Tonight we held a caldnelight Prayer Service for our community, in Larry's honor. It was really needed. We have had a really rough week. Just last 2 weeks, we have had an elementary student die (his brother accidentally shot him), another student attempted suicide, a murder (Larry), a murder/suicide (husband/wife), a suicide, a fire fighter pass away (off duty), and 2 fatality car wrecks. This is quite a lot for our community, to say the least.

This candlelight service was a really unifying and healing thing for our community. People from all walks showed up. We had a bad blizzard roll through town today, but it cleared before the service, thankfully. I couldn't see exactly how many, but we had a couple hundred people there- I would estimate 275-325. Hard to get them all in a dark pic.

It was a beautiful time- we prayed, laughed, encouraged each other, and shared a couple favorite memories of "Larry Legend", as he was lovingly called. I asked Larry's daughter to speak (which was moving), one of his shop employees and friends, and asked the Mayor to say a word and pray for our community. I made a cross for people to put flowers on, which turned out very nice. It was a great evening.

Early crowd gathering:


People paying respects:


The cross before we began: I should have gotten a picture after. MANY people left their candles- I bet I picked up 150-175 candles from the foot of this cross.


Mayor Volger praying for our community:

Crazy to hear everything else.

I spent last spring break in Pagosa Springs and we rented skis there, shared this story when you first posted with all my buddies that went.

That town is too small to have to deal with that much.

One more pic of the cross I found.

We had Larry's funeral today. It was a hard, but a beautiful day all at the same time. The family was very encouraged and uplifted, Larry's memory was honored, and the Gospel was shared boldly (which would have been the most important thing to Larry). We had about 75 people standing in the back, and had put out about 400 chairs. Truly appreciate those of you who have been praying for the family, our town, and myself. I had some really tough conversations today, and was able to let some people grieve who really needed to. Got to spend many hours this week with the family, and help them work through some truly tough things together.


I will update you guys again when the police release some more about the case. I spoke with someone about it today, and was told they are still waiting on forensics to come back before they can officially determine who the perp was. At that point, I think they will be chasing down further connections, to see how the perp got the door codes and such forth. I'm sure nothing will be officially released until they are finished- might be a few more weeks. I will resurrect this thread when that happens, and share some additional details about what happened.