Received Monday, March 31, 2014

QUESTIONS:

Tells us about your new companion, Elder bushnel!

He grew up for a while in the bay area of CA (don't remember the city) and then moved to st. George Utah. He started his mission just one transfer (6 weeks) after me. He has been a zone leader for a while already. He has 3 younger sisters. He has a Jeep that he loves back home and his favorite hobby was "jeeping" (off-roading, rock-crawling, etc with the jeep).

How many elders came out with you to Boston when you started your mission? Well, I know you came a few days or was it a week later, are they still considered on the same track with you? Will they go home when you do? Do you see them often?

there were 6 of us that came here (including me). We are all on the same track, the 1 week makes no difference. I can tell you a little about each

Elder Kilgore: I didn't see him a ton. He was one of the Assistants to the President (AP) for a while, (just changed away this transfer) so after I became a zone leader I saw him or talked to him pretty often

Elder Watson: I've seen him a ton. he's been in my zone for probably half my mission, we always end up getting transferred near each other. There are 2 zones in the Cambridge stake, I'm a zone leader for the cambridge north zone, and before just getting transferred he was a zone leader of Cambridge south zone, so we would see each other a lot on p-days and coordinate rides and things together for transfers and stuff (almost no one is that zone has a car). Him and elder Kilgore are from Bountiful UT and went to the same HS. there are probably 10-12 missionaries who are/were here from bountiful in Pres Packard's time as mission president. and along with that, President Haight's (councilor to pres packard) son just got his call to one of the SLC missions which includes bountiful inside it, so he may be seeing some MBM missionaries there.

Elder Taylor: he had a special assignment for a while driving the mission trailer, so he would drive around the mission and everyone would see him. He did a lot for finding new apartments for missionaries and moving furniture around and stuff. He would also go to all the zone conferences so I always saw him there.

Elder Nash: I have not seen him a lot. for like 2 transfers we were in the same zone, and of course we see each other at the occasion zone conference or something. A while back when I was in Canton CT he trained Elder Stevens for just one transfer, and then elder Stevens got transferred to canton with me to be his 2nd companion.

Elder Orgill: I have not seen him in a while. back when I was in Canton we were in the same zone for a while, but haven't talked much since. We were MTC companions.

Also President Packard got here just about a week before us.

I know you will watch General Conference this weekend, do you plan on watching it at the/a Ward building? Is it available on people's home TV's there? We love watching it at home; the ease of it all; the ability to pause the TV and re-watch if wanted.

the plan is at the ward building. For the priesthood session they have a little pizza dinner beforehand at the chapel too.

Did your Ward do anything different because it was a 5th Sunday?

we did fast and testimony meeting because of general conference, but the 2nd/3rd hours were normal. We also have stake conference coming up on Easter (did you know, Elder Packer, president of the Quorum of The 12, is in charge of picking when all the stake conferences happen, and you have to get special permission to change it. That is when ours was chosen to be)

Have you heard of Groupon?

heard the name. Isn't it a coupon related thing?

Christopher didn't like the acupuncture as much as Kylie? kind of creepy?

Add on: Plans for today?

Probably going to the Revere chapel and doing mostly soccer there. I think the zone got a little less "sporty" after transfers. Elder Bushnell is not a big fan, especially of basketball. we'll see how things go.

It has been a good week. First I have to point out you started your email saying there was nothing earth shattering, but then wrote about an earthquake, which is the pure definition of "earth shattering"

It has been a week of changes. Of-courses transfers always brings a lot of adjustments, but this time we also changed apartments! we are now staying in another city is our area, Salem. (same as the witch trials. Lots of witch related stuff, museums and shops and people of the wicken religion). it's our old "vacation home". We still have the reading apartment for now, but it'll probably be closed down in a couple months. We'll still pop in there occasionally to check on mail and stuff, and there's a few other things we still need to get from it. (sorry I forgot to write down our salem address! i'll get it next week).

Elder Bushnell's full first day here we were looking for an innactive member, and their neighbor told us they had moved but we got talking and they were interested. We went back 2 days later with our ward mission leader and had a lesson. It is a young'ish couple with 2 small kids. they both grew up in America in christian religions but ended up converting to Islam. they both have similar stories about looking into different churches and coming away dissatisfied. the things they heard about God were conflicting and confusing and what we need to do for salvation, for god's love, etc all didn't seem to fit. They also liked the diversity in the Muslims they met. Not sure yet how open they really are versus just like to "talk about religion". It was an interesting visit. It was important to them that they still believe in Christ as a prophet and did miracles, i'm not sure whether they really think of him as a Savior or not (I think the religion formally does not, but especially the wife I think still might). They said they may come to church sometime, and I think that would be especially great for them.

Also this week we got a call from Idaho from a fairly recent convert who told us about his sister here who was also baptized, but never really stayed with the church, but wants to get back in it. We had a great first visit with her, her name is Anita. She was excited to come to church, but got cold feet sunday morning (she said it was because of the rain). She is in her low 20's and has 20 small kids. When we thought she was coming we called 2 of the youth and asked them to bear their testimonies (remember it was fast and testimony meeting), so that Anita could see how good it is to raise your kids in the church. 1 of them did end up doing it, the other chickened out. We did not tell them beforehand that Anita didn't come. It was still good to hear the testimony of the other youth.

Mary our investigator accepted a "calling" yesterday to work in the nursery (I think technically it's just an assignment, but whatever) which is cool, and will hopefully get her to come to church more. Also we need to make sure she doesn't start trying to run the whole primary, which would be a bit like her.

One of our other investigators, Sara Kemer (baptisimal date for may 24th) went visiting teaching for the first time yesterday. I guess we're good at getting our people working and serving in the church, we just got to actually have them baptized!

That earthquake sounds fun. I think someone mentioned that to me earlier this week. 

I've heard very little about march Madness. I think after the first week we were at dinner or something and somebody was talking about the upsets, but none of it really meant much to me. I heard BYU lost and I think the good mormon player's team (Duke?) lost too, which is too bad. Is Jarbarri Parker his name? I like the names you have. I guess guessing sometimes does work. I do not think Messi is tall enough to dunk.

Sounds like you guys had a good church day. Glad the ward mission plan is likeable and doable, it's similar to the one we have here. I also learned this week that the first ward mission plan was made in Belmont ward, MA with the ward mission leader being Clayton Christiansen and the Bishop Mitt Romney.

Tell Steven he doesn't need to join that soccer league, he can just come play with us on P-days. The last two weeks we played a soccer'ish game on the indoor volleyball court. We brought the volleyball net down so it was touching the ground. you can play with 6 people like volleyball, but no hands, like soccer and play with a soccer ball. Someone serves (kicks) the ball from the normal serving spot. It has to go over the net, but other other team is allowed to let it bounce 3 times, and touch it (soccer style) as many times as they need to. If it bounces too much or ever goes out of bounds (but walls are ok) it is the other teams point. It was fun.

We're really looking forward to general conference this weekend. People talk often about going in with questions, and they'll be answered. I've done that sort of in the past, but this time I want to take it extra seriously. I'll really pray and pick like 5 or so things that really want to find out, and write them down beforehand. I think I'll take my notes on the talks like normal, but also think a bit on the questions during, but especially after the sessions reflect back and see if I think/feel anything that could be an answer. I hope you really liked the women's conference yesterday, we heard it was really good!

thats everything!

Love zak