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!