Received Monday, Sept 24, 2012

Just to enjoy seeing Zak for a moment...

He sent us this picture; he is in Rhode Island on a P-day excursion

What fun are you doing today?

nothing really planned. I've heard New Bedford is the largest fishing harbor (port?) in the world, so there are a lot of fishing/whaling type things around including a whaling museum maybe we'll go to some time. not today though. I've heard it costs money and is kind of boring though. Also on the side of a big building we drive by sometime there is a big painting of a whale my Wyland, the painting guy dad likes to watch sometimes.

Have you sung to anyone yet?

no, but I did have a few chances, but I chickened out. I decided I'll practice in the shower and maybe do it next time. sorry. I still plan on doing sometime though

Do you give service every week?

yes. president Packard is pretty big on service. It seems like every week we have something specific/unique to do for a member/members friend, which is great and also we try to go to this redcross food drive every thursday and we help people carry their free food to their cars.

What service will you do this week?

we'll do the red cross thing and help somebody move on Saturday.

Are transfers coming up?

yes. next P-day is on a wednesday, not monday. I don't expect any changes here, but I didn't expect any last time either, so who knows. I really hope I stay and everyone else can stay too. Elder Concha and I decided we should be roommates at BYU after the mission. it's against the rules as a missionary to suggest anyone emigrates, so of course I would never do that, but I have always been happy to tell him how much I liked it at BYU and mentioned we could be roommates. He doesn't know whether he'll apply to byu for sure though (or whether he'll get in) or even if he might just stay in Brazil. It's 2 years from now anyway, but it was a cool thought.

Is there a certain song that your mission pres loves to sing at meetings?

not that I've recognized.

Any torrential rain last week? Some baseball games up in your hood got rained out!

nope. in the time i've been here we've gotten some storm/tornado/flash flood warnings and some actual hard rain, but not in the last week. There were never any actual tornadoes or terrible storms either, just warnings.

You still getting mail from BYU friends?

mail for Elder Cole in the last month or so (I hope I'm not forgetting anyone): lots from immediate family. weekly from Sister Hagen. 1 letter from Jared. and I think 1 letter each from 2 different friends and currently at BYU.

Getting mail from other BYU missionaries?

no, theres no time to write letters to so many people.

Stuff relating to Kylie: I also was wondering about something like "chatting" this week. Last P-day we were in Walmart and while Elder Beck was printing out some pictures he took I started playing this Xbox Kinect (no controller) sports game they had in the middle of the isle. While you play it video's you and afterwards it asked me if I wanted to email the video to anyway. I didn't pay much attention to it because I just wanted to hurry and start another game, but afterwards I wondered if It would be ok for me to email that home. I checked the White handbook (Biblia Blanca) and saw that both playing the game and sending the video home would have been innaporoptiate. In hind sight it seems kind of obvious, but if I'm ever mission president I might change the rules so missionary's can send XBox video's of themselves fake-golfing home to their families.

About pen pals: one of the girls probably just isn't going to write, but the other came up to me yesterday at church and told me her mother last the card where I had written the address on, so i gave her a new one. I think she is going to write a real pen-and-paper letter; I gave her the home address and email.

About Steven: he sent me an email with good missionary stories and the full Wipeout story. Both were Amazing. I try to remind myself that so much of the good work I can do on a mission will be things I can't see/won't realize. Also I hope I get sent a picture of Super Accountant Man in all his charmingly analytical glory. And If he does make it on the show I expect 1st prize no doubt. Anything less would be more embarrassing than failing to draft Tim Tebow

The Rams already are 1 win away from there last season's total, so I guess a loss is acceptable

Quick thing mom will think is funny: last night we had our dinner appt and the bishops house, and they were also celebrating one of their son's birthday. One of his younger sisters gave him a card that said "Birthdays are like boogers. The more you have the harder it is to breath".

Christophers leg looked awful. I've never rolled an ankle nearly that bad. He should just hold his dogs out the window have let them do their business from the 4th floor. It'll be good for the grass and stuff, the land lord will thank him for it.

I did get the letter last week about quinn getting his license. Very exciting for everyone at home. "Wide turns" was one of the biggest reasons I failed my first time.

One interesting thing that happened was just a few minutes ago. We all got an email from Pres. Packared with some further instruction/advice on working with members (which will always be the biggest theme for him. You can tell he has a great vision for the mission). And also re-adjusting some of the rules from the last president. He said everything (music, etc) should be exactly by the white handbook, which sounds like a duh, but is actually slighlty more lax than it used to be, but he also said he basically doesn't want us playing sports on non-pdays. That is kind of a bummer for us because we do that every saturday and have investigators and member's friends come, but I can see why he wants it to be this way.

The biggest thing that happened this week was the other elders in the apartment had a baptism! It was this old lady named Evylen. I was in on a lesson with elder Castro to her once last transfer and also did some service for her once. It was all pretty cool. She lives alone (husband past and kids are all gone) and she used to smoke, so it was neat to really see the Plan of Salvation bless her life.

another great thing to look back on for me this week was to see that if we just do what we are supposed to and follow the direction from our priesthood leaders, we are blessed in unexpected ways. the "random coincidences"/ "freebie blessings" just seem to come from no where. On wednesday we drove out to visit and innactive, but he wasn't home, so we decided to knock on a few neighbors doors (this is actually where I had a chance to sing too. now I especially feel like I should have). At one door a 30's year old guy answered and talked to us for a few mins. He didn't really want to get a lesson from us or anything, but he asked us for a Book of Mormon and seemed sincere about going to the church sometime. Also, it wasn't even his house, he was just visiting his parents who live there.

On saturday we drove to a members house to give her a Book of Mormon and a few pass along cards because she has friends at work who are interested. She lives in an apartment complex you can't get into unless someone from inside opens it. She wasn't home, so we rang the neighbors doorbell just hopping they'd open the door. Someone did open it and they were pretty interested and accepted a book of mormon and a return appointment to talk more about it.

So things have been really good! I still am not super used to all the awkward phone calls we have to make and I wish we had an Ipad/gps that could read my mind and It would be great if we had a personal secretary to write down everything everyone tells us all day, but I there are far worse needs and problems than those.
Love you all! my mailing address may be different a week from today, so be careful with that, I'll email again on wednesday.
Adios!