Madeline loves wearing dresses and being outside. I think if she could wear a dress everyday she would. | Emma and Peter both had their first breathing test done after the cross-country season was completed. With the poor air quality this season, both of them had major inflammation and needed to be put on medication in addition to using their regular inhalers. | The Normatec has been well loved in our house. It is not uncommon to find Emma using it in the basement. Pretty soon we may need a sign-up sheet. | We all love it when Mike cooks because he tends to come up with a new combination of dinner items. Today was chicken cordon bleu with roasted yellow squash and salad. It was delicious. | Every time we head out on our evening walk Madeline finds some new fun Halloween decoration. She really liked the white ghosts hanging from someone’s tree. She was not a fan of the pretend spiders. | We got to watch Mason get baptized over Zoom. Jeff baptized him in their pool which was super cool. There aren’t too many positives about the pandemic but being baptized in a pool might just be one of them.  | One of Peter’s favorite meals is my minestrone soup and homemade French bread. He asks me to make it all the time. | Colorado has the best sunsets in the fall. I just can’t get over how amazing our view of the mountains is from the back of our house. When we get pretty colors in the sky it just magnifies the beauty of Pikes Peak. | Madeline loves her swim lessons with Ms. Carolyn and she has really progressed fast. | Madeline loves the little pretend alligators at the allergy office. She pets them every time we come into the office for her siblings. | It snowed and everyone was super excited. Even though there wasn’t that much snow, Madeline insisted on us all going out to play in the snow. Her favorite part was trying to eat the snow and then being pulled in the sled. | Mike brought Panera, flowers, and chocolate home for lunch one day. He was able to join us for a little bit before heading back to work. It was so thoughtful. | Madeline loved dressing up as Elsa for Halloween at her preschool this year. Frozen is still one of her favorite movies. | Madeline never gets bored playing in her room. One day I came in to find stuffies all over the floor and nothing but her underwear on while rocking on the rocking horse. It was quite comical. | Abby had fun spending Halloween night with her friends.

​In typical Colorado fashion we finally got our October snowstorm. Madeline was so excited to go out in the snow even though there wasn’t a whole lot that accumulated on the grass and it was freezing outside. I went out with her, but my hands got so cold I could only stay out for 10 min. Mike and Emma took Madeline back out for some more backyard fun. They pulled her on the sled and just had a good time playing with her in the snow. She is one lucky little girl to have family that loves her enough to play outside when the temperature is in the single digits!

​This month was filled with lots of biking and running adventures and a fun hike up the Incline. The weather was so nice this month and although I had to pull out the long sleeve shirts, I was able to get by with wearing shorts for most of the month. I ran a few times at Garden of the Gods and a run at Bear Creek Park with Striders. I even had an amazing brick workout day with Mike. We ran 10 miles from home down to Costco, then got on our bikes and rode 21 miles around Garden of the Gods and downtown back to Costco. Mike and I had some fun mountain bike rides around the Falcon Trail and the Pineries loop. I had fun hiking the Incline with Caryn and her friend and then took it easy on the run down Barr Trail. It was a fun and successful month of exercise.

Madeline’s first field trip in Pre-School was to the Colorado Pumpkin Patch only 15 minutes from our house. We met her class at 10am, stood in line to get our tickets and then headed first to the bounce pillows for some bouncing fun. The bounce pillows were basically like jumping in a bounce house without walls or a ceiling. Madeline had so much fun bouncing and flipping. Oh boy did she master the flip. She spent several minutes flipping all the way across the length of the bounce pillow and then kept telling the kids, “Watch me. Look what I can do.” After Madeline was done bouncing, we headed over to feed the farm animals. We spent a few dollars feeding the llamas, sheep, and ponies. Madeline loved it. Then we spent some time at the big slides. We grabbed our sack mats and headed up to the top. We went down a few times together, went back to the bounce pillows for a little bit and then went back to the slides. Madeline was so excited to see her friend Jack that she immediately picked up her sack and headed up to the slide alone with Jack. I was so excited to see her be so brave and go by herself down the slide. The first time I could tell she was shocked by how fast she went. But then it was back up to the slide she went. She literally ran back to the line after every slide. We spent a good deal of time there and she probably went down at least 10-15 times all by herself. By this point, it was time to eat lunch, so we headed over to the stacked hay tower and ate lunch with her classmates and then took a group photo. On our way out of the pumpkin patch, Madeline got to pick out her little pumpkin and then we headed home. It was a great first field trip for Madeline.

Hello again!
 
I had a fairly uneventful, but good second week. It went by super-fast, so fast that I forgot to write this email on P-day. It's ok, as there's a little more for me to write about since we've gone through most of the week. This past Friday, I had the pleasure of attending a baptism. The baptism was for two children of the same family. It was a really neat experience to watch the father baptize his kids. 
Me and my companion were also able to participate in the laying on of hands to give those kids the Gift of the Holy Ghost. It was my first time participating in such an ordinance, and naturally it was kind of exciting. 
 
Me and Elder John live in an apartment with 2 other missionaries. However, one of those missionaries had to go home last week, so now we are in a trio covering two wards. As a result, last week was pretty busy as we had to mesh our schedules together. Not only that, we are getting 35 new missionaries next week, so we are getting ready to potentially split up or have more missionaries in our apartment. 

P-day in Texas hasn't been too eventful. To be completely honest, our district only really sits at the church building all day and plays frisbee or basketball, which is not quite up my alley. But that's alright, it's still fun to hang out with the other missionaries. However, one great thing I did this P-day was go to the local Daiso: a Japanese sort of convenience store. I bought a lot of treats I used to get when our family lived in Japan. It was a breath of fresh air for me. On my most recent P-day, we had a fun time carving pumpkins and hanging out at Cabellas. My district is filled with lovely people, and I'm grateful to get to know them more every day. 
 
I meant to write more for my second and third week, but to be truthful it's slow going here in Texas. Don't get me wrong, I have plenty of stories from the relentless attempts at bible bashing to simply odd things I've seen throughout my day. The work is going slow in my zone, and at times it feels like I'm sitting here waiting for somebody to ask about the gospel.
 
In light of this, the talk given this last conference titled: "God Will Do Something Unimaginable" by Dieter F. Uchtdorf resonates with me. One of my favorite quotes from the talk was "Perhaps we were still building with sandstone when granite was already available." While he was referring to something else in the talk, one way I look at this is to not be complacent with where we are when we can do more to reach our destination. Although it has felt as if I have done all that I can to further the work, upon reflection I have noticed that I was building my foundation out of sandstone. I took 10 minutes tonight to think and look at what more I could do to further my missionary purpose and was able to find more than 5 things I could do right now. It's great to know I can do more, even if I may not see success immediately. If we take a moment to take a step back and ask, "what more can I do?" we'll be able to build foundations of granite that will carry us to our goals and beyond. I know I have a long road to travel, and much more foundation to build, but I encourage everybody reading this to not be complacent with "good enough." 

Ich wünsche dir alles erdenklich Gute!

​Elder Wilhelm

This is what it looks like when you are hurting so bad but keeping pushing anyways. She is my hero.​

I love how they pray before they race. What a great tradition they started two years ago.

Warming up with masks...COVID rules

Most of the races took the top 7 but the Cheyenne Mtn. Stampede and Regionals only took 6 runners. Since there were really 8 boys on Varsity sometimes some of the boys had to sit out of the race. It was a tough season like that.

This was the fire I waited for all season long. This was his best race of the season. He rounded the last few corners like his life was on the line. It was such a cool moment. 

​Howdy!
 
I've just finished my first week on a mission in Fort Worth Texas. It was a blast, and if there's anything I've learned: southern hospitality is real, and I love it. A lot of events occurred throughout the week, many of them happening on the first day.
 
After landing in Fort Worth, I got to meet plenty of wonderful people. I met the mission president, some of the other missionaries, and my companion: Elder John. It turns out that Elder John is from monument Colorado and is in the same stake as me back home. We never knew each other beforehand, but it's crazy to think of how small a world this is. Just minutes after meeting Elder John, and a few short hours after landing, we met our first street contact. His name is Lamar and his car broke down. He wasn't quite able to pay for a tow, so we helped him out with the difference and told him a little bit about our church and gave him a Book of Mormon. It was an interesting encounter to say the least. Shortly after, we met Elder John's old zone at a Mexican restaurant called Rosa's. Although the food was honestly mediocre, it was great to meet a bunch of new missionaries, even if I won't see them for at least 6 weeks as they aren't in the zone me and Elder John are assigned to. Not much else happened that day, except for driving dozens of miles in a cramped car to move into our new zone, trying to figure out how to communicate with the sisters who had the SIM card we needed (they are in quarantine for covid), moving in, dealing with a power outage, finding out that we didn't even have mattresses, and some other events. It was a fairly interesting day to say the least.
 
On Thursday we were able to help a member begin to replace the floor of the second story of his deck on the lake behind his house. There were huge hornets about the size of my thumb flying around, which was super crazy to see. He supplied us with huge cans of some very intense hornet/wasp killer, which is quite literally acid. I mean I saw a hornet start melting a bit when I sprayed it with a generous helping of the hornet killer. While one of the missionaries attempted to kill a flying hornet with this spray, the wind blew it onto my arms which prompted a leap into the lake and a lot of scrubbing. Besides that event, it was a great project, and I was glad to help. 
 
So those are my two stories for the week, as random as they were. Me and Elder John have been able to become more acquainted with each other, and he's been a great trainer. We keep each other motivated to stay on task and stay focused on our missionary purpose. When we have time, we either sit by the pool at our complex or go to the lounge room which has a pool table and some other games. We really lucked out with the apartment situation, so I'm taking full advantage of this, as it's all downhill from here. 
 
I hope to have more stories to tell this upcoming week that don't involve getting sprayed with acid. While I haven't had too many spiritual experiences. I want to challenge you all to do these: love your neighbor; be a kind soul amidst the struggles the world is facing. 
 
Stay safe and have a wonderful week!
 
Elder Wilhelm

We spent the morning sleeping in and eating a good breakfast before packing all of our stuff in the car and heading off on our last fun day in Crested Butte. We had initially planned on hiking Snodgrass Mountain just north of the ski areas, but as we were driving along Gothic road, we saw a sign that said it was closed. We decided to just drive for a bit to see what was more north along the road. The views were great but eventually we turned around to see if we could access Snodgrass Mountain from the western side of the mountain. We didn't have much luck on that side but enjoyed exploring the views from Washington Gulch Rd. We probably spent an hour in the car just enjoying the different areas of Crested Butte. Then we headed back into town and decided to hike the Upper Loop Trail system right on the mountainside of Mt. Crested Butte. We headed on the main trail for a little over a mile and then decided to stop along a pleasant part of the trail, hidden in the aspens, and eat our lunch. We saw a couple of different mountain bikers on this part of our hike. I would definitely like to come back and ride my mountain bike here. After turning around and heading back on the trail, we made it back to the intersection of Upper Loop Trail and Happy Hour Trail. We decided to head up on the Happy Hour Trail to see what the views would be in that direction. I am so glad we decided to do this trail because after hiking several switchbacks, we eventually popped out of the aspens and when we turned around further along the trail we could see how far and deep and wide the aspens stood. We didn't stay on the open trail that long since it was getting a little too hot outside, but we made it far enough along the trail to be happy about adventuring that far. By this point, everyone was ready to turn around and head back to the car. Emma did a great job being Madeline's buddy on this hike and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to their conversations as we headed back down the trail. We really got lucky this weekend with the amazing fall colors that we saw. I had always heard that Crested Butte was amazing in the fall and now I know exactly why people claim Crested Butte as one of the best places to visit to see the fall colors! We will definitely be coming back here for another fall adventure!

We woke up to a beautiful crisp morning in Crested Butte and got all ready to do some hiking and enjoy the beautiful fall leaves. We ventured out of the town of Crested Butte on Rt. 12 towards Kebler Pass. On the way towards Kebler Pass Mike decided to venture off on S. Plains Gulch Rd (12F) towards the West Elk Wilderness. At first the road was nothing special and we were amongst a million pine trees. There really wasn't a whole lot of aspen trees or any colorful trees for that matter. It was at the point where we thought maybe we should turn around and then we popped out at the top of this amazing view of aspen trees. We continued on the road as it wound down towards the West Elk Wilderness. Just the drive alone was worth the detour and we took full advantage of the beauty of it all. All the windows were rolled down and I was standing in the front with my head up out of the sunroof so I could take photos while Mike drove really slowly. I'm sure people thought we were crazy. We made it to the trailhead for the Beaver Pond hike and were lucky enough to grab the last parking spot. This was a short hike, maybe 2 miles total, but it was the most beautiful fall hike ever. There were just so many aspens it was unreal and although the leaves had already started to fall off the trees, there was still plenty of yellow left on the trees. Every time a little breeze would blow through the trail it would rain down yellow aspen leaves. Between that and the sun shining through the trees, it was pretty magical. When we finally made it out of the single track trail to Beaver Pond, the views were equally impressive. We walked around the lake and enjoyed the mountainside view of the colors as well as the impressive beaver dams. As we made our way back, the kids had fun running on dead logs, having duels with big broken branches, and for a few minutes we even sat quietly just listening to the sound of the aspen leaves rustling in the wind. It truly was the perfect way to start our fall day in Crested Butte.

After leaving the West Elk Wilderness we headed back on Rt. 12 towards Kebler Pass. It was no surprise when we got to the most prominent part of Kebler Pass because there were more people and the aspens seemed to go on forever. It was quite a sight to behold as this area hosts one of the world's largest aspen groves in the world, with the biggest being Utah's Pando grove. After taking in the views mostly by car, and a quick stop for me to take an epic panorama of this area, we continued on Rt. 12 towards Lost Lake Campground. We parked the car near some picnic tables, ate our lunch, and then headed on the Three Lakes Trail. This trail was a 3.5-mile loop, passing three different lakes, plenty of aspens, and some amazing views. We made sure to spend time at the lakes skipping rocks and just enjoying the beautiful day. After viewing the last lake (Dollar Lake) and making our way back to the trail to make the loop back to the campground, we noticed a small trail that veered off from the main trail. It looked promising for some good views and so we followed it. What we saw was remarkable. We saw the entire main range of Kebler Pass that we had been to earlier that day. Since we were the only ones at this little overlook it was quiet and so we sat down for a few minutes and enjoyed the stillness. Although I took a ton of photos on our hike, nothing quite does justice to seeing the fall colors in person.