17 September, 2012 - Almost done with Week 16!

[I have to apologize for the typos and spellings in this post. My eyes are doing wonky things and it's making it difficult for me to see clearly, so I am leaving this post much as Calvin typed it. I have taken out names and edited a few other things, but this is pretty much as he typed it.]

Hey Momm!

I want to tell you that I love you. I love reading your letters. I love the way you  write, and how you make it all sorts of fun to read! You also write really long letters, too, and you have NO IDEA how much that means to me! I love you LOTS!

Now, onwards to business. 

[ONE OF CALVIN'S FRIENDS] GOT HIS MISSION CALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's soooooooooooooooooooooo AWESOME!!!!!! Wow! He is going to be a great missionary. 

Tell Grandpa and Grandma that I am really sorry they lost their friend. I feel super bad. Really, I do! I wish I could be there to help and comfort them. Every time I went to the temple at the MTC, I thought of them every single time! I love them LOTS! [One of our local music directors died this weekend. He was a longtime friend of the family and will be greatly missed.]

Wow, I just realised how much you put in this letter! Thank you for giving me so many updates! It's almost like I'm there. I should probably do the same for you. 

So, what happened this week

On Tuesday, we got [two investigators] a watermelon and double stuff oreos, because [he] works 80 hour weeks. Oh, gosh I said their names, but they love us anyways, they wont mind. [That's okay Calvin, I took the names out *grin*] They are the BEST investigators EVER!. They are SO golden, it's ridiculous. [She] (she texts us every day) texted us yesterday, and told us that they had their first ever real family prayer yesterday. They both have had SUPER amazing experiences. 

Anyways, so when they are having a bad day we sometimes bring them treats. So that was great, and we talked with [her] for a little bit. After that, [my companion] said he had a prompting to go and visit [some other people]. So, we went over there, and it turns out that the wife had been crying, and telling God "show me you love me" and just as she thought that, we knocked on the door. So we talked with her for a while, and made both their days. They are an amazing family. The husband is a PHENOMINAL singer. I am not kidding when I say this,. He is a MASTER. His stuff is insane. We listened to it yesterday, when we stopped by there again to give the wife her music for this musical fireside we are putting on, but more about that later. Anyways, so another cool expirience was when we stopped by a less active family, and talked to the husband. He reminds me a little of [a friend]. He is SUPER nice. so we talked with him about the temple, and their family goal is to get to the temple to be sealed, so we are going to help them get there. I recount all these expiriences, because I have felt so much love, or the spirit at these experiences. We are teaching this guy who is super cool. He is 18, and is in army cadets (a youth group in Canada). He is pretty awesome, and is getting baptised on the 29th of Sept. so we are going to see him EVERY DAY to get him ready for that. umm... Oh then we ate dinner at a family's home. They are AWESOME! The husband is from Canada, not sure where, and the wife is from the Phillipines. the husband also served his mission there. They are a great family! They have one girl who is 4 years old and is super energetic, and way outgoing. She was dragging us both around, showing us EVERYTHING in the house. Then, we had dinner, which was SUPER GOOD!! The husband told us "now you know why I love doing the dishes, she cooks, and I do the dishes." The dinner was SOO good. Oh, and I told them about dad being maputepanoi, and they laughed at that, and thought it was cool. Oh, she marinated the meat we ate in 7up, and I told her about our adobo chicken, and she was like 7up? in adobo? We made it with just soy sauce, bayleaves, and stuff like that, not 7up. So it was fun. 

Oh, the musical fireside, Well, my companion is an opera singer, and we wanted something to invite investigators to, (there are like NO activities here) so the missionary dept. decided to put on two activities. One is a Ask a Mormon night, and the other is an evening of Broadway. My compnion and a sister in the ward are heading that up. Basically, members of the ward are getting up there and singing Broadway songs. So it's helped us get to know the ward members better, and we have something to invite our investigators out to. 

Oh, so the ward out here is PHENOMINAL. All the people are awesome, and everyone is taken care of. It's just really cool to watch. 

I am in love with this area. The people are great, my companion is awesome, and I have learned so much. I think my biggest fear is not learning, and not progressing. I want to get better. My companion is District leader, so this Thursday he gave a training, and he said in the training "at the end of your mission, you should look at yourself, and say I don't recognise myself any more." I want to do that. I keep seeing how much I have already changed, but I want to keep going. Anyways, things are going awesome out here with me. 

I love you guys, and I miss all of you!
I hope you all are doing well!
Good luck!

Love you

Calvin

10 September, 2012

Dear Mommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm,

I'm glad to hear that Grandma is doing well, Eye surgery, that's pretty scary, but I'm glad to hear she is doing well. Tell her that i am praying for her, and that I loved her last letter to me, it was very creative, and it made my day!

I'm sorry things were going all weird and wonky this week. Things were kind of like that this week too. I had a lot of stress put on me, and I learned MANY lessons this week. i hope that I can remember them for the rest of my mission. I wrote dad one of them, (sorry, I wrote my steam off on his email. You can read it if you want!) 

OH. MY. GOSH. (caps lock on)  [MY FRIENDS GOT MARRIED]???????? ALREADY?!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!??!?!?!  THat is ssssssssssssooooooooooooooooo weird. Honestly, I am not that surprised that they got married, but it's just SO WEIRD!!!!!! [He must be weirded out because they just graduated from high school a year ago]

No car accidents, though I did drive this week. Tons of stressful things, but I'm relatively ok now (knock on wood). Yes I am getting fed well. SUPER well. Like, missionaries are telling me that this area is the best one for food, and members who come to lessons with you, and things like that. I am sleeping well, it's just that I don't get enough of it. None of us do. But, if missions were easy everyone would do them. (oh wait, everyone does.) Lol just kidding. 

Mom, I love you , and I hope you know that. I hope my sisters know that I love them too, and I hope when I come back I will be nicer to them. I love all of you, I miss you all, and I hope the Lord blesses  you with everything you need!

Love

Calvin

[A little later. I wrote him a response to his email - and to the email he had written to his dad.]

Dear mommmmmmmmmmmmm

Thank you so much for your concern and love! I LOVE YOU SOO MUCH!!!!!!!! I will be very careful! I will try to mail some Pics, but I don't know when I will be able to buy stamps. I love you so much!
Calvin

[Another email a little later.]

OH! i almost forgot! [a young man who is from our stake here in New York who was called to the same mission] may be coming in this week! I'm so excited!

calvin

[Yet another email a little later]

I love you!

[aaaaand a final email, but I'm really not sure which of the last 3 emails came in which order]

I am in the Prince of Wales chapel, I was playing a card game called munchkins, and yes, it is monday. I have 1 and a half hours left in P day. How are you?

Calvin

September - Sorry!

I could have sworn that I posted at least ONE of his letters from September, but looking at this the last post was from August? Can't be! Um, we are adjusting to a few new schedules around here. Todd has a second job working 2nd shift at Raymond Corporation in Greene - which he started the last week in August. Chantal and Miranda are now back in school, and very active with their field hockey schedule, so things here in Harpursville are very busy. Still, that's no excuse for not keeping up with Calvin's mission blog! ACK! I promise I will be better. I promise!

I was counting on the calendar today and realized that Calvin has almost finished 16 weeks of his mission, and will have finished 4 months at the end of September! Time is flying by! Just for fun I google mapped where he was and figured he's less than 5 hours away. Both Todd and my driver's licenses are up for renewal this year. Perhaps we'll spend the extra money, bring in the extra identification, brave the lines at the DMV and get the enhanced licenses and ID cards so that when Calvin finishes his mission we can go back to Canada with him and visit the people and places he is writing about.

Now, on to Calvin's letters! This week's letter was more of an answer to the one I sent to him, so I will leave my letter to him in and his responses.

Monday 3 September, 2012

 I keep on my toes, trying to adjust and get better. 

Yesterday Dad and I went up to take pictures at some campgrounds. It was nice to spend the day with Dad but he wore me out!!!
  Chantal and Miranda go back to school this week. I'm going to miss them! I really hate it when my children go back to school. And this is going to be Chantal's last year of high school. I don't
know how I feel about this "my children are growing up" thing. I didn't like it that you left high school and graduated and it's not any easier that Chantal is in her last year of high school either! I
don't like it! I just don't like it! (("No no no no no no no no" *she says as she grabs the key and holds on tight and closes her eyes as the other mice try to grab the key from her and tell her to let
go, that the big black cat Lucifer is gone now, and it's safe to let go* "No! My little girl cannot grow up and go away to college next year, she just can't."))

Dont worry we will come see you again and again after we've gone. Don't worry. Oh, by the way, Speaking of I That, oh great creative writer mother of mine, I liked your blog post you sent me. It sounds like your book is doing well, if a website did a reading of it. How is your book doing? Are you writing another one? I hope all goes well with that. 

  Sophie did okay last week with Dad going to work. Though it was a little tough on Monday morning when she woke up to take the girls to practice and we got back and she asked where Dad
was and I said "Daddy's at work" and she went and looked in the office and then came back and looked at me and said "No, Daddy's not at work, where's Daddy?" as if to say "what are you,
high? I looked 'at work' in the office and Daddy is most certainly NOT 'at work' in the office, WHAT did you do with him? produce him now!" So she cried for about 15 minutes and I turned on a
tv show and she got involved in that and everything was okay. Then she fell asleep in the afternoon and woke up after Dad got home from work and it was time for dinner. Tuesday it went a
little better and Wednesday Dad started working second shift so she saw him leave for work and it was okay

Sophie is so funny! I hope you guys get to see dad often, I hope it's not too hard on the girls. 

.
  It's not too bad having Dad working second shift, except Wednesday night when I forgot that Dad wasn't there with keys to close the building, and the other people who had keys to close the building left, so one of the young women who drives had to drive over and get the keys from one of the people who had already left. Oh well, all part of the adjustments!

Oh, adjustments. Adjustments suck on missions. I will have plenty of opportunities to get better at that. 

 

  It's odd not to have [a young woman who left for college] in Young Women's. OH! So today our lesson was on evaluating media, and making good media choices. I have a book that I like to
read by my favorite author, but I won't let the girls read because it's, well, it's got parts in it that I don't want them reading. So I did an object lesson. There was a quote in the beginning of the lesson about how the
skull and crossbones is a universal sign of danger. There was also a quote about how just because an author has one good book doesn't mean all their books are good or worthy of reading. So I
found a skull and crossbones in free clipart. I brought in all my books by that author and I put the skull and crossbones on the book by that author that I wouldn't let the girls read. I talked about how this author is my favorite author,
and I asked what they saw about the books. Of course they pointed out the skull and crossbones. So I pulled that book out of the lineup and I said, "I really like this book. But I won't let my girls
read it because, well, I'm embarrassed to say that there are parts of this book that are not good to read," and I started to rip the book up (Miranda's jaw dropped to the FLOOR and she started to
cry, ((LOL))!!!!!!! Chantal's jaw dropped, [another young woman] looked like she was about to cry, [another young woman] wasn't sure what was going on, ((HAH)) and Sophie looked at me like "Mom, why are you ripping the book?"), then I
continued, "So, if this book isn't good for my daughters to read, why am I reading it? Why should I have a different standard than I have for my daughters, right?" and I put the book in a plastic
garbage bag and tied it up. I think it was a pretty good object lesson, especially since Chantal and Miranda know that I really liked that book and they saw me reading it last week.

HAH! sounds just like the cake one! I love object lessons! Where is [the young woman at college]?  

  Okay so I'll close this letter. The dead whatever smell in Dad's office is starting to seep through the closed, sliding glass door and it smells really bad. I think I could smell it from outside too.
Dad's office is filled with flies. UGH! YUK!!! He's going to have to clean whatever is dead in there tomorrow. Ick.
  Sophie and [a child in nursery class] made some things for their "brothers on missions" today in nursery. I'll have to mail them out on Tuesday.  [That reminds me, I still haven't mailed Sophie's to Calvin! AGH!]

I love you!
Pray fervently!
Study your scriptures and Preach My Gospel!
Love your companion! Tell him we say hi.

He says hi back

 

Study the language!
Watch out for blood-sucking, vile, west-nile-virus-carrying mosquitos!
Love,
MoMM

Momm, I'm glad you are doing well! I hope all goes well for all of you guys! Not much new news from us out here in the field. The work presses forwards. Oh, and do you think you guys could send me some pictures of my artwork? 

I love you guys, I think about you often, and if I am making you all proud!

Watch out for TIE fighters!
Love you lots!
Calvin