Elder Pack

  Hi everyone!  I hope your week has been going good. I found out I'll be leaving Loveland and heading over to Windsor! I'm excited but I'm gonna miss Loveland.  It was a really fun week. I really enjoy being a missionary. Breanna is going to be baptized this Saturday and I'm super excited for her! She has the strongest testimony of Jesus Christ that I've ever seen. Pday today was fun. Just a lot of basketball and chair soccer, as well as this game called peach ball that we play like ultimate Frisbee, but with a foam football and the goal is to get it into the hoop.  Well, I appreciate all of your love and support! Being a missionary is awesome. I've learned so much about Jesus Christ and have grown a lot myself. From, Elder Pack PS: These are things we talked about in our phone call but first, the videos he sent made me laugh. They have a wheel that you can spin so they put their names on it and whoever's name it landed on had to do something weird, like ge...

Hello everyone! I am in fact alive!  Things are going well here. Breanna is still set to be baptized on the 22nd. And Esty and her family are wanting to get baptized too! So please be praying for all them. Nothing else really crazy going on here. Things are just going good. Sorry I'm not good at writing emails. I promise stuff happens haha.  Anyway, it snowed here and I'll attach some pictures.  Thanks  for all your support everyone! From, Elder Pack  PS.  It has been pretty cold in Loveland and the first picture is on the temperature where is says "-6" degrees.  That is so cold!  Last week Ethan and his companion lost heat and hot water in their apartment.  Ethan thought, because it was the end of the month, that the Church had cut off their utilities because he had been taking long, hot showers.  He thought maybe they got a certain allotment of money for utilities and they had gone over so they didn't have hot water or heat until it re...

Since Ethan didn't write a letter, I figured I would just put what we talked about on the blog.  Those who are subscribed to the blog will be able to see what we chatted about. It's still Christmas break so we had to wake Courtney up to talk to Ethan and she was cold.  It was hilarious because they were matched - both in hoodies - so Ethan took a couple of screenshots and sent them to me.  These two are hilarious when they talk on Tuesdays.  Ethan teases Courtney just like he did before he left and Courtney likes to tease back.  They love each other and it's fun to see. It's been getting colder in Loveland so Ethan said he was chilled and had his hoodie on. (I got a message that night from Elder Bateman's mom asking if I knew that the elders didn't have heat in their apartment and didn't have hot water.  Ethan didn't tell us anything.  Hopefully, they got it all taken care of or stayed with other elders until it was.) We had just talked to Ethan on Sat...

Ethan got to call us on Christmas Day.  They had spent the morning studying, reading, and chilling.  They had been invited to dinner with a member family so Ethan called us at 2:30 pm. He and his companion were at the Church (I think the wifi is better there) and Ethan hauled all his presents to the Church. Ethan opened his presents and it was fun to see what people had given him.  Members in the ward gave him hot chocolate, cards, gift cards, and mugs.  Ethan was excited because one of the mugs was really nice.  He also got candy from family, more gift cards, money, shirts, a hat, church books, and some other things.  He was really happy about all he was given and all the Christmas cards he got.  He had fun seeing the pictures on the cards. We chatted about the weather (it's warmer there for Christmas than it was in Ivins), the caroling activity they did as a District (Ethan said one member posted a video but I can't find it), and how the work is goin...

Everyone! Ethan said he was going to take time today to write an email to everyone but...he got busy and didn't get a chance.  He did send pics and an email to Grandpa Oman so I hijacked it.  That's where I got these pictures from. ;)  Here are some things Ethan shared with us on our phone call today. If anyone is wondering, it is warmer in Loveland, CO, than it is in Ivins!  Ethan has been enjoying great weather and we have been pretty cold.  I told him that he needs to tell the people wherever he serves in the winter that they will be having mild weather while he is there.  It seems that he has been missing all the cold stuff.  That will probably change but right now it's in the mid-60s and Ivins has been in the low-50s. Ethan was so excited to tell us about a family that they started teaching this week.  The father is an inactive member of the Church who reached out to the missionaries to ask to be taught.  His wife and 2 sons (ages 10 and...

Everyone!  Once again, I'm just going to share what Ethan told us when he talked to us on the phone.  I'm really only doing this for family history's sake.  Ethan is still serving in Loveland, CO.  They just had transfers and all the District had changes.  In fact, the District boundaries changed and they are all car areas now, which Ethan is glad of.  He is still with Elder Bateman and training is going well. Many of the other missionaries in the District are also training. Last week, Elder Bateman found a really cool YSA guy through Facebook finding.  They had a great lesson with him and found out that he is in a different area.  They had a "pass off lesson" with him and the other elders only to find out that he isn't in those elder's area either so they didn't really pass him off.  Ethan and Elder Bateman are still teaching the man and are going to pass him off later.  But the man is already talking about baptism so that is great....

 Ethan's latest Facebook post: The link he shares in his post if you want to watch it: 

  Everyone! Ethan didn't write a letter this week.  They have been having problems with their sim card so he has been a bit frustrated.  They used a ton of data last month using their hotspot and they were put in data jail. 😉  But it's a new month and their sim card still isn't working right.  Luckily, they live close to the Church so they are able to go there and use the WIFI when they need to. Transfers are tomorrow and Ethan is staying in Loveland.  It wasn't a surprise since he has only been there 6 weeks and is still training. But the rest of their district is all being changed.  They are having to combine areas and they have moved the bike areas into the other district, combined them, and made it into a car. The district Ethan is in now will be made up of 3 companionships of elders and 1 companionship of sisters.  Since they will all have cars it will be easier for them to do things on p-day, which Ethan is looking forward to. ...

Hey everyone! Things are going good here. Thanksgiving was good. We got to play ultimate frisbee (there was only 1 torn ACL) and eat dinner with some members. It was pretty great.  Other than that, it has been business as usual. We were able to teach a lot of members and a few nonmembers. Also, the weather has been super warm recently, which is weird because it's almost December. But I'm not complaining.  Well, that's honestly about it. Things are going good though.  Thanks  for all your support! From, Elder Pack PS.  It wasn't Ethan who tore his ACL.  They were playing Ultimate Frisbee and an elder was a bit too aggressive at trying to chase Ethan down.  Ethan was looking up for the frisbee and the elder ran up on him.  Their legs tangled up and they went down.  That's how the other elder tore his ACL.   Ethan got to ride a bike again.  He went on a mini exchange with the other elder in their district.  Ethan was able to ...

He messaged me Thanksgiving morning to tell me that they were allowed to call home so he would call us after they had eaten Thanksgiving dinner.  I was excited.  Bryan's birthday was on the 24th and they can call home for those too.  So if Ethan would have wanted to, he could have called on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week. 😉 They had a good Thanksgiving.  They got together as a Zone and played ultimate frisbee.  Those are the pictures that I have attached to the email.  In the first picture, they are trying to look mean, then they smile, and then they just take pictures looking into the sun. 😉  They played 2 games and Ethan was on the winning team both times.  He said it wasn't because of skill, it was just the advantage of being tall.  He can reach the frisbee before the others.  They almost made it through the entire game without injury until close to the end when an elder (who was being aggressive) was chasing after Ethan...

  Everyone! Ethan didn't write an email this week so I thought I would share what he talked to us about when he called on Tuesday. It has been a weird week.  Ethan wasn't sure if it was the Taco Bell he ate or trying to adjust to the food in Colorado, but his stomach wasn't doing well.  He thought it had gotten better but it threw him a bit off.  His companion has also been struggling a bit to adjust to the mission so Ethan was trying to help him with that and it was just throwing things off.  When you're a trainer, there are a lot of extra studies you have to do with your companion and more details you have to see to.  It makes things a bit more complicated. Ethan said they ate with a couple last week who was really nice.  During the conversation, the husband was asking questions that were very mission-specific.  After a while, Ethan asked if the man has served as a mission president.  He said he had and then things made a lot more sense bec...

  Hey everyone! Hope your week has been great. Things have been pretty normal here. Most of the people we're teaching are super flaky so I'm not sure how much longer we're going to be teaching them. But the ward is pretty good. We get fed pretty good which is a blessing haha.  The only other thing I really have is that I had a great study of alma chapters 40 and 41 in the Book of Mormon. It talks about the plan of salvation and what happens after we die. You should all check it out. I made a list of all the stuff we learn from those chapters and it's pretty  awesome . Thanks  for all your support! From, Elder Pack PS: Don't ask about the pictures of the frog and...whatever that is...because I just don't know. 😉  Ethan is doing well but he is adjusting to Colorado.  I think he misses his all-elder District.  He doesn't want to play slaughter ball and risk hitting a sister in the face with the ball. haha!  So they are playing other games and just c...