Received Monday, March 25, 2013

 Still no new pictures from Zak....so, I make up as I go!
Here are a few as Zak grows....
                                                                                   Here he is home from his first
                                                                                    Boy Scout High Sierra Trip;
                                                                                    2005, he is 12. That is his
             First day of 4th Grade!                         brother, Chase and Dad in the picture.

Here he is, after being in the the MTC for about 3 weeks.

There are quite a few things in this letter that you, the reader, may not understand. I will put an explanation in red so you can comprehend the fullness of Zak. ENJOY!

QUESTIONS:

How do you like the time change? Is it now light when you wake up? Or was the whole thing a non-issue for you?

it was not a big deal. I haven't thought about the light or anything. I kind of just forgot anything was even different.

What of that BYU-I talk that Bro Bednar gave?

I do remember telling you about that now. I saw a video of him giving it while I was in the mtc. I really liked it, I've looked over my notes (especially because I think it's in that talk he chastises people about the way they take notes and never look at them again). My favorite example he gave was how Christ healed the ear of one of the soldiers who was capturing/imprisoning him. In Jesus the Christ it also talks about how he would not use the priesthood to make himself bread after he had fasted 40 days and was suffering and tempted (food being a life necessity but very soon after he did turn water to wine for a wedding (a luxury) just to make his Mother and others happier (and he did not take credit).

This is a beautiful talk given by Elder Bednar to students at BYU Idaho in 2003. Here is a link if you are interested in reading it!

http://www2.byui.edu/Presentations/transcripts/religionsymposium/2003_01_25_bednar.htm

That's a great talk for President Becera to share. Now being a missionary and more appreciating what a mission president is I wish I had paid more attention to him and the missionaries and see how they do things in the Arcadia mission.

One thing I really love about the direction President Packard is pushing us is that with all our working with members we can see how people do have that desire to share the gospel, and we get to help. It can be pretty hard to actually make it real; bring the theory of sharing the gospel to real life. I think a lot of times for everyone we can hear a great talk or feel the spirit in many ways, but after wards we kind of have a "therefore... what?" moment. I really enjoy being able to help both inspire and especially educate how. It can be tough, because it involves change, but that's what faith, repentance, endure to the end, etc (the gospel of Jesus Christ) is all about.

(I don't feel like I have as much to report this week, so I guess I have not choice but to give a soliliqua about my missionary thoughts) (miss-spelling here was intentional)

 Here Zak is making a reference to an episode of Survivor. One time a guy got up and said that he wanted to give a soliloquy but he pronounced it wrong. It was very funny.

Did you get your socks?

I am wearing them now! It was fun to get 2 packages at once. Very good pictures. Funny to be flipping through and seeing all the idaho pictures seeing: snow. snow. snow. sledding in snow. snow. then: Sunny Beach in Hawaii! both looked like fun adventures. it was good to see Kylie's eye too. I am glad you could find the cheapest way to get around UPS silliness

 I sent Zak some pictures. We went to Idaho to see Grandma and to go sledding. Kerry and I also got the opportunity to go to Hawaii, I included those pictures too. Kylie also enjoys taking artsy pictures and likes to take pictures of her eye! Zak has also sent us a picture of his eye too. It also ended up being FAR cheaper to send Zak 2 packages than to have it all in one envelope. Ridiculous! Just know that anything 13 ounces or under goes 1st class, and the cost is under $2.50;  over 13 ounces and it is way more expensive.

Did you get the CFP card...maybe you didn’t “get” it...

yes! I think that was a week ago in a different package with pictures and things. I didn't get it initially, except that you also sent an annotated email that I sent home highlighting the line (C)ole (F)amily (P)ower!

Good job to everyone on there sports successes! I think the best analogy for griffin's baseball heroics would have been our ol' pal Jeffery, seeing he was the champion of hitting doubles. In Griffin's games who does the pitching? Dad always said hitting a baseball is the hardest thing to do in sports.  Griffin was at bat with 2 outs, bases loaded. He hit a double, bringing everyone in!!

Scoring goals is always fun to. I didn't get to score too many, so that's good for her. Kylie scored a goal in her soccer game!  She is also going to interview to be on the Arcadia High School newspaper.

I'll be interested to hear what happens with the AHS newspaper idea.It was never my kind of thing; maybe I should have taken English honors and I would have had such academically admiral ambitions.

Or maybe kylie should just send an app to Harvard now so she can skip high school and we'll hang out on P-days. I can ask President (Clayton) Christensen to pull a few strings and make it happen.

I'm sure Chase will be perfectly fine by the time I email next; infact he'll probably have forgotten about the whole thing (uh-oh...). Chase went skiing on Saturday, he fell, hit is head, got a concussion and had NO short term memory. By Monday, he is doing much better. He remembers nothing of Saturday. Good thing there is video...

that sort of thing is sort of scary though, but how long did it take Steven to completely get over it after his dodgeball related head-clonk? Steven got a concussion a year or more ago. He tried to drive home, but couldn't remember how to do it...someone had to come and pick him up. Thanks, Kathleen Magnusson.

has he gotten a blessing from anyone?

This week one of the young men here got there mission call. Going to Brazil. A lot of people were invited over to watch and there was some food; we went too. His dad thanked us and said the missionaries here, especially Elder Holt and his last companion, really helped him make the decision. it was cool. Also while there one of the young women asked if I was from arcadia, I said yes, and she said she knows Jared Colten! Her name is Courtney Lyons and she knew him at BYU I. I guess back then she was living in Chicago but has since lived here. Pass on the information!

Later today we are going to the ESPN HQ! we'll be in the tour in a few hours. I have my camera. Not sure yet whether I'll spend some money on overpriced EPSN stuff. I feel like I really ought to get some form of memorabilia Maybe they'll let me be the guest star on SportsNation or something; I'd talk about Kylie and griffin's achievements and include a quote from a college QB legend: "when you live right, good things happen". Actually, it was Austin Collie who said this, he is a receiver for the Colts. I think he said this after a BYU game. Nice try, Zak. So close!

This week had it's usual ups and downs. I think we're being tested a little bit to see if we believe if evert success really is an invite, which is something we say a lot. According to Ether 12 (especially verse 37) it is; and the Book of Mormon really tends to be right about this sort of thing, so I'll have to remember that.

One super cool thing was yesterday in Priesthood at the end of the announcements someone stood up and quickly talked about how the day after we had a visit with his family they had a great missionary experience and he felt we really helped and he really appreciated it. It was completely unexpected for him to do that, and very nice.

We now have assignments from the Elders Quorum, Relief Society and High Priest's of things they'd like us to help with which is great. Mostly it's tracking down people they don't know, and for some people connecting home teachers to their teachee's.

so most of the members are doing good, the leadership is doing pretty good, the recent converts are doing pretty good, hopefully this next week our investigators will achieve "doing good" status as well (they are priority #1 after all).

alrighty, that about covers all my exciting news for this week. Love you all!

Love you too, Zak!

Received Monday, March 18, 2013

Little did he know, back in 2007, that he was posing for a "Super" photo for his mission blog in 2013!

Las Preguntas:

Do you remember how you knew/heard of the Neilsons?

I think the Walburgers also knew them

Did you wear green on Sunday?

yes, I wore my green tie. I was somewhat shocked that I saw only a few others doing the same, one person did where an entire green suit though. how green was arcadia ward on sunday? I believe we know at least 1 person has a green suit there

If not, did you get pinched?

no pinching

Did you get pictures sent?? We always love those!!

no, but I really should have time to send it off today. It made me realize I haven't taken very many pictures since I've been here, I'll have to take more. I don't now if you'll even really get to see Elder Holt in this batch.

How does your companion, Zachary, spell his name?

unlike me, he spells it the way his birth certificate does. with an A (Zachary)

Speak about your boots.

I like them. I've worn them probably 15-20 or so times. I don't if I will again until next winter though

What are you doing for fun today?

the P-Day things we are doing today are currently planned as follows: email family. Do 1 quick load of laundry (since it was a short week). Write letter to family about pictures and send it. Go to the stake center and play basketball with some missionaries in the zone (one of our ZL's really likes basketball). Go Shopping for the things we need. That reminds me, can you send me more socks, specifically black ones? many of mine started shrinking, every time I wash them (a lot. I should take a picture. some basically look like baby socks. some I just pull on anyway and as result now have holes from being stretched too much). Probably I should pull them out of the dryer sooner, but too late.

Do you go to a Laundromat? Oh, yes, you do. Do you do that on your P-day?

Oh, yes, we do. we go in the morning and do our studies there while everything washes (and dries. and shrinks).

What did you eat for breakfast?

I told you! I always eat candy for Brexfix!

When we were sick we called the nurse to tell us how to cure ourselves. She said eating yogurt would help so we bought some. I don't know if that really helped us get better (we are better now) but it was pretty scrumptious. Remember when I made that gross food concoction? with greek yogurt and oatmeal and stuff? For the past few days I've been eating something like that, but with regular good yogurt. It's yogurt and granola in a bowl, like cereal, and almonds mixed in too. Also today I put in some oatmeal (raw) and liked it with that. If I had an apple I would have sliced that up to. It's too expensive to have that all the time though.

Before I got sick I had been eating Oops All Berrys Cap'n Crunch, which tastes great, but I never really feel good afterwards.

Anyone take you out to eat at a restaurant? (Like Steven got on his mission?)

There was someone in my first area who feed us about once a month at a restaurant. Every time he loved to tell this joke about how we could order whatever he wanted because he was paying with a stolen credit card. He also would just about always tell us about how funny it was to tell that to past missionaries and see their reaction.

I think just once here someone took us to Panera Bread, but other than that it's always been at a members house. It's better that way too. There's probably only been 2, maybe 3 days we weren't feed a dinner or lunch. Also there's a recently reactivated lady who makes us a dinner to take home every Saturday, that we usually end up eating for lunch all week. I do think it would be cool to go to Chili's and get a personal Molten Lava cake though.

Just yesterday we had the best dinner appointment of my mission. It was at the Reid's. The food was good (roast beef, potatoes with gravy and rolls! plus green beans too) just like home. toward the end of the dinner we were talking about how they now like to go to church when on vacation and one time they went to Jimmer's ward (in NY)! they didn't even realize it till someone mentioned seeing him there in their testimony. They looked around saw him and made sure to talk to him/get him to sign their program. They said he was a nice guy. But the thing that really made it the greatest was the conversation before that. soon after we go in Sister Reid says "guess what happened" and tells us about how her friend at work came and told her she wants to become a mormon! That's the kind of stuff we joke about happening! The stake is putting on a presentation put together by Elder Perry: "the mormon's next door" this sunday and the plan is for us to meet her there. as we were talking about it during dinner and encouraging her to invite other people too it as well she says something like "oh yea, I could invite my other friend who always says she thinks it would be great to be a mormon". holy cow! We're going back there this wednesday to follow up and see if she invited the people she was supposed to and how it went.

Anyway, there was great missionary work, good food and Jimmer stories. Kind of ridiculous.

the email had me laughing in many places. I bet Christopher is enjoying all his little chonchitos. What is the ultimate plan there? when can he sell them? does he feel somewhat weird about it?

Good update on football, mostly sad news though. I guess I hope Jackson does well in Atlanta, but I wish he would have stayed (or at least gone to New England). Also it looks weird to see they gave away their great running back and only receiver that frequently plays better than "very bad". literally no weapons left if the young guys don't pan out (plus that TE I guess). Also Jake Long could literally be the #1 player in the entire NFL the Rams would want to add on their team. Luckily I'm too busy talking to people who's friends "want to become mormon", and listening to members of the quorum of the 12 apostles to really worry about it. (which segues into...)

I forgot to mention last week that Elder Ballard was coming to our mission! he came and spoke to us Saturday. I didn't get to see him in person, but watched at a stake center (he was in Boston). An area 70 and Elder Christensen (in the presidency of the 70. Spoke in the last General conference about the holy ghost and I happened to quote from it the Sunday before at the Baptism we had). It was a really, very great experience. The spirit was very strong and I feel very inspired. He spoke about a lot, including how to have the spirit with you and become master teachers. The whole mission focus on working closely with the members and becoming part of the "very fabric of the ward" is exactly what they want to to be doing. I took lots of notes. super great. He left a blessing on all of us and our families.

Also on a side note, he was very funny. made a lot of jokes on the spot. If you were to combine Bishop Daines (who I think he looks like) and Brother Mack and make that person an apostle I think it would be Elder Ballard.

So basically it's been a really good week. The one we have planned coming up is already 95% booked until Friday, so hopefully we'll just keep carrying this momentum with us.

The picture of Quinn would have to make mom's top 3 for best timing on action shots. Nice work using the fancy phone. I hope griffin feels better.

Love you all!

Received Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Finally, the infamous DRYER pictures!!

Zak squeezing in....

He's IN!!

Struggling for out....

Looks like he's gonna make it...

GREAT photography!

Now, here is the letter:

QUESTIONS:

What time did you receive this letter? (just curious)

it came in at 4:28 AM on monday, March 11th

Did you get my regular mail this week?

I did, I even have it here with me so I can comment on it later

OH, tell us about your transfer news…your companions….

I only have one companion, and he was NOT transferred. did I ever mention his first name is zachary? that's probably why we're companions

Talk about your weather.

warmer one day, then cold again; very new england'ish. it's getting better over all though. actually yesterday it was warmer (today is cold) and it rained and most of the snow melted

How did your baptism go on Sunday?

very good. happiness all around, I was feeling a little sick though.

What are you doing for P-day today?

nothing really exciting. The ESPN goons supposedly are getting closer and closer to allowing this tour to happen

Did you make cookies from scratch for the mission prep class??

not yet. We didn't have the class last week, and we won't this week either because we have ward council. One priest invited 7 people just last week to the dance, so I think he's the big winner.

something before I forget: Corbin and Louise Walburger are in my ward but grew up in Whittier California. Brother Walburger's grandpa was Corbin Warnick, who was the person i mentioned a while ago who was a stake president and bishop and things in our area, maybe east Pasadena He passed away in 02. anyone know him?

Also (I don't remember the connection here, but the name is written down) do you know Sally and Keith Nielsen?

Things were pretty good like usual. we were happy to see neither of us were getting transferred.

Good job using "context clues" to figure out about emailing this week. We spent a good amount of time this week making sure things went well for the baptism, and teaching the last few things to her. Our last lesson before the baptism was in the chapel by the font, which was cool. In one of our dinner appointments we were talking about their home/visting teaching families and everything and when we asked if they's had any experiences sharing the gospel lately they talked about their friend Bobby who they read the book of mormon with sometimes, who would probably want to talk to missionaries; and that was cool. We hopefully will get to meet him this week or at least have something planned to do that.

whenever you print out my email and send it to me with the comments I'm always shocked (and appalled) at all my own spelling/grammatical mistakes. oh well.

you asked about my PEM, we all have softbound copies.

high five to kylie for her ambition on honors english and being dubbed by mom as not a procrastinator.

I thought the picture that was on the blog post you sent be was great (getting ready to sled at grandmas). I don't feel like I've ever seen that one. I thought my blog looks very well done, even if it is kind of funny the pictures on some posts are of that nasty food concoction and me looking at myself in a car mirror.

Alright, I will now try to upload my pictures onto a flashdrive so I can send that to you soon.

**And that was all from Zak...no sign off this time.

**I sent a print out of Zak's blog to him so he could see what it looked like, that is how he saw it.

**Remember, PEM stands for the book: The Power of Everyday Missionaries

Received Monday, March 4, 2013

 Zak forgot to bring his cord for his camera today so he could download some pictures. Hopefully, he'll send some next week! In the meantime, here is one of him looking in the mirror:

What Zak likes to eat for breakfast....looks like a bit of everything!

QUESTIONS:

Did you get my letter in the mail with the stake paper in it?

yes! it was a good letter and interesting to read the stake paper. I forgot I was going to bring that with me so I could comment on a few things. grr.  I've spent a lot of time working with part member families, sometimes the member is reactivated and sometimes the non-member spouse is the one who is initially intrigued and it ends of uniting the whole family.

What about sending your pictures.....

Ever hear from your fellow missionary with the washing machine pictures?

I forgot to bring my cord with me to get the pictures onto the computer. sorry :(

I'll email Elder Wilding today about the dryer pictures

HEY! You DID e-mail MUCH (hours) earlier last week...new trend? Is it because of the new companion? New way of doing things? Shocking, but nice.

ummm hard to remember. I think Elder Holt had a lot of people to email last week.

Talk about e-mailing, where you go (Library, I think), do you stand while doing it? Did you have to get a Connecticut library card?

library. using a library card for a missionary who was here probably 15 months ago. not standing, just sitting in a chair. you're usually only allowed to be on for 2 hours, so normally we stay the whole time.

Griffin did want to know if you lost any bets. I didn’t quite understand the question, but you can answer if you do.

I think the last time I lost a bet was at BYU when I bet a friend I'd do better than him at a final. I mentioned that I won a bet about getting in the dryer. often when people say something is impossible I'll ask how many pushups they'll bet on it, but pretty much they never will. That's really the reason the whole dryer experience happened.

that was an exciting email from you guys!

I'll be interested to hear what Action Jackson does. If he leaves I really hope it would be the patriots. It would be kind of fun to see him play here. it seemed like the RB we just drafted was sort of unimpressive though.

Free Jimmer!

about the ipod, I'm not going to need it. If i were to get an mp3 player (not currently planning on it) I would get a generic one that doesn't demand Itunes like Ipods do.

about Car-ice tracting: we don't really do much tracting here, so it might not be the best idea. A better idea would be to take members with us on splits and then do some impressive fishtailing. They would be impressed with the focus and diligence that is manifested and then promptly invite all their friends to church. I bet if a second edition of the PEM comes out that's what it'll be all about.

Has mom been reading that book? any thoughts?

sounds like kylie is just doing soccer all day every day, and I didn't know she had been playing guitar again! Whenever i see other people do musical things I sort of wish I had given in to some of my ample childhood chances to build a talent there.

Call our ol' pal Brother Kent down to help out with Griffin's baseball team. (and sign mom's old cast!)

I'll be excited to see the new ward bulletin; does it still have a random question with a reward?

also, I would be interested to hear kylie's reasoning behind going into that honor's class.

this has been another good, a bit long, week for us. No big giant news pieces are coming to mind.

except transfers are a week early this time. This saturday we find out what happens and the thursday afterwards is transfers. It'll be shocking if I go anywhere, but Elder Holt has been here a fairly long while. I don't think he'll go though.

We've been trying to juggle all the different good things we can do and do what's best. between working with our investigators (most important) and less actives, recent converts, a big young single adult list we were given to track down and big (not young )single adult list, working with members, and assignment from the bishop, etc, it's a lot to organize. Much, much better to have a giant list of things to do than a empty one!

In our Missionary prep class they've extended 17 invitations to church activities in the weeks (between the 5 boys), which is pretty cool. Most of the time the people actually came which is always nice too. Kylie should take it as a challange and try to beat the class.

We have a baptism this sunday which is awesome. It's all pretty much organized too; i'm giving a talk on the holy ghost.

Yesterday was pretty good, Sundays are mostly always pretty productive. I was joking with elder Holt though, that there needs to be an hour long social every sunday just so we can have the time we need to talk to/set up appointments with etc everyone we need too.

Afterwards we were able to have a good meeting with a family and set up a few appointments where the father can come with us to appointments with people on his home teaching list who we know that he doesn't. We're trying to do a lot of that sort of thing along with talking with them about doing missionary work.

At the end of the day we got to go give a blessing to sister Lang. Brother Lang was baptized like a week before I got here, and now she sort of slowly getting reactivated. At first she sort of fought it, but Leo (brother Lang) is totally converted and the kids like coming to church too. Her asking for a blessing was a great sign. The gospel has had an awesome effect on the family, it's been really cool to see, even though I wasn't there for the beginning. Yesterday while we were teaching gospel principles (found out like 10 mins before the lesson) we were talking about obedience and 2 people told their stories about the word of wisdom. The first person talked about how he had random awful stomach pains his doctor couldn't figure out. prescribed him a bunch of stuff that didn't work. Then we started living the word of wisdom (big ice tea drinker) and they stopped. It wasn't till afterwards that he was able to connect the dots. the 2nd person was Leo who's story was pretty similar, except his diagnosis was a little easier since apparently he was an intense alcoholic.

Today we're doing our regular things, then playing basketball in our ward building with some people from our zone. It should be really fun. I wished our ward's youth/elders quorum/whoever had a weekly basketball game, even though we would rarely be allowed to go. It's an easy thing to invite people (potential investigators, less actives, recent converts, random friends) that has facilitated in a lot of people's conversions. I guess that's unrelated though.

Also today as part of our shopping we had to buy stuff to make cookies with because the winner of our mission prep class's invite competition wins them.

Do the KFC's in the west ever have buffet's inside? Here some do, so that's what we're going to do for lunch. after the P-day part of the day we have a dinner appointment with an awesome family (and not just because the father works for ESPN)(he's somehow in charge of their pay-per-view products. I apologized that I never have purchased any. he said it was ok). Then we have a lesson with an investigator to end the day.

I think that's just about mostly everything! have fun in sunny hawaii!/in the house with steven and heather and kids/in school! (I think that covers everyone)

Cole family power!