Last letter home.

So, we are down to days. Two days to be exact. This is Tab's last day to email home. We all wrote him our final letters for FHE on Monday and expressed our love and gratitude to him for his example to us over the last two years. He has truly blessed our family beyond measure! We are anxiously awaiting his return and look forward to seeing his face when he walks off the plane. 

Now, we await HIS last letter. And here it is.........


hey mom,

sup?




Yep........that would be my boy! 

ONE more week.........

Only ONE more week! He's busy packing and trying to stay in the work. Our letters are short, but that's okay. It's what we expect. Can't wait till next week. We are all sooooo excited!

Hey mom! 

I haven't been able to hop on the computer to do emails until today. I did send a package this week - it was 42 pounds and it cost $71 to ship! HOLY MOLY! haha I just used the money you sent me so don't worry. The shipping cost more than the value of the package...    I think using flate rate boxes may have ended up being cheaper because flat rate doesn't factor in weight. but who cares. 

Aaaahhhh........it's the Del! yes please. it's Angel! he's my buddy. 

Love you!

Another surprise!

I love getting those surprise emails from sweet moms when your missionary is out serving. I got two this week. One from a sister in the ward Tab is currently serving in, and the other is the Relief Society President, Sister Parker. As usual, it made my day!

These are the messages they wrote:

Your son is visiting for a wedding. We love him! He is a very seasoned missionary. You should be very proud of him.

Hi! I'm Sister Parker the Relief Society president. I love your son. He is an amazing missionary. And is a hard worker. We also like his style. We will miss him!

 Elder DeJesus and McLain

Elders DeJesus and McLain with Sister Parker.

SEPTEMBER!

Two words..........TWO WEEKS! Yep, that's all. Then it will be time for my boy to return home.  I can't believe we are really at this point.  So excited to see him!

Hey mom! 

Labor day yesterday so we didn't email but I've got a minute today. Hopefully you are around to see I'm on.

I am having a good day. I'll send you some photos from today. We usually email from the library but today is from the church since we had our meetings over here earlier. 

No boxes yet. I'm going to get some. I haven't sent anything yet, though. I haven't taken time to decide what to keep and what not to keep! Oh I'll be keeping the blanket and my coat. I paid for that coat! It's nice. but things like my blue suit... I want to give it away but then I don't. My suits are not thrashed. I am nice to them. That's why I'm somewhat tempted to keep them. Eh. Plus I put a lot of tlc into my blue suit... I skinnied them pants! 

The ward is pretty good. But for some reason it isn't growing very fast... It's sad. The ward council and everyone are champs but somethings not right.  It should be exploding! 

This wednesday is the temple trip and then the 8th is the Statue of Liberty. 

Sup Colby! you're lookin mad hipster in them photos. Nice hat - that's ma boi.  In reply to your comment:

That is what we call "the Chad" look. 

"He's a Chad." 

"Look at that sweet bro."

"Watch out, it's Chad."

"Did you invite that guy? No, that's Chad."

Oh and if that was a jedi braid I'd a yelled. Only a headphone! what are you listening to? Yes we will play golf soon! Oh of course I will help you. 

Hey do you know when and at what time my homecoming talk is? Elder Priest wants to know. 

Isaac better not have gotten a tomtom. 

love you!

tab

Hi Dad!

We had a decent week. Not as good as the last two. We did have one of our new investigators become serious! She is a single mother (her husband passed away in November) and she has two young boys. Her name is Kathleen. She desperately needs the Church in her life. So, naturally, she's taking the things we teach her seriously. So that's good. We still gotta get her to come to church. She said she was dead set on coming on Sunday but she didn't show up :( That was a big surprise to me. We are still working with a couple others but we've filtered many of them out and we're on the find again. Samir and Samantha are still in the hunt...

Oh, our fishing trip wasn't much. We got all the gear, but I had no idea what to do with it. We had mini poles that are only 3-4 feet long. They are called dock demons. But I have no idea what rig to use and where to go. Trying to fish as a missionary and have success is quite hard. But, I am excited to do some real fishing when I get home. You'll have to teach me. Last week was more just to say we did it. 

We usually email at a library in Woodbridge and we only get an hour or so there but since we had zone meeting at the church today we're using the computers in the family history center. I don't enjoy emailing that much so I am usually brief either way. 

Thanks for mentioning that about your campus ward... I've been wanting to move back to New Heritage. I loved it there! Perhaps I can live there again when I go back to school. Maybe even get some of the same roommates! 

Thank you for your little message. I had my departing interview this week with President Taggart. It wasn't much, but he talked about some of the things he did after his mission that made a big difference in the end. I haven't planned anything really, so that was a little bit of a wake-up call. I am going to need your help making some post-mission plans, but I'm not thinking about it too much yet. I feel that my time and energy is best to be spent on my area and my companion for now. Even then, I find it hard to focus. 

I am losing a little bit of motivation these last few weeks. For example, today in zone meeting our leaders committed us to do a few things for the zone goal and our mission president also asked us to do some things different starting today. I would be gung-ho about it all, but I am going home in two weeks! It's difficult to keep my head in the game and plan ahead for when I get home. I am not really enjoying this last transfer for that reason. It's like I'm being tugged at on both sides. Thankfully they're both good things to think about. 

well that's about it. Thanks for being the bomb. 

Love you!

Tab  

Tim's advice.......

My only advice is to be obedient and work hard. Build up your companion — don't drag him down.  Only do the essential going-home things and let everything else wait.  Most going home things can wait until your last couple of days. We can take care of the other things when you get home.

Be good — I know you will!

Love,

Dad

Shortest letters ever.........but we STILL love him!

Shortest letters we've ever gotten. He must have been excited to go fishin'!

hey mom gotta go! love you lots

i'm going fishing :)

tell Isaac not to buy a tomtom GPS, only Garmin. Garmin.

love you!

Tab

baptism maybe next week if the ward is okay with it :/

Hey Dad!

love you man.

TAb

We STILL love him!  On the bright side, we got a bunch of great pictures!

24 lessons this week!

Hi Dad!

This week was neat. We stay super busy, so we'd have to try hard to teach less than 15 lessons. Or so it seems. We spent a lot of time helping people move this week and we were still able to teach 24 lessons. That is more lessons than I have taught in a week for over a year! I think. I enjoyed this week but I still feel like I could improve at using my time as productively as possible. I think we are teaching a lot of good people, but we could be doing better. I can foresee only a few of the people we teach actually progressing towards the temple and lifetime activity in the church. That is something I am thinking about a lot.

I have so many things I want to do this transfer and I know I won't have time to do them all. I want to write letters to Clark and Reese and I want to have time to prepare for my departing things and I still want to be fully engaged in the work in my area and I want to do many other little things before I leave. That frustrates me but I don't worry about it too much. Any advice?

Kickball tournament last week turned out to be a softball tournament that was poorly organized. We played one game and lost and never played again. I hate wasting p-days, but it happens sometimes. It did last week -_- 

Elder Traasdahl and I went and got chinese food on our way home so that was a nice ending to a mediocre day. We did meet a really cool kid named Samir back in our area and we taught him for the first time. He should be someone I will mention again.

Thank you for talking to Igor! I did what I could to help him, but he likes to adventure so it doesn't surprise me that he's off to California. I'll stay in touch with him.

Have a great week and tell Regan congrats on her graduation! Why are your robes so strange! those sleeves are pretty wild...they're cool and beautiful. but they are also strange. Gryffindor!

Love,

Tab

Hey ma!

1. yes I will mail stuff home. i will use ups. 

2. my bag is the perfect size for a missionary. BTW, I (i.e. you) hipstered this mission by introducing timbuk2 bags. a bunch of people liked my bag and I told them where to go to get one... now many people have them. #sohipster.  the one Isaac got isn't outrageously large. Elder Packham actually has one. But I prefer the size you got me - the smallest one they have. It's personal preference.

3. I like the spread collar. Tell Isaac... spread collar is the way to go. I would go 50/50 with the number of long sleeve and short sleeve shirts.

4. my camera is okay. I wouldn't recommend it, though. I have seen couple of nifty sony or nicer canon cameras and they tell you not to buy a nice camera but he'll end up wanting it. I wish my photos were higher quality. But cheap canons aren't all that nice from what I can tell. Just have dad research a good cheap camera! that's his hobby.

5. don't buy a trench coat and he probably will never need bulky boots. Don't go to missionary clothing supply stores or mr. mac - their stuff is uber cheap. Like dad told me - pay a little extra to get something nice. It will last longer and end up being worth the extra money. As for suits, I have seen some pretty nice fitting suits at burlington coat factory that are on sale. Buy ties at burlington or thrift stores... wool ties are the way to go. Ugly ties baptize any way! : )

so hopefully dad forwards the email I sent to him. I talked about the week. I'll try to send you my photos tomorrow because I forgot my cord today. but it was a neat week!

thanks for the emails! and love!

:)

tab

Avenel, a new companion, and he's back with Traasdahl!

The last transfer and I don't think it could have gotten any better than this. He's back near the area he loves, he has another companion from the Phillipines, and Elder Traasdahl is in his zone.....even better, his same district! He sounds excited and happy. The people are "prepared" and he is ready. Can't think of anything else he needs to finish JERSEY STRONG! 

Hi Mom! 

We have like no time to email today because there is an all mission kickball tourney today and it's somewhat far from our house. However, I will tell you a little bit about what's going on in my new area. I may not answer all of your questions because I briefly skimmed over your email so I apologize!

So I am in Avenel, on Avenel Street. It is like a nice hood. I already like it a lot. About half of the people in our area are black. Parts of our area have only hispanics. We live in a very spanish part of New Jersey. Lots of Dominicans. They are my favorite spanish speaking people so that's good. They make yummy food. My companion is Elder DeJesus and he is from the Philippines. His family now lives in Utah in Eagle Mountain. He was trained by Elder Thompson so he is a lot like him. We get along really well. I think I told you that I was being transferred because my future companion was struggling a little with the work and needed my help. Well, he's not really struggling. He had a tough companion last transfer. This week we got out there and worked and he did just fine. He does stress a little, but not to the point that he is hindered by it. He is very intelligent and so we have nice discussions all the time.

My area is great. And guess what? Elder Traasdahl is in my zone, in my district even. We are having a good time. A really good time! Our new zone leader is one of the Korean missionaries from South Korea. His name is Jooyool Kang. He is a champ. We have a pretty neat zone. So I'm happy!

So just to confirm my address is:

177 Avenel Street Apt. #2D

Avenel, NJ 07001 

America

We had a neat week. There are many "prepared" people here who will get baptized soon. The ward is neat too, but not as big as I anticipated. Scotch Plains is the headquarters of the stake. However, the members have caught the wave and many of them are fully engaged in missionary work. In particular, the members of the ward council are great missionaries. I love to see that. I am excited about this ward! They will see great growth in the near future.

Well that's about all I've got for now. I forgot my camera but there are a few pictures I will send you from my new area. We had some Thai food last week at Mie Thai and it was pretty yum. Not as good as Bangkok but that's okay - it's New Jersey. Anyway I have to jet!

Love you much!

Tab

p.s. Yeee go Indie, get them wildlife!

* Tim got a letter too (a little more personal) but much of it was a duplicate of mine.