Mom, I learned something today...

Spencer: Mom, I learned something today!
Mom: Oh, what did you learn?
Spencer: When you sled with a hoodie on, you should always put it on your head.
Mom: Why is that?
Spencer: Cause when you do it after, snow goes down your back!

This just in...

Ya, like they have a t.v. to hook it up to!

Hey Mom!

You may have noticed that I got a new email. They finally updated the missionary email system. You can just send everything to this email from now on. I guess the church has a contract with gmail, because that is the email system that I have now. I really like it. It's WAAAAAAAAAAAAY better than the old way. The old system looked and worked like it was ancient.

For the schoolio dealio: WHOA Jake's going to school That's great! What about John? What's his deal? I don't remember what my password for my UVU account was. I'm assuming it's the same as everything else. Did you find anything on BYU or any other school that has a good Computer Science program?

I sent the XBOX today. I went to the post office to get the biggest boxes that I could get so I could get everything sent.but it turns out that they were all too small. The XBOX wouldn't fit in any of the boxes. So I just got a different box and shipped it in that. I also shipped some other stuff that I couldn't/wouldn't use for the rest of my mission. It ended up costing me $50. I looked it up when I got to the office, and I saw that I could have sent it parcel post for half the price, but it would have taken 3 times longer, which wouldn't have mattered. Oh well.

YOU played a game on the COMPUTER? Was it a killing game? Thats super funny that you sprayed yourself with the sink hose. The sink hose that we have in our apartment, the handle sticks sometimes. So once in a while I'll make it still, so the next person to use the sink gets a little wet. So far Elder Johnson has gotten it 2 out of 3 times. Won't be too long before you can park in the handicapped spot legaly. :)

Degenerative bone disease! That must have been why your back hurt when we would work at Aunt Joyce's for a long time. How long will it take to fix? or do you have to go to the chiropracter for ever?

How many Book of Mormons have I placed since the last time I told you? I forgot to keep track... I'm going to guess and say 10, but that may be a little bit high. Or a little low. I can't remember.

Love ya!

Zack

1/20/10 Letter

Mom!

...I've only heard of a few people in the mission whose significant other waited the full two years. Few being like 1. Elder Packer is the only one I can think of where his girlfriend waited for him. Even now I don't know if he's going to marry her. There might be another one, but I can't remember. 2 years is a long time. Enough time to change. I felt bad for asking Erika to wait because she could have been looking for someone else during that time. I've changed a lot since I left. I think...

WHOA! Jake is going to YOUNG WOMENS!?!?!?!?!? That seems a little bit suspicious to me... Keep an eye one him! Don't let him buy any make up or dresses!

I want to get registered for school, but I don't know where yet. Do you know anywhere that has a good Computer Science program? I'm kind of leaning towards BYU cuz they're cheap, but I don't know. I might just stay at UVU since I already have credits there. I'm pretty sure I can register for classes. Elder Packer did it while I was with him. I think I just have to let Prez know that I need to register for classes. Also, GO AUSTIN! What field of edumacation is he going into?

On Monday we helped the Nelsons, the new Senior missionary couple teaching Institute in the East Brunswick Stake, move into their new apartment. They live up in New Brunswick. We had to make 2 trips because of all the furniture. I found out that they live SUPER close to Cassandra. Like within jogging distance. I thought about stopping in to say hello, but then I thought, whoa! that's kind of stalker-ish myself. And we didn't have any time, so meh. What ever. If I meet her, cool, but if not, its ok. What ever happens happens.

Speaking of free stuff..... you'll never believe what happened yesterday (Even now I find it hard to believe myself). Elder Howard and I were at Bro. Kitler's house. Bro. Kitler is 28 and kind of less-active/becoming active. I really like him. He has a good personality. He said that he needed to get rid of his old XBOX and some games. I volunteered to "get rid of it" for him. So he gave it to me and I thanked him kindly. I have an XBOX now. I will ship it home as soon as I can get a box to put it in. Hopefully it will all fit. It came with the XBOX, 3 controllers, the cords, and like 17 games. Hopefully it all works. If not, maybe I can sell it to Gamestop for a few moneys.

This week it slowed down a little bit because we've had people ditch our appointments. We've been getting in to see a lot of less-actives and we're teaching them the lessons in hopes that they will feel of the truth of the gospel once more. But other than that, not too much is going on.

I liked JC's letter. I think it's great that he's enjoying his first area. Hopefully he can baptize hundreds. And RETAIN hundreds. I wrote letters to both JC and Kyle, but they went to the MTC address. I hope they get to them.

Well, time to go play sports!

Love,

Zack

Interesting letter from Elder Z.

Hey Mom!

Hey sorry about yesterday. The system... was down. Some missionaries had to do emails today.

So how do you like the carpet? It looks kind of like the carpet that is in John's room. Is it soft enough to sleep on? or is it kind of rough?

I found out that Chad Lewis (Eagles Tight-end) used to live in the Moorestown ward, but he moved a couple years back. Also, Donavan McNabb(sp?) (Eagles Quarterback) lives in Mullica Hill which is in Woodstown. I didn't think Bro. Sikahema had family in our ward. All his relatives are Polynesian or Tongan, so I would have assumed they would have a unique family name.

This week we found a new person to teach while we were tracting (which rarely happens). His name is Daryl. He seems very open and he accepted everything that we taught. He loves the bible and he loves to talk about god. I hope he will pray about the BOM before Sunday when we have our next appointment with him.

Staying busy isn't hard. There's always something to do. Whether it's investigators to see or less-actives, we always have appointments. It's awesome!

Update on Cassandra Gorcsos: I replied to her letter and I waited a while to receive one back from her. She's the type that responds really quick. Well I hadn't heard from her in a while so I decided to send the missionaries to her house for 2 reasons.

#1: to see if they could get some more information about her.

#2: I thought it would be a good missionary opportunity since she knows a lot about the church.

So the missionaries (who were Zone Leaders) went there and they taught a lesson and apparently they set up a baptismal date for February 21st! Then yesterday we had a get together for Joe Donahue, a not so recent convert, for his birthday. Elder Gleed (AP), who lived with me last transfer, knew about her from when I got her first 3 letters. He went on an exchange with the Zone Leaders who happened to be planning on seeing Cassandra that same day of the exchange. So Elder Gleed met her and she gave him a small package that she was going to send me. It had her letter in it long with some candy and a hand warmer and a pocket version of the New Testament and a mesh bag for clutter. From her letter and from what Elder Gleed said, She's super short. 4'11" is what she said. She said that she was 72 lbs., but Elder Gleed said that she weighs a bit more than that, though she's still skinny. I don't think she's 72 lbs. Thats almost deathly thin. She's got to be closer to 100 lbs. But anyways, I thought it was cool that she has a baptismal date.

I'm doing this all from memory, so I'll try to get all the details.

My dream about GIWjk: Me and Elder Haslam were on an exchange. We were invited to eat with GIWjk's family. They were very nice and cordial. GIWjk wasn't there. She was at work when we began eating. We were having a lovely conversation when GIWjk got home. She seemed upset and she vented to her family for a long time. She ignored me and my companion the whole time even though we tried to engage her in conversation. Then after dinner we helped GIWjk's dad with a service project. President Winegar was there helping, but he wasn't there for dinner.

How did you win free stuff at the fitness fair? did Spencer enter a push-up contest? did you do a sit-up contest? where there any contests? or was it all just luck o' the draw?

I didn't know that you were going to institute! Since when? That's awesome that Gene R Cook came to speak though. Did you get to shake his hand or anything like that?

I think I'll need to get glasses when I get home so I can drive. I've noticed that it's difficult to read signs that are kind of far away when driving. It's most difficult at night.

Today we had a bunch of missionaries from the Philadelphia Mission here at the office. They were coming to pick up some cars to take back to their mission. It was kind of weird seeing missionaries from another mission. That hasn't happened in almost 18 months. It was cool to talk about the differences and similarities of our missions with the Philly Office Elders. Elder Nelson and Elder McNaughton. Elder Nelson has been in the office for 11 months! I couldn't believe it. I couldn't imagine being in the office for that long. He also said that he doesn't get to proselyte as much. That would suck.

Love ya!

Zack