Received Monday December 24, 2012

I'm hoping to get a Santa hat on Zak's head later today; I'll update! 

QUESTIONS/ITEM TO TELL US:

The call

I'm hoping to start around 12-12:30 my time. We'll be at a family's house in the ward. They always have the missionaries over for christmas since they were baptized 4 or 5 years ago. They are the Rubensteins. They said they have 3 or 4 computers we could use. We're driving up there it the morning, to get there before 9. They don't open there presents or anything until we get there.

Did you get any strange packages in the mail...

Others would say i did, but I don't think its's strange of my mother to send me milk cartons in the mail, so I would say no. It was very funny though.

How was your mission Christmas conference?

it was fun. I got to see Elder Woodruff and Elder Concha there and my whole mtc district happened to be there, which was cool. Elder Woodruff goes home after this transfer which is crazy. Each zone did a skit and a musical number. Our skit was funny, but our musical number was really bad. We got to go to the temple which was great, I liked that a lot. The temple president (who's daughter/her family live in our ward. He's not a member, she's only semi active) spoke to us a little

You got your big Christmas box with presents in it, right?

Yes I got the big one at the conference. I also have the GPS box under our little tree and a box from the Jensens.

We're in Boston right now! we're emailing at the same Apple store that I used in my first transfer. We wanted to do something special for our Christmas Eve P-day. We don't have a big plan, I think we'll go to China town and see some interesting Boston stuff.

This week has been different with the big Christmas conference and everything. Lots of people don't want to schedule till after the holidays.

Maria was confirmed yesterday, which is good. Most of the other people we're teaching seem be be struggling a bit though. always lots ups and downs with everyone.

Whenever I start emailing I can never remember what we did this week. I don't have my daily planner or journal with me now either. hmmm.

We're all looking forward to Christmas! December 20th was my 6 month mark, which (as the locals would say) is wicked weaud.

Are people playing counterstrike instead of Dota now? or are there just not enough people with me and Steven not there.

I did get the flashdrive with my power balls. I think it's still wrapped in those napkins the way you sent it. Maybe I'll get to take some good pictures today.

Are you guys skyping with Nana and Bumpa tomorrow also? tell them I say hi.

I think that's all for now. Be good and son't listen to and R rated orchestras! I'll talk to you all tomorrow!!

Received Mon Dec 17, 2012

Zak, in front of the Boston, Mass temple

QUESTIONS:

Did you get your energy balls in the mail??  How were they? Like how did they taste; what shape were they in?

I did! they were very scrumptious and were in regular ball form. I ate a bunch. Other liked them as well.

So I think I've mentioned before that my companion, Elder Beck has lost like 60 pounds on his mission, including a lot in this area. His biggest thinhg isa that he bascially cut out all sugary stuff. I've tried to sustain him in his diet/goal by eating pretty healthy as well, with the main exception being at members homes when they serve us dessert. At times I've done great at it and other times struggled not to munch on the nasty but delicious oreo's and stuff that are often in the apartment/are offered to us. Especially at the start of our companionship I did great at it untill after we did service at someone's house and they gave us a box of thin mints and within the hour I had eaten the entire box. This past week Elder Beck seemed to be more tempted than usual to break his diet, so I decided to support him 100% by not having any sugary stuff he disprove of at all for at least a week. I've done well so far (3 days I think)

That shooting at the elementary school in Connecticut: do you know about that? Is that in your mission?

I do know about it. I had heard a little bit about it and president Packard just sent us an email about it. I thought all of Connecticut was in our mission, but it must not because he said it was just under 10 miles from our mission. very sad.

You crying about the cold yet?

actually no. Eventually i'm going to end up buying some thermals (or thermal garments) but so far it hasn't felt that bad. Maybe i'm just more manly than ol'Tom so I can handle it better. Luckily we don't spend much time out walking in the cold, which is what makes it ok. every once and a while we'll have a cold day and i'll complain about it until it warms up. the system has worked well thus far. It only snowed on us once I think. it didn't really stick though. I think being by the coast helps. Elder Beck and Elder Wilding both want it to snow, but Elder Lopez (Brazilian) really hates the cold even worse than me.

some interesting things happened this week

we got transfer texts!! they came a week early because President wants people home for Christmas. I forgot to remind you. I am staying though. Phew! I was nervous I was leaving because Elder Beck and I have been together for 3 whole transfers now. Everyone in the apartment is staying. I think the next transfer is 7 weeks long to make up for it (they are normally 6). 2 people from our district are leaving, including our district leader. Elder Wilding got called on Saturday and was told he is the new district leader. Today we found out someone else in the district was also told they are the new DL. we really think he is splitting the district, which I can see the sense of, but it is still odd. We'll here officially probably later this week, but that would mean our entire district is now the 4 elders in our apartment and the Simpsons. All of us in the same area.

About P-day today (and being late). Late ast night some elders from our district unexpectedly showed up at our apartment because they wanted to have a district pday together before transfers. We drove up to their area and played some weird (but fun) card game called The Good, The Bad, and The Munckin, while we waited for other people to get there, Then we played real life Waldo in the mall, which was only medium fun. It's cool to do things with the district, but we always end up getting back late ( our area's are about 45 mins away).

Yesterday we had a baptism! it was for Maria, the foster mom of Chris and a few others. She is a really solid convert. She has seemed worthy for at least a month, but for waited until now to get baptized. She'll be a strong member here. A member of the bishopric baptized her, which is perfect.

Dave, our investigator who has a baptismal date (not till the beginning of February because he has a lot to work through still) came to church for the first time yesterday and stayed and watched the baptism and really liked the whole thing. We're also teaching him later today (Word of Wisdom).

We also had a less active family come that we've been working with for the first time (with us) yesterday who also liked it, so it was a productive week. We still haven't had face to face contact with Miranda in forever which is disappointing  We were supposed to see her yesterday but she had to do homework or something.

We also already have a pretty fully scheduled week ahead of us, so that's good too.

how come Griffin hasn't asked any questions for the past few weeks? he used to do that all the time.

I got a letter/card from Quinn today from seminary, but not the seminary card. I liked it, espcially the early-morning-ness of it.

I also got the card about the burned down house AND guessed what BDH meant. I was very proud of myself.

I also got other cards from nice people in the ward/stake and a card from Grandma.

also, the Cornwalls have a son in Plymouth  who is a ward mission leader who worked with Elder Beck! that was Elder Beck's first area.

How is Quinn doing in track? is it nice for him to have his eagle and finished his byu app? How is track going?

I bet the missionaries there liked coming over.

About Christmas and calling home, we haven't figured out what we're going to do. We might be at a member’s home. I'll let you know next week (Christmas eve!)

We've been listening a lot to the new CD you sent me (The Work). it is great

That's everything! Remember to be grateful for the knowledge you have that so little of the world does! Hang to the Iron Rod!

Love, Elder Zak

Here are a few pictures!! I will figure out a way to put more up later...
In my letter to Zak, I talked about some of the pictures he sent. He responds to my comments. I have tried to include here some of the pictures we talked about.

Zak and his companion Elder Beck

Zak's Halloween costume

wow, lots of good questions today

QUESTIONS:

1. it looks like your apartment has no bedrooms, just a kitchen, bathroom and one great room where you all sleep. Is that true? Or is that your choice in how to use the apartment? Could people be praying by their bed at anytime so you just have to be quiet and reverent? How does that all work? Hmm..where are your clothes...clothes...where do you get dressed? Now I really need some explanations...

There are 2 "bedrooms" but we just use them as our study rooms. I like the way our apartment is sent up. There is a little room with our washer and dryer. there are 2 bathrooms, one attached to each study. I think the 1 bathroom you see is the washer dryer room. It would be tough if we had only 1 bathroom, especially with morning showers Maybe I'll take a video tour of the apartment with my camera. It's always been set up that way (since I've been there) except we shuffled our beds around a little bit to fit the table. About praying: we have slightly awkward moments almost daily where you say something to someone only to realize they are praying. Luckily we do awkward things all day everyday so it doesn't make a difference anymore. usually when at night when I pray at my bed there is some conversation going on, but it's not a big deal. Every once and a while if things are especially rambunctious I'll pray at my study desk, which is in a different room. There is a 4 drawer dresser in our study room, Elder Beck has the top 2 drawers I have the bottom too. Also there is a closet where we hang up all our pants and white shirts and suits and stuff. I take a set of garments with me into the shower every morning and put them on after I shower. and I'll put my other clothes on wherever.

Have my explanations been thorough enough?

2. You look REALLY good!

False. I look EXCEPTIONALLY good.

Actually the other elders like to make fun of me because there's a few different people in the ward that sometimes call me "adorable", which is not a very missionary word.

3. beautiful temple pictures!

EXCEPTIONALLY beautiful temple pictures!

4. nice outdoor shots of your apartment

fair.

5. Talk about the blue and red body suits!! Where did they come from?? What’s the deal?

I thought I had written about them, I guess not. There is a family in the ward that owns a costume shoo and told us we could have whatever we wanted. We all got body suits like those. It was really cool of them. I was pretty disgusted at some of the costumes they were selling though (modesty, etc)

6. Will you have a companion cut your hair again? It didn’t look too bad.

I would, I'm not exceptionally picky about it. Elder Concha is the one who did it though and he's gone. Jackie Carmo (Less active who came to church 2 weeks in a row with us!!) is a barber so I'll probably have him do it. There is another less active who cuts hair who it would be smart to go too.

quick note: in missionary lingo there is no "innactive"; everyone who isn't fully active is "less active", so if I say less active I might be referring to someone who hasn't been to church in years. Also we always abbreviate it as LA, so I tend to capitalize it funny when I spell it in these emails. I think I usually catch myself though

7. love the mustache pictures

me to.

8. your Christmas tree is lovely

we have more stuff under it now (some stuff you've sent). Also we bought candy canes to hang on it.

9. are you warm enough in your bed with ONE blanket??

yes. The temperature is always fine in the house.

OTHER QUESTIONS:

Are you still running?

not really. We (Elder Beck and I) still wake up and 6. We go driectly to the mini gym in our complex. I don't spend time running most days. I spend 1 day working on chest, 1 day arms, 1 day back and abs, 1 day shoulders and legs. Also I spend 1 day doing a lot of running (on a treadmill. lame.) every once and a while. I think I'm going to switch up my rotation though. I warm up with a jump rope most days. Elder Beck spends basically the whole time running every day.

What do you do for exercise?

I'll a picture of our little gym. there's no free weights or dumbells, just machines.

Doing anything fun/exciting today? Tackling some famous football players?

Bill told me to stop picking on Tom and Wesley so much, so I haven't done that in a while.

We did a P-day thing with our whole zone today though. it's something missionaries here do a lot I guess. It's thins kind of dorky, very missionar'ish game with nerf guns inside a chapel. I spent 20$ on a gun. Griffin would be proud. I shot a lot of people.

Has their been any discussion about the Christmas Phone Call?

Yes. We'll almost definitely skype with the Simpson's laptop and Ipad, which should work great.

Do you think you will be able to skype?

Yes Ma'am

So, I will send the energy balls and your flashdrive back to you on Monday. Probably not in the same package...we’ll see. I really think I may use the same padded envelope that you (sent the flashdrive to me) used. I know, bad grammar structure; just figure out what I mean.

Glad you guys liked the pictures. It took me a while to remember what energy balls were, but I think I do not. Basically like cookie dough'ish stuff with oatmeal and peanut butter right? I remember liking them a lot. I'll have to eat them in secret so I can still help sustain Elder Beck in his diet.

I had heard that that silly fish word thing a few times, but I still failed the "quiz" until I saw the answer.

Yay for the Rams.
Ya, Chris is 19, but looks and acts younger. He's getting better though. He's doing pretty well.
We weren't able to meet with Miranda this week which was super lame. She didn't end up coming to church either because she was at a friends house and didn't have a ride home which was really disappointing too. She's still been reading and praying most every night though.
Very funny story about Kylie. Good for her. And good for mom at teachng and for quinn with his BYU stuff.

For me it's been another week thrashing the nations like usual. One of our investigators, Maria just got interviewed for baptism and will be baptized either this sunday or the one after. She is Chris (and a few other people's) Foster mom. She will be a strong member. She is already a strong missionary force.

One cool story before I have to go.
About a month and a half ago Elder Beck and I were trying to visit a former investigator. We didn't find him, but we talked a little to someone outside the apartment complex. He was in charge. He was slightly rude. Then someone else walked out and said hey I'm a mormon. We started talking to him. He grew up LDS but fell away as soon as he left the house. We didn't have his records in our ward. We had a good conversation for 5-10 minutes, then he walked off. He didn't want us to come back. His name is John Shaw
about 2 weeks ago we received his records in the ward. The Simpsons (who didn't know anything about our encounter with him) visited him and he had hit rock bottom. He let them in. They've been meeting with him since then and he came to church last week. It was great. It was cool to see a few """coincidences""" work out so well and help someone out.

Also I've gotten lots of mail from home this week which was been very fun. Griffin's christmas list is hilarious. ALso I got a package form LDS.org. (not opened).

Love you all! have a great week!

We're going to go visit a lady who's trying really hard to stop smoking so she can visit the temple. Bye!

Received Monday December 3, 2012

Griffin and Zak...matching hair

A self-portrait taken one month before he entered the MTC

QUESTIONS:

I know there are several Mission Christmas Conferences. Which one do you go to?

Ours is on December 19th. I haven't heard much about it, except that it should be fun

Last week I sent lots of mail. Get any...a re-print of your letter with my comments? A load of pictures?

Yes and yes. I forgot to bring the reprint to answer the questions you asked. sorry! I liked getting all those pictures a lot. I pinned some of them up on a bulletin board by my desk. I think my 2 favorite are still the ones comparing my and griffin's crazy hair and also griffin's werewolf costume. very well done.

Did you send your flashdrive last week?

no :( sorry. I realized I had taken a lot more pictures since I downloaded them onto the flashdrive so I figured I'd load those on and send it today.

It seemed I had a lot more questions this week, but that is all I remember!

I just remembered! you asked what cape verdian food (I think I wrote about cape verde in one of my first emails here. it's an island off the coast of Africa. A lot of people from there live in New Bedford) I ate on Thanksgiving. All I really remember is Jag. Fatima (the mom of the house) (some people here do not like to be called by there last name) is famous for her jag. It's mostly rice with some beans and (I think) kale (leafy green vegetable). I think it's fine, but everyone raves about it. (I guess she uses the best kind of rice and best kind of beans etc). Also it took me a while to find the name jag to be appetizing.

Hope you have had a good week – keeping warm, working out, finding new people to teach; sharing the gospel, eating good food, sleeping well, wearing your retainer and flossing at least once.

I have been doing those things. Probably less that 50/50 about flossing last week though.

Good sports update about the rams and the turkey bowl. What do the NFC west standings look like now? are they still on par with everyone else?

I think it's too bad the Young men lost a close game, especially since everyone was cheating against quinn. I remember when dad had his long streak of getting at least 1 TD, sounds like the streak is now the other way, but his team keeps winning. The YM just need to draft Greg Zuerlein like the Rams did and they'll be able to win.

Chase sent a good email update I'll respond to here.

It sounds like a good job and a very good location. I could see myself doing something similar and wanting to end up in a similar place. There's no way to know though. I know who to trust my money with when I'm rich though.

Did you guys know the Killers have been my favorite for a long time? I had heard about the new album. I have watched his "I'm a mormon" One kind of funny missionary joke is that watching that is the easiest way to listen to regular music while staying obedient because during the video one of his songs is playing in the background, but it's ok to watch because it's on mormon.org.

That's crazy you know Natalie Hale. Like she said, we never really hung out, but I definitely remember her (or maybe her sister. I sort of can't remember which is which). I figured it would be a weird time to be at BYU. I figured most every girl I knew will go on a mission or end up married pretty quick. I think it's safe to assume in the premortal existence we got to choose if we wanted to go to BYU either with Jimmer or a good guy to girl ratio. it wouldn't be fair to have both! haha just kidding.

and good job getting the new phone for 30$. Capital Group would be proud of your cost-effective investment.

We ended up having even more lessons with less active members than usual this week. Jackie Carmo, who hasn't been to church in years came with us yesterday which was great. The Simpsons gave him a ride. We're hoping to help make that the normal for him. He's pretty far out there in a lot of his ideas. He doesn't really have much of a testimony of the restoration, but he is very christian. He was mostly baptized (15'ish years ago) because he thought mormons did the best job of "walking the walk"

we didn't end up getting to teach Miranda at all this week, which was a bummer. When we reminded her about fast sunday (with a text) she said she'd fast though, even though she couldn't come.

We spoke to the YW about how to respond to questions when they wear there "I'm a mormon and I live it... love it" shirts. I heard a new weird rumor about mormons. Numerous people have asked one of the YW about the magnets that mormons have that we're not allowed to show people and when we put them together it's the end of the world or something. very strange. I always like it when we can work with the youth, they tend to be excited about the gospel, instead of treating it like a chore.

We mostly stopped doing the law of consecration in the apartment, but last week Elder Wilding had an idea. In the beginning of each month we'll all put 15$ into a pot and use that to buy the things we all use (milk, eggs, cheese, bread, stuff for the apartment). President Packard is always talking about Zion and recently we talked about Alma's "Zion" he had with his people (by the waters of mormon) and a big part of that was they lived the law of consecration. it worked well last month for us too. In one of my emails to President Packard I mentioned that to him and he said he thought it was great and "a good start", so we may be increasing our consecration-ness even more in the future.

That's everything, love you all!

Received Monday, Nov 26, 2012

Pictures we got from Zak's Mission President

That is him bending over shoveling sand out of someone's basement

 Here is the whole group. Ok, he is hard to see... he is kind of more on the center RIGHT 

about 4 or 5 rows up...in front of the guy with the big, wide, white headband

Wow, this has been the craziest email news week ever

Did you get any mail this week?

Yes. I got letters from you with many funny emails from nana and Bumpa. Also a few other people in the ward, including a separate letter from all the Jensens from Lydia down. Benjamin included a picture of a gross yellow slug in his.They were fun to get,

From griffin: do you get any money so you can buy stuff?

yes. Every month we get a whole 144 dollars we get to use to buy food and "stuff". When I buy clothes and other non-missionary/essential stuff we use our own money from home

Still giff: What do you eat?

Food. Duh!

Tell us about your thanksgiving day.

in the morning we played soccer with a few families in the ward, which was pretty fun. not nearly as competitive as the turkey bowl, but still fun to do some sporting on thanksgiving then we went home and showered then we went to The Spearin's for thanksgiving meal #1. They had all 6 missionaries plus another couple from the ward and 1 less active member (and their own family of 11). They had all the regular thankgiving turkey and ham and mashed potatoes and gravy and yummy food. Lots of pie. I ate some apple pie with ice cream and cool whip. No cinnamon rolls. Sister Spearin asked me if there was anything missing that I normally have at home for thanksgiving and I talked a little bit about your rolls and she said she might try to make them some time if you gave me the recipe.

then we went to another members house for meal #2. I didn't eat near as much there. They also had most of the regular thanksgiving food, plus some Cape Verde stuff. It was all good. After that Elder Beck and I went of to the Simpsons and helped them with a computer thing and talked to them about some of the less active members we visit with them. It was a good day.

I'm surprised I didn't hear more stats/personal accomplishments from the Turkey bowl. how much did the Oldersters win by? did Dad play? who scored the TD's? were there just not enough athletic/old YM to win even with Christopher gone and Chase gimpy?

That really is a bad day to get sick. At least he got that sweet job. What is an easy description of what Chase does/will do? is it just a coincidence he's ending up so close to home?

I feel like the Steven/Heather Cole Family will be so different when I get home. 2 (at least partially) walking talking babies by the time I get home! I bet Jayna won the prize for most exciting thing to be grateful for.

For us it was mostly another solid week. A few people who we thought would finally come to church didn't which was a bit of a bummer, but there are more sundays to come.

I still haven't sent home my flashdrive full of pictures. hopefully today.

Last week we were all supposed to report if we needed any furniture or anything for the apartment, so we requested a table and 4 chairs and got them, which was cool. Also we got a mini Christmas tree and put a bunch of junk under it (weights, a volleyball Halloween skeleton) to look like presents. It even came with lights, so that's cool

We have one investigator, Miranda, who I think may be willing/wanting baptism soon. She's been meeting with missionaries for like a year, but she's now reading and praying every day and keeping all of the commandments. The only tough thing is she's 16 and has no real family support, so she would have to be strongly converted to really stay with it.

We still are spending a good amount of time with Chris, and he's learning well. He should get the Aaronic priesthood in the next week or 2.

We continue to spend a lot of time with less active/innactive members, which is good, but i'll really be excited when they start coming to church/making tangible process. It's important to try and see the long term vision though. 

We just visited a family yesterday, where they aren't sealed in the temple yet because the father was just baptized a year ago, after 12 years of seeing missionaries. Now he loves the gospel and will get to the temple soon.

Early this week we were visiting people on the ward roster we didn't know about, hoping they would still live there and let us in (this is often what we do with time we don't have appointments. also we'll tract around the houses a little too) and we talked to this guy on the street who really praised us for what we do. He said he was Muslim but really appreciates that we actually live what he say we believe and go out to preach it. He took a book of mormon and said he would have it finished in 2 weeks because he loves to read. His name is rob. we told him we were looking for Bill Swan and Rob said that was his neighbor and introduced us with him. We then had a pretty good meeting with Bill, who seems to have a testimony but hasn't been to church in forever. Before we left Rob came back in and gave us a Red Sox jersey he says he doesn't use anymore! (Elder Beck and I will roll dice for it). We'll be back later this week to see both Rob and Bill.

Hopefully I'll have a good update on that story next time!

Love you all, have a good week!

Received Monday, Nov 19 2012

Zak and his companion apparently helped build this shed

QUESTIONS:

Tell us your thanksgiving plans

This is my first major Holiday on the mission, so it should be fun and interesting. Someone told us they play soccer in the morning, and we were invited, i'm not sure if it's a whole ward thing, or just there family thing. Either way I think we'll go. At 1 we're eating at the Spearin's (Bishop) house. they've invited a lot of people (there family of 10, all 6 missionaries and at least 1 other family in the ward). After that we'll probably drive to another family who always feeds us a lot. In the evening we'll probably go to one last family who wanted us over, but saw we were already booked, for dessert or maybe just to visit.Lots of comida

Tell us how things are working in your apartment with Mr. Newbie

good. He isn't very shy or in shell shock or anything

Anything else you think you may want for Christmas?

I'll probably want some sweatpants, especially to wear when I trek across the frozen tundra to the gym in the morning. I'll let you know if I think of anything else. I already mentioned the eventual need for a GPS.

I thought of something:Doctrine and Covenants Visual Resource DVDs that you can get on store.lds.org. Elder Beck has a copy and we use it to show people Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration sometimes.

Are you allowed to have any instruments? (question from Griffin)

yes, we are allowed to have instruments. We have a guitar in our apartment that Elder Wilding borrowed from someone.

Also to Griffin: keep playing the piano! it is a good thing to learn. You can teach me how to play it when I get back.

About nana/bumpa's story: sounds awful for Bumpa. I am grateful my mission has been vomitless thus far, even though I DID get held up in the MTC

About Teo google chatting: last week while Elder Beck and I were at a member's house there 2'ish aged boy ran out of the bathroom with only a t-shirt on and the parents just said "he does this all the time" and mostly let him be. So, if Teo ever comes to SouthCoast they can be friends

This week has basically just been another good week. I confirmed Chris yesterday! it went well. I was kind of nervous  especially since it's up in front of everyone, but is ultimately just like giving a blessing. I was happy he asked me to do it. He said Either Elder Beck or I could, but we decided I should since Elder Beck has done it before. I'm also really glad he had a member baptize him. In the MTC (and in PMG) they talk about how converts are always more likely to stay active if they are baptized by a member, so I have a goal to have a member baptize every convert I helped teach.

Do you remember in general conference when Elder Nelson gave the "Ask the missionaries" talk? After that in Stake conference President Packard was there and gave a spoke saying a lot of the same things. since then 1 person asked us to go home teaching with him and someone else asked us to stuff PMG with them and both went really great. Also 1 other family mentioned he's want us to go over PMG sometime and another said they want us to come do a FHE.

Also yesterday, the YW president asked us to sit in YW class with them and talk about goals, which went really well. I talked about how in high school I always had a goal to get all A's, and even though I technically failed in my goal every time, it got me to work hard enough to achieve the larger goal of getting into BYU. Afterwards the president told us in 2 weeks in mutual they are going to actually make shirts that say "I'm a Mormon  I know it, I live it, I love it" and they want us to talk about how they should respond when people will ask them about it. Hopefully the YM will start asking us to help with things every once and a while too.

We've been listening to Elder Beck's MoTab Christmas CD's which I like I lot. I really like Christmas music. I have no shame in starting Christmas season before Thanksgiving. We would have been listening to them since Halloween if it were solely up to me.

My latest food update is that I bought turkey burgers that I fry and ground up and eat with eggs in a breakfast burrito. Also I put on "creole seasoning" and its highly delicious.

I have not received any of the mail you mentioned  I hope it is still coming. Usually when I say that I end up getting it later in the day.

It's too bad most of the football news is not good. The Rams still have a good 19 months before they have to be good, so it's ok. I'm curious to hear what's up with the Lakers though.

That's everything! Thanks for all the updates and good stories!

Much Love,
Elder Zachary Payne Cole

P.S. And I'll be excited to hear where Josh gets called to as well!

last things I forgot to add, I greatly enjoyed the updates on some people in the ward, it's good brother Mcintyre is getting healthy. and one other kind funny thing we did was go over to help the Simpsons get their printer working. (we downloaded the driver and then it worked). We are very lucky to have them around.

Received Wednesday, Nov 14, 2012

This is Zak with his 3 roommates. It was taken at a home where they had dinner. He tells about the picture at the end of this letter. Enjoy!!

I have lots of stuff to tell, and not much time to tell it!

Questions:

What happened with transfers?

Elder Concha is leaving! he's going to waterbury Conneticut, or something like that. He leaves tomorrow. The rest of us are staying. We were all very surprised and disappointed Shocked and appalled you could say. Elder Wilding is getting a new greenie who was called as a portugues elder like him. That is all we know.

What day do you get notice of being transferred? Tues? Mon?

**no answer**

Are you still at the same address; if different, please give your knew one.

same

HOW is your weather?? Cold? Wishing for warmer clothing?

cold. not terrible right now though. I will explain more below

Have you been a “helping hand” yet? If yes, where and how did that happen.

yes! last weekend we all went. Every missionary from the whole mission went over to Connecticut to help. Friday night the whole Packard family spoke and they all did a great job. That night all the elders slept in the chapel and the 20'ish sisters went somewhere else. The next day we went to work. I got a shirt! it's XL, but i'm still glad I have it. The first thing we did was shovel sand out of someones property away from the house where a bulldozer can get to it. Ever since that summer I dug the ditch in our yard I've liked shoveling, so that was good. After that we did a few other random things, stuff like cleaning a ton of isolation stuff from someones house. We drove home saturday night and Chris, one of our investigator was baptized.

Any great food you ate this week?

The food is basically always good, nothing comes immediately to mind as amazing.

You hearing any election/results talk?

Some. It's hard to stay neutral about it. I think most people could kind of figure who I voted for. The Cape Verdians are so so so happy. Mostly they can't understand why someone (except for the exceedingly wealthy) would ever vote against Obama

I think I have sent 2 items of mail since we last “spoke”, get them? I don’t even

remember what they were...

ummm it's been a long week. I wish I could remember though. I think I got at least 1 thing and I really liked it. Did you send more pictures maybe? or maybe a letter with more updates.

When you go into people’s houses, is the TV on? What are they watching?

Sometimes. On sunday sometimes people are watching the patriots. This Cambodean lady we visit is always watching tv from that side of the world. She turns it off when we ask though. One person insisted her put on The Best Two Years for us while we waited another 20 mins or so for dinner to be ready. It is far funnier to watch as a missionary. Chris is always watching a movie. Changing his movie standards was tough for him, but he was willing to make the change which was great.

Anyone try to listen/talk to you while the TV is going?

they usually are willing to turn it off.

I did see one time that the Laker just fired there coach!?! what is going on there? We should be winning 3v5! I haven't heard anyone talk about the celtics at all yet. Did i ever mention about when someone at a store called me out when I used my Dodgers debit card? I thought it was very funny.

Yes I do have a scarf. I have yet to put it on

I already talked about the service in conneticut. That might be the only time in my mission that all the missionaries are in one place. apparently mission presidents are told not to call mission conferences. Also while we were there the mission sent us lunch in brown baggies which was nice, but also random people fed us free hot dogs and dunkin donuts. It was very cool.

So, just a few days after the hurricane we had a "nor'easter", which means we had a bunch of freezing cold wind from the freezing cold north eastern part of the freezing cold continent. It was not fun. I had on my full suit coat, sweater, trench coat and everything. I didn't think about the scarf. That's over now, so it's back to regular sweater weather that's not too bad. When winter really starts to come in i will find something to cover my ears, and find the best warmest gloves. I came out with no gloves and just bought some.

Chris' baptism on Sunday was great. a decent number of people came and we had food afterwards which was great for him to talk with other members, normally he's pretty shy. Alex, who is a 22'ish member we take with us to a lot of lessons baptized him, which is great. He asked me to be the one to confirm him (this sunday). We're still going to be visiting him often, he's made a lot of changes, but he still is going to need a lot of help to stay active. We are slightly worried we baptized him a little early, and that he did it for the right reasons, not just because his missionary friends wanted him too. I think everything will work out though. Also it was his birthday that day!

something I just remembered, something I want for christmas is some (legal) music. There's no specific rules about it, except what's in the white hand book (it has to be uplifting, not make you lose focus, won't drive the spirit away with beat, or anything, no romantic overtones). Elder Beck has lots of cd's we listen to, but eventually when one of us is transferred I want to have a few. Some Mo-tab is fine. hymns by other people are good too. One cd I like a lot is the The Work by A Nashville Tribute.

today we were in franklin for a district pday. We played football, it was fun. I am sore. I wish I had more time! I think we may come back tomorrow because Elder Beck's computer wasn't working well, so I might be able to send another quick email then.

Thanks for the great update, that was lots of exciting stuff

Love you all!

also about that picture, Brother Mello took it and he took a bunch of pictures and it kept not working, or he didn't like them for some reason, until he took that one in which half of us weren't paying attention. Very funny.

Received Monday, November 5, 2012

Have you done any work to help clean up from Sandy?

No, not yet. Elder Concha and Wilding were able to go last weekend but Elder Beck and I had set appointments we couldn't move. We'll probably get to go this weekend though on Friday and Saturday. We would stay Sunday too, but we have a baptism then.

Have you worn a yellow Helping Hands T-shirt?

No (emoticon: sad face!) last weekend they wore yellow vests that they had to give back afterwards.

How did you know to change your clocks on Saturday night?

we had stake conference and they announced it and we had a bunch of people text us about it

Talk about that newspaper article that you linked to last week.

that was back in my first transfer. The Staples were friends with this lady who wrote for the newspaper and she interviewed us. The article was about 75% accurate, which was about what we expected. I just didn't like how it said I started my mission with "resignation". I think I talked about how the start is nerve racking, but you know you should because a prophet said it, but then you learn to really enjoy it.

The NFL is changing a lot from when I was fully in the loop. It sounds like the Rams are due for a win. Do they still have a good shot at taking the NFCW? It's too bad the Eagles are the one team that keeps doing the same thing every year. Did the Bears find a way to protect Jay Cutler? how did a running back get 50 points?

This week seemed really busy. Monday was shut down, which made Tuesday weird, but we still got to teach the lessons we had pre-set. Wednesday (Halloween) we got to talk to a less active member, teach the 2nd lesson to Dave who we found not long ago and teach Chris, who's getting baptized this Sunday. We started teaching him basically every week. It's going well. That night we had to stop proselyting by 6:00, so we had dinner with the Simpsons (who treat us all like a combination of grandkids and missionaries) and then drove up to Foxboro. Thursday we had interviews with the mission president (in Foxboro) then got back to Southcoast where we ended up being fed 1 lunch and 2 dinners by members! Usually we're able to schedule better than that. We still got to teach Chris though. Friday we had District meeting, taught Chris and sort of taught a lesson with a part-member family, Saturday we did service for a part member family all the way up until we left to the adult session on Stake Conference (which is also near Foxboro. It's about a 45 min drive. Longer if the Simpsons are driving). Sunday we went to conference, did weekly planning and taught Chris a great lesson on scripture study, prayer and feeling the spirit. Today is P-day! Tonight after our dinner appointment we're driving to Josh's house. Josh is a 24'ish looking guy we found over a month ago because he is a neighbor to a member we were visiting. He is a pretty religious guy, so he let gave us a time later in the week to come back. It went pretty well, he had lots of questions and he read all the way through Enos in the Book of Mormon we gave him! I had really high hopes, but since then our appointments fell through and he quit answering our calls. Eventually we kind of gave up on him. We just found out from his neighbor (the member) that he is still kind of interested but his girlfriend (who he lives with) didn't want us to come back, and that's why he started ignoring us. Hopefully we'll catch him home some time when she's not there or something. Also we'll try to see how we can help his neighbor help him.

About kylie pen pal: I talked to one of the girls who said she would write (the one who I asked most recently) and she said she wrote her a letter, put it in the envelope and lost it! She planned on writing another one. Hopefully it works out.
basketball: just get all the rebounds

To Quinn: I know you're not super excited for BYU anymore because all the girls are leaving on missions, but you still have to fill out the application. You're allowed to sell your soul for a BYU admittance.

Next time I email we'll know our next president! It's kind of funny we go around to lots of members houses and some tell us about how they're hoping and praying for Obama (especially the Cape Verdeans always are) and then we go to someone else's house who's hoping and praying (and fasting!) for Romney. We always stay neutral.

Also, something on the ballot here has to do with assisted suicide/euthanasia and a first presidency message was read at stake conference saying we should all vote AGAINST it. I remember in 8th grade doing a debate and I chose to argue for it. I guess I was an unrighteous middle schooler.

Also, Transfers are next week! I won't email 'till Wednesday. Earlier I was pretty worried that someone in the apartment would end up leaving (most likely me). The other dorks in the apartment kept saying I'd get somewhere to train. On Thursday during my interview with President Packard I told him was going well and good, and I really hope we all 4 of us get to stay in Southcoast. He said he currently had no plans to move any of us, but if the Lord told him to change his mind he would though. I was glad to hear that. Afterwards when we all talked, all 4 of us had similar conversations. So, I'll probably stay, but you never know.

Also I’m going to load up all my pictures on to my flash drive now and try to send it home today.

That's all! Thanks for everything!

 Love you all!

Received Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Sandy took off like Grease Lightning and is now pretty much gone from Southcoast. It was not a big deal at all.  this email will also be shorter, we have places to be, people to teach.

How is your weather??

today it's a little cloudy. almost sweater weather but not quite. things are wet but it stopped raining this morning. It was also windy this morning but not anymore

How was your Monday?

it was fun. Sandy was weak. I guess we were only on the edge of it, i think Jared in NY may have had more of a real storm. It was windy and rainy enough for most of Monday that I'm glad we weren't out driving and stuff, but it was not a dangerous storm for people who stayed inside (which was basically everyone because schools and everything was shut down). Beforehand everyone was guessing how long we'd be out of power for (most expected about 1 and a half days) but we never really lost power. There was a 2 hour period where our electricity kept awkwardly flickering on and off though. Elder Wilding still was able to fry a frozen fish while that was happening though. On saturday we bought a bunch of food, especially canned chicken and tuna, and we didn't eat any of it. We easily just ate stuff we already had in the fridge.

We played a lot of risk which was fun, even though each game takes for everrr.

Overall it was a fun day and completely different from every other day as a missionary.

The storm was so weak even the Simpsons turned out ok.

IF you haven’t written...how was Halloween??

it will be fun because we're going to play Risk again. We have to be in the apartment by 6:00 (or at a members house), so we'll all just come home and play 1 final game. It's perfect because after that we'll all be so sick of the game we don't want to play anymore (and we'll never have time to do it again either).

Where did you do your short and very unexpected e-mail on Saturday??

The family history center like usual

Mom, can you send me something with everyone's birthday and age? I can never remember.

I talked to another person about being Kylie's pen pal. She also said she would, but that was a few days ago, so unfortunately I would say don't get your hopes up too high.

This week has been pretty good and exciting. Elder Concha and Wilding had 2 baptisms last sunday, this Brazilian Lady who's name I have a hard time pronouncing, something like Erenie, and an 18 yr old guy named Justin.

I don't know Erenie very well, she only speaks portugues and they found her (member referral) like 4 weeks ago. I know Justin really well though.

Maria is one of our investigators, she is the Foster mom to Justin (18), Chris (one of our investigators, 18), and Ivone (another of our investigators, she's 14). Elder Woodruff and I originally taught all of them (they all mostly got separate lessons though) but after a while it was decided to switch Justin over to the other Elders, mostly so it would be easier to separate Justin and Chris's lessons, because they are much less mature when together. It was especially cool to see Justin get all the way to baptism. Hopefully they can get him to the temple soon for baptisms.

Chris is the guy who we had helped stop smoking a while back. It took him a while to really be serious and sincere with us on a consistent basis, but for the past week or so he's been great. He has a baptismal date set for nov 16th (his birthday) and if things go smoothly he should be ready by then. A lot of times he reminds me a lot of someone I grew up with in Arcadia Ward.

And we have to go teach him in just a few mins.

Love you all, I'll email again this Monday

oh, also check this out

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=news06

remind me and I'll write about it next week.

Received Saturday, Oct 27, 2012

hey, so there's a hurricane coming in, so we won't get to email monday, so we're just sending a quick one today. We'll probably send a more full one later next week. The hurricane isn't supposed to be super bad here, but no one seems to really know. We got texts telling us to stay in the apartment monday and prepare in case the electricity goes out and stuff. We're all pretty excited. We bought Risk today so we could play it while we'll be trapped in doors, also we'll probably play it on Halloween (we have to be in by 6). We have lots of food and stuff in the house, so we're all set.

Things are going well, I feel fully safe. The Simpsons also live right next to us so there's 6 missionaries here all the help each other out.

Love you all!

Here is a map of Massachusetts  Dartmouth, where Zak is, is the dark red color! Looks like he is right on the coast! Hope the storm is far more exciting than scary. We'll hear from him in a few days.

Received Monday, October 22, 2012

Here is Zak riding in a car...taken way back in July

QUESTIONS:

I sent pictures this week, get them yet?

nope, not yet. I always really like getting pictures though, so I'll be glad for that. People think it's pretty funny whenever I show them the picture of me/griffin side by side with crazy hair

What was for breakfast today? (I enjoy your recipes)

same peanut-butter oatmeal stuff. I've had that every morning for a long time. I think I might start chopping up and apple and putting that in it too.

something I've been eating for lunch a lot lately is my missionary budget (and cooking effort level) breakfast burrito. I make scrambled eggs with fried turkey spam in a tortilla. It's yummy.

something I just tried today (like an hour ago) was based on a recipe our mission doctor gave out. I mixed greek yogurt, raw oatmeal (with peanut butter), mixed nuts and apple slices. it looked and tasted disgusting. It might have been ok if I used regular yogurt instead, also the recipe didn't call for peanut butter, so maybe that didn't help either. all in all it was a vomitous concoction and I ended up throwing it away and making a sandwich.

You doing much driving?

me personally, no. Elder Beck drives. we are still in the car a fair amount, it's not usually that bad.

Do you have a map in the car if you get lost?

no, we use Elder Becks GPS. We'd always be lost without it. it's pretty much essential that someone in your companionship to have one. depending on when I or he gets transferred and if my next companion eventually I'll probably need a GPS, so if you want you could be on the lookout for a cheap one that would be great.

What’s the type of car you drive?

silver Ford fusion, 2010 I think. I'll send pictures probably next week.

Do you want/need another sweater? Talk about this

no, at least not yet. It got a little warmer. I don't think I've worn my sweater all week, just having a long sleeve shirt has been enough. When the winter comes I'll probably end up buying a bunch of winter/long-john style garments.

When you wash your sweater, REALLY read the washing instructions and follow them!!

okey-dokey

Have you received your Absentee ballot??

yes, I think I got it last monday after emailing. I voted on the presidential race, a few other people, and some of the "props" or whatever those other decisions are. I liked getting to read the little info about them and making a decision. have you guys gotten to see those yet? there was one about the death penalty in CA, labeling genetically enhanced foods and a few other random things. and lots of new taxes.

When convenient, send us your church Sunday Program! I would like to see what you see!!

ok! maybe I'll write notes on it like sister Hagen does for me.

How was your mormon.org referral appointment??

it went well. His name is Bob, he's was in a terrible car accident many years ago but he got out mostly unscathed and he strongly believes God protected him and since then he's been looking for a church he thought was true. He accepted a Book of Mormon and we're meeting again with him soon. He's an interesting guy, he has a big personality and has strong opinions. I'm really excited for him.

Has your ward had their primary program yet?

it's this upcoming week! we're hoping we can get families with kids in it to invite their friends.

One interesting thing just happend (5 seconds ago). This guy who's a fairly recent convert (he had recently converted to Judiasim before that) who the other elders visit sometimes just walked in the building because he had some time to kill and wondered if we had classes at the church. I talked to him for a while, including commenting on the yamaka he was wearing. he wears it for style. He is a very, very interesting guy.

Our Halloween party/trunk-or-treat is this friday. They also have a chili cook off. We're looking forward to that, we know people are definitely inviting friends to that. Also, we have fake mustaches we are allowed to wear.

The Staples, the senior couple are leaving this week, which is sad, but we have a new couple, the Simpsons moving in. They are from Idaho. We were in a lesson with them this week and sister Simpson used the phrase "might-could". I talked about dad being from Preston and Elder Simpson said he went to the highschool that was rivals with them. He then asked if I was related to Kaydawn Cole! I said yes! she works for him (he is a dentist). crazy connection.

One of our investigators, (who has been an investigator a long time) is 45% cherokee so we talked about how she is related to the Lamanites and the Book of Mormon is especially for her. She has been reading every night for a few weeks now, so I hope she will recognize an answer to her prayers about it. She's a teenager and the rest of her family isn't interested in the church, so we're not pushing baptism super hard because she would need a strong testimony on her own to stay in the church.

The baptism we had set up for the 28th got postponed. We don't have a new date set yet. It's kind of sad, but she isn't ready yet. She struggles with same-gender attraction, she basically feels really good about the church, except doesn't get why that's bad. Hopefully things turn out ok.

Tonight we're having dinner at the Bishop's house (I feel like I write that every week). It's his wife's birthday today and she really wants us over. They already told us we also had to come over for Thanksgiving.
After that we're going to visit an inactive family we've seen once before. I'm really hoping they'll come to the halloween party and that will help bring them back. It also would be awesome if they would come to church to see the primary program (they have 2 young boys) but that's a little bit of a long shot at this point.

Right now I'm listening to music on lds.org/youth

Who is beebee's volleyball coach? that is a bit frustrating. that's exciting she got to give a talk and is playing piano though.

That's everything, time to email the president.

Love you all!

P.S.  The website to write the president is down right now, so I'll share one fun thing I learned this week and then try again. In chapter 1 of the book of Mosiah, King Benjamin talkes about how he taught his children the "language of his fathers" and the "language of the egyptians" so they could understand the brass plates and the prophecies of past prophets. The way i understood was that they had to learn a new language just to read the scriptures! It made me very grateful I have the scriptures so easily accessible to me, and want to take advantage of that. Even though they might be confusing, at least it's English.

ok, the site is working again. Have a happy week!