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....

  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...

  Hey everyone! It's been a minute since I've written an email but things have been going great here.  Michael, who I was teaching in Casper, got baptized! I, unfortunately, didn't get to see it because I got transferred down to Loveland, Colorado.  Colorado is pretty cool. If I'm being honest, I prefer Wyoming but that isn't to say Colorado isn't great too. Also, my last district was  awesome  so it's been an adjustment.  I'm training again too. His name is Elder Bateman. He's pretty cool. Here in Loveland things are kind of slow teaching wise but it's picking up. We've been working hard and have seen success because of it.  Some notable things: we talked to a flat earther. We had an  awesome  new missionary orientation meeting (President Palmer is  awesome ). The weather has been great. Taught a guy named Eli a first lesson on his porch. He really appreciated being given the Book of Mormon. Got to go through the temple last week and cl...

Hey everyone! Ethan didn't write today because he was super busy so I thought I would update you on how he is doing. Ethan is being transferred!  He will be going to Loveland, CO, to serve in the Boyd Lake Ward.  He doesn't know who his companion will be because he is going to train again.  I told him he is the mission trainer. 😉 Right now, he is serving in 2 wards in Casper.  But the area is going to be split so each set of missionaries will only have one ward to cover.  The apartment where Ethan has been living will be given to the companionship of sisters who will be serving in one of the wards and then the elders will have the other ward.  Ethan's current companion is staying so he will continue working in the one ward.   They had a busy day today because they had to get the apartment ready and cleaned out for the sisters to move into.  Usually, Ethan would wait for the transfer bus to get there and pack the morning of his transfer....