Received Wednesday, April 24, 2013

We are attending Chase's Graduation (Zak's brother) this week, so in celebration, here are some graduation pictures!!

Christopher's graduation was held in the Provo Tabernacle, which is now being revamped to be the new Provo Temple! This is what it looked like during the Graduation:

Here we were waiting for the ceremony to start.

That is Zak right in front!! 3 years ago.

The graduates were Steven, Heather (Steven's lovely wife!) and Christopher

This is the Marriott center where Steven and Heather graduated.

This is where Chase will graduate on Friday!

Pictures during the ceremony. Nice to see Zak. Quinn, who is sitting between Zak and me will graduate high school this June. We are full of graduates!!! Plenty of room for more.

Kerry wrote to Zak:

NFL draft starts on Thursday. We’ll be driving. Rams have two first round picks, #16, #22 (Bears #20, Chiefs #1, Eagles #4)

Zak's response: remember we were driving when the Rams had the #1 pick? It was with some of our last moments of non-static radio we heard them Draft Sam Bradford. I still had mixed feelings

QUESTIONS:

Were you in lock down?? Your Sis. Mission Pres. said all the missionaries that were close were in lock down. Talk about your Monday....was it just regular? How about Tues?

so we walked into to do our laundry monday, they always have a few tv's up with the news, and we hear about the explosions! It was sad and weird to hear the story unfold as more info came out. Also just before that we were emailing and in President's email he said they were going to the marathon! we were glad to hear they, and all the missionaries, were safe. I don't know that Sister Missionary who's blog you found. Other than that the day was normal, but on friday we were shut down. I guess that's when they kind of found him but he was driving away and they weren't sure where he was going and stuff. It may have been a bit overcautious, but much better safe than sorry! it was boring to be stuck in the apartment basically the whole day though.

Did you hear talk on the street about it all?

a little, not much.

Many people inquired how you were. I was happy to say that you were 2 hours away.

yup!

Transfers! Any news??

Elder Holt is leaving! someone named Elder Stevens is coming here, currently serving in MA. According to another elder I talked to he is very new, only out 6 weeks; I don't know for sure though. I do'nt know him now, but I will soon.

Are you living in an apartment complex?

yes. They have biggish bright white rocks outside the entrance. I always thought they looked cool. I wondered where they found such white rocks. This week we saw people out spray painting them. they were fake :( I felt kind of like my Santa Clause bubble was popped or something.

How many people living with you...just 2 or 4?

just 2

Are you doing consecration?

yup, it's the best way to be if everyone agrees with it

Learning any new items to eat with these new companions?

not really. I learned I'm glad that I'm easily satisfied so I don't have to spend forever cooking and cleaning dishes. Much easier just to slap some PB on bread and be happy with that.

When you move, do you take your pillow and blankets?

yup

I sent you a couple of mails last week...get them?

I did. Very good like usual. fun to see Elder Travis Komm with some BYU alum, I played basketball with him a few times. 

You asked about quality of suits. Not sure, but I like my black one better (I think that was JCpenny). I like 2 buttons way better than 3. The pants that go with the blue are kind of baggy and goofy, and I already had 1 button pop off the blue suit (remember Sister Simpson sewed a new one on and she helped strengthen the others) but the other buttons already feel like they're getting sort of loos'ish. I could ask someone to help with that, but I never have. Not sure if that answers the question or not. 

It was fun to see Josh's email and pictures too. Glad he's learning the language pretty good!

Chase’s graduation on Friday!!

Do you realize that Christopher’s graduation was held in the NOW new Provo temple??

I did not! I remember it though

That is something! I think we are going to the Marriott center for Chase’s graduation.

Did I tell you that Quinn was nominated for the Prom Court? He still has to jump through some hoops to get it. He has had to learn the dance the Charleston, he’ll have to model a tuxedo, he and a partner will have to perform their own dance. They are doing Napoleon Dynamite’s dance. It will all be worth it if he wins. The prize for being on the court are 2 free prom tickets!!

wow, good luck to Quinn! is that girl who's pushing for him to win desperate to be his partner? some football players have done some good celebration dances he could copy too; probably he should just do Warren Sapp's dance instead.

I'll be looking forward to seeing Christopher's mud obstacle pictures.

We have a lot to do, so I may be a little shorter this time. We got Transfer Texts saturday night and since then we've been spending some time going to everyone for one last time for Elder Holt to get pictures. Everyone sad to see him go. We gave our talks on sunday. It was good. I really liked how mine turned out. I'll attach it at the end of this. I changed it a bit amount though since I typed it and didn't type everything I was going to say.

on Wednesday a YM leader asked us to come to mutual because he was afraid they wouldn't have enough people (it was playing volleyball) and we knew a less active member who was coming for the first time. It was fun. We left our spiritual thought at the end too.

Tonight we're having dinner with a great family and an investigator family is coming too which is really great. Things have been good. Also, President Packard has been going around and doing a presentation thing with all the stake presidents and bishops about what we're doing as missionaries, especially about how we can help them with their idea's and visions and did it with our people this week which is good. Our bishop liked it, President said he said some nice things about us.

Also I bought a tie for the first time today on my mission. Elder Holt and I bought matching ties.

I think that's just about mostly everything for now. It's a short week till monday and I'll be emailing again. 

(I told Zak about 3 creepy spider encounters that happened to me this week.)

No creepy spider stories from this end (although I think it's weird how many Elders are terrified of spiders, like almost refuse to kill them. It's not my favorite thing, but it shouldn't be considered traumatic either)

I love you!

Received Monday, April 15, 2013

QUESTIONS:

Have you heard the First Presidency letter about testimony meeting?

yup, our bishop read it a few weeks ago. I will comment further below

I sent you mail this week with some pictures; got it yet?

yes I did! I will comment further below

Don’t your Pres. Packard interviews go along with transfer weeks? Does that mean transfers are coming again soon??

we have interviews about every 3 transfers. Our next transfer is a week from this Thursday

How did your Mormon.org appt go this week?? How old is he?

we went and...... he was not there. Unfortunately that is not an uncommon happening with this sort of thing. We haven't gone back yet, but we certainly will soon. We do have a home phone number too. We don't know who it was that requested the missionaries sent to that house. It was not stephon, probably a friend from out of town or something that thought he would listen too/they knew he was an open thinker.

note on mormon.org referrals: we get them every once and a while and this is close to the best one i've gotten. often times it is exactly like tracking; you knock and they just say all set (or some derivative. people in CT don't use it as much). If you want to share the gospel with a friend it's usually not the best to do it in secret and silently send missionaries while hoping your friend never realizes it was you who sent them. You ought to ask they yourself if they're interested; they are way more likely to respond well to you, a friend, than two goons in suits who knock on their door while they're in the middle of something. If you care about/believe in the gospel and you care about your friends it only makes sense you want to connect the two. done with the right way with the right intentions, friends will feel more cared about and loved as a result, whether they say yes or no. (not that there is specifically a "right way" or silver bullet answer, but I think you know what I mean). 

One interesting analogy I found when I first came to the area: We asked a couple (they have 2 kids, both priest age, everyone very strong in the gospel and good at missionary work) to come with us to a lesson. it went well and afterwards they took us out to lunch (at Arbys!). while there they told us a funny story about how the neighbors/friends in the area, about the same age, also with kids etc, would invite them to keggers/wild drinking party's. they thought it was kind of gross parents were having such parties and kind of funny that they kept getting invited even though everyone knew they were Mormon. they would say stuff like "hey I know you're not coming but, there's a party this Saturday if you want!". I asked how they (the couple) felt when they were invited to such things. they said honestly, it was neighborly and friendly! the invite is oozing with irresponsibility and not-smart-ness, but because it was done out of true care it still made them closer friends. how come the beer-party people have figured this aspect of missionary work out, but we struggle when we are sharing something to helpful, meaningful (which people already learned once before they were born! all we have to do is remind them about it) also clearly a lot of people would be offended by that invite no matter how it was given, so we do need to think about what we invite people to as well as how we do it.

Did you have Hot and Cold weather this week? Did you wear short sleeves this week?

a little bit. I think coming from California and just enduring a NE winter I'm confused about what is hot and what is cold. Most every day this week I went out in long sleeve shirts, no sweater. we did have a colder rainy day too. And we did turn the AC on in the car a number of times which was exciting

What are your plans today?

just regular P-Day things. I mentioned we're speaking at church about general conference soon, it's this sunday (the 21st. I may have accidentally said a different date last time) so we'll spend some time printing out a few conference talks to use and quote from. Then dinner at the Phillips and then a lesson with an investigator

What good food have you eaten recently?

our fast sunday meal yesterday was Sooo good. it was grilled chicken (and he "grilled" a few pieces of wood, I think cedar, along with the chicken to give it flavor). and Risotto and salad and broccoli (they said they have broccoli almost every day!) and some of the best rolls ever. Also there were cookies and ice cream for dessert.

Hear any news on any of your old companions...how they are doing? Just wondering.

my trainer Elder Woodruff is home. I heard from another missionary that he was made ward mission leader there. I called Elder Beck once, he was doing fine. He has since been transferred somewhere else

Did you ask the Elwells if they knew the Coles from Duarte?

no, I forgot to ask about the connection there. another person in the ward, brother Purser said we may be somehow related because he has some sort of Cole relatives in Idaho, but I can't remember exactly. Also did I mention there is a Cole family here in the ward? I'm not good at keeping up with all the past and old genealogical connections; I would not have made a good Jaradite prophet.

About the letter you sent, It was fun to read. I can't believe you guys didn't immediately see the joking'ness about watching conference in our apartment! us missionary types have basically no access to technology; if we had a math problem to solve we'd probably have to ask around for an abacus because we've forgotten how to use anything more advanced

and good drawing you put in the end

this week was pretty good. we had a ward party on Friday which was very well done. It had a decades theme (50's through 90's). A lot of people dressed up pretty well, and we had an investigator come! she and her daughter who came both really liked it and a member or two did a great job reaching out to talk to her.

sunday we were really excited because that same investigator was going to come to church for the first time. we even went to the house in the morning to make sure and everyone was getting ready. then, they never showed up! (we found out later a friends had to go to the ER, and she dashed over to watch the kids. understandable). but initially we were disappointed while at sacrament meeting. Also none of the youth invites pulled through, most people were already out of town for spring break and stuff, so we'll continue thinking about them. but the cool thing was that still all the priests got up and bore their testimony. everyone really liked it. Most of them spoke about missionary work which was cool too. Another person also got up and talked about a great missionary experience. very good meeting, made us feel a lot better. Afterwards bishop got up and talked about how he thought it was a great meeting, and beforehand he was thinking about whether or not to re-read the first presidency message, but was glad he didn't because it went well. also he said something like "the reason this was a great meeting was because we did exactly what it said, which surprised me!). it was funny.

exciting news for quinn, he often gets to spice up the emails. I hope Christopher enjoys his long muddy run. I hope Kobe doesn't retire. Good luck to everyone on all their different things

-until next week,

Me

Received Monday, April 8, 2013

More Pictures of Zak.....

Apparently, this is one of Zak's first attempts to get INTO the dryer. He said this attempt was when he got in feet first, but by the time he had to pull his head in, there was no more room. Off to the second try. Oh my. You know he eventually got in...scroll down to earlier posts and see those pics.

Zak, during the recent snow storm

Just before a baptism

QUESTIONS:

Did you get your flashdrive back??

yes, I'll respond to that letter in a moment

Where did you watch conference; at the stake center, your apartment?

at our apartment. we weren't sure if it would be better to watch it on our apartment laptops, on our tv or the Ipad we own. Ultimately we put it up on all of those and watched while playing Doodle Jump on our droid phones.

just kidding

I'll give a quick weekend run-down. Saturday morning (before conference. which, in case you didn't realize is from 12-2 and 4-6 here. feels funny coming from the west coast time zone. Priesthood was from 8-10!) we went to the Elwells house to give them the format to our fancy-handy-dandy invite. We talked to one of the young women who lives there a few days before and she said she wanted to use it to invite someone to here her give a talk she's giving in a few weeks. Very nice people. Then we went to an investigators house to make sure they were coming to conference. they were not home :(. then we went to our ward building (not stake center) to watch with the handful of others that were there. After the "morning" session we went back to that investigators house and found her there feeling a bit woozy and very guilty. We talked to her on the porch for a bit then re-invited her to watch the next session of conference. She excitedly accepted and a great member who's been fellow shipping her came and picked all of us up and we watched it at his house with his family. She really liked it, but did have to leave early to do something for her daughter. She really enjoyed listening and being with the family though. After he took her back home we went back to the ward building to watch the rest of that session. We did miss all of Bednar's talk, which was a bummer, we'll probably watch it later. well worth it though.

we went to 5 guys for our dinner, which is the cool thing to do here in canton ward, then watched priesthood session in our ward building. Sunday we did lots of stuff too and watched both sessions at church.

someone in our ward, Sister Parkinsen makes bag/packets for her kids for conference to help them pay attention and she gave us one too. All through conference I used the notebook in it to take notes, I obediently checked off a box next to each General Authorites picture after they spoke a on a sheet she gave us . She was a little upset neither of us made any use of the scissors, glue or stickers she gave us though. It's funny to be a missionary.

Do you see Chick-Fil-a where you are? Do you eat there?

I don't think there's any here on the east coast. Never eaten there, always heard good things though.

Any big plans today?

dinner with the scharrer family. Talk to brother scharrer (YM presidency) about mutual this wednesday and see if we can steal about 5 minutes of it to follow up with all the young men who plan on bringing friends to this sunday.

no set appointment after that though, just a list of people we could drive by.

I did completely forget about ESPN last week. It was pretty fun, but not spectacular. I took pictures, including one one a worker who looks just like D-Wade editing highlights. Yes, I saw bald-headed Scott Van Pelt as he was doing his radio thing. When we were walking down a hallway with some fancy offices on either side an employee went into one so a scurried by so I could peek in while the door was open and saw Colin Cowherd in there. We walked past Teddy Bruschi lots of times, he said hi. And the last famous person was Kurt Schilling as he was getting ready to talk about opening day (Which I heard was great for the dodgers by the way. did we have some rookie pitcher hit a home run and pitch a shut out or something like that?). The whole thing reminded me of a college campus just full of sports stuff.

I wonder if Donnie Avery will do well with Andy. I still thought he had good potential when he was cut. He always seemed to be injured. Drafting him before DeSean and picking one of the biggest busts ever in the 1st round of that draft will probably be the biggest definers of the Spagunolo era of the Rams

I really liked conference, it does have an extra special feel as a missionary. Also we are speaking here on the 28th at sacrament meeting about general conference, so I was thinking about that a lot. unfortunately I did not think about "Go Tell Aunt Rodie" at all. I have continually thought about learning the piano when at home though.

Sounds like a very fun and packed spring break. too bad the ice skating didn't turn out good for mom at all. kind of a weird story to tell as a missionary, but I don't know if I ever mentioned the first date I went on with Ms. Amanda Vegas Shea was roller skating. I was very bad. I tripped and stumbled and bumbled around the circle the whole time. it must run in the family. No bruises or doctors needed for me though.

About conference, I don't have many specific talks or moments and that jump out to me right now, but I took notes and I felt like just about every person talked a lot about missionary work. I loved Monson's story about the fire. Aren't we all just like him with the matches and our Heavenly Father like his parents? How often does he look down and just think: please be obedient! don't light that on fire! I really liked Holland's like always. Nelsons spoke a lot directly about missionary work for the 2nd conference in a row. The anology about the tomoatoes was funny because president packard just emailed us about making sure we try to have a great influence on future missionaries because "after all, you can count how many seeds are in an apple, but not how many apples are in the seed". Ironically, the one that really might have touched me the most was the talk by the Young Women's president. Perry's and Ballard's were both very good too, I feel like I have more of a connection with both because Perry spoke to us at the MTC and Ballard did to us just a few weeks ago. Also Elder Halleck, a 70, gave one of the prayers and he spoke to our mission back when I was in my first area. I guess I remember more specifics than I thought.

Did anyone notice that things about the Boston mission were mentioned in TWO different talks at conference? Elder Eyring did during priesthood session and Elder Anderson talked about the online/digital stuff being done here.

Kylie always scores a goal now!

I wish I had done more hollywood type stuff while at home, just because it's there and a unique opportunity. Glad you could find Regis' star on the walk. Did you find Steven Jackson's star too? (that was a joke)

do you still watch the RegisReplacement and Kelly show?

The other big exciting thing this week was we got a mormon.org referral (it comes texted to our phone), he was really interested. We had a short talk with him on his porch and set up a return appointment for this week. I hopefully it goes well!

We also have intereviews with president Packard this week, which should be good/

I think that's about everything. Everyone have a fun week! nobody get injured this time!

Received Monday, April 1, 2013

Zak sent pictures!!! Here are a few:

Zak with his Companion - Elder Beck

"almost covered" cars! They did get plenty of snow!

QUESTIONS:

How was your Easter?

really, very good. The 3 hours of church were made maybe my favorite church service ever. Really good Easter talks/lessons. I'll talk more about the day after the questions

Did you have a dinner appointment?

yes. we do about 97% of the time, especially holidays. we were invited to another as well that had 4 or 5 families going and the one we went to had about 5 or 6 different families there too.

What did you eat?

food.

How was your church meeting?

it really stank. (just kidding)

What songs did you sing?

ummm I don't remember. To start the day Elder Holt said he hopes we sing Christ the Lord is Risen today, Alleluia (like you guys did) but we didn't. During the combined 3rd hour we listened to a recording of someone singing "I Know My Redeemer lives"

Did you ward do something different because of the 5^th Sunday?

yes, the 3rd hour was combined. Brother Lyons, the sunday school president, gave a lesson on the Christlike Attributes in PMG. Did an excellent job. used a few different pieces of media.

Would you be allowed to see a youtube video of Chase while in the hospital asking the same questions repeatedly? I could send you a link if yes.

probably not. I have used youtube to watch a specific mormon message during a lesson before though and it went really well. www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkKblIMfmjI

Not a question, but look for your flashdrive in the mail this week!!

will do!

How is your retainer fitting?

fine. I'm slightly afraid it's been bent a little since it's original creation though. my teeth still look straight I remember to wear it most nights.

Also not a question, but your shoes, (from your pictures) are SO shiny. Very nice!

after being a missionary for 5 or 6 months I realized I had never used my shoe shining kit, so I did it once. The picture was probably taken after that. Sometimes P-day morning I think I should do it again that day, but it hasn't happened again since.

Did investigators make it to church today??

1 did. 1 was sick. 1's wife just had a baby, also he'll probably go to the Spanish branch when he finally goes. 1 family didn't go, but after the big tearful, finally spill all the beans on whats going on lesson we had yesterday, will surely being watching conference next week. 1 might have been working. 2 have excuses that I would put under the "far less than good" category.

A ton of less actives came though. Hopefully we'll be able to build some momentum from it.

thoughts on the funny/good mail I got this week:

the "do you feel stuck... Call the mormon missionaries!" meme was very funny. Both Elder Holt and I enjoyed it. It shouldn't be as controversial as the last one you sent me.

People of the LDS church rank either #3 or 4 (I don't remember) of knowledge of other world religions Interestingly. the group of "Atheists" ranks either #1 or #2. those are real stats, and will become relevant and make sense in a second. Also we know there are a lot of Atheists now in America and I think it's on the rise. Something President Clayton Christenson talked to us about is that the reason he believes there are so many is basically because they are smart, and therefore they reject falsehood The concept of God they so often hear about they know can't be true, so they reject the idea of religion all together. They just haven't had the chance to hear the truth. I think if all I heard about God was that he was everywhere, but no where and that he was 3 people, but actually just 1 and that when he was baptized his own voice called himself "my son", I'm not sure I would be a huge fan of religion either. Since hearing him talk about that I've been able to see it in a lot of people I've talked too.

I think everyone has the basic deep life questions (what happens after this life, what's the point, how can I really be happy, etc) in them. Some people think about them more than others, but everyone somewhere in life has a need to seek answers for them. Some people see a lot of what they know must be false, so they become "atheist", a lot of people look for a church that is "right for them". I'm not sure if most people who do that realize the churches they join that believe the bible don't follow a lot of what it says. Having a lay ministry keeping the law of chastity doing missionary work, etc ARE in the bible; maybe people don't realize that, maybe they just would rather ignore it. I grew up with the idea that there is a "true church"; that Christ's gospel is prefect and universal. That makes perfect sense to me and anything i feel is flawed. Most people do not have that idea, which is also how the idea of the "right for me" church comes to be. What I've noticed the "right for me" church usually consists of is the correct mix of preaching the pleasing word (so as to keep things happy and easy) with the right mix of teaching the commandments (so as to help everyone be "good people", and thus "make it into heaven"). Also being close to where you live helps something become the "right church".

2 last thoughts on the subject: I think most everyone would agree the best way to find the "right church" and the true and correct answers to life questions is to go to the source. To follow the advice in James 1:5 and ask God. He knows better than we do or anyone else, even the guy from church who's read the bible 14 times forward and twice backward.

For me, in my life I've had experiences, thoughts and feelings that I know have come from God. What he's communicated to me is that the right church for me is Christ's church. I believe that church is right for everyone. Maybe If I had more time I could organize all that a little better and make it a little more coherent and less wildly bold, but I do not.

Good job to christopher in selling of the puppies! did Chancho pay for herself/Gaston? make a profit yet? how long before there will be more puppies? also good job fighting with a kite.

It's interesting to hear about church in arcadia and how they're organizing things slightly different. One thing I like about this ward is they always have a someone from the primary walk up and read a scripture (only 1 time did it come through tears) and always have a youth speaker. Also I like standing up for the intermediate hymns. When we did not have one yesterday the chorister had us stand up for the closing hymn. She had to gesture 2 or 3 times to make it happen.

what our Easter was like. usual wake up stuff. also we got call president about a few things going on in our area. He mentioned he was already having a good easter being with his family and having a good breakfast. I told him WE considered Easter a religious holiday so WE were going to church! he laughed. It's always good to talk to him. 

Church was more full than usual and very good. We were given one jar of jellybeans and each given a Easter basket while at there. Afterwards we went and visited some families who all live close together and near the church. 

First we went tot he Permenter family. We showed them something president emailed to us a while ago we hadn't really used before. It was a format for a fancy invitation to tell a friend you were speaking at church. We re-formatted it a little bit and printed one sample one on card stock paper. It looked really good. Sister Permenter said if a friends from another church gave her one she would totally go and support/watch her give the talk. None of them were giving a talk (or getting baptized, receiving priesthood, etc) soon, but we talked about how every testimony meeting is a great opportunity to assign yourself a chance to be up in front. We discussed who they all thought they could invite to hear them bear testimony. There were 3 different people they brought up (all by the 2 young men in the home). They seemed pretty excited about it and only slightly worried about it being awkward or rejected (because they remember, every invite is a success!) They decided by this sunday they'll have more personalized invites printed out, so then they'll have a week to sue them to invite their people to hear them bear testimony. Also they were thinking of a few other people in the ward who they want to ask to bear testimony just to make sure it is a great meeting (and full of real testimonies, not wonky stories). 

Earlier in the weak another of the young men, Parker, said during a dinner appointment he could think of at least 1 person he would want to invite to hear him in this coming testimony meeting. We did not get the chance to show him the fancy invite card to see if he would want to use it. They said we could come back in a week to see how it was going.

After our meeting with the Permenters we went to the Colemans. We had already had a meeting similar to this about 2 weeks before at a dinner with them, but they were more thinking about who they could invite to hear a boy in the family, Carver, give his youth talk. We did not have the fancy invites back then. We found out Carver, his older brother Nathan and his mom all had good experiences inviting people, even though none of those people came. The daughter of the family had a different neat missionary experience though and the dad was sick and didn't go to weak most of the week before. We told them good job and then discussed what they thought their next step was for sharing the gospel and told them about how some other young men were going to use the coming testimony meeting and also about our new cool invite cards. Nathan, the older brother, really liked the testimony meeting idea (now being referred to as THE testimony meeting or sometimes The Greatest Testimony Meeting Ever) and said he knew at least 1 or 2 he could invite. Also they all thought the card stock invitations were cool, but wouldn't fit into their current plans. Carver talked about a friend he wanted to invite to mutual, the sister's plan was inviting the neighbor to girls camp and Sister Coleman really wants to have the neighbors over for dinner. Brother Coleman was the only person who got away without a concrete plan, but did say he would be on the look out for something he thought was a good idea to invite some people from work to. Possibly something they could help do service at (which idea came from PEM, which he bought and is reading. Also the idea of asking a few other members from the ward to bear their testimony to make it a good one is from the PEM). Great meeting, and they said we could have our next follow up in 2 weeks to see how it went and once again figure out "what's next."

Both of those meetings went pretty much ideal and the whole "what's next" idea is what president Packard has really been pushing his whole time here. Usually it would be what's next for their specific friends they've had good experiences with in the past. Ideally the meetings would last about 20 minutes, but with both those families there was a lot to talk about so they went longer, plus they are families that don't at all mind.

Right now the tally for THE testimony meeting is 4 young men (Parker, 2 Permenter boys and Nathan Coleman) each inviting at least 1 person. It should be great. We'll talk to more members, especially young men, about hopping on the bandwagon. I'm a little bit surprised none of the YM's parents already weren't inspired to jump on it. One cool thing about missionary work is that success sells success so it can have a great snowball effect and the spirit of it can spread around.

After the Coleman's we went to the Reids. There we just talked about helping brother Reid connect with a family he home teaches. succesfully under 20 minutes.

THen we went to the Whitings (Relief society president and he is in the Elders Quorum presidensy) to report on some people they asked us to help track down.

After that we had that big, good and important investigator lesson I mentioned earlier.

Then we went to our Easter dinner which was very good for food (ham, super good funeral potatoes, turkey, rolls, various desserts) and for coordinating a few other things with the members there.

Very Excellent way to spend Easter!

The rest of the week was also good. I hope you enjoyed the thorough Easter day report though.  I exhort everyone to facebook post about the upcoming general conference! you can use my facebook to link to it too! 

Also if you want I could email the format of the fancy smachey invitation we've been showing to people if you want to see it (or use it!) (great for speaking, testimony meetings, special music numbers, primary programs/singing time stuff, when you are teaching in relief society or YM or gospel doctrine! or anything!) (or just invite them to come without the card too!)

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!