Received Monday, February 25, 2013

Three things to know before you read Zak's latest letter:

1. Steven, Zak's brother, who is a CPA, working for a Deloitte in Los Angles, grew a beard during his VERY busy work season. He vowed not to shave until "busy season" was over.

2. Quinn will be attending BYU - Idaho in the Fall!

3. CTR = Choose The Right

QUESTIONS:

Have you ever got your Valentine yet??

yes, I got it earlier this week. Very funny to see the pig-latin valentine I made a few years ago; how many of those do you still have? The balloon thing was very entertaining, where did you find it? I did not know what to expect, but faithfully pounded. It filled up very quickly and popped wildly out of the package. Very funny to me and elder Holt

How is the driving going?

As the designated driver, do you driver everywhere, to appoints and to the Laundromat, to the grocery store?

going just like regular driving, expect with a backer all the time. I'm always the one driving

Other elders were sick last week; you STILL healthy??

yup I've been good the whole time. Everyone has been back up to 100% for almost the whole week

from the mom: That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. We are all just moving forward and doing what we Cole’s do. You too. Keep up all your good work. Stay warm, enjoy the law of Consecration.

will do!

wow, you guys had some interesting things going on. That is shocking about quinn. I've only ever heard good things about BYU-I (except for the weird stories about how quickly people get married). There's a real chance there'll be no need or desire to transfer to provo later either. what was his final GPA and ACT score?

about kylie, a little bit of fear can be a good thing, but don't be too worried about it. I have no connections or real inside knowledge on byu admissions, but I can give my thoughts. I got into provo with 0 AP's or honors. I might be the only person who i've heard admit that though. I do think an A is a CP (regular class) is better than a B in an AP class. I really think honors doesn't help at all. the only thing an honors class will do is put you on the path to taking (and doing well in) an AP class which can help. I did know lots of people in provo who really benefited for their AP's because there's many classes they don't have to take that I do. saved them some time and money. My biggest reasons against AP's were I was afraid I wouldn't get an A and I didn't want extra homework. I never really was too burdened down with way too much work or anything in highschool though, an AP or 2 wouldn't have killed me. I would not have taken any honors or ap english classes though, I feel like those have a tough reputation (ask christopher). I would think about an AP history or maybe biology or chemistry, those are classes I tended to like and didn't find too difficult. I don't think taking all regular classes like I did is a bad thing at all either. The biggest changes I would make if I went back would be to study a little harder on my spanish vocab so I could have gotten A's in those classes, not to slack off every year in the 2nd semester and to not take that dang graphic design class that turned out not to be an easy A.

strange to see steven's thick beard pictures. reminds me of when Josh Shapiro had a big beard like that. What did Heather think?

I forgot Griffin still did baseball. Tell him to hit a home run.

that reminds me of another thing about BYU-I, they have amazing intrumural sports programs, much bigger and better than at provo. Take advantage of those.

about the basketball, was the tournament smaller this year? I feel like it used to be much more than just a 1 day event. sounded very fun though. a week or so ago I played basketball while on splits and was slightly disappointed in a regression in some of my skills. not too, too bad though.

we got to do lots of good things this week. The people we're teaching seem to be progressing well for the most part.

we had a good follow up meeting with the YM president about some things we talked about last week. He mentioned we might want to drop by one guy was up to teach in priests class

he also happens to be our missionary prep "class leader" so we talked to him about the class and helped him prepare a little bit for his lesson.

we were able to have a good mission prep class sunday morning. we set up a contest with them to get them inviting their friends to church activities (mutual, church, whatever). The contest goes untill the sunday after march 9th because that's when they have some fun fireside/youth conference thing that ends in a dance that they all could invite people too. They also had a dance last saturday that some of them already invited people too, so they already have a bit of a lead. Every invite counts, whether it's accepted or not. Winner gets homemade cookies. mostly we taught on receiving revelation through the book of mormon, and it went well.

We had our Zone Conference on thursday which was really good, and in our chapel so we didn't have to drive far at all. President Clayton Christensen wasn't able to make it, which was too bad because it would have been nice to hear him talk about his book.

We've been able to meet with more members about their experiences sharing the gospel. A lot of times just talking and asking questions just makes people realize the chances they do have. Also often it is just a good reminder of the ideas they already had, but haven't acted on yet.

Also we met with 2 people members who worked at ESPN, which was fun. Neither of them would admit to reenacting the "This is Sportcenter" commercials at work. I don't think I would be able to resist falling over and clutching my leg like a soccer player every time someone brushed my shoulder. One of them might have mentioned watching Dwayne Wade edit in extra defenders into his highlight reels though.

On sunday we had a great meeting with the Bishop. We talked very highly of the work Elder Holt and his last companion had done here, especially working with the less actives and really opened up about what he's stressed about in the ward and how we could possibly help.

We also got another baptisimal date this week, which was exciting. a part-member family husband. He still has to come to church more consistently and he's not sure he's sure the book of mormon is true yet, but he is determined to find out. which is exciting.

I almost forgot, I also got Christophers "package" with the conference Ensign, which was great. I like having it a lot. it was stuffed and securely duct taped into a milk carton. I really wish I could see the mailman's reaction as he had to stuff that into our mailbox

Things are still going busy and good here. Do you think President Packard would mind if we didn't shave until our busy season was over?

And I just remembered there was someone I talked to who had a relative who was in a Pasadena ward for a long time and was a bishop and maybe a stake president. Maybe Bumpa would know him. I don't have the paper with me that has his name though. I'll bring it next time.

That's all for now. CTR!

Received Tues, February 19, 2013

Zachary has talked about a book, The Power of Everyday Missionaries, a couple of times. I started off my letter to him by asking him more about that book. He talks about that book. Very interesting!

Also, our family was in Idaho over the long weekend. Drove up on Saturday afternoon and drove back home on Tuesday. Went sledding; it was fun. We waited and looked from Zak's e-mail on Monday, but it never came because the libraries were closed that day; so the letter came on Tuesday.

It is filled with fun and interesting information!  Also, Zak wrote his letter, sent it, then realized he had MORE time, so he wrote and sent another letter. Yea! So, we've got a two-parter. Enjoy!

this is late because yesterday the libraries were closed.

QUESTIONS:

How did you get a copy of the book? PofEDM

I call it PEM (pronounced phonetically). So, Clayton Christensen (the author) is the 1st counselor to President Packard. I've heard him speak one time and thought it was really good. I've heard he'll be there in our zone conference which is this thursday (I think everyone in our mission presidency is really great). When we received the book our zone leaders said he wrote it at request of someone in the quorum of the 12 (I think Elder Ballard) and I know they had to read/approve of it before it was published (the only change they made was to take out the Sister Fulcher story. I don't 100% get why they did. It has to do something about how the story was to much like "training" or something). A copy of the book was given to every missionary in our mission, and we were asked to read/study it. I know we'll talk a lot about it this thursday. We talk about it/the ideas in it in basically all our dinner appointments/whenever we're in members homes. I am a huge fan of the book; I think it's pretty amazing he's able to set goals for when he'll find someone for the missionaries to teach and he always hits his goal (the chapter on goals is towards the end).

I've had a few members decide they'll order a copy too

Talk about you being the designated driver!! Why? Who picks?

ultimately it's president Packard who picks, because its part of transfers. I think 90% of the time it's just whoever has been out longer, but not for us. 

Are you using your GPS?

yes! it is working well.

Did you do laundry more or less than once a week in your last area where you could do laundry on a whim?

I mostly tried to do it on pday, but often i would forget and I'd just end up doing it when I realized I didn't have anything clean for the next day, so on average I think less than once a week.

Anymore snow stories?

not really. It's been a little warmer recently (except that its also really windy here often which is what makes it feel freezing). It's raining today. We also saw what looked like a dump truck today full of snow carrying it off somewhere where it won't be in the way

Staying warm?

yea.

How is your new area?

pretty bueno. I actually like the ward a lot. theres lots of really nice members and people willing to do missionary work and help us out and come with us to lessons and things. We have some progressing investigators, especially part member families. Church was good on sunday. The organist didn't see the 2nd page of the opening hymn so he kept messing up badly and it was really funny. We had a less active who came for the first time in forever and she thought it was funny too. Elder Holt and Elder Bloomfield (his last companion, who was Cosmo at BYU!) had things going pretty good here. I think some members have a few friends they're talking to who will become golden investigators in the coming months.

Different accent from the people?

I think there's less of an accent here. Lots more yankee fans here though. It's about a 50/50 split. I think it's weird. People aren't supposed to like the yankees.

Did you get a valentine from us in the mail?

I haven't gotten anything yet.

At Grandma’s we are watching deer and turkeys…they like to eat the bird feed. Makes grandma mad.

Utchdorf would tell them "Stop It!"

remember how with the big blizzard we were hunkered down with our whole district? well one of the other missionaries there was sick. since then 4 of the other 5 of us have all gotten sick too. I was the lucky healthy one though, so ha! Elder Holt got it pretty badly though, so we didn't get to do much actual work for a few days. I've had a weird start to my time here in CT. I'm not sure he's 100% better yet either.

I talked about how it is really nature'y here right? with lots of trees and wildlife? this week while we were driving to a members home, in a sparsely populated area we saw a bobcat run across the road! just like it was a regular animal to randomly see. It was the daylight and everything. Elder Holt said it was not the first time he's seen that. Besides the health issues it was a pretty good week. We did have a few people cancel on us and then not come to church when they were supposed to. there's always next week.

Like I said church was good. We had ward council which I think went pretty well. There is another ward that meets in the same building as us that has elders who are in our district so we had them teach our missionary prep class the priests come to in the morning (because we were in ward council). Elder Holt and I asked the bishop if we could speak at church sometime soon and I think he will.

Later today we have a dinner at a home with a recently reactivated mom that has a 10 year old daughter with a baptismal date. After that we have a lesson with a young couple/family that is a less active guy and an investigator with a baptismal date in march. I'm not sure she's aware they need to get married before that though (they have 2 kids) so it we'll see how that all shakes out.

I feel like there should be more, but nothing is coming to mind. well thank you very much and have a safe trip home!

**Now, this is letter #2:

I remembered another interesting thing I was going to mention (also Elder Holt isn't done yet). So before one of our dinner appointments this week Elder Holt mentioned the father is Freemason. There were also like 2 masons in my last area, which I always found interesting, especially because I didn't think people really still did that/I don't really know anything about them except that they helped hide the National Treasure from Nicholas Cage. During the appointment this week I noticed he had a big mason ring on, so I asked him about it and we had a really interesting conversation. He made it seem not near as strange/weird as I thought it would be (btw he was a bishop when he became a mason). they are probably in their late 30's and they have 3 funny kids. He mostly likes learning about different symbols and what they mean and likes the fact that masonry has been the same for so long, so he's doing/hearing the same thing Masons have for centuries (people like Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin).

Also while we were eating, when we started asking about missionary work the wife excitedly told us about how they often bring one of there daughters friends to church with them AND their neighbors have expressed interest, so it was a great visit all around.

I think we've gotten valentines from 3 or 4 different kids while in their homes. I think 2 of them also had candy. Which reminds me, our refrigerator here has a big box full reeses candy bars. Things have changed since I was on no sugar with Elder Beck.

Another interesting thing I noticed a bit ago but never mentioned is that on lds.org if you press the "resources" in the top right you can then press "sharing the gospel" it it'll show you how to help do kind missionary things online. It even mentions blogging. Maybe mom will find that interesting. PEM also has a section on using blogs/online things and I know there are a few missionaries in this mission President Packard has working as "digital missionaries". I'm not 100% sure what they're doing, but they are regular healthy, hard working missionaries.

I really like our church websites a lot. They have lots of great bible/inspirational videos and things, I've used one in a lesson before (in my last area we taught it in the church in the family history center where we had computers) and it went really well. As missionaries we're allowed to spend an hour every week looking at the church sites for that reason, we did sometimes in southcoast, we never have here though.

ok that's about everything.

I had been distracted on http://missionaryleaders.org (not an officialy church website, but President Haight, president packards 2nd counselor, has told me to go there before) reading about how to improve.

I really like it a lot. I really appreciate my chance to be here in New England trying to help spread something I love. I'm glad I can feel the spirit even when I'm at a public library and hope I can help others feel the same in their homes so they can have the direction and relationship with their heavenly father they need and deserve.

I love you all and hope you have a great week

Received: February 11, 2013

Here are 2 items I found: The first is a time lapse from Hartford, CT. Zak is 18 miles from where this took place. The 2nd items is a photo (from Facebook) also taken from Hartford CT. Hopefully Zak will send us his pictures soon!! For those waiting on the "dryer incident" photos, we'll have to wait for that elder to send Zak the photos, then for Zak to send them to us....patience. Also, I left all of Zak's wonky spelling. I find it entertaining.

not much time! things going well though. Lots of shoveling!

How will you get to Canton Connecticut?

everyone always meets in Belmont (chapel by the temple) for transfer meeting. Then you drive

Where should I mail you stuff...mission office?

mission office is always ok, but directly to me is a week or so faster. my address is

1175 Farmington Ave,

Building 4 apartment 107

Bristol, CT 06010

Does the mission office forward on your mail?

yup

Will you still have a car?

yes, and I'm the driver!

How are your plans for the day going?

kind of wonky. We pulled all our money out in cash so we could be fully consecrated (yippee! I'm glad I could carry that with me), went to a laundry mat (boo! I'm sad I couldn't carry those with me) and did our studies there. (the timing works out well, but it is kind of weird to study while Train and Lady GaGa are singing on the radio in the building). Then we went to Walmart and then bought lunch at some place called Checkers. the wonkyness kicked in when someone called and asked if we could go shovel for them, so just did that, so now we're in service cloths and will have to change before going to our 2 appointments later today.

Getting everything in that you wanted to do?

in my last area? yea basically. President said I did a good job in the area, so i'll have to be happy with that. I do feel pretty good about how I left it. I got to leave my final words/testimony with all the people I wanted to before I left, so that was good. I really hope an investigator (Miranda) gets baptized soon, she seems sooo ready and I hope Chris stays on the straight and narrow.

Yea! Where are the pictures of you IN the dryer??

They need to be emailed to me by the other missionary doofs.

QUESTIONS:

How are you?

fine. a little sore.

How much snow?

over 9000! (all the dorky asian kids at arcadia high would find that joke hilarious).

I haven't heard an all the way official measurment, but right around 30 inches is what I keep hearing. It's a lot of snow! It's just weird because there's just no place to put it all. is the rest of the country in drought because all of the moisture is sitting in the parking lots of New England?

How did you get to Connecticut?

I drove

Talk about your weather.

like a day at the beach

Have you shoveled snow?

Did you ever lose electricity?

Did you stay IN on Fri & Saturday?

I'll give the whole Nemo (now we'll never find him in all this snow!) shpeel. I got here to CT at about 4:00 thursday. There was time to unpack, talk a bit about the area/ward (very good) and go to a dinner appointment (2 great families there.). 

Friday morning we bought some stuff and drove over to another Elder's apartment to hunker down in for nemo. Our whole district of 6 Elders stayed there. We were inside for basically all of friday and saturday. It was a weird way to start in a new area, but a fun/good way to get to know the district. We played some settlers of Catan. Also we had a great district meeting. My district leader in my last area is also my district leader here which is a funny coincidence and is cool. One of the Elders in the apartment is a big hunter and his family sent him a bunch of meat they killed. We ate lots of Elk while we were there, I liked it a lot. Also he has some really good blow guns we were using to blow darts at a small stiraphome deer. Saturday we were able to go out and shovel ourselves and some others out of the parking lot. Never lost electricity or anything. It would have been awful to endure as a pioneer, but for us it just meant staying inside for a while. There never were any big flakes coming down, just lotsandlots of small flecks of snow that just kept going and going. It was also very windy.

Sunday they canceled church because there was just too much snow. The ward had organized a few groups to go around and shovel some people out. Elder Holt and I went with the Ward mission leader and helped 3 families. 1 was a lot of digging (but you know I enjoy digging) 1 was pretty quick and 1 was tough until some people showed up with some good snow blowers. It was kind of a strange sunday, but we did some good service. I've still never been to a church service in CT.

How is your new companion?

Elder Holt seems cool. I think things will go really well. His year mark is this friday. this is his 4th transfer here in the area. He is different than me in a lot of ways. He likes music and singing. Very obedient and a hard worker, so it will work out well.

What’s your address?

see above

Did you ever get back to the email to GET your last weeks letter?

yes'm

Where do you go to e-mail now?

public library. The usual one was closed so we had to go to a different one today (it's all the same to me though)

Do you think Stamford CT is in your area now?

no, it's actually in the tail of CT which is not even in my mission

I feel like that covers mostly everything. Transfer meeting was good, I got to see some good people there. President Packard gave a great talk about how we sometimes miss out on revelation/ignore promptings because we only excpect answers to come in a specific way (asking a yes or no question, when really the answer is option #3). I was surprised when I heard I was designated driver. I've been driving slow in the snow. it's piled high around all the streets. Elder Woodruf (my trainer) just went home. I haven't met any of our investigators yet, but we have like 3 with baptisimal dates, all part member families, so that's awesome. Many of the members I've talked to hear are very open and willing and good at having gospel discussions with people/inviting/working with us to do missionary work. Almost as good as Kylie. I havn't spoken with anyone who's given as influenctial a talk/presentation as mom (did you read Utchdorf's talk Forget Me Not? It has a great section on not forgetting to be happy now. It's one of my all time favorite, even though it was given to the Relief Society).

Got to email the president now. Love you all, I put my address above, so thanks for the Ensign and everything, and all the stuff I forgot too.

also thanks for all the funny stories, they were very good. Also, Ill try and upload all my pictures next week, I have quite a few now.

oh, also, there is already an ESPN tour for our district being organized, so yea for me.

Good bye until next week!

Received Tue February 5, 2013

Here is a picture of Zak and the family when he LIKED being in the snow!

It's been little cold lately, but not as cold as Provo, Utah.

**We got Zak's letter, quite unexpectedly on Tuesday night. We were supposed to get it on Wednesday sometime. He explains why he e-mailed when he did:

So I'm emailing tonight because there is no time tomorrow because we have to spend some time tomorrow visiting people for the last time before I get transferred. It's kind of weird but this is the only way the timing worked out. I'll find a time to read or print your email tomorrow too though.

So I am getting transferred. All four of us were waiting nervously saturday night when the texts came in. Right as they were starting Elder Wilding got a call from President Packard. The volume was on high enough we heard him say the words "zone leader" and we knew he was a goner. After that I thought maybe my companionship would be safe, but then President Packard called our phone too! Elder Beck answered and was told he is going to be a trainer (in southcoast), so I knew I was gone too before the text about our area even came. When we did get them they said Elder Wilding was going up to Nashua (near or in New Hampshire) and I'm going to Canton Conneticut (it's in the northwestern quarter of the state). Elder Lopez and Beck are getting their new companions and staying here. Our "Elder Family" (est. December of 2012) is broken up. I don't know if I'll ever be able to teach the Plan of Salvation properly ever again (families can be together forever!?!?!?). Just kidding. We were all bummed though. We've spent the past couple of days spending a lot of time visiting/taking pictures with some members and our investigators for the last time. Wilding and I both bore our testimony at church. Almost all the people Elder Beck and I have been working with were there which was neat.

Today also was "interviews" were we (the missionaries in our zone) all get to interview with President Packard. It was good to talk to him. He told me a tiny bit about my new area and my new companion. He always leaves you feeling great.

Also there I was able to talk to an elder who served in Canton. It's a big area with a good ward, it's sounds like a great place. No washer or dryer though. I knew Bristol was vaguely in the area of the state too, so I asked him about the ESPN headquarters and he told me that the apartment for the Elders in the Canton ward is actually in Bristol!!! He said there's many members in the ward who work there and could get us a fun tour of it on a p-day. Dad is jealous. I'll let you all know what it's like to see Dwayne Wade editing his own highlights or writers typing with weights on their wrists for practice. Maybe my honesty will convert someone when I don't collapse to the ground clutching my leg when someone brushes my shoulder. So, it should be a good area, even if it is all the way back, back, back, back, back, back, far away from here in Southcoast. That's all my ESPN jokes for now.

It is weird to know I'm leaving though. Of my whole mission, all I know is Southcoast. I'm going to a 2 Elder apartment which will be a little different also. It's kind of easy to think of things I wish I had done a little better here or of progress I wish was made that didn't happen, but I feel good about my time here. Plus, president said I did a good job, so I'm just going to try and love Canton and my new companion (Elder Holt) as much as I loved it here.

Also it was weird to not watch the superbowl and kind of weird that I didn't really care. When we were at an early dinner appointment on sunday they had the tv on with pre-game stuff that kind of turned on the suppressed football section of my brain, but besides that I didn't even really think about it. I decided I hoped the Raven win because I don't like the 49'ers dweeb QB and maybe Pitta could catch a few TD's. I heard they won in a close game. Also someone told us today the halftime show got by without a wardrobe malfunction because Beyonce was a wasn't wearing enough cloths for anything to malfunction. Sister Resendes was quite (shocked and) appalled. Maybe if I play my cards right in my next area I'll be able to pull some strings and get T-swizzle and the Killers into the halftime next year and make sure it goes better. That reminds me, I don't think I ever mentioned, Taylor Swift actually does live in my mission, and Elders have tried (probably many times) to go to her house but I guess it's in some heavy no trespassing gated area and stuff.

Also this about getting transferred, one good thing is that (I don't think I've mentioned this before) my apartment complex will no longer be directly right next too the "Kings Inn". It's a gentlemen's club, aka the great and spacious building, only painted bright pink. It sort of kills every time we see a car pull into the parking lot there, but it's also sort of motivation to the great need for missionary work.

Tomorrow we have lots of plans. We hope to go out to breakfast (early in the morning with the Simpsons early in the morning. I'm really going to miss serving with them. They were a great help. they've shared lots of life advice, regrets, and spiritual experiences with us. Which reminds me, Dad, you probably met Elder (Gordon) Simpson! He spoke at Jim's funeral. He says he probably shook your hand. Remember he is the dentist that Kaydawn worked for in Blackfoot Idaho. I think he grew up in Malad.

anyway, after breakfast we're going to try to scamper up to where the people from our old district (before it was split up) are and play dodgeball with/against them and then be back by about three'ish. Then Elder Beck and I are going to go to Maria's house and see her and Chris and Ivone. I really hope Chris stays strong, he's made a lot of improvement, and I was with him the whole way. Then we have dinner at the Campbells house and our investigator Miranda will be there too. All awesome people. If Miranda would have been baptized while I was here it would be sooo great, but I know she'll get there. Then we're driving up to another member's house (The Rubensteins) for dessert and a group picture. Then we'll come home and that'll be that. Thursday early morning we have to leave up to transfer meeting (Elder Beck has to be at trainer meeting which starts at 2 hours before the regular meeting). Maybe we'll find time to sing The Final Countdown or It Ends Tonight to commemorate the occasion.

last thing; do you have an extra or unwanted copy of the November/confrence ensign? I've never gotten one and would like one if at all possible.

I love you all and am grateful to be a part of a religion founded on revelation and the knowledge God has a plan for each of us, and very grateful for all of you!