportunity I had to be able to watch it! To summarize General Conference, so you don't have to read more than needed, it was full of cinnamon rolls, bingo, M&M's/ junk food, a whip cream game, members, and less-actives. I learned so much and had so many questions answered. I will be studying the talks that we're given for the next 6 months. 

Things my companions and I have posted on our Zone Facebook page;

Funny Moment:
Last night we were visiting a less active member and her daughter. Her daughter gave each of us a guinea pig to hold. After about 10 minutes of holding them, one of the guinea pigs pooped on Sister Reynolds! Sister Jensen couldn't stop laughing. She then looked down at her own skirt and realized one of the guinea pigs had pooped on her as well. Later during the lesson, when Sister Jensen felt comfortable holding the guinea pigs again, she noticed that her lap started to warm up and realized a guinea pig was peeing on her. She quickly pushed him off her lap and onto Sister Sansom's lap as it continued to pee.  

Miracle Moment:

About 4 weeks ago, Sister Reynolds and Sister LeCheminant were street contacting in a park when they ran into a girl painting. She didn't seem too interested, but they offered her a pass-a-long card. She asked for an extra one for a friend she had that "wants to be Mormon." Flash forward to two nights ago, Sister Reynolds, Jensen, and Sansom got a phone call from some OTC Sisters in New Zealand wanting to give us a referral for someone her in Denver named Bryn as well as two of Bryn's friends! The next morning we went to go visit them aaanndd... it turns out that one of Bryn's friends was Ellery! She had given the pass-a-long card to Bryn, who then asked for a Book of Mormon and some missionaries through mormon.org. Bryn and his friends are all interested in learning more about the Gospel. 

#fruitofourlabors                           

-Sister Reynolds :)

I'M A MOM!!!

We had transfers this week, and I'm now in a trio with Sister Jensen and Sister Sansom. Sister Jensen (red-head) has been out for 3 months, and Sister Sansom (blonde) is straight out from the MTC. I don't feel like I'm training a new missionary or greenie-breaking someone, I feel like they're training me. I love them so much. Best companionship I've ever been in! We literally have so much fun, but it's weird that they look up to me. I have to be the one to make all the final decisions, and it's weird to be given so much power.

Last week we had Zone P-day where we tried to recreate an episode from the office. We played Volleyball, trying to do the episode of the office where they play basketball in the warehouse, and it was really fun! There wasn't much diversity between the missionaries and their personalities, so we never made it a video. We also played soccer chair, ate hot-dogs, and just relaxed. Sports and missionaries are the best!

During exchanges this week, we decided to pick some peaches off of a peach tree. There was one in a safer part of our area, and they looked pretty ripe. They actually tasted really good. Don't regret chances you didn't take, just go after it and have fun!

On Wednesday we had our last dinner with the City Park Elders. We went to the roof and took some awesome pictures. It was a beautiful view of the city, and I greatly miss them. Elder Blackham played a song, "Give Me This Mountain" for Brother and Sister Barnett. It's an incredible piece, please ask me to share it with you, the Spirit is so strong. I've listened to it so many times, and I love it with all my heart. 

Early Thursday morning I got the call about training and then having a 3rd companion who is also pretty new. It was so weird to hear that. I still don't believe it, especially because it really is like a team with us. I mean, I do have to make most of the decisions and lead everything we do, but I don't really feel like I'm doing that. These Sisters are so golden in everything they have to do, it's so great!

We had great breakfast with our stake this week! We also had a zone gathering with amazing trainings. I am so excited for this new transfer! In this area, I've always had outstanding leaders and zones, and especially districts. I have yet to really get to know everyone, but I can't wait for all the amazing adventures we will have. I've already introduced my companions to Downtown and some sketchy areas, scaring one of the half to death. Don't worry though, I'm learning more about gangs, so now I know what to really watch out for.

Pranks! I'm sorry, I can't help it! I have a new girl and then a newer missionary, and I just had to mess with them. My second prank was pretty standard. I asked my child if she needed a pen to fill out something, she said yes, and I gave her something as I looked for a real one... Then my other companion had to try it out too, of course (but unlike Sister Sansom, Sister Jensen knew it was a shocking pen). The first prank I pulled was a little more clever. I told my companions we need to see our WML and his wife, but that we needed to knock some doors first. I convinced Sister Sansom to go and do her first door approach. Pam Maxwell, a sweet older lady answered the door, she said she'd be back and get her husband. Then Chuck Cawood came to the door, he's bigger, has been in the military, has a pierced ear, some tattoos, and has his white hair in a ponytail. He seems a little intimidating, and doesn't look like a member, so he was the perfect person to help me pull off this prank. I love these members. Sister Jensen soon caught on when Pam announced their names, I told my companions their names before we drove over there. They let us in and we were just having casual conversation, and a few more seconds, Sister Sansom finally figured that I was pulling a little prank on her. Sister Maxwell did so good at pretending she didn't know who missionaries were, and she hid her temple picture, her book of Mormon, and statue of Jesus Christ. They worked so hard to help me out, and I love them with all my heart for that! 

One of many- Funny Moment:

While trying to stop by less actives, we came across an apartment building downtown. Since there were no call boxes, we tried the revolving door, but the door wouldn't open and we all ran into each other. They guy at the front desked looked up just as we all ran into the door. He stared us down through the glass windows as we awkwardly turned and walked away in shame.

Shout-out;

-One of the trainings for the zone gathering was focused/ related to golf!

--Sister Reynolds