Family!
First I'll answer your questions to the best of my ability.
My
first area is Lacey, we are a foursome so my three companions are
Elders W, K, and H. More on them later hopefully. I'm
living in an apartment complex with the three Elders I just mentioned,
and our address (hope I have this right) is
4625 45th Ave SE Apartment M1
Lacey, WA 98503
Technically an hour on the computer, but I think we'll have to leave before then.
First
impressions of the field... haha wait for the rest of the email.
Ok,
I'll start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. Actually
I won't start at the beginning, but I had to make that reference,
sorry.
Let me try again.
Ok, so, I have done next to zero
missionary work this week, it's really all been about survival. I got
here Tuesday, met companions and stuff, did 5-7's, then came back and
moved my stuff in to the apartment. Wednesday, it snowed. It snowed a
lot. We are supposed to get 2 inches a year, and we got over 2 feet in
Lacey on Wednesday. Then, on Thursday, the power went out (about 7 AM)
and the weather was pretty bad, apparently these are the worst ice
conditions or whatever that this area has seen since the 70's or
something. I don't know, I have no clue whats been going on. Not
missionary work though, I can tell you that. Mainly, we have been
huddled in the dark, trying to keep warm by a "fire." For fuel we've
been using:
a)frozen tree branches we gathered from the outside world
b)our possessions
c)our
possessions which we really shouldn't burn, like the Grandfather clock
we broke apart and burned, and only kept us warm for like 15 minutes.
Everyone keeps telling me this isn't what a mission is
like and I believe them, but I have yet to experience anything else.
This morning our power finally came back, but it's also a P day, so
still haven't reallly done missionary work. Anyways, If can look up
stuff online about the weather conditions here if you want, I want to
share other stuff.
So, on Tuesday, all the new missionaries got together
and we met the mission president and his wife, and had lunch, and then
an orientationish meeting. Right after the meeting we were going to
meet our trainers. But we were still waiting for some trainers to
arrive, so to kill time, there was a little musical number, and an Elder
played the piano and another one sang. They did "Be Still My Soul" And
as the Elder was singing, he looked at me (really, only me) and looked
at my name tag, and as he was singing I knew he was going to be my
trainer. Sounds kinda weird, but I just could feel it. Afterwards,
they set us up with our trainers, and Elder K (the one singing) ran
up and was like "who is my boy??" and when he saw it was me he was
really excited, because we both thought it would be us. So that was
exciting. Elder K and Elder W are my trainers, Elder H has
been out about 5 months. K15 months, W 22 months I think.
This is probably the worst email I've ever written, my thoughts are just so jumbled.
Um, Elder H is really really funny. I don't have time to share half of the stories
about him, but hopefully I'll remember some in 2 years and I can tell
you everything when I'm home. Remind me sometime to tell you the one
where he was like "Oh DANG, I wish I was him!!!!" that was funny.
On our second day without power I think, He went outside and
grabbed an icicle, and Elder W was just messing around and he was
like "hey H, stab yourself with it" And then he did. He just
stabbed it into his leg as hard as he could. Fortunately the icicle
broke, not his skin. It was documented (K and W have
been making short video clips documenting our hardships) and its one of
the funniest videos I've ever seen.
ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I've been learning to play the
ukulele, apparently President is ok with Ukes and Guitars, I've seen a
number of them. We also have been playing Monopoly. It's been pretty
boring, President told us not to go out in the weather, and to cancel
all appointments. (normally I hear he always always makes missionaries
go out, this is pretty much a first, so none of the missionaries have
any clue what to do) I think we're tracting today though, I'm looking
forward to that.
Oh,
just so everybody knows, when you leave the MTC for the mission field,
you miss a P day, so that's why no email last week and there haven't
been letters- hopefully I get a chance to write some today!
Also, the mailroom in the MTC was closed from saturday til i left,
so anything that was there should theoretically get forwarded out here,
but theres at least a 50% chance that it won't, so if i don't reply to
anything that was sent around that time, sorry, but I never got it!
Same goes for any transfer, I hear missionaries lose mail alllll the
time around transfers. So yeah, the week before a transfer I'll send an
email to remind you all not to send anything til i get to my new
place. Transfers are 6 weeks, so the address I gave earlier is good for
awhile though!
There are a couple things I would like sent up here,
but I can't even think of what they are right now so I'll send that by
snail mail.
Oh, even though we were supposed to
cancel all appointments, we didnt, So we met with a few larcs (less
actives/ recent convertrs. Missionaries use a bunch of words I don't
understand)
The ____ are a less active family that are starting
to come back, and they are so awesome. They made us delicious cinnamon
rolls. So wonderful. Members are beautiful, beautiful people. I
really like them.
Speaking of members, went to church on Sunday, and
was there for like 6 or 7 hours. I will never complain about a 3 hour
block again! Really though, I loved it. The members here are such
great people, I can't wait to get to know them better. I almost had to speak on Sunday, one of the speakers couldn't make
it because of the ice conditions. Fortunately, the other speaker took
up the whole meeting, so I was off the hook!
This
is really a terrible email. Like I mentioned before, I'll try and
write some letters later today, which I'm really looking forward to. It
has been such a crazy week, with so much time just thinking in the
dark, I really miss all my family and friends. I wouldn't say I'm
homesick, but I really miss you all. I'm reluctant to end this email,
just because I know it will be a full week til I'm back here, but I will
anyway. Write me!
Love,
Elder Lonas
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