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 1^st. 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.