Received Monday, Nov 19 2012

Zak and his companion apparently helped build this shed

QUESTIONS:

Tell us your thanksgiving plans

This is my first major Holiday on the mission, so it should be fun and interesting. Someone told us they play soccer in the morning, and we were invited, i'm not sure if it's a whole ward thing, or just there family thing. Either way I think we'll go. At 1 we're eating at the Spearin's (Bishop) house. they've invited a lot of people (there family of 10, all 6 missionaries and at least 1 other family in the ward). After that we'll probably drive to another family who always feeds us a lot. In the evening we'll probably go to one last family who wanted us over, but saw we were already booked, for dessert or maybe just to visit.Lots of comida

Tell us how things are working in your apartment with Mr. Newbie

good. He isn't very shy or in shell shock or anything

Anything else you think you may want for Christmas?

I'll probably want some sweatpants, especially to wear when I trek across the frozen tundra to the gym in the morning. I'll let you know if I think of anything else. I already mentioned the eventual need for a GPS.

I thought of something:Doctrine and Covenants Visual Resource DVDs that you can get on store.lds.org. Elder Beck has a copy and we use it to show people Joseph Smith: Prophet of the Restoration sometimes.

Are you allowed to have any instruments? (question from Griffin)

yes, we are allowed to have instruments. We have a guitar in our apartment that Elder Wilding borrowed from someone.

Also to Griffin: keep playing the piano! it is a good thing to learn. You can teach me how to play it when I get back.

About nana/bumpa's story: sounds awful for Bumpa. I am grateful my mission has been vomitless thus far, even though I DID get held up in the MTC

About Teo google chatting: last week while Elder Beck and I were at a member's house there 2'ish aged boy ran out of the bathroom with only a t-shirt on and the parents just said "he does this all the time" and mostly let him be. So, if Teo ever comes to SouthCoast they can be friends

This week has basically just been another good week. I confirmed Chris yesterday! it went well. I was kind of nervous  especially since it's up in front of everyone, but is ultimately just like giving a blessing. I was happy he asked me to do it. He said Either Elder Beck or I could, but we decided I should since Elder Beck has done it before. I'm also really glad he had a member baptize him. In the MTC (and in PMG) they talk about how converts are always more likely to stay active if they are baptized by a member, so I have a goal to have a member baptize every convert I helped teach.

Do you remember in general conference when Elder Nelson gave the "Ask the missionaries" talk? After that in Stake conference President Packard was there and gave a spoke saying a lot of the same things. since then 1 person asked us to go home teaching with him and someone else asked us to stuff PMG with them and both went really great. Also 1 other family mentioned he's want us to go over PMG sometime and another said they want us to come do a FHE.

Also yesterday, the YW president asked us to sit in YW class with them and talk about goals, which went really well. I talked about how in high school I always had a goal to get all A's, and even though I technically failed in my goal every time, it got me to work hard enough to achieve the larger goal of getting into BYU. Afterwards the president told us in 2 weeks in mutual they are going to actually make shirts that say "I'm a Mormon  I know it, I live it, I love it" and they want us to talk about how they should respond when people will ask them about it. Hopefully the YM will start asking us to help with things every once and a while too.

We've been listening to Elder Beck's MoTab Christmas CD's which I like I lot. I really like Christmas music. I have no shame in starting Christmas season before Thanksgiving. We would have been listening to them since Halloween if it were solely up to me.

My latest food update is that I bought turkey burgers that I fry and ground up and eat with eggs in a breakfast burrito. Also I put on "creole seasoning" and its highly delicious.

I have not received any of the mail you mentioned  I hope it is still coming. Usually when I say that I end up getting it later in the day.

It's too bad most of the football news is not good. The Rams still have a good 19 months before they have to be good, so it's ok. I'm curious to hear what's up with the Lakers though.

That's everything! Thanks for all the updates and good stories!

Much Love,
Elder Zachary Payne Cole

P.S. And I'll be excited to hear where Josh gets called to as well!

last things I forgot to add, I greatly enjoyed the updates on some people in the ward, it's good brother Mcintyre is getting healthy. and one other kind funny thing we did was go over to help the Simpsons get their printer working. (we downloaded the driver and then it worked). We are very lucky to have them around.