January 24, 2013

Alright so another update, I'm getting emergency in-zone transferred.  I just found out last night. Apparently the Mission President is cleaning house and taking care of some obedience issues the Mission is having. They're sending 3 or 4 Elders home and I'm taking one of their spots. I'm still over two Wards and like I said same Zone and same District, just a new companion. The guy whose place I'm taking isn't even going home though, he's getting released as a missionary by his new San Jose Stake President today, and he's just going to hang out in the area for about a year until he can start where he left off and finish up his mission. Or something like that, I'm not really sure how its working and I don't really want to know any more than I already do. It’s a messed up situation.

My new companion seems pretty solid though, the ZLs were going to be at our apartment at 10 this morning to pick me up, but they pushed it back to 12 so we came here to update in the meantime.  I don't really know how well it'll go. At least now I won't be in a trio and they'll give me my own phone (I think) so I can really push myself to get some work done. That’s all I really have for now, I'll keep everyone posted. The President told me the New Zealand kid that came with us got his visa, but the Australians still haven’t come in. Hopefully I won’t be here longer than another 4 weeks. Take care, keep me posted on current events, I appreciate the Algerian thing. I'll email next Monday (I think) with some news. 

January 22, 2013

January 20^th was a sad day for the Patriots. They should have made it. Too bad. Anyway my birthday was just fine.  We're over two different Wards so on Sunday I had church from 7am to a little after 4, then two dinners that night. We stay busy, but most of it is doing service and visiting people more than teaching a lot of lessons. People feed us like crazy. The other two guys don't really get up on time, and our mornings have been pretty open, so I've really been getting into personal study and taking a whole lot of notes. It’s a good experience. I mostly just feel like I'm on constant splits with the Elders as a Priest again though, the Missionaries I'm with had been companions since a few months ago and they know each other really well.  They were both serving in one of the Wards that we're over before I came and they were combined, so everything is either Faiese's Ward and investigators or Roberts' Ward and investigators and I'm pretty much just along for the ride. So they have the phones for each Ward and make most of the calls and appointments. Plus I can't drive since that takes some extra paperwork at the Mission Office. So I just follow directions and go where they tell me to.

I've only ran once since I've been here but I didn't time it or anything, I think I'll do that next time. Hopefully I can get it down to every morning. With as much as we eat here I'll need to if I'm going to stay even close to in shape.

I don't think I'll ever get to do any work in the temple, I think they're pretty strict about Missionaries only doing a session twice every year or so. I think we're headed up there later this week (maybe even today) just to walk around the grounds with an investigator. I'm not really sure. And the no tracting thing is just something the Church is trying out and they happened to pick this mission to do it. People just aren't too happy anymore with us knocking on doors and most of the neighborhoods around here have pretty strict no soliciting rules. Since just about everyone is loaded. Except for the 25% or so of the population that’s homeless. 

The house we're living in is probably 30 or 40 years old, maybe more, and its easily multi-million in value. Everything is insanely expensive here. Pendleton (the guy who lives there) used to work at Lockheed and did work on the nuclear submarines. He actually worked on the missiles themselves and making sure they fire right and everything. It’s pretty crazy stuff. His wife died a while ago though and nothing has changed in the house since then and pretty much everything in there is pictures of her. It’s pretty sad.

Anyway I need to go, talk to you guys again next week. 

January 17, 2013

Just another I'm still alive message, just got my new comp/trio. I'm with an Elder Roberts from New Mexico and Elder Faiese from Samoa. They're good guys. I just got moved in, we're living in a member's basement, there’s a lot of room and they have a bench press and weights and everything, so it should be pretty good. He lets us use his washer and drier too. The whole house is shag carpets (even the bathroom) but other than that it’s really nice.

We're over two Wards, Sunnyvale and some other one that I forgot. And we go to all the meetings for both Wards on Sunday, we'll see how that goes. Other than that we're pretty much guaranteed to have dinner at members’ homes every night. I'm going to get fat. Tracting isn't allowed at all here, and we're supposed to do about 10 hours of service every week, so we'll be working at a lot of soup kitchens and doing yard work in the hill mountains and things like that. Sounds like a lot of fun. There is not a whole lot going on still since I really don't know the area. I should be out of here in 5 weeks and off to Australia, assuming they get everything done by then. Anyway I'm not leaving until at least then. We're in Sunnydale right now, I'm not entirely sure what we're doing next, but I think we're eating two different dinners at members’ homes. The weather is perfect here, it’s about 65 outside. It cools off a bit at night. That’s pretty much everything…

San Jose California

January 16

This is pretty much a strictly “I'm alive” email. We're about to get fed at the Mission Home, the President and his wife are pretty great, I can't wait to get started tomorrow. I'm almost worried Adelaide won't be this cool. I think P-day is Monday I'll send an update then. Take care.

January 13, 2013

So it’s not really a P-day for me but we basically we elected it as one since its more than likely we won’t get another until Monday. So we're getting everything done now. Most of everyone (the Elders in his district) we knew are gone, the rest are leaving in about 3 hours. It’s gonna be pretty quiet in the halls tonight. Tonight there is a Fireside that may or may not be hosting a General Authority.  That should be pretty cool either way.

I'll send everyone the San Jose address when I get there, I have the Mission Home address somewhere but obviously I won't know about PO boxes until later. Just keep emailing until then.

The last few days have actually been really cool; we had a lot of good classes and discussions. On Sunday Elder Uchtdorf just happened to show up for our Departure Devotional, right before he gave the youth Fireside talk over at the Marriott. Which was also fantastic, we watched that Monday morning. And then we had the Head of Internet Proselyting give us a Devotional talk Sunday night. He mentioned that Parley P. Pratt baptized the first Hatch, I thought that was pretty cool. After the Fireside we watched an Elder Uchtdorf talk given at the MTC while Hinckley was still alive. He said some of the same things he said in person which was really neat.  He added that German would be the official language of the Celestial Kingdom, so we should all start learning now.  That's really all that’s going on, I'll be emailing again next week sometime. Honestly I don't expect to be in San Jose longer than 2 or 3 weeks, but we'll see what happens.

Don't get lazy on the current events. Keep me posted. 

January 10, 2013

Hey Family,

I never have a lot of time on these things so I'll make it fast. I have been re-assigned pending the approval of my visa application (they changed the requirements again, but the Church has everything they need, they just have to organize it and get it sent in). I'll be spending the time up that point in San Jose California, beginning at 5 AM this Wednesday, which is later than I'd like, but the Tuesday devotional here is supposed to be a big deal for reasons that I am not supposed to know and definitely not supposed to talk about. They're pretty touchy about that kind of stuff. I'm pretty excited though, with the cold weather I can't really think of any stateside mission I'd rather have. It should be gorgeous there. I don't really expect to spend longer than a transfer there but we'll see what happens. My companion is coming with me, and the other two guys headed to Australia are going to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. So we're all pretty relieved.

And yeah, I missed the big epidemic last week, luckily. They had everybody in gas masks and pretty the whole MTC was in quarantine, kids jumping out of windows and stuff. Not fun. But this week I've caught a cold the past couple days and everything I drink inevitably thickens and makes it way slowly out of my sinuses. So I'm all kinds of dried up. Also not fun. The classes are getting pretty long too. My first districts was pretty much as good as I could ask for, the Canada guys were pretty great, but they all left at the beginning of the week and we got transfers to the district of Elders that are going to Provo and Fort Worth Texas. The FW group has a couple good Elders in it. 

My new MTC teacher is a Sister. And she's more of a therapist than an instructor so that kind of gets old. And her comp teacher is (edited) so that’s not always fun either.  We talk about the same things every 3 hour class. So I'm kind of ready to get out of here. I'll survive though. I really hope they can sort of the visas soon.

Other than that not too much is going on. I heard Alabama roasted Norte Dame, sad day but kind of saw that coming. And yes Kiefer, it has been pretty insanely cold, we don’t get thermometers up here so there is pretty much the basic cold to “don’t-go-outside-or-your-eyebrows-freeze” scale. Today is extra nice though, it’s finally warm. Good day for P-day.

I'll be calling sometime soon. I guess I’ll call the house phone, probably tomorrow. Not that I have anything to say after this email but hey they gave me a phone call I might as well use it. Since this is my last P-day here I have no idea when I'll be emailing next, just keep watching and everything.

It’s cool to hear about school and everything Kiefer, glad that’s going alright. And yeah I wasn't too great about emailing you every week or sometimes every month even. Sorry about that, I know school gets busy and everything. Good luck in 112 (Chemistry). I don't remember if you got Corey, but if so, he's pretty cool. Just so you know you're long term long is to watch for the Fallout 4 announcement and let me know the generals of it. And yes the food (at the MTC) is nasty I usually have the salad. And I'm the guy who sits there and tells them what to put on it. And I don't care. I haven't tried the OJ definitely don't trust that.

Gotta go I'm at negative 10 seconds. Talk to everyone later.

From the Mom

January 4, 2013

We received a (very short) phone call from Colin informing us that his Visa had not yet been approved and he would not be leaving for Australia on the 7^th as planned.  He will be receiving a temporary state-side assignment on Thursday.

None of the four Elders that were scheduled to go to Australia on the 7^th have received their Visas so they will all receiving temporary assignments.

It was very nice to get to visit with Colin on the phone even though it was very brief.  He said he was being monitored...