Received Monday, February 24, 2014

QUESTIONS:

When you get "red dotted" does that go for all day? When that happens do you just walk, or can you call a member for a ride? Do you HAVE to stay in the house?  I know it is for your safety.

Usually it's just part of a day. We just can't drive a car ourselves. 

how many sister missionaries are in your mission?

there's just over 300 missionaries here, and I think about 40% are Sisters. 

how was church for you yesterday?

It was good. 3 investigators came. 1 has a baptismal date, she's the wife of a member. 1 is the guy we've been working with to stop smoking, he came for all 3 hours for the first time. and the other is the grandma aged lady we always teach at a members house.

any investigators come to church?

yup

tell about your most tasty dinner appt last week.

the people here are good cooks. at one home she made chicken rolls (I think we called them chicken balls at home) but she made them a little creamier, which was also good. She also had a bowl of a sliced cucumber and carrot sticks, which the kids loved and just gobbled. Lucky taste buds, I guess. Also two different people gave us food yesterday at church to eat throughout the week, and then someone also brought us egg sandwiches this morning (he does that about once a week).

how are your cold symptoms? All gone? 100% better?

Alllll better. 

by the way, I find nothing wrong with eating expired food. I wouldn't if the color was off, or if it smelled bad, so charge on with the cleaning out of your cupboards!

it's mostly eaten by now.

 

What activities are you going to do today? (Jane Colton told me tonight that maybe the YW will play volleyball on Tuesday night.)

I think we are going down to the stake center to play volleyball as well!

It was a good week. I went on exchanges to a spanish speaking are, which was really fun. I was there with a greenie companion, about 3 months out from Utah. He did really well. I feel like my spanish was improving throughout the day, not that I could really say a ton, but I could through in a sentence here or there. Coming out of an appointment with a member we talked to a guy in the elevator who I think they are going to start teaching this week, so they was super cool. I think its great you mention having a missionary son/being a member, that's a good way to do it. Sometimes walking around for me there's no time but to give a card and one sentence testimony, and ask if they'd like to learn, but when there's time to talk to someone a little (like on a bus, etc) I often mention being from California, which makes it easy to segue into being a missionary and the church, etc. Just 1 minutre after talking to that guy in the elelvator while walking to a car there was a hispanic guy I started to try to talk to, but he only spoke spanish, which gave me a perfect chance to throw my companion under the bus and get him talking. He actually really liked being forced to be on the front lines a little more. He talked to that guy a little, he said he was interested, but didn't have a phone, so my comp wanted to ask him his address, but he forgot the word! he ended up saying "tienes un casa?" (Do you have a house?) it was a little funny but worked. The address we got was 3 "Jamiton" which we later together discerned was 3 "Hamilton" street. I'm not sure if that guy was really super interested, but if they do get to teach him it's be super cool. Later that day we had a dinner appointment with a bilingual family, and the Sister missionaries in the ward came too (one of which is a native spanish speaker). My companion took the chance to ask a lot of spanish questions, so he could speak it better. There was 1 question only I knew the answer too, which was funny. The other people could tell him how to say any sentence, but there was one situation they didn't know how to explain the grammar rule he was messing up, they just knew what was right. Since I had learned it in a classroom I wasn't really good at saying things right, but did remember the rule (it was about when you use reflexive verbs, when is the "se" before the verb, and when does it come afterwards). Anyway, it was ironic for the gringo to figure out the answer (it goes afterwards with commands and when the verb is infinitive, otherwise before).
There, you got a missionary story, and a small spanish lesson.

We also had a "mini missionary" for saturday/sunday. He's a youth from another stake in the mission who's preparing for his mission, so he was basically another companion with us for the weekened. Like missionary for a day we did in Arcadia but longer. They get temporarily set apart and everything. It was cool, he was a very excited and confident kid. He got to come to Stake Reporting with us sunday morning, where we (the zone leaders and Sister Training Leaders) in the stake report on how the different units are doing with the stake president and President Packard. it's cool because not many people report right to the stake president. I guess I don't think it's always as effective as it could be though. I'm not always sure what he's really looking for, like what type of info he wants.

Thats basically all for now! Have a great week!

Received Monday, February 17, 2014

QUESTIONS:

how is your weather?

very wintery. Snow and cold. the cold honestly hasn't been too miserable, but htere is just snow on top of snow. sometime I somehow convinced myself winter season was almost over, which now makes it feel dragging out. Its really not too bad, the snow brings service and things, but we were red dotted a number of times (no driving/cancel appointments) many times in the last couple weeks. Also i may be getting slightly paranoid that it will just keep snowing forever and ever and eventually we'll all just drown in it. and freeze to death. After a while it's getting harder to figure out where to put the stuff!

do you wear a knit cap or hat on your head when you go out?

not this month I probably have twice, so sometimes, but not often

is Boston in your current area? Hmm, is Boston in your zone?

no and no. We are in the Cambridge north zone, there is also a Cambridge south zone which is closer to Boston and there are Boston East and Boston West zones which actually encompass the city. The missionaries are much less spread out here closer to Boston where there are lots more people.

did you ever get a valentine's card from me?

yes, it had a yummy hershey bar and a little poem type ditty

Did you ever get a chocolate kiss from me for Christmas?/ did you eat it?

yes, and of course. it was scrumptious

I am guessing you do not do quite as much regular missionary work as when you were not a zone leader. Correct?
How do you like all that? 

yea, not quite as much. At our recent MLC (mission leadership council. Once a month all the ZL's and STL's and the president/AP's have a meeting) president talked about how for ZL's you should spend about 60% of your time working your area and about 40% of time helping with the zone (but the balance depends on the specific zone and area.) That was a bit of a call to repentance for us who have been spending probably about 80% of our focus just on our area. It's all fine, some things feel like a hassel (organizing rides for people, paperwork, and some things) but there are a lot of really good things too. It's what i've been assigned to do, like being transferred to an area, or getting a calling or any assignment, I think it's usually part of the job to learn to like it so you can do your best.

we have our MLC once a month and later that week we do our Zone meeting (with the STL's). Each week we get all the numbers from the district leaders and report them. Also we talk to all the district leaders about there districts, who's doing great, who's struggling, why, what will you do to help, who doesn't see the big picture, hows DM, etc. Also we talk to the STL's about how the sisters are doing. We need to help all the DL's more understand what they can do and the impact they can have (epsecially with helping there people focus on the priorities, monthly goals, and especially the people tghat have baptisimal dates. President thinks we are losing way to many of the people who have baptisimal dates and there's a lot missionaries can do to help that.). We've had trainings on this stuff lots of times and specific leadership training on it too, but of course all the new people (new missionaries and new leaders) haven't, so it's a continual process. A lot of times President talks to us (leadership, especially ZL's) as if we're perfect and have everything down (which I think he does on purpose), and I know I don't, there's lots I'm not good at, but I do understand the theory behind a lot of the stuff even if I'm not great at doing it yet.

is that an ok rundown?

Also we do the baptisimal interview for the district leaders' investigators.

Do you like being a zone leader, do you like all those responsibilities?

this is a bit of a repeat question, but I can expound. I've never really been a big fan of having additional responsibility. I think there are additional trials in some ways and many additional blessings. I think there are additional ways to "mess up" and sometimes on a bigger scale, so you can't live your life or make decisions based on your fears or doubts. President likes to say you don't live based on what you don't know, but on what you do know. I've never really thought about it that way as far as leadership, but I think it applies. Its cool to get the extra trainings from President. He'll often go off on short tangents on things only slightly related but useful life skills/knowledge (about families or anything gospel related). One neat thing is you get to be a little more apart of everyone elses success and it helps you to really feel part of the group and enjoy the collective success and happiness.

 Do you have much interaction with the STLs?

yea. We try to talk before/after they do there exchanges and whenever else we feel we need to. Also we plan zone meeting together. 

What is the area of your mission called?

Lynnfield area/Lynnfield ward, either works.

           

How do you pronounce Reading? like how you read, or the color red?

red (the color) ing (the ing sound)

What are your feelings about us, your family, coming out to get you and look around, at the end of your mission?

that would be fine if you want. I probably wouldn't want to wait too too long before going home, but I think whatever is fine

How are your cold (sick) symptoms?

pretty much done I think

How do you like doing exchanges? Really, what is/are the purpose of those?

they can be fun. So district leaders do exchanges with everyone in there district (not sisters, the STL's do that) and the ZL's do them with at least the DL's and maybe more. I think we'll do them with everyone this transfer. So we get a lot of trainings and things from the mission about finding, working with members, learning from PMG, about how to plan about everything. Some people are god at learning these things ion a classroom and internalizing it and applying to to their area. Some people are not. It is helpful for really everyone to see these things in action to really learn them. That is the reason for exchanges to demonstrate/learn together how to actually apply the things we're learning.

with everything I think I made leadership roles sound like a bit bigger deal than they actually are, but that is a lot of the stuff we do/are supposed to do.

Was that a good leadership responsibility rundown?

We went to the temple today! it was good. It was a fine week. Lots of snowed out evenings, like I mentioned. we had one fun exchange this week with some elders that I think was helpful, especially since we had like an hour conversation at the end to try to help them establish a big picture game-plan which will help. Especially to see how they can fill a finding pool (and write all of it down). Not sure if they really translates into anything in non-missionary speak but thats what we did.

other stuff from this week, hmm. We have a sort-of investigator we shovel snow for and when we weren't able to have a real lesson, we did a spiritual thought with Elder Jones playing his guitar. Tonight we have a dinner and an FHE with our WML's family and an investigator is coming too. We might not teach him too much longer though if things don't take a good turn. He says he likes to learn and is basically a good guy, but said he has no intention of changing religions or coming to church. Also tomorrow we are in charge of mutual for the older boys, we haven't decided entirely what we're going to do for that yet. We hope to have a less active member come in and tell his conversion story as part of it.

About Hingham, I used to serve near there in my first area, in the same zone. Also (I hope I'm not mixing the city up) in my 2nd area, Canton, a lot of (wealthy) people worked there for insurance companies, i guess it's like the insurance company of the world.

That may be everything untill next week.

I love you!

Received Wednesday, february 12, 2014

QUESTIONS:

do you know about Instagram?

I know a bit about it. kind of like a twitter type thing, but only pictures. 

Have you heard people talk about the Olympics?

a little. My friend Janna is upset at some anti-gay legislation I am unaware of. what's that about?

any news on ipads, or tablets?

no. They are still out there, but we don't know when or anything

How was your snow this week???

we got some. Got to do some shoveling for people, which always makes some good missionary opportunities.

Any issues with your driving?

nope

What are you doing for your p-day today?

dealing with stuff. So there might be a big snow storm tomorrow, so they moved transfer meeting from tomorrow morning to tonight. That squashed a lot of plans. A lot of people in our zone don't have cars so we're doing a lot of coordinating for that. Been making like 67 phone calls and 133 texts every 5 minutes, and we, with our minivan, will be giving rides too, so we'll be leaving to do that around 5'ish. also we shopped briefly, and are emailing and I think we'll go down to a chapel with a group of missionaries to do game type stuff.

Anything interesting happen at church for you this week?

We had an investigator come for the first time (just sacrament meeting) which was neat. I don't think anything else really jumped up.

Any FUN meeting coming up?

we had a FUN meeting yesterday, with all the zone leaders and sister training leaders. the mission numbers for new investigators and for % of baptismal dates dropping have been getting worse lately, so Most of the conversation/meeting was about what we need to do to fix things. It was more of a big counsel setting than training. We got some really good takeaways and thing we'll be doing with the zone, especially with our exchanges with missionaries and coordination with all our district leaders. At the end we read 2 Nephi 31 with President, which was great.

Do you wear a big coat to church, then hang it up when you get inside?

usually, yes.

Is the floor of your car dirty and wet from all the dirty snow you walk on?

basically, yes.
question from Griffin: what is YOUR favorite sport?

probably football! I think that is my best and my favorite sport to play. Basketball is great because it's much easier to organize and is also very fun (and you can do it when it's -literally- freezing cold outside). I don't get the chance to play much baseball. Dodge ball is also fun sporty activity. Tennis and other sports are also good with the right crowd. Soccer can defiantly be fun, but it isn't very high on the list compared to others. Volleyball is also great with the right group.
If I had to rank them I might say 1 Football 2 (tied) Basketball/Volleyball 4 Dodgeball 5 Everything Else

we've had a pretty good week. Both Elder Jones and I have been a bit sick with just a cold, so not a huge deal, at different times. Him first, now me still recovering. Shoveling snow was fun to do. We went to go help one member, and afterwards she had a neighbor shoveling we were able to help. Once she (the neighbor) was all shoveled we gave her a pass along card and (with the help iof the member) were able to invite her to check out mormon.org  and ask if she had any questions. Afterwards the member was very excited about that. As we were walking back to the car she was saying things like "that was our missionary moment!" she was very proud of herself and she shared it on sunday in the RS missionary moment at the beginning. I think what she got out of it was the best part of the whole thing. Sharing the gospel really is basically the most selfish (as in, greatly benefits your own self) thing to do.)

When I first got transferred here there was an investigator who had a baptismal date, but had just dropped contact with the missionaries. we've been trying to reach out to him a few times, and last week he said he wanted to get back into learning the gospel. We had a lesson with him last week (I was gone on exchanges though, but I heard it was good). It seemed like he matured somewhat (he's early 30's I think) and being totally away from the gospel helped him to realize what he was missing. He wants to get that eternal perspective back where you can see the things that really do, and really don't matter.

While I was on the exchange in the other elders area I also got to do a baptismal interview, which was cool. He was maybe a bit rushed towards baptism, but he seemed to understand and to be ready. He was baptized sunday. Often times when with people who are coming really close to making the covenant of baptism you can tell they are feeling so excited for the fresh start. There are a lot of really good chapters and verses about baptisim in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon, but I really like how in John chapter 3, Christ literally says we must be "born again" that initially confuses the person he's talking to (who says "can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?"). We can be spiritually born again, which is something we all do need.

Right before that exchange we did our zone meeting. I guess it went ok, but I felt like it could have been better. A big part of it was the need for us to be better at personal contacting wherever we go, like just opening our mouth and talking to the people around us. That's basically the staple of missionary work (from the very beginning and it will be forever) and President is pretty concerned we're neglecting it. Elder Ballard also said that directly to the missionaries in general conference. So right after the meeting I went on the exchange to a walking area, were I knew there'd be many people to talk to. I feel like it went decently well, I probably was able to bear a small testimony to about 15 people or so on our travels and have some ok conversations. if you don't invite someone they don't have any chance to say "yes". We did one kind of funny demonstration role play about that at our zone meeting. I was the missionary and someone else was the "non-member" walking past each other on the sidewalk and when we got to each other I very cheerfully said "Good morning!" and kept going. Afterwards we talked about what was the chance that person would accept the gospel. Of-course the answer is 0, they have no chance if you don't actually stop and talk to them. I'm not sure how much of our zone really latched on to the idea though. On the exchange my companion wasn't too keen on it. It can be hard.

This week looks like it should be good. we're doing a lot more exchanges and things, and we have a lot of lessons set up.

that's everything, got to go. Be good!

Received Monday Feb 3, 2014

QUESTIONS:

When I used the acronym SLT, was that correct?**

Good question Mother! actually I believe what you are referring to is STL meaning Sister Training Leader. SLT must be an acronym for something else, like Stinky Lizard Teeth. I hope Cammie doesn't have those. That's cool she likes doing it though. We call the STL's associated with the sisters in our zone every week or so, and they are helpful.

did you get my letter from last week's email debacle?

I did. The extra letter added in was funny too. Too bad Gold's Gym didn't have a 5$ a week rate. I'll be glad to use my free gym membership when I get back

How is your car? How is all that coming along?

Fixed! we got it like tuesday of last week. I bet Elder Jones 35 push-ups we'd get it in January and I won. I bet him 20 that the Broncos would win the superbowl, but he won that one.

How much walking in the snow did you do last week?

last week, very little. Before that we had done some.

How much running in the snow did you do?

haha, I think none last week.

Are you enjoying all of the running?

umm most of the time I did. I did not like the bikes as much

You enjoying the extra sports?

yes.

been riding your bikes?

not since getting the car

How was the talent show last week?

fairly fun, especially for the non-sports people. We played volleyball afterwards too.

did you participate in it?? You could have told some of my jokes.

I helped with another group by kind of narrating a story they were kind of acting out.

unfortunately I did not tell any of your jokes. But I do have a good story. Our district leader had an idea to do "family time" at the begging of all our district meetings. One comnpanionshiop each week is spotlighted to show pictures of their families and pass them out for people to look at. For our day I just brought our family picture and the life-size head cut-outs I got for my birthday. It was very funny. People were very impressed.

So this week has been good. We were able to set up more appointments after getting our car. The Assistants (who are not to be referred to as AP's, as recently pointed out by President in a webex) came over to do exchanges. All 4 of us stayed in the area with me and an Assistant in appointments in one part of the area and Elder Jones with the other in different appointments, so we were able to get a lot done. We got to go to our dinner appointment, which went really well. It is a single sister, so it was up to use to invite someone else as a chaperone. We invited an inactive guy who likes the missionaries. We went to his house first to do a quick lesson planning with him for the lesson we'd have after the dinner about prayer and he would share a spiritual experience he had.  (we called the sister before hand and filled her in on the plan and asked her to invite him to church while we were there). It all went really well. We talked with her about missionary work and she is excited to have some good sharing the gospel experiences this week and it was a good little lesson on prayer with the innactive member. She did invite him and we talked a bit about coming to church. He didn't end up coming, but being he really thought about it for the first time in a long while. Another person in the ward heard about this and she then told us she really wanted to invite us and this guy over to help fellowship and encourage him to come back as well. In the end the decision is on him, whether or not to come and whether or not to do the things that will convert him to the gospel, but it was really awesome to be a part of a lot of people helping him out.

Your email this week was very funny, good stories. What do you and Kylie text about during class?

Glad Griffin is excited for braces. some people don't get to have them, and it makes a big difference.
Some Question for G-Man: Did you like mom's analogy about Spock?
What color do you want your braces to be?
Do you still talk to that boy over minecraft about the Book of mormon? I've told lots of people that story.
Did you watch the superbowl/like it? Peyton Manning is kind of a n00b, isn't he?
Did you know that when I was in elementry school (and every other school) I made my own breakfast and my own lunch every day? you're pretty lucky. 

What is your favorite sport?

One time we were on the phone with that same inactive guy refferred to above and he was watching football (this was many weeks ago) and I introduced myself and he said something like "Cole! i'm watching a football player named Trent Cole right now!"

I said "Are the Eagles winning?"

I don't remember if they were or not, but he was impressed with my football knowledge.

There is a new member of our zone who is from Niagara Falls, Canada. He is in the Toronto mission.
Some questions for Quinn: What do you think about your call?

Any specific plans to do untill may?

Feel confident in the cold?

In my 2nd area there was a guy I liked who served in Newfoundland Canada and really liked it. He said they played Hockey on p-days a lot. (this one was not really a question).

Glad to be speaking English?
What is your favorite sport?

I think that is everything for now! I love you all

Received Monday, January 27, 2014

***NOTE FROM THE MOM: Sadly and shockingly, I forgot to write to Zak this week! It was awful, I felt very bad. I caught my mistake early in the morning, apologized profusely and started writing to Zak with reckless abandon. I sent him my letter is spits and starts. He responded with a couple of e-mails; he was very kind about my lack of email. So, each extra bit of note from Zak is included here...Enjoy!

So our car is still not fixed, we may be going onto week 3 soon without I think. The sad thing is that it has not yet been approved by SLC (for more expensive repairs, church headquarters has to approve it. It goes through our MBM vehicle coordinator who is new). People have been great helping us with rides and everything else though, it's been good in that way. "No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing" and I guess not a broken car either.

Remember how I said there used to be an extra set of missionaries in this ward? Not sure if I already said this part, but their apartment, which is on the other side of the boundaries than we live is still available for our use, so we sleep over at it sometimes when it makes sense (lessons in that part of the area one night and the next morning, etc) I call it our vacation home. we stayed there last night and are now at a library near by. Part of the reason we are here is because we talked to one of the elders who used to serve here and found out they had bikes! they didn't really use them for whatever reason, but we came up here to retrieve. Yesterday I biked to a missionary lesson for the first time, I guess now I can say i'm official. It was with a guy who pretty much hit rock bottom. It was our second lesson with him, and we had a good, spiritual, down to earth lesson about how as we make even small steps of faith towards christ the natural effect is we can (and he can help us) put our life back in order. We read part of Alma 36, (his angelic conversion story) which is great about faith in Christ, and prayer and repentance and forgiveness. He committed to pray every day and come to church next week. he said "too bad it's a whole week away" it was neat.

Another cool lesson we had this week was with an grandma aged catholic lady named Mary. She became friends with a member about 6 months ago when they met at the YMCA pool and they got talking about the church. the first time we taught her we talked about prayer, but she totally disagreed that God could actually do much for you to answer your prayer. Maybe give you strength, but thats it. Her friend told us that later that week she said that she thought asking god a question was like asking a question to Santa Clause (which is not the case!). We talked more about prayer and the idea of feeling and following the spirit and she told us of numerous experiences she had had that week where she had prayed and God was able to answer her prayer (usually through another person). Her faith and belief are growing and she said she could feel closer to god. It was fun to see the change.

I guess jumping back to what I was saying in the beginning of the email, we have been expecting to get our car soon, now we've kind of given up expecting and will just plan on using the bikes until whenever. As a result of our lack of wheels previously though we haven't done that much shopping, so we've done a lot of scavenging the apartment. Maybe this isn't the best thing to write home about, but i've never eaten so much expired food as here. a few days ago Elder Jones and I had this conversation 

Him"want some red hots" (little red candies"

me "sure" I pop two in my mouth

him "they expired 2 years ago"

they still tasted good though. I just don't get how so many generations of missionaries can go through an apartment and one throw it away or anything (we have thrown a lot of things away too, I think the little candies were the only years old thing we ate).

Luckily there's still that lady who gives us a bunch of food on sundays to eat throughout the week (yesterday it was good lasagna) and she usually gives us a box or 2 of cereal. So we do have a good stash of cereal, and it's easy to buy milk and that is plenty to sustain life on. Plus we get dinner appointments like every night which helps a ton. Also it's easy to buy bread so i've eaten a lot of PB sandwhiches. Anyways we're going to go more food shopping today. Also our vacation home apartment has a lot of canned food we're stealing.

It's still been great to serve with Elder Jones. I don't think i ever mentioned he had a scholarship at UVU for track (which partially explain all the running). He is a great high jumper and a decathlete, so he also did all the events I did too.

I'll jump to questions now

How has your weather been?

bundle up weather. not quite single digits, but close. 

What is going on with your car?

nothing. it's sitting and decaying one day at a time. we left a conference talk on the car, so it'll turn on as soon as a mechanic person turns on the car though, so maybe something miraculous will happen there

Have you had to get rides from Ward members?

many. And from some missionaries for meetings too. there's been a couple times where we came way out here (the other side of the area) and we weren't sure how we'd get back to the other side for our next day appointments and something always worked out just right.

When you went on the pioneer trek at Riley's Farm, how many pants did you bring? Did you ever change your clothes?

I don't remember. It was a pretty good trek though.

any good, yummy dinner appts last week?

we had dinner at one family where both spouses teach Piano. they asked if either of us played. Elder Jones does, but I had to admit (for the umpteenth time) that despite my Mother's efforts I was able to resist learning. She talked about all the missionary experiences she's had talking to her students who ask questions and have good conversations with. She plans on having a big recital at the chapel and we was asking if we'd have things to put out (pamphlets, BoM's, etc) and in different languages (she teaches lots of Asian people). It was neat. Also the food was good. She gave us a coconut-something pie, and it did not taste like paper. Also at another families house he fed us moose roast that he hunted (before it became a roast). It was really good.

What are you doing to do for your p-day today?

We're doing a talant show with another zone (the other zone leaders had the idea. A lot of people will really enjoy it) and then probably playing some sportage afterward. that's also partially why we're in this apartment today, it's near some other missionaries who can give us a ride down.

So basically things have still been really good. We've been reading the Book of Mormon every day and it's been great.

Love you

----------------------------------

we'll be careful. Apparently some lady in the stake decided that the missionaries were freezing so she got all the RS presidents to send out emails calling for a warm close/blankets drive and on sunday we tons of people showed up with stuff. I'm not actually sure what we're going to do with it all, but we'll certainly have warm stuff to wear

--------------------------------

Good luck with griffin! Good report too!

Mentioning steve reminded me of two things. As a missionary I kind of like meetings. I always ask the exectuive secretaries if they like gettting to go to all the big meetings, but not have big pressure, like a Bishop. Steven will have to tell me what he thinks. I don't think many people see being at all the meetins as much of a perk as a missionary does though.

also,yesterday we had a good meeting with a reactivating guy. He was funny. He's a CPA. He said being an accountant is "one of the nerdiest jobs on the face of the Earth".

Received Monday, January 20, 2014

In last week's letter, you said: he was gone a lot of last transfer in different areas because his companion was the one Mandarin speaker in the mission and they needed to go teach the mandarin speakers other missionaries were finding. So we're meeting a lot of people for the first time together here.

Was Elder Jones called to an English speaking mission? I think it interesting that he was paired with a Mandarin speaking missionary. I thought both the companionship were called to speak the same language! Talk about that!

Elder Jones' last companion was Elder Yu (probably cousins to Mi Park and probably Mr. Who, the famous baseball player that always seems to be one 1st base)

Elder Yu is from Hong Kong, called to the Massachusetts Boston mission, English speaking. Being, from China though, he does speak Mandarin and those talents were put to good use. They are opening a new mandarin branch in the stake (I think the only one in NE) and he was transferred there

QUESTIONS:

Are the youth invited to the Saturday night session of Stake Conference?

we did not have stake conference. Not sure when we will. I think back in my last area they'd be having it about now, but not here in Cambridge stake.

Do you remember talking to a man who used to live in Monrovia?

Brother Acosta, I spoke to him at church, and then we had dinner at his house, he did show some pictures. It was really funny. Also something we're doing in lynnfield is that the bishop is going to have us teaching the lessons to active families to help foster the missionary spirit (PMG suggests something basically just like that) and that family is one of those we'll be at, so we'll be seeing them a number of times in the coming month or so. Great family, and doing good missionary work too.

have you heard about the new teach way...20 minutes?

never as like a new program or anything. I've noticed whenever President talks about the ideal timeing for a lesson he always says "30-45 minutes" kind of emphasizing the usual 45-60 mins is not the ideal.

How long do your normal lessons take??

I think I'm usually in the home for about an hour, but the actual "lesson", like from prayer to prayer, is pretty close to 45 mins

did you get my picture of where google says you live? Was it right? Is it several apartments, but just looks like a big house?

yes, it was very close to our place, but not exactly. It is 1 house away. It is the same style though, looks like a giant house, but really is like 4 apartments. Ours is 3 stories. It's white. There are 2 front floors, each with a different address

Have you had the opportunity to be the "backup Elder" this week, like have you gotten out of the car and let the driver know it was safe to back up?

generally we switch every day, so every other day i'm the backup elder. Don't worry, my backup skills will be well honed when I get home. I wonder if Quinn will get to do that. I heard they haven't invented cars yet up there, so they only use snowmobiles and ski's.

What have you done for your exercise this week? You are supposed to do that every morning, right?

most often I do 200 crunches then lie on the floor for about 20 mins. We have a pull-up bar and I like to do those, but it's hard to do them at 6:30 AM. I try to do pushups as well. We have some old off-brand ghettoy'ish perfect pushups, and I tried to do them once, but as I was pushuping one of them slid across our hardwood floors and I almost faceplanted so I don't trust them anymore. I am stuck with only doing imperfect pushups for a while I guess. Also, not having a car had opened the doors for us to have some running adventures

It was actually a week from last thursday we first hurt the car. We were driving (and by we I mean I was in the passenger seat) in a busy area and there was a biggish rock on the road that we hit. It looked like a plastic bag so it was sneaky, and would be hard to avoid anyway on the busy, narrow new England streets. We knew we'd need to take it in to get fixed, but we had so much stuff we waited until last Tuesday to actually take it in. The alignment is way off. the front left tire is tilted weird. By the time we took it in, to drive straight we had to hold the wheel past 45 degrees to the right. It's been a giant hassel trying to live without a car and getting progress on the car getting fixed. They haven't even started repairs yet! for things like this you need approval from SLC and it's been kind of ridiculous, we had to do some online paper work, then had to get pictures and whatever. Hopefully they'll start tomorrow and it won't take too long. When we dropped it off we dropped it 4.1 miles from the house at the shop and ran home, which was our first running adventure, and today is our 2nd.

What are the plans for today?

run to church. email/reporting. either get a ride back or slow jog home. Get a ride down to the stake center with a member to do a baptismal interview there for a DL's investigator. Get a ride back to our area from some Sister missionaries who will be going back to a close area (they are Spanish, so there area overlaps ours. There is a lot of overlap in our zone, with English, Spanish and Portuguese). There we'll teach a lesson in an investigator who is moving to Utah (because he's engaged to a member there) in a members home. Get a ride back to home from the member's whose house we were teaching in.

Do you know if the Arcadia missionaries try to set up lessons with investigators in the members homes? I always appreciate it when members say they are willing/wanting to have us to have lessons in their homes, it helps a lot (you could ask the Arcadia elders about it if you want)

Congrats to Quinn! I think Toronto would be a fun place. Is that where President Monson was mission president? If it is then Brigham Young also went on at least 1 mission there as well. I wonder what languages are up there, That's cool we gets to go to the Provo MTC too, I've always heard good things about the other ones, but I really liked it in Provo. I think my friend Janna has some family up there. Where were the Salmons from? I feel like the Bluejays might by a little too weak sauce to get very excited about but theres probably a good hockey team there worth liking.

I've meet a lot of big Bruins (hockey) fans out here, and they say Bobby Orr is definitely better than Wayne Gretzky, which I didn't think you were allowed to even think about saying as a hockey fan.
Moral of the story:    NE>CANUCK

This is actually the first I've heard about the results of the football game. Thats too bad. I was really hoping for the Pats. I wanted Tom to go all the way this time. I don't really like Manning very much. Some of our pass along cards have somebody that looks like him though. If he joined the church I could root for him.

I'm, trying to think if anything else exciting is going on. I thought of one last thing (besides the struggles of trying to get by without a car in an area far to big to do much walking)

I don't think I have have mentioned President's Book of Mormon challenge he gave us in a webex 2 weeks ago. He loves the book of mormon more than anyone I've ever known. He's read it 100s times. He gets emotional when he talks about the story in Alma where all the recent converts of the area, and the scriptures get piled together and burnt to a crisp, and Amulek (who's family was surely in the group) so wishes that they could do something to help or stop it.
Anyways he told us all to get a new copy of the BoM and go through it 20 mins a day during personal study (we cover 6 pages) and mark every reference to Christ, his attributes, and his words, and count/tally them in the corner. It has been really good. It is everywhere and on every page. I need to read a little faster then my usualy pace to read 6 pages in 20 mins, but I really appreciate the assignment. It's neat to see really how much you can learn about Christ through the Book of Mormon. At that pace we'll all have read it in 2 transfers.

Ok that's everything for now!

And good job on your missionary experiences, we should all wear slippers a little more often!

Received Monday, January 13, 2014

QUESTIONS:

did you get Grandma's christmas gift/box?

yes! I got it at MLC (big meeting with all the zone leaders, largely getting training on what to teach at zone meeting, which was only 2 days later) last wednesday. It did have some ties, and sticky popcorn!

Have you seen Nana's birthday card yet?

yes!

How is your weather?

kind of up and down. today and yesterday have been warm though, raining and melting all the snow. It's in the 40's today. Quinn is jealous. Christopher's DC friends would be comfortable

what are you doing for fun today?

mas deportes! muchos de los missionaries en nuestro Zone habla espanol y me gusta attempo a hablar con ellos. This zone is in many ways teh opposite of my last one. Here it is all cities and we're all close together, and there are many language missionaries, which makes it easy to get together to play sports, and all the hispansic/South american missionaries are great at soccer. There are little goals to play with indoors. we'll probably do volleyball and soccer (last time we started with volleyball untill enough people said something like "lets play futbol now") like last time.

do you have a washer and dryer in your apartment?

it's in the basement, we share it with the other people, but have dibs with it every monday which is perfect.

do you live just with elder Johnson?

yes, but actually his name is Elder Jones. Embarrassing mistake by me last time. A lot of the Elders live in 4 elder apartments, but not us.

I google mapped your address; it looks like you live in a big white house looking place! I sent you a picture of it in the mail. Would you say that is what your apartment looks like??

Follow up next week, I haven't got the picture yet.

Are you still the driver?

we switch of every day. For Zone leaders they don't pick a designated driver, I think it's to make exchanges easier when we go with other missionaries and we can both drive

What kind of car are you driving now?

A minivan. A Dodge caravan 2014. Kind of funny trio be driving a big clodhopper like that, it's a good car though. We went on exchanges last week and I went to another elder's area (to do a baptisimal interview) and drove there car, a 2014 Toyota Corolla, it was a super nice, felt very sporty. Even had automatic windows. (how is the old green Corolla doing btw?)

How long has Elder Johnson been in this area?

E Jones has only been here 1 transfer. It's especially interesting because there used to be 4 missionaries in the area, and they basically split it in half, but now we have the whole thing, and on top of everything else he was gone a lot of last transfer in different areas because his companion was the one Mandarin speaker in the mission and they needed to go teach the mandarin speakers other missionaries were finding. So we're meeting a lot of people for the first time together here.

Do you have many dinner appointments?

Most every day. It's great. Also there's a super nice grandma aged lady who brings us food every sunday that we basically eat all week for lunch. Last week she didn't know the other elders would be gone (and they were in a trio), so she cooked for 5. She gave us probably 10-12 pork chops with stuffy and containers with lots of rice and mashed potatoes. Very yummy and convenient.

Any funny experiences this week?

 yea, I feel like we had 100 awkward missionary moments. One day we needed to call a family in the ward, the Johnsons. I dialed. While it was ringing I said "Mark Johnson, right?", for that is who I called. Elder jones said I don't think so, I'm not sure that is. then someone ( a woman) picked up. I figured it might be an inactive member or something so I just went with it. We had a small conversation (we quickly could tell she was a member, but not the correct sister johnson) and she was talking about how she just was speaking to the missionaries on her porch last week, but we are new, so we could set up an appointment next sunday at church. While at church we asked someone about that Johnson family, and we were told they moved to Idaho last year! Anyway I don't know if that made a great story, but it was funny for us.

 

Remember to wear your retainer.

I usually am very good but this morning went to brush my teeth and realized I had went to sleep without it, so good reminder

 

This has been a weird week on tuesday we had the webex with the whole mission. 90% of it was President going over different things in the white handbook (obedience). He was very loving and friendly the way he did it, but I think it's too bad, we could be getting training about how to be better teachers, or be closer to the spirit by better prayer or improved scripture study, but instead President felt he needed to go over basic obedience.

Wednesday we went to MLC and that took up the entire day until our dinner appointment. It was a really good meeting though

Thursday our zone had interviews with president. So as to be efficient with time we organize it so one district comes at a time, gets a training from the Assistants, then by the time all their interviews are done, the training is done and the next district comes in. The Zone leaders stay the entire time though, so we were there all day (didn't get to finish studies, picked people up to get there, then we didn't get back till after curfew). So we got to get/help with the training 3 times, so by the end we knew it well. we would have had it a 4th time, but we skipped one to plan out zone meeting with the Sister Training Leader (kind of like a ZL, but a sister).

then friday we did Zone meeting. (mostly about how to help people have a good experience with the Book of Mormon, not just throw them onto it).

Next week should be more normal

We had lots of good moments in the area as well. we had a lesson with an investigator in a members home, which is ideal. It's a neat story. The Hahn's (awesome members, very missionary minded) met Mary (grandma aged) at the community pool (I think at YMCA) and became friends and started inviting her to church things. Mary really liked it. I guess she's been coming to church and stuff for a few months now, but doesn't really want to admit she is thinking about actually joining the church. she gave like a 7 minute talk at testimony meeting and said how much she liked all the people here.

You could tell the Arcadia missionaries you were willing to meet there people and do lessons in the home, and they would probably really appreciate it.

Last night we had a cool dinner apointment with a young couple, the E family. Sister E had a neat conversion story, she moved like 3 or 4 times in her childhood/youth, but always ended up near a mormon family with a girl her age. They would invite her to the different primary activities and things and she would go, eventually joined the church at like 13.Think about her friends who invited her to little activites growing up before she moved. They have no idea now she's temple married and has a huge testimony! we also talked to them about their goals of sharing the gospel, and they they talked about making a Mormon.org profile so they could put it up, and share it as opportunity arises and there was a family they wanted to invite over for dinner.

Over all things are really good!
I love you!

Received Monday, January 6, 2014

sorry, this might be another super short one, we played sports too long at the chapel! (very fun)

The new area is great, tons going on. A very high paced big ward. 199 attendance last week. Elder Johnson (comp) is great, I think the best first week impression i've ever gotten. I'm trying to learn all the names of the zone and ward and everything.

I hope things go well with Grandma, without too much delay. I will certainly pray for her

You can tell Griffin I've told lots of people about his great missionary efforts through minecraft, including already in my new area, so I've been thinking of him too.

QUESTIONS:

Did you actually transfer on Saturday?
yes

What is your new address?
 below

how are things there....talk about it all, including your new companion, area, and whatever else!

above

When you were red dotted in Turners Falls, what did you do all day??

we went up to our district mates area. Got my hair cut! he (1 person there, he owned it. Looked about 55) had the chair facing right at his magazine rack. It was full of the Sports Illustrated  swimsuit edition. I asked him If i could turn them around or something. He said "The magazines stay where they are". Very weird, I just looked up and ran the articles of faith through my head once. It was funny though. All our district (4 of us) were there (they had to hold back a bit from laughing), and we were able to engage him in a pretty good spiritual conversation, despite the circumstances, gave him a pass along card with the elder's number

How did you get to your new location?

everyone drove to one chapel and swapped, there was no real meeting though

Do you know the missionaries in your zone?

some, I'll get to know them all though

Do you think you kind of know most of the missionaries in your mission now? Or is that impossible?

I think kind of impossible because you get to know people and they just keep dying off!

How were the rice krispy treats? Were they frozen?

very good, I downed all the chocolate ones pretty quick. Ate it like a giant candy bar

Did you also get the stand for your temple picture?

yes

the hand warmers would be cool, i've used a couple and a pair of teh feet warmers. Unlike Christopher i've had very good use of those boots, they're great.

140 Salem st,
Reading, MA 01867

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Received Friday, Jan 3, 2014

another short email. Things have been super weird because we've had a snowstorm and we were red dotted (not allowed to drive) and things.

did you get transferred?? If yes, tell all

yes! i'm being sent to Lynnfield MA, to be a Zone (Gypsie) Leader  of the Cambridge Zone. It's pretty close to Boston. Transfers are normally thursday, but we haven't gone yet because of the snow storm! the transfer meeting will be tomorrow (saturday)

We got a missed call from Pres Packard during a lesson on the Transfer-text day, and when we called him back he told me. When i first saw he called I was hoping he was going to call me to be a trainer instead (he makes calls for all leadership spots), but it was not too be. It should all be good though.

Did you get 5 different envelopes/packages for your birthday? How was the opening; did you enjoy your gifts, did you eat your rice krispy treats AS SOON as you got the box? Were they still good?

I followed all instructions correctly, and it was all great. everyone's face inside was very funny.

did you sing Ring out Wild Bells in Church on sunday?

I don't think so

I laughed reading quinn went to the beach. We just walked into the library from shoveling snow from people's driveways.

**From the Mom: I know it' a short letter....