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!

Received Monday, October 15, 2012

QUESTIONS:

Who is Ben Q?

Ben Kvisler. I think that's his last name. I've known him a long time and was pretty good friends with him in high school. I didn't know he was out here.

How old is Elder Concha? Etc.

19. Like 3 months younger than me. He felt he wasn't ready at 18, so he waited. He explained the military system in Brazil once, I don't remember exactly how it goes though I think they randomly select a certain % of the 18 or 19 year olds and they have to serve for a few years. He does not have to. random thing: we bump into Jehova's Witnesse's every once and a while and they often bring up that they don't participate in the military no matter what, Elder Concha says in his country they force you too, they say there are many JW's in Brazil in jail because they refuse to go in. I think that's admirable sacrifice they make for their beliefs, but it's too bad their pretty close to the truth in a lot of ways, but still off. I'm very happy for the patriotic-ness of the restored gospel.

Did you get my mail this week?

yes!I got a letter from home, sis Hagen and a friend from BYU (Sam Marco) who is now in the MTC, (I think he is going to Armenia) and your favorite facebook friend (Amanda)

Did elder concha get his mail?

yes, he liked it a lot. He thought the pop-rocks were weird/interesting.

Talk about your weather this week!! I think I saw that it was VERY cold for you!

early in the week was pretty cold, but not awful. I wear the sweater I got right before leaving most days now. I've never felt the need to wear the sweater and suit jacket though. On my leg-workout day I did lunges on a treadmill because I didn't want to do them outside in the cold

Griffin’s question: what sports have you played while on your mission? Please list. Football, soccer and basketball. Oh, and I played ultimate frisbee once. also catch (i borrowed a mit and ball) with an investigator once. Also I played volleyball in the MTC.

Did you have a Senior Quote? You know for the AHS yearbook.

Yes. it was the quote about 99% of life is not what happens to you, but how you respond to it. Is Quinn struggling to decide? Tell him he has to put "I'm a mormon, I know it I live it and I love it". and if there any complaints just say: Would you sell your soul for a different senior quote?

I bet it would have been fun for the rams kicker to win on a record breaking kick. oh well. 

We had dinner at a members house who is from st.louis and is a sports/rams fan. He must not be a huge sports guy though because he said he is also a fan of all the teams in the NFC west and the cardinals (baseball) game last night was really exciting because they were down like 5 "goals" to 1 in the 8th inning and then they ended up scoring like 6 "goals" in the last 2 innings and won. I found it kind of funny.

It was fun to see the FF scores and standings. I can't believe Dad's team is struggling so much. Who in the house follows sports the most?

I hope Griffin Radio win in the end.

I wonder what calling dad will get! are you still hoping to get to teach one of the 2nd hour classes?

I'm excited to get my absentee ballot. I think I'm the only person in the apartment who'll vote. Great Office reference

wow that's crazy Rachel and Erica are already turning in their papers. 

President Packard sent us an email talking about how there's going to be a lot more missionaries suddenly coming in and he's asking us for advice about what areas are productive/could use them.

Tell Chase to eat a real philly cheese steak and take a picture.

Is Steven also in scouts or just YM? (Heather sent me a great update about her, Steven and their staggering/drunken walking child Jayna). I liked the story about Jayna seeing and liking squirrels. I'll always remember Griffin seeing squirrels out the window and pointing joyously saying "doggy! doggy! doggy!"

No big news with any of our investigators or anything, but we've "found" like 3 more inactive families who are open for us to visit, which is great. We have to make sure we do a good job of keeping organized so we can keep track of who we've seen, who wants us to come back and who we still have never made contact with. The baptism scheduled for the 28th still looks like It'll work out, which should be awesome.

Elder Beck and I got to do service for a Part-member family which was really fun; we were helping him (the father) build a shed. I got to use a nail gun a few times, which I've never done before. we're going back tomorrow.

Today is the assigned "fall cleaning" day for missionaries. We have to spend most of P-day thoroughly cleaning the apartment (bathrooms and stove and everything). It's kind of lame, but not too bad.

Also tonight after our dinner appt, we're teaching a lesson to a media referral we got, which is really cool. apparently he requested a visit from the missionaries on mormon.org on early in September but we only heard about it last friday at Zone meeting (we called him later that day). we should have got a text right when it happened (september), but we never did; luckily he still is willing to meet though.

that's everything. have a great week!

Received Monday, October 8, 2012

Zak talks about wanting to see a Patriot's game some day 

Here is a picture of him standing in front of their stadium

QUESTIONS:

What did you do in between the sessions of conference?

saturday between the "morning" (starts at 12 here) session and the 2nd one we ate lunch with the Staples (the senior missionaries) at a restaurant and made a few phone calls. between the 2nd session and Priesthood we visited this inactive family (the Pong's) with our ward mission leader. Sister Pong (she is divorced) was very happy to have us over and said we should come back some time and she would feed us. She also mentioned she would probably start coming back to church in 6 years, when her kids are all done with school and she has more time. We'll see if we can speed that time-frame up a bit. Situations like that are basically the same as finding a new investigator, it was great. I wonder if there are more families there are like that in the ward who would be happy to have us over if only we knew about them. She is Cambodian. I made sure to mention I was from Arcadia because I remember hearing Chase talk about how he would randomly bump into Asian people and they would always have relatives in Arcadia. Sister Pong asked me if I knew her Cousin who lived there, I had to tell her no, but I thought the connection was cool. After conference we had to scurry on home because it was already very close to our bed time.

On Sunday the appointment we had set up between sessions fell through (we were able to reschedule though) so we stayed at the ward building and had lunch there with the Staples and some members. The Staples brought sandwich stuff for everyone.

Could you hear and see well?

yes and yes. its up to me and Griffin to prove we can still do that without glasses.

Did you watch at the Ward building?

yes, ma'am

Do you get the Ensign?

not usually, but I've heard we can if we order it from the zone leaders

Would you like me to send you a copy of the Conference Ensign when it comes out in November?

i'll try to get it through the zone leaders first, and if that fails I will request it. I look forward to getting to read them all.

How was your Zone conference?

ummm we haven't had zone conference or zone meeting in a while, but district meeting (which is every friday) was good. Our new District Leader was the companion of the old district leader (who is now home)

How were the new greenies?

good. They were only slightly nervous looking. mostly like how you'd expect a greenie to look.

Do you need me to send you anything for the cold weather coming up?

I don't think so. I will need to buy some GOOD gloves soon though.

Do you have GOOD gloves?

no!

Sorry to ask again, but your mission does not use bikes?? Is that correct?

I guess there are some biking area's in the mission, but I've never spoken to someone from them. I guess I'll have to buy a bike if I ever get sent there. I don't know how it works

What did you have for breakfast today?

the usual. oatmeal (1 cup) with peanut butter (about a spoonful) some brown sugar, a small dash of cinnamon and a medium sized pour of GoLean cereal. I mix the oatmeal and peanut butter with a little water and microwave it (most of the water evaporates out) and then add everything else with milk. yummy.

I thought General Conference was great. We missed the first hour of saturday morning because we were doing service for this older single lady, so I think we'll watch it on the computer sometime this week. We didn't know about the missionary age change until Russel M. Nelson mentioned it and we were all blown away, surprised  (more below) My favorite talk was Elder Holland's when talked about Peter. Right before I left the MTC and when I first got to the field I was really interested in Peter's whole conversion story and was studying it. Christ tells him (who is the chief apostle) WHEN you get converted... and at one point in time even says to him "get behind me satan", but Peter does get truly converted and eventually goes around healing people and causing miracles and people would rush onto the streets hoping that maybe even just the shadow of peter would fall on them. Growing up I had always assumed the apostles were already pretty much perfect from the start.

About the age requirement changes I was pretty mind boggled. I wondered is Quinn still planning on doing a full year of byu first? I guess since he is an August birthday he can't go straight out of high school like most people can now. I really liked having an entire freshman year and think it was good for me, but I guess the prophet thinks a lot of people don't need it. I bet a lot more girls go on missions now. I'm trying to remember if I have any friends at byu who said they really wanted to go on a mission and won't have to wait 2 more years anymore. I also heard something about them shortening the MTC time? whats the story on that? I got a bonus week at the MTC and liked it a lot; apparently President Monson is changing everything to be the opposite of what I did.

This email from had lots of exciting stories. I like hearing about kylies volleyball. Who all in the family really has the "sweat" gene? Me and kylie? would you say you have it (to mom)?) I figure my genes are the same as everyone elses, but I just always work the hardest, and that's why i'm the most sweaty.

I wish I could go to a Yankee game with Christopher. Being here has made me want to see the Redsox and the Patriots play sometime in my life, especially whenever we go to foxborough stadium after district meeting for lunch.

I don't think Quinn should stress too much about the BYU essay's subject. I wrote about Fantasy football for one of mine, it made it unique.

Dad gave a great Rams update. I'm surprised didn't add more surprising stuff though, he spent the whole time writing the stuff I'd basically already assume, like the Rams dominating everyone and their 2nd year DE being the MVP of the league. I remember hearing Action Jackson saying he wanted to finish his career by helping Sam Bradford transition to a Franchise QB and retire as a Ram, so hopefully things continue that way. I still think they 'ought to win a superbowl or 3 for him while's he's still with them though.

And I can't believe you went to priesthood session alone. Quinn should have skipped Homecoming to go. Would you sell your soul for a homecoming dance? (just kidding! I really liked that talk from conference though).

This week felt pretty short, because it was (only wed-mon) and Conference took up the weekend, but It was really good. We have 1 baptismal date for oct 28th and another for nov 11th and one other investigator who is really ready, so teaching those 3 along with the others we teach should be great this month. We also have found a good group of potentials and some new inactive families (new to our knowledge at least. Like the Pongs) that hopefully we'll be able to continue to help.

I almost forgot, one exciting thing about this week is I'm officially not a greenie anymore. I haven't felt like one in a while though. The biggest change is not we only do 1 hour of companionship study in the morning, instead of two, which I'm glad for. I know I'm really officailly a missionary now though because for the past few days I've been going over Jacob 5 (the allegory of the Olive Tree) during my personal study and really liking it. I feel like in my life I need to read the whole old testament and then the allegory right after and I'll understand it even better.

We aren't doing anything super fun today for p-day. I say that basically every week, but I'm 100% happy with that. It's nice to not be busy for a day. Tonight we have dinner at the Spearin's house, which is the bishops home. They feed us a lot and it's always a great house to be in. They have 8 kids, so things are crazy, but I like big families. Afterwards we're hoping to visit the DaRosa family who is a part-member/Less active family that lives near by, and then our day will pretty much be over.
I'll be looking forward to getting the mail you sent!

That's everything for now! Love you all!

P.S. also, that was a good picture by Christopher! he's been able to go lots of places and see lots of exciting things.

Bye again!

Received Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Another picture of Zak

Look awhile, then read his letter.

Picture and letter are UNrelated

As usual, he starts out with the questions I asked him:

QUESTIONS:

How are the FALL colors?? Take some pictures.

its not that colorful yet. I'll try to be better at taking pictures. I had Elder Beck take one of me giving a Book of Mormon to a life-size cut out or Rob Gronkowski in Dunkin Donuts today. The white handbook says about pday: "look for opportunities during the day to find people to teach", so I was doing my best. He was not very receptive though.

Did you get all those pictures I sent??

yes, I got them a few days ago. It was very exciting. There were lots of pictures, which was great. Kylie's eye looked fantastic. Her room did not, but the before/after shot was amazing. It was fun to see quinn's court of honor too; it was fun to get a letter from "Julie Cole proud mother of 5 eagle scouts". The big winner might be Jayna eating her cake though.

Also I got the Package with the Thor Pez a week or so ago. I liked getting that a lot.

Talk about transfers! Are you moving?

nope I get to stay at least another 6 weeks

New companion? nope, Elder Beck is still here too

New roommates? nope, we were all safe this time. We were all glad. Elder Watson who is in my district and was in my mtc district is leaving out of the zone though, which is kind of lame. Also the Staples (the senior couple here) are leaving really soon.

Can you explain why all the US mission p-days are on Monday, BUT when you have transfer days you change it to Wednesday?

Because transfers are on Saturday so if you are transferred/going home you can pack the day before on p-day.

Any interesting mail/packages this week?

I got the letter from home where you printed out my email and put your comments on it which was really fun to read. I'll answer the questions you wrote on it below. Also I got another letter from someone at BYU which was great and a letter from Sister Sotis in our ward which was neat.

Do you roommates get mail like you...more or less?

I get the most mail, which means you guys win the big prize! keep up the good work! Newer missionaries always get a lot more mail than older ones, but Elder Concha doesn't get much because he's international. Elder Wilding gets a good amount and Elder Beck, our oldest in the apartment gets the least.

What are your plans for general conference...where will you watch?

We will watch all the sessions at the ward building. I think it would kind of silly for us to do anything different. We are all really looking forward to it

Any weather issues?

its getting colder. we wore our sweaters twice this week and now I always wear my long sleeve shirts. It's fine now, but I'm just worried about whats coming. I can't believe how hot it is for you guys, we haven't had an uncomfortably hot day in forever. people keep telling me winter will be tough here.

Things from the letter you sent me:

About singing: I sort of sang to someone this week. There is this guy in the ward, who lives in an assisted living home because he is somewhat mentally handicapped and he likes to have missionaries over, so usually missionaries see him like once or twice a transfer and Elder Beck and I visited him this week and I sang "I Am a Child of God" for him". I asked him if he thought it was good and he said yes and he I got better as my voice warmed up throughout the song

About Elder Concha and English: when he was in high school he went on an exchange program to Utah for 6 months and got fluent then. He also likes to watch Hollywood movies, which are in English (with Portuguese subtitles). Also he learned it in school and listens to music in english. It's just funny the random words/phrases he doesn't know. He didn't know what pez was until I gave him one.

things I want to say before I forget.
I have gotten numerous compliments/comments in letters about you doing a good job keeping my mission blog up. One time we were at a members house for dinner and the daughter in the family was about to leave on a mission and they mentioned her mom was going to make her a blog too and I said that I had one and it works well. The next time we were over she told me she found my blog and skimmed through it, which might be somewhat inappropriate, except now she's in the MTC so it doesn't really matter. (She'll be back home before me though). moral of the story: good job on the blog, even people in New England appreciate it.

Today we went to Dunkin Donuts for lunch. I felt I had to go sometime because there are so many of them and there sandwich things on crescent roll looking bread actually looked good. I got a turkey/bacon/cheddar sandwich and a chocolate donut with chocolate sprinkles. Both were actually really good. it was like 5$. Not quite as filling as I wished. Usually I/we in the apartment never eat junk food like that. Elder Beck is trying to lose weight, Elder Concha (aka mr. vain aka mr. muscles) is the leader of the health bandwagon (this morning I saw him crack 3 raw eggs into a cup and drink it because there was no time to cook them). Most days for lunch I just plop some tuna from a can into a burrito and eat that as the biggest part of my meal because I don't want to have to cook anything and it has lots of protein. Also I eat an apple basically every day and I like to put peanut butter on most everything.
Did I ever tell you about the weird stuff people say here? I sort of like the phrase "all set" now and think it's funny to say it too. People here really call a drinking fountain a "bubbler". Some youth in the ward in all seriousness told me it didn't make any sense to call it a drinking fountain and that "bubbler" was way less weird. On my donut this morning I had chocolate sprinkles, but if they were all different colors they (the sprinkles) would be called jimmies. People really do drop the R out of a lot of words and add them to the end of wards that end with A. It's a good idear to read the scriptures and a bad idear to break the commandments.

Quick football thing: so if the Rams finish with a better record than the patriots will mom switch favorite teams? I bet Josh Mcdaniels and that one reciever who's name I forgot now realize it was a bad idear for them to leave STL. also how has Steven Jackson been doing? does he still run a lot or is it really Sam's team now?

Nothing hugely eventful happened this week. We've had an unusual amount of people cancel appointments with us in the last few days which was kind of lame. We were able to reschedule though, so things should still turn out good. While Elder Beck and I were doing red cross service last week there were these other 2 college age girls also volunteering and they seemed pretty interested in the church and missionaries and stuff. They were so interested that they invited us to go hang out at a bar with them later. We turned down the offer.

I remembered another interesting thing. In my weekly email to President last week I wrote about how we usually play sports on saturday with the youth and some investigators and we were bummed that we had to stop. we talked about it as an apartment and figured we would do it a few more times but try really hard to see if we could get them to do it without us/get enough people to come play without needing us. A few days later president Packered called our phone asking for me, which was very exciting. He said he read my email and he agreed that the Saturday sports sounded like a very good thing. He has a lot of trust in us and all the missionaries and he basically said he was ultimately up to us what to do, but he didn't think it would really be worth missionaries time on saturdays. He basically said the same sort of things we decided as an apartment, that we don't need to instantly stop and but we should try to keep it from dying out. If we can get the YM/YW leaders involved it should be able to work. He always tells us that he reads all our emails, and it was really cool that he actually called because of it.

That's everything. I love you all. If you're ever having a bad day, just remember "The power of the NFL has shifted to the NFC West."
Enjoy conference, we are the only church in the whole world that gets to have it!
I'll write again in just 5 days!

P.S.
Elder Beck is still emailing, so I'll throw in a few extra things. About Kylie's pen pal, I hope someone does write her, I'm suprised neither have. If no one does by next week I'll ask a few more people if they want to. Also about volleyball, it's good to hear her serves are doing well. On most middle school teams I really think if there was a player who could get their serve over every time, but did nothing the whole rest of the game, they might be MVP. The winner is almost always whichever team is the best at serving
About Chase, that sounds very exciting. It's weird for me to think when I get home he'll be a regular working, graduated person though.

our plan for the rest of the day: go home and write a letter or two. Have dinner at 5:30 with some members, and we'll talk about how we can help them do missionary work. After that at 7:30 we have an appointment with an inactive member and she said she would invite her boyfriend over too, so hopefully that goes well and we can get both of them to church. Then we'll come home and plan for the next day, I'll brush my teeth and floss, write in my journal and go to sleep. The past few days we haven't had as many set appointments, so we've had to do more tracting type stuff, but the next few days are already pretty packed, so that's good. District meeting on friday will be interesting to see the new people. We have 2 new fresh greenies coming in.

Also, let me know how Nana and Bumpa are doing, and what it's like for them in the mtc/different sort of mission.
tell them that if they see anyone who looks like I know them to say hi. If griffin can bump into people I know in McDonalds, they should be able to also. I have no idea who the mysterious medium length blond girl is. It must be someone from highschool because all my BYU friends should be at BYU and don't have a reason to be in Arcadia. I didn't know many blond people in arcasia though.
thats all.

There. NOW you have all the news.

ELDER COLE