Monday, July 30, 2012

Received Monday, July 30, 2012

**NOTE: Once again, Zak is using the questions, I sent; which is great. Here is his letter:


HOW are you feeling?? All better? Mucus issues?
Good. I was 97% better when I first got here to MA and was 100% a few days after that

Did you ever receive those little tiny toothbrush things? Did you like them?
yes. I have not used them yet. I thought about using them in the plane
like you said, but decided not to.

From Griffin: have you taught anyone the Gospel yet?
yes. We've found 4 new investigators (1 couple and 1 father/daughter) since I've been here from tracting and I've taught in some lessons with investigators we already have.

What did you eat at home this week?
basically the same as before. lots of oatmeal. cereal sometimes for breakfast (frosted mini wheats). a tuna sandwich once. a few peanut butter sandwiches, with lays chips. grapes (with peanut butter! Very good). there is this family that has a really big garden and they gave us some vegetables from it (I'll take pictures next time we go to there house) and I ate a carrot from them. an apricot and an apple. Also we always do service at this Red Cross place where they give food to poor people (we help them carry their food to their car, some of which are oddly nice looking), and they gave us some other random food including macaroni and cheese we ate once. Also we have some granola bars that are good

Any interesting dinner appointments?
not super interesting besides the house with the giant garden (and a big male turkey and 2 goats and a few chickens). They are a completely normal and cool family too. The dad spends 1 hour in the morning on the garden and I think that's it. We got to personally pick a lot of vegetables from them and keep it. People always make us good food though and lots of it and usually have good dessert too.

What is the name of your companion?
Elder Woodruff from Kentucky. He's going to hit his 18 month mark soon. he also is the DL. I'm really glad I like him and all 4 missionaries in the apartment a lot.

How was the Rhode Island trip??
really fun actually. plus since the Staples drove we didn't have to use any miles/gas which was good (btw, we usually only go like 30-40 miles a day, every once in a while we have to go a lot though, if we have far out dinner appointments and drive a long ways for District meeting or something). Driving and seeing the mansions was cool. Also I think my favorite meal here so far was dinner that day, I got a Philly cheese steak sandwich and an Awful Awful (this place's signature malts. they're awfully big and awfully good).

Did you get the pictures from Christopher’s fishing trip? (I sent 2)
Yes, I was glad to get them, they were cool. Also you should send me a family picture.

Do you have air conditioning in your apartment?
yes, thankfully

Have you gotten a hair cut yet? If yes, how is it?
Yes, two days ago, it is good

You still fixing your hair?
yes

Have you worn your whole suit much?
at district meetings (every Friday) and at church on Sundays

Do you want anything from the plastic travel case found in my closet?
no

Anything you need?
send a family picture, like I said earlier. How worried should I be about sending the flashdrive home in an envelope (about it getting broken)? I forgot to bring the camera today, but next P-Day I'll bring it and upload all the pictures so I can send them home

Another cool thing that happened was last Friday our district meeting
was in foxburough, where the Patriots play! after the meeting we drove over to the stadium and ate at a restaurant there (I just forgot the name of it) that was very similar to Cafe Rio. I took a lot of pictures while I was there. I didn't see Tom or Bill or Wesley or anybody else though

Did I say last time I was giving a talk? I gave it yesterday about
following the council of the prophets. I spent most of a few personal study hours preparing it. I mostly wrote down scriptures/BoM stories and bullet points I could expound upon. I talked about who I meant when I said "prophets" (all 15 of our "prophets seers and revelators", all the BoM and bible prophets) and what it means to follow their council/sustain them. The biggest part of that was to realize that it's not really prophet's council, but the Lord's council through the prophets. All through the story of Nephi getting the plates from Laben you can see Lamen/Lemuel complaining about their Dad told them to do this hard thing, but Nephi always says it was the Lord who told them to do it. Also in that same part of the BoM many times it says that Jerusalem would be destroyed specifically because they rejected the prophets, so that's what can happen if we don't follow their council. On the positive side, in Alma 50 it talks about how the people were righteous and they did listen to their prophet, and because of that the people of Nephi had never been so happy. The same can be said of us personally, or as a family, or as a ward if we follow the prophets. Also I planned to talk about a recent president Monson talk where he says to "remember who you are". As I thought more about that I remembered in Romans 8 it says we are children of God, and if children then heirs. So we should take President Monson's advice and remember that. that's the sparknotes version of what I had planned out. I felt really good about it as I was planning. I feel only ok about how I did though, people said lots of nice things though, including a new convert who's testimony is kind of faltering right now, so that was good. The reason I only feel ok about it though was because I was really worried about going short (I was supposed to talk for 10-15 mins) so while I was up there I really expounded a lot and when I finally looked at my watch I saw I was already over time! I quickly bore testimony and said Amen. I felt bad both that I didn't get to say everything I wanted to and especially for the guy after me who didn't get his full time to speak. Also they could have had us sing only 1 verse of our intermediate hymn to save time, but they didn't (did I tell you about the hymns between talks? that we all stand for?).

We don't have anything really planned today, which is part of the
reason I got to send such a long email

(Elder Woodruff isn't quite done yet, so I'll continue) one sort of disappointing thing here is that I haven't talked to anyone who seems to really care about sports. Today I saw some really cheap Red Sox/Patriots shirts but decided not to get either because I don't really have a reason to love them yet. I was close to getting the Patriots one thought because I did get to spend some time in Gillette stadium.
I heard Michael Phelps decided to be lame this year though and even said in an interview he didn't really train hard. I'm really hungry right now and when we get home I'm going to make a turkey sandwich and eat it with apple juice lays chips and wheat thins. We have some strawberries I'll probably eat too. Also I just barely bought some clementines so I should eat on me of those.

Happy birthday to Griffin!! I bet raging waters is/was very fun also congratulations on everything for Quinn's eagle. Make sure to do that paperwork quick though, the longer you wait, the easier it is to keep procrastinating. Seeing my plaque was cool. You could also email me a picture of Quinn's project if you wanted to so I can actually see what he painted and stuff. thanks for everything!

-con mucho Amor
Elder Zak Cole

Monday, July 23, 2012

Received Monday, July 23, 2012

**Editor's note:  I sent Zak a letter with a section where I wrote all my questions. He used that to write this e-mail; that's where the questions come from. Enjoy! Oh, and no, he did not start with any salutation, he just began!

I'm here in massachussetts! I'm in the church, where they have computers for family history stuff we can use. normally i'll have about an hour to email, but today we're a little more rushed. here's my address before I forget to put it here:
Elder Cole
618 Dartmouth Woods Drive
Dartmouth, MA 02747

you could probably google earth that and get a better idea of where I am than I actually have, but it's on the eastern part of MA. I have seen the Atlantic ocean! the area is called South Coast. btw, the mission office does forward mail every day so it's not a huge deal/delay if people find it easier to send mail there instead. I got lots of email today from Mom/Dad because I haven't been able to check my email in a while. I've heard everything from talks in church, where the YM/YW sit in the car when they hang out (which was interesting haha), and what the people were wearing who sat next to mom at church. Over all everything is good here, my companion Elder Woodruff is great. I already feel pretty comfertable with everything here. Now i'll answer mom's questions

Q Where are you??
good.

Q:How about your current living address?
(above)

Q:Did you get to do some laundry before today??
yes. supposedly our appartment is like the nicest in the mission, and we have a washer and drier with us, so I was able to use that. I would have run out of garments otherwise.

Q:HOW is everything going??
good.

Q:What has your weather been like?
the weather here is weird. It changes a lot from day to day. At first it was pretty hot, i think 99 degrees, but it actually didn't feel too bad for me. I think I've heard enough about how hot/humid it was here that i was well prepared. I've played football and ran in hotter weather at home, so it doesn't bother me much. In a couple of months the cold will be tough though I think. After that it suddenly was cooler and rainy and we heard thunder and lighting and we got a text warning us if the weather is too extreme to just go home and I don't have time for correct grammer. or spelling.

Q:Are you sweating like crazy?
actually no! maybe i'm used to sweating, so it doesn't feel like a lot to me, or maybe just walking around doesn't make me sweat so much. Also wearing garments has also made me feel like I sweat less just because my actuall shirt doesn't get sweaty, which is nice.

Q:Happy with the amount of short sleeve shirts you have?
yes.

Q:How do you get around?
in a car (with AC). We actually end up spending a lot of time in the car, which is lame. our Area, is just really big. if you want to look at it in Google maps/earth, we live in Dartmouth, most of our ward/investigators live in New Bedford and a bunch live in Fall River (I think that's what it's called) and all 3 of those places are pretty spread out so it just takes a lot of time/miles. we usually drive like 80 miles in a day, and we (and by we I mean mostly my trainer because I'm just figuring stuff out) try to be as efficient as possible with our miles, but it's just hard. Also we get fed dinner basically every night, which is great, but it seems like we always have to drive a ways away to get to the dinner appointment. We actually spent some time using a computer at the Staples (Couple missionaries) place to make a map with google earth of where a lot of the people live who
we'll visit so we can see the most efficient way to get from place to place.

Q: Talk about your meals!
every dinner but 1 so far has been with a member, and that's how it usually is. For breakfast/lunch I often make oatmeal (oatmeal+water and/or milk and peanut butter and brown sugar. I put it into the microwave. I haven't boiled water at all since being here. or used a pot or pan) which is good. Also I'll eat cereal in the morning sometimes. also I'll make sandwhiches (either peanut butter or with sandwhich meat we have in the fridge). We basically live the Law of consecration with food. We did run out of milk and bread and most of our cereal a few days ago, which made things slightly more difficult, but mostly I just ate more oatmeal because of it.

Q:Talk about your living arrangements!
in a decent apartment place. we live with two other missionaries, who are in the same area/ward as us (Elder Castro and Elder Concha). Elder Castro is training Elder Concha. I like them both a lot too. Especially Elder Concha, because he's new like me, and he's from Brazil, which is cool and makes it fun to talk to him. He lived in Utah for 2 years doing an exchange program so he speaks great English (and portugues and spanish). He think's it's funny I liked to listen to Taylor Swift (apprently in Brazil only girls listen to her. That's wierd). And he cracked up laughing when I refered to her as T-Swizzle.
Also, we play Soccer every Saturday morning (a lot of our investigators/new converts and people are YW/YM age and they like it a lot) and E Concha dominated.

Q: Do the people talk with an accent?
I can notice it sometimes. It's not a big deal. There's a lot of immigrant/foreign people here so I think it's a little different than
actual Boston would be. A ton of people here are from Cape Verd (not sure about spelling. that phonetical) which i guess is a group of islands by Africa. Also not that many people are really into sports that i've talked to, which I think is prartially because they aren't from here

What activity will you do today for your p-day?
Today we're going with the Staples to Rhode Island (i don't remember the name of the place). The Staples are awesome and helpful.  I think we're just looking ant mansions and stuff, so i'm hoping it's fun. I'll bring letter writing stuff, but I don't know If i'll be able to use them. I'm sure we'll find people to talk about the church to while we're there though. Also the Staples are feeding us all 3 meals, they really are super nice.

Did you get my letter I sent through the regular mail?
The only letter I've gotten since being in MA is from my friend Janna. I don't remember specifically what I got while still in the MTC, but I got a lot of stuff.

That's all the questions.
Like I said, in general things are going great. I'm learning all I can. Today was a weird week and all our numbers were low, but we did work hard and this was a weird/crazy week. I'm excited for my first full week here, especially since I kind of know what I'm doing a lot better. How exciting about Nana and Bumpa, I new they were thinking about going to NZ for the PEF mission, but now it's 100% for real. Also it's good to hear Quinn's eagle stuff is really getting knocked out. alright time is running out.

I love you all!

Monday, July 16, 2012

Zak has Left the Building!

Zak is now at the airport waiting for his flight to Boston!!
He's feeling good!

UPDATE: I've just talked to Zak! He is standing at his gate, ready to go. Excited and happy and feeling very prepared. For those of you that sent items to him in the last few days, he got them! Thank you! For those of us that sent a Dear Elder this morning, (Monday), he did NOT get those. We'll see what happens with those letters.

So, Zak saw the MTC doctor this morning; he told the doctor he felt great. They called Zak's mission president and the said to send Elder Cole right out to the mission. Zak was told he had 2 hours to pack and then they would take him to the airport.

Hopefully, Zak's p-day will be Wednesday; he needs to do laundry. And he will let us know if there is a better address to write him than the mission office in Boston. I will keep you posted.

So far, so good!

Handwritten letter Received July 14, 2012

Written July 11, 2012
Received July 14, 2012

Dear Family,

I didn’t get to mention I got big and great Dear Elder updates from both Heather and Chase. It sounds like things are going really well for the Young Cole Family, especially since Heather has finally converted to the Lakers.   Chase sounded busy, but still having fun. Some of my favorite moments in class/what I think is super useful are when a teacher says something like “and finally 6 months into my mission I learned that...” so any good RM insights/stories are much appreciated.

When I first heard Nash came to the Lakers it made my day. I think that is amazing. Definitely keep sending me big sports updates; one of my teachers was just stressing how having common interest like sports can help a lot with investigators. Also I just talked to a missionary from Boston (going...I don’t remember) and he specifically told us we should try to talk sports with the people there. He also said to never mention that I was a Laker fan.  So Boston sports stuff would be especially good. I heard from someone that Ray Allen went to the Heat. I’m highly disappointed. Jason Terry is now a Celtic now, right? 

I have no amazing Elder Bednar talks to talk about but I found/someone showed me 2 scriptures which are now 2 of my favorite. They are John 4:14 and Romans 8: 38-39. I especially like to share the Romans one with my “investigators” a lot.

I just looked up and the elder across from me is named “Elder Humble”. My two favorite names are still “Elder Funk” and “Elder Beebe” though.

My Mono being a Yankee fan (referring to a joke that Zak made in his last letter) was just because of the Boston Red Sox vs. Yankee rivalry. I hope too many people didn’t think that was too much of a stretch.

No, I am not a district leader anymore. I enjoyed my time being one though, so I do have to get it (my mail) from my DL instead of already checking it myself. That is not a deal at all though.

I have not seen the facebook post about where everyone in the dorm is going. I’ve heard about it though from BYU friends who are newly arrived and would like to see it.

Doing laundry is not a huge hassle. We check our e-mail/write letters while we wait for it.

I will ask about the tailor to see if they can fix my button situation.

Glad to hear Quinn’s project got approved. He’ll be really happy when that is all finally done.

I don’t really know how long I’m going to be in the MTC. I meet with the doctor on Friday so if things are ok then I would guess I might even get to leave Monday. I think later in that week is more likely, with longer delays also possible. I already have a calling card so unless I’m in a huge rush or something, I’ll call when I’m in the airport.

There is no one in my district or zone going to Boston. Everyone is staying in the States though.

I’ll keep working hard and resting hard too. (Is it better to rest soft? Hmm...not sure). I haven’t felt very sick today at all plus I’m allowed to take a nap whenever I want, so I’m doing well and expect a quick recovery.

Love,
Zak

P.S. Don’t jump in elevators. It’s probably karma for back when we did that so I got sick.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Received Wednesday, July 11, 2012

what has 4 letters and clearly is a fan of the Yankee's?

Mono


I assume mom passed the stuff I said to her on the phone. I meet with the Doctor again on friday so I can tell him how I'm doing. I was a little worried yesterday because for parts of it my headache seemed a little worse, and even my ears started to hurt (probably from pressure because I'm always blowing my nose). But today I woke up and feel much better. Normally I wake up with this awful, indescribablly gross morning mouth but today I didn't at all! I even had a pretty good appetite and even though I can still feel a bit of a headache and sore throat, it's not bad at all. Hopefully I just keep getting better.

1 really important thing about my address. Because I'm in a different district my mtc address is different. the box number is now 196 (not 197). I've been told if you just do that, everything should work out.

I've been moved down to the district in our zone that got here 1 week after us. I'm in a trio now, so I have 2 companions. I moved into there room and everything already (same building, same floor, not a big transition. being in the same zone makes everything easy). Being in class with them and stuff will be interesting, especially because every teachers does things differently.

Yesterday was kind of sad because it was the last day with our whole district. The 4 sisters are also in the MTC another week because they have to learn stuff specific to their missions (temple square/San Diego Mormon Battalion). They aren't in our zone anymore and will spend a lot of time in Salt Lake, but I'll still be able to see them around. They were especially super bummed about everyone leaving. I guess being around the same people 24/7 for 3 weeks does that. They each made us all cards and stuff. They secretly wrote this song, and sang it to us yesterday that is the tune to 2 songs (not hymns) we sing all the time but with lyrics about our inside jokes and stuff, it was very funny. they (and me) woke up early this morning when all the other guys in the district got up to go. The sisters keep telling me that they're sad I have mono, but they're glad that at least I get to be around for another week instead of everyone leaving at once.


My two new companions are Elder Rotterback and Elder Jester. I already knew them and everything, so It'll all go great. The friday before you leave you do this things called In-field orientation. it takes all of the day (you get a 2 hour lunch and 2 hour dinner though). I liked doing mine a lot, they teach you a lot of stuff you haven't talked about yet, especially about finding and key indicators. They stress baptisms a lot. You spend half the time in a big room with everyone who's at the orientation learning and half the time split up into smaller groups. One interesting thing I've learned about missionary work so far, is that there's a lot of things are kind of a paradox, you have to find a good balance. They preach to you the importance of the PMG how, it was an inspired work and so important, but then the next day they drill you about teaching people, not lessons and not being to much of a stickler. Also they teach you not to get hung up on the numbers and to just focus on working your hardest and thats what matters, and then during in field orientation they pound you about needing to get as many baptisms as possible and you shouldn't spend time doing anything unless it directly helps increase your key indicator numbers (lessons taught, baptisms, new investigators, etc).

I feel like I learned a lot from it, but It'll be wierd to do the same thing again with the new district.

Other than somehow getting the "kissing disease" while in the mtc nothing huge has happened. I still really like it here, and know There must be a reason I'm going to be here a while longer (probably a week, possibly longer if I don't get better). It was funny to get all these letters about how exciting it must be to finally be going to Boston though.

times up. I'll try to send a letter today. I don't know If i'll get to email or anything again before I leave

Love Zak


My companions are still going so I thought I'd throw in a few things I forgot while I wait. One of the buttons popped off my blue suit! i can't find it! I don't think I brought a spare :( if somehow you find it send it. what am I supposed to do about that?
also about my Boston companion, what the MTC presidency guy said happed is that the guys who was supposed to be my trainer was put into a trio, so it will be an easy transition for when I do get there for him to shift over to be my companion. Also, something they said at In-Field was that they have this new 12 week program for new missionarys when they get to there area. I'm not sure much about it, but they said that you have the same trainer for 12 weeks, and you have a double length companion study with them every day and you do more role play stuff with them to help get more practice. The real truth is that no one likes doing that role play stuff, but It must be good if there really going to make us practice it more for 3 months. We don't know much about the whole 12 weeks program thing, or whether it's actually a big deal, but I guess I'll know more about it when I get there
Other interesting things I just remembered. Elder Orgill had a small brown dog at home named Coco. true story.
Also in the district that left a week ago was an Elder BeeBee (spelled Beebe though) I could hardly talk to him with a straight face. I told him that's what I called my Sister.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Mono at the MTC!

phone rings
Mom: Hello!
caller: Mom?
Mom: um, what child is this?
caller: guess
Mom: um, um, (it sounded like Zak, but obviously, it wasn't/couldn/t be him) did you say Mom?
caller: yes
Mom: um, um, is this Zak?
Caller: YES!

He called because he is NOT going to Boston tomorrow, Wednesday, July 11th.  He was feeling sick last Thursday. He would have gone to the doctor on Saturday, but he doesn't work on Saturday OR Sunday. He went on Monday.

They checked him out, took some blood. He came back on Tuesday and he was told he has Mononucleosis! He has had a headache for several days, sore throat, a little tired, terrible head draining (read mucus related issues). The doctor wants Zak to stay at the MTC for AT LEAST one more week. He wants to see how Zak is doing/feeling. If he goes now to Boston and gets worse, he will just ground his companion. IF Zak does not get any sicker, he may be able to go to Boston next week. They expect Zak to have this for 2 to 3 weeks.

Zak sounded very happy, chipper, just like Zak; but VERY congested. He has a nice, positive attitude.

So, we all have ONE MORE WEEK to use Dear Elder and write  to Zak at the MTC for FREE! Remember, you can write to him in the morning before noon Utah time and he will read it THAT night!
(And you know you can use Dear Elder even after he is gone from the MTC. You will have to pay some postage, though. I don't know how much. Just so you know...)

He will also send an e-mail tomorrow.
He does not know anything about his new companion, or district. We'll all find out more tomorrow!

Handwritten letter RECEIVED July10, 2012


July 4, 2012

Dear Familia,
         
          I just realized I forgot to say happy Independence Day in the email! Oh well. Feel happy and Patriotic when you get this anyway. Some questions I forgot to answer: Normally we go to the temple of out P-day (Wednesday), but bow it’s shut down for cleaningL.Today we just walked to the grounds and wrote letters and stuff. We got to go last week which was great, though. We also do a temple walk every Sunday.
          Heather was very upset I never mentioned that I shower everyday and told me I need to go take a shower. The truth is that I shower every day after gym, so I hope that calms any worries.
          I have seen friends from BYU here. It is always very exciting (and funny when you call them Elder).
          We are pretty good in class (not rowdy), but during “study time” people lose focus and goof around a little more. Everyone likes our teachers.
          I have not every “worked the phones” where people ask about the church and I gave not heard anything about it.
          It seems like our entire zone has the cold right now (including me). It’s not that bad, but the congestion/sore throat are irritating. I just started taking the allergy stuff again.
          I’m happy with everything I packed. I will probably buy a few more hangers here. There are 4 elders total in my sleeping room. Unpacking was not a big deal (I feel like that was months ago). No one has said anything about hair styles/getting a part. I’ll get my hair cut (for free) here before I leave. (What instructions should I give?)
          Dad mentioned that I haven’t written about my companion so I must hate his guts. This is not the case. Elder Orgill is great. Very easy to get along with and laid back. He’s from Bluffdale (spelling?), Utah. He went to Snow College for a year. Also he isn’t someone who often starts being a distraction during study time, which is nice. I think that answers all the questions. I remember Christopher asked some questions about my first days here, but I can’t find the exact letter so I hope I answered everything.
          My flight to Boston is July 11th (Wednesday) at 9:50 Utah time a.m. I should be able to use a calling card to call home sometime before that. I hope someone is awake. I should get to Boston at 4:30. I don’t know if I’ll be allowed to email, but I will have a 6 hour flight to write letters.
          Later today we get out of class early to see the fireworks at the Stadium of Fire thing. I’m not sure exactly why/where we’ll be watching from, but it should be cool.
          The district that just left our zone (we get 1 and lose 1 every week) went to South Salt Lake and there mission home is in Sandy, so if any Utah relatives see an Elder Mutton, he’ll probably remember me. He’s from Australia and has an accent. I wasn’t really super close to any of the other people though.
          Random interesting thing: people here are always singing regular songs, but “mormonizing” the lyrics. It was kind of funny at first, but now might be somewhat excessive. I mentally give people minus 3 clever points every time they sing this* just because I’ve heard it so much:

*Hey, I just  met you,        (I’ll let you guess what the tune is)
 And this is crazy,
But here’s some scriptures,
So read them maybe.

          Today I couldn’t help myself from singing this though:

It’s P-day, P-day,
Get to write home on P-day
 

(Inspired by Rebecca Black)

          Every Monday we do “service,” basically cleaning or something for the MTC for an hour. It’s actually pretty nice, since it’s more physical and not in a classroom. Last Monday I vacuumed chalkboard erasers. I got to do it by myself and I was using a loud vacuum (with ear muff things), so at times I found myself singing. At one point I caught myself singing:
         
“forest of feelings, care-lot and Earth aren’t far apart”

Even though I haven’t seen/discussed the carebears movie in years. Very strange. also I have I am a Child of God stuck in my head and a few of the other hymns like every day. That’s about everything. I’m surprised at the struggle to find Quinn an Eagle project. I have no ideas. I can’t believe so many people are rejecting 100 free service hours. Also Christopher’s root canal sounds very not fun but hopefully it solves his problems. Good luck with everything!
                                                Love,
E.     Z.P.C.
P.S. I’m getting my hair cut on Tuesday, what instructions should I give?

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Received Wednesday, July 4, 2012

First I'll answer Dad's email questions. You can keep sending me major sports news. Not necessarily the rumors, but if big names get sent around you can let me know. Let me know about the Dodgers when playoff time comes around. Let me know how the Rams are doing when the seasons starts/if they make any big moves.

In my daily gym time I usually play either basketball or volleyball in the gym. I'll probably do more volleyball because other people in my district like it a lot and it's fun to do stuff with them and it's hard to play basketball and find a happy medium between playing carefully so no one gets hurt and still actually having fun. Normally in sports, people get injured/hurt every once and a while and that's just part of the game, but in the MTC I feel like it's more important to be safe, and most people sort of play that way, but it's hard. I played 4-square once with random people and it was so boring just because they were so bad. it's like no one told them that you're supposed to try and get the other people out. I played for like 10 mins because I got to server and then finally someone got me out. I might play it with my district sometime though. Also I've gone to the field and played soccer a few times, especially while the gym was closed last week.

Yes, I like the MTC food. Every once and a while I'll eat cereal for breakfast because I don't like the breakfast food. The only problem is they never appease my demands of candy for breksfix. If only Lamar were here.

Part of the reason I say I'm glad I get to leave here after 3 weeks is because that's what's going to happen anyway, so I might as well be glad about it. Also it can get kind of tough to have life just 100% ruled by a piece of paper that has every single second scheduled out. That's kind of a pride thing though. Also sometimes a few things seem a little fake, all the role playing can be a bit bothersome, even when they do a good job. I'll be both nervous and excited when I get to Boston (only a week from now!) It'll be kind of sad to not be around my district anymore, our sisters will be super sad (they have to stay in the mtc and extra week to learn stuff specific to the tours they're giving in temple square/mormon battalion place). Have I talked about appreciating the Sisters? Our district/zone wouldn't be the same without them.

Now you have to play a guessing game

I did one of these 3 silly/foolish things this week, guess which one it is

1. stayed up till 2:00 AM talking to my roommates

2. Jumped in the elevator and got it stuck

3. Lost my backpack with all my stuff in it.

.

.

.

.

Our class that we spend so much time in is on the 4th floor and we always take the elevator. Just yesterday on our way down someone suggested we all start jumping and see what happened. Our whole district but 2 sisters were there. when he said that 1 sister pleaded we didn't, but every other person jumped at least once and suddenly the elevator fell quickly for like 2 feet and just stopped. we laughed for a second and then realized it might actually be stuck. then a robot lady voice came over the intercom and said there were technical difficulties and we needed to press the alarm button. dangit. We pressed all the floor buttons and the open door button, but it didn't work so we had to press the alarm button which just called someone who said they'd send an electrician right over. He got us out in like 45 mins. No one was really panicky or anything, it actually wasn't bad at all. The guy who got us out was really nice. At first he thought we'd get fined 50$ but there isn't any warning sign inside the elevator so we didn't. Very lucky. By the end of the day the elevator was working again, we still use it every time.

Moral of the story: don't jump in the elevator

District Leader stuff: I don't know how they choose/when the branch presidency talked about it because they chose me within like 20 mins of meeting us all. I have extra meetings on Sunday, including running the district meeting. (I had to give a 40 min lesson last time.) also I lead us in a discussion after Tuesday devotional. Our whole district gets mail in the same mailbox, and it's my job to get it every day after lunch and dinner and then distribute it. I'm always glad when i get to keep some of it for myself. also I choose someone to pick a hymn/pray before every class. None of it is really hard or anything, I think it's been good for me.

I'm really glad my letter home helped Mom plan her lesson. I've gotten both emails and dearelders from Heather/steven which has been really fun to hear how they are doing. (even if they still have lots of poopy diapers). The letters from Griffin also were very fun to read, he gave a good description of scout camp. I distinctly remember going to camp trask. He is very smart to know how to use Dearelder. I also got a great Dearelder from Nana. It was one of the very first pieces of mail I got, and I appreciated it a lot. Of course, I still have all the mail I've been sent. In a letter Mom said she was going to send a 2 sentence email, but instead I got a longer email from dad which was good.

I have -7 minutes left (whoops!) left on the computer so I'll hand write a letter and write about my companion/a few other things. Thanks again to everyone for everything, I'm still doing great. I miss you all, but I'm learning a lot here every day. I don't wish I was home, but I wish I could have you up here with me so you could see what it's like.

Love Zak

Monday, July 2, 2012

Handwritten letter Received Monday, July 2, 2012

Handwritten – June 27, 2012

Dear Family,

I tried to quickly skim over my letters before getting this so I could remember the specific questions you had and the only one I could find that I didn’t already answer was if I knew what hives was. (**note from Julie/Mom – I sent Zak a card with a joke about hives; which I can’t even remember anymore. I asked him if he knew what hives were, the joke wouldn’t be funny if he didn’t know about hives.) The answer is yes since I was about 6. Everyone knows what hives is. I thought the joke/pun was funny though, I was glad to get it.

What do you call a fake macaroni?

Answer:  an impasta!

Someone sent me a meme with that, so they get credit for the joke, I just thought it was worth passing on.

I’ve received written mail from Mom and today got something from Amada and have gotten Dear elder stuff from Mom, g-man, Tim Glenn, nana/bumpa and 2 different friends from BYU, so that has been really great for me. My BYU friends said they read my blog to see my mail, so Mom, you’re work has been appreciated by many.

I left off my e-mail trying to explain about progressing the investigator, which I think stuff like that is kind of the focal pint here. We’ve taught each of our 2 teacher’s investigator aliases once.  Also we just started doing TRC. (I don’t know what it is an acronym for). Which is just like progressing the investigator, but the investigators are people we’ve never met, who supposedly are recent converts or actually not members.  Most of them have been working here for a few years though, so it’s still very much role play.  We always have to have the mentality that it’s real though and that they really are learning about the church for the first time.

So like I said, I am liking the MTC a lot (but I am glad I get to leave after 3 weeks). Basically everyday I wish I could share the stuff I learned with home. One of my two favorite lessons was in class; one in the first day or so. Sister Winters (one of Zak’s instructors), talked about how we’ve been set apart as missionaries to do exactly what Christ would be doing if he were here. Also, his name is almost as big as mine on my name tag. It made me feel like I needed to repent for not following some of the missionary rules right when I got set apart. It was a good inspiring start to the mission.

My other favorite lesson was when we had our Sunday devotional. Sunday schedules are different. We watched a video of a talk Elder Bednar gave to the missionaries on Christmas in the MTC one year. It was called The Character of Christ and it was about how Christ always looked outwards, never thought of himself. He even healed one of the soldiers who arrested him. He talked about how we all (obviously) should be that way and not let the natural man affect us. He compared the natural man to the cookie monster “want cookie now!” It was great.  (I have not been gone so long that I don’t remember the difference between affect and effect!)

The last 2 things I have to talk about are meeting the Boston Mission President and our special Tuesday Devotional.

All the mission presidents who are new have been in the MTC last and this week.  Since the Boston Mission is getting a new president he was here too so they let all the missionaries going to Boston meet him. I’m sure all the missionaries loved meeting their president. There were 110 new ones. But President Packard and his wife seem like basically perfect people. They were nice. He gave everyone a hug right when he came in. There were about 30 missionaries there; some speaking Portuguese or Spanish or Cambodian. The Cambodian speaking guy has to be in the MTC for like 13 weeks or something.  His wife would have hugged us, but she isn’t allowed. They actually begin being president on July 1st. They look like they’re in their 40’s. They have 1 son on his mission, 1 at home and 1 daughter. They talked to us for about 30 – 45 mins.

The other big thing is the Tuesday (yesterday) devotional. Since this was mission president week, the whole first presidency and quorum of the 12 have been at the MTC, so we know someone really important would speak.  In attendance were the whole quorum of the 12 except Elder Packer and Elder Nelson. The first presidency was not there. Elder Perry spoke.  There were 2 big projector boards in the auditorium where the meeting was and he gave an almost power point like fancy presentation. He gave lots of statistics about how the church affects its members. LDS men live 10 years longer than average and women live 5 years longer. Fasting once a month makes you 40% less likely to have clogged arteries. The whole talk was way different than what we expected.

That’s everything for now. My letters won’t usually be this long, so I hope you really liked it.  Also I hope you don’t mind that my hand sometimes randomly writes in cursive, even though it doesn’t look that good. I’ve actually been that way for a while. I’ll write again next week.

Love,
Zak

P.S.  I forgot to say you should keep asking questions if I forgot to answer them if you have new ones.


**EDITOR'S NOTE:
Are you curious to see Zak's mission president?? I was, so I looked them up. Here is the info from the LDS Church News:



Daniel William Packard, 43, and Alison McBride Packard, four children, Heritage Oaks Ward, Los Altos California Stake. Brother Packard serves as a stake seminary teacher and is a former counselor in a stake presidency, stake Young Men president, stake mission president, high councilor, bishop, Young Men president and missionary in the California San Bernardino Mission. Partner/attorney, Packard, Packard & Johnson. Born in Beaumont, Texas, to Bernard E and Sarah Packard.
Sister Packard serves as a secretary in Young Women and is a former stake public affairs director, Young Women president, counselor in a Relief Society presidency, seminary teacher and missionary in the Uruguay Montevideo and Texas Fort Worth missions. Born in Ogden, Utah, to Charles Brent and Jane Ruth McBride.