I put the speaker into a tie........now it plays Star Wars whenever I hit my stomach!

Three emails from our missionary this week! It's great when he's HaPpY and doing well. Rorie's letter is the best.....she was on cloud nine. After this transfer he will hit the HALFWAY mark ~ aMaZinG!

Hey Mom!

Ha! The library's AC is still broken but it's not that hot today. So I'm here!

I'm going to be short today because I wrote dad a long email, but I'll answer some of your questions.

I did get a Flat Reese on Saturday with a statue of a newspaper guy. It is pretty good, and I just send it to her email right?

Elder Traasdahl is doing pretty well with his new companion, Elder Warnock. His spanish is not that good, but he looks a lot like Reese. The two are unrelated I know. He's a nice kid, too. He plays golf! And it sounds like he's pretty good. He told me his handicap is about 4.4, if that means anything to you. Colby knows what it means. I had a handicap of about 2.

I don't know David Gow, but I wish his family the best.

Well get out there and do some more work! Sorry my letter is short. I think I'll have time later today to finish a letter to you and include my memory card. I have lots of new pictures :)

Have an awesome week! Tell the Christen's hi for me! They wrote me a great letter for my birthday, and you can tell them I put the speaker from the letter into a tie I have, so now it plays star wars sounds whenever I hit my stomach. Good stuff.

Love,
Tab


HEy Rorie! 

How was your trip to California? Did you guys go to the Ross on Market St? I love that store even though I've only been there once. Did you get some good chocolate Starbucks shakes? I have a map of San Francisco that has a lot of cool landmarks that you guys would have liked to see - it has a graffiti wall pointed out, I forgot what street it says that it is on.

So I think we went to Shalom for youth conference a lot of times. But never just as scouts. Ask mom - she came with us because she was YW president back then. I liked what ever place that was.

Clark said that our family writes him a lot! Good for you - I know he enjoys it. I think he still speaks english just fine, but we talk like that just for fun. He's a good guy. He is doing good work in Germany too, I'm proud of him!

I wish I had some cool things from Jersey to send you, but the truth about this area that I'm in is that it's not much different. Especially Princeton - it's a lot like a nice city in Utah. There's a highway, Chipotle, Pei Wei, Wendy's, Walmart, and Princeton University. I'll see if I can find something special about Trenton to find for you. The biggest problem is that we don't have a car to drive during the week so there aren't many places we can go to shop for special things. But I will be able to some day. Sorry! Oh, I can send you some goooood fried chicken.

Haha, Ritas... Swedish Fish Gellati! Glad it's coming to Utah.

I talk to Larry about once a week. I text him or he texts me. He attends church regularly, but he moved to a city called Elizabeth. The english branch in Elizabeth is very small, maybe 20 people attend. But he still goes! And he might attend the singles ward soon. He is doing alright, and they're still visiting him two or three times a week so that's great.

Well, thanks for writing me Rorie! It's a lot easier for me to email back than write back on a letter. I'm sorry - well I can't really apologize cause I'm not doing anything wrong - but we have from about 3pm to 5pm on P-Day where I have time to write a letter and usually I can pump out one good letter in that time. And that is if we're not doing anything like sports or eating. Other than that we can't write letters during the week. But when I get the chance, I'll write something quick :) But if you email, I have two hours at the library that I can email back.

Ok I have to write mom now...

I love you Rorie!

Tab

Letter to Dad -

Thanks for the thought Dad! It applies well to me - I know that just getting out to teach is good, and working hard is good, but as Elder Callister put it, that is just changing our behavior. I gave a training in District Meeting a couple of weeks ago about consecration, changing our nature. I asked myself if I would be exactly obedient to all of the mission rules if I didn't have a companion who I had to account to all day, every day. My answer is no, I wouldn't. And so, I need to continue to learn about the importance of my calling. I have a lot to learn. But something I haven't done in a while is pray for charity, so I will do it.

 

I'm glad you had a fun trip. Mom sent me some photos she took. Did you eat at the fabulous vietnamese restaurant? I hope so. I plan to go there regardless of whether you are taking me or not! Reese said he enjoyed his senior trip to California and would love to do it again - I think it would be nice to invite him.

 

Our investigator pool is quite low. The problem we have is that we have lots of new investigators and almost none that are progressing. Each day it seems like we contact promising people, and then most often they don't invite us back after the second lesson or we never see them again because they won't keep appointments. Jos is progressing (somewhat) and we've only talked to her mother about joining the Church. She was okay with it, and Jos said she would be the more stubborn of the two. We haven't talked to her dad, but he is friendly to us when we see him. So the hope is that this week he'll be home and we can sit down with him too. Jos said she felt a lot better when we talked to her mom.

 

Ange and Arding are doing really well. They will get the priesthood next week (finally) and they are going to invite their dad to come. Sadly, Arding does not have a good relationship with his dad and so he wasn't very excited about that, but the Bishop suggested it. Both of them are actively participating and coming to church every week, but we're working on teaching Arding reverance and he still doesn't get it. I think that he has ADHD, because he's always moving and talking and what not. I hope that the ward will take him in like a son so that they can understand his problem and know how to work with it better than we do. Ange is awesome, he is teaming up with us this week to go visit some of his friends. Johnson is doing alright. He is still reading regularly and praying regularly but he hasn't been to church in a while because of work. We found out he joined a soccer team that will have games on Sunday so when we met with him yesterday we talked about the law of sacrifice. He understood it, and he knows that coming to church is more important than soccer games. His (spiritual) progression is slower because we don't get to visit him as much, so we have to rely on Courage and Ange to help him along. He was accepted to the University of Virginia Ewing and he will leave for school soon, so we're hopeful that missionaries there can continue to assist him.   

 

As far as new contacts we've been teaching, we taught a family yesterday that we have waited two weeks to visit. We had the impression to knock on Camille's door about three weeks ago and he told us we could come back on the weekends to visit. He said he was a Catholic but he wanted to hear what we had to say. We came back several times and he was never there, but we got to know his six kids pretty well. He has the nicest family in Trenton! His family is the best - that is a huge motivator for us to go visit him. His wife is super nice as well. She is from Haiti. Well finally, yesterday, we taught him and his wife and two of his friends, Gilbert and Lawrence. The lesson didn't go as well as we'd like but it ended well and Gilbert seemed pretty interested. Lawrence, his wife, had met missionaries a lot before in Ivory Coast. Camille is pretty hard headed so it helped to have his friends there to talk some sense into him. Each of them committed to pray about and read the Book of Mormon. And we are coming back on Saturday to teach Camille more about the scriptures because although he's a Christian, he knows almost nothing about Jesus Christ. That was what made the lesson tough. Anyway, we've been praying that he will be more accepting to the message of the Restoration and that he will understand how much we love his family and how much we can help them! That's what we got to at the end of the lesson, and that was what made it end well... his family means a lot to him. So that and a few other interesting people we have appointments with this week, I'll let you know how it goes.

 

I hope you have another good week! Send me a picture of the progress of construction at BYU - I have a friend, Elder Jellen, in the mission who's dad is a professor I think and he had no idea that they were blowing up the parking lot. He asked me to send him a picture, and I can't find the one you sent me a while back. Have a great week!

 

I love you,

Tab

Fried chicken is something Utah lacks!

Monday came and went with no word from our missionary.  It was transfers so I was pretty sure he had been sent to another area. That happens occasionally when they are told to pack up and be ready to move the next day.  We waited for several days and finally heard from him on Thursday afternoon (a relief to me since I'm the only one who worries.....). This was his reply to my "Where are you?" email.


Hi mom and family!

Library was closed on Monday for A/C issues.  It still has A/C issues but it's open, so now I'm on.  

Sorry I have like no time to write today! It was a good week - we improved in almost every area and we taught more lessons that we have all transfer. Still, no baptismal candidates really. We finally talked to Jos's parents, who consented to her not being a catholic. It actually went pretty well. Scary, but we handled it.

 

I got all the packages you sent, the bag is awesome! I love it. For my birthday, we didn't do much special. I bought a shirt on Monday for Colby that's sweet and I got a new tie at Forman Mills, and we went to a killer fried chicken place. Fried Chicken is something Utah lacks. Someone should ramp up the snow cone shack idea and make fried chicken shacks. I think that I already suggested that but I still support the cause. Thanks for all the yummy food! And you can tell Sis Spaulding another thank you from me. I am eating the cheeses. That apricot stilton is really good and so is everything else. I made some good curry for my roommates and they loved it - it was very spicy so they had upset stomachs that night. Got em! Haha. Hold on while I switch email chains so I can answer all your questions that I forgot....

Ok here I go answering all of your questions:

 

1. Nope! I didn't get transferred. But we got a new guy, Elder Jordan Warnock who is from Bountiful Utah. He plays golf :) Elder Traasdahl is training him.

2. Sure, I think I have some nice tan pants in my closet I left behind. If not, then I like those ones you get from The Rack.

3. I am not sure if Elder Guymon is going to BYU, but I think he said he would. I was sad that I couldn't see him off, but I talked to him. He's a good missionary. He left me a tie that I liked of his. So I will remember him :)

4. Yes I got all of my birthday packages.

5. Yes I got my messenger bag and I love it!

6. My birthday was good! Jealous you guys went to San Francisco without me but I can handle it. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RORIE!!! I don't really have much special for you other than a letter I am sending home with some pictures. But, I love you and I am happy that you are now in YW. You're growing a lot! High school soon! Haha. What a thing.

Again, jealous that you are in San Francisco!

 

Good for Colby for doing so well in the golf tournament! I'm happy he is playing more. I wish I would have played with him and helped him out more before I left. 82 isn't bad! What course(s) did he play? I miss the days of playing golf in the hot St George weather. The weather here is hot, but it's humid and I don't like it. I sweat just sitting doing nothing. It's not that way in Utah.

 

Well, I'll let you know when I go get some food. And I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks for all the letters! I am sorry I didn't have much to write back. Take care of yourselves now. Get some yummy Vietnamese food for me! Have another good week.

 

I Love you,

Tab

Life in New Joysee!

Elder McLain and Elder Vargas in Manhattan

Billboards.......

Hey, it's Bieber............Justin Bieber.

Elder Vargas

What they do on their lunch break!

Elder Traasdale

More Armies of Helaman?

The boys....

Fourth of July fun!

???

Is this Art? No, wait......it's a bird.

E.T. wishing Elder McLain a happy birthday!

This is where he lives.

They break dance too!

This week I turn twenty! I won't be a teenager anymore.

It's Tab's birthday week! It's just another day in the mission field but we made sure he would feel special. We had a mom from his ward in Princeton get him a few of his favorite things from Trader Joe's including a chocolate ganache torte.  So here's to you buddy........ H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y T A B !

Hi Mom!

Thanks for the great letter. You're the best. I got tons of food and what not from Sister Spaulding yesterday. She is awesome, but I know that it was from you. That was a lot of stuff!  

So this week I turn twenty! I imagine it won't be that different. But I won't be a teenager anymore. That's weird.

I don't have much to talk about, sorry! We had a good week. We met some new people and we got out and taught more lessons. I was happy with the success we had, even though our numbers weren't that high. It is hot out there, and almost every day it rained so that was way nice when we were out walking and we'd get drenched. I have a carrying case for my scriptures that is waterproof so my stuff stays fine :) We also had a great zone conference this week where we learned all about the Book of Mormon. Not much new, but I learned how to introduce it better and use the introduction to the Book of Mormon more effectively.

Oh, my pants are levi's 511's and they are 34 x 34. And the jeans are Kayden K. and they are 32 x 32. so if you ever find them, let me know! IF not, no biggie cause I hardly ever wear them on the mission. Sorry this is late, but if you got a tie for me I wouldn't mind like a burnt orange, or gold. or green. Haha.

Well I don't know what we'll do for my birthday yet but i'll enjoy it, don't worry. Thanks for all you do for me!

I love you all a lot. Have an awesome week in St. George golfing. Good luck Colby and Zach!

Love,

Tab

p.s.  I didn't write hardly anything!! You should love me less haha. I know you wouldn't though. I have some pictures I am uploading to dropbox for you guys. It's not all of them, but sometime this week I will have the rest! Enjoy! Anything you want to know/any questions... hit me. Oh! If it's still around, can you send me that lime green perry ellis tie that I passed on to Colby? It's probably all dingy and what not but if he doesn't wear it I really want to. That and the easter colors tie that has the octagons on it. I think it is a Nautica tie  but it's in this picture.

Love you,

Tab

Hi Dad!

Thanks for the shoutout. It'll be weird not to be a teenager anymore. However, I assume it will be just like my 18th birthday, it won't feel any different.

I don't have much to mention from this week, but it was a good one. We made a lot of improvements. We taught more lessons and found people to teach. I felt better about how we had used our time this week. We had an awesome Zone Conference where we learned about the Book of Mormon. President Jeppson and his assistants discussed the Apostasy, Restoration, and the role of the Book of Mormon in the gathering of Israel. I already knew a lot about those topics - I've had several studies in the Book of Mormon and the Bible about them - and so I didn't learn much new. However, I learned how to teach those topics simply using the Book of Mormon and that helped me a lot. The role plays we did were great.

Actually, we read D&C 4 every district meeting. It's tough to pick out one thing to apply but lately I have worked on patience. I'm getting better at being patient, so I might move on to another attribute. Thanks for the commitment! I will work at it.

Thanks for your prayers and love. I pray for you too ;)

Love,

Tab

Go do some missionary work!

Still doing great and still having fun!  Love his weekly letters......

Hi mom!

So, I had a good week this time around. Not that anything special happened but I received some good inspirations, for lack of a better word, that made me realize I have to change some things I'm doing. I got motivation to work harder. So that was good and I am working on working harder... ha. We had a new investigator at church named Aut, and she is awesome. She is 17 and from Sudan. She is friends with Jos. So we've been teaching Aut and trying to teach her sister Aluel. They are all great. The only problem is they have similar situations at home in that their parents are Catholics and neither are for them joining the Church. Tough stuff. Still, we haven't been able to talk to either of their parents.

Elder Vargas and I are getting along quite well. He's really funny. We're just having to work on being obedient, because that's usually a problem in a four man apartment where you get along well with roommates who live with you.

We had an awesome sacrament meeting. First off, Elder Vargas and I prepared an awesome lesson for the High Priest group and it was gonna be fabulous and we were so psyched to impress and motivate them to do missionary work and then we got in there and we started going hot and then they talked for a really long time. Direct quote: "Let me tell you three stories..." And that is how it went. Then we got to sacrament meeting and a lot of great people bore testimonies. Arding bore his testimony and I stood next to him because he is too afraid to go by himself. He's awesome. Courage bore his testimony and almost made everyone cry so that was good. I like fast Sundays in this ward.

I have no idea what the Levi's are........ I'm actually wearing them this very second because we're going to stuff right after the library but I can see what kind they are. The pants are called Kayden K I think. Really weird brand. size 32. And I couldn't find the style. I'll try to find out before next monday.

Yes zone 9. 9.1 is my area

I checked out the blog. That's great! I didn't know it existed. Thanks. Coool news about the family!

Oh yes, for the 4th of July we went to a member's home and had a BBQ with them and then we went to watch fireworks in Washington, NJ. It was great. Elder Traasdahl and myself cooked some brats on a homemade stove thing. I'll send the pictures home soon. It was a good day. We got home at like midnight or something around there cause Washington is forever away from our house. I was really tired but it was worth the trek.

Well I am on the way out so I have to close. Go do some missionary work. I will too.

Have a great week!

Love,

Tab

Thanks for your letter Dad! I really appreciate it. It seems like each week you know what I need to work on.

Elder Callister is a wizard. He wrote a talk I really like about integrity. I'm sure you could find it because mom sent it to me. So she knows which one. That and the talk about Identity and Destiny. I know you read that one.

Not a lot of people we meet are interested in the Book of Mormon. Every time we pull it out they say the 2 Nephi 29 scripture. So I'm working on coming up with more unique questions to ask when contacting people. Give them something to think about.

Anyway, I'm out of time. I wrote a longer-than-usual letter to mom so I have to go now. I apologize!

I love you! Keep up the good work. Find someone for the missionaries to teach. Ha! I imagine that's near impossible. Maybe that's why you decided to move to Provo... you would hardly ever have the chance to do missionary work! Just kidding. It's a good place to be.

Love you,

Tab

We've given out 10,000 waves......or something close to that!

It was an interesting week. Elder McLain reports that he is doing well and enjoying his companion.....it's just HOT! Aren't we all.  

Before I post Elder McLain's letter to me, I will share with you a funny thing that happened this week. I sent him an email explaining what happened and then he replied......

Hello my sweet boy!  

Well, yesterday I got "The Call".  Around 3 pm my cell phone rang and I looked down and saw NJ Mission Home (it's programmed into my phone). My heart jumped! For all of 5 seconds I wondered what's wrong, is Tab okay, is he in trouble, hurt, oh no! The first thing I heard was "Hi this is Sister Gilbert ? (don't remember who it was cause my heart was racing) and first let me say your missionary is fine." I sighed! Then she proceeded to tell me you had your car towed and you wanted her to call and tell me. She said it was $80 and to please go easy on you because the police were terrible in New Jersey and it happens to others and you're not the first. I busted out laughing! I told her that was a relief to know it was only a towing fee and you had plenty of money in your account and if that was the worst thing you had done, I was one happy mom!! She said, "oh I'm glad you understand. We love your missionary and he is wonderful." I told her I was lucky and loved you too! I will make sure your charge comes through okay and just know you have plenty in your account to cover it. I'm so glad nothing bad was wrong.

So does this get you in any kind of trouble with the mission president or your driving privileges? I hope not. Just continue to be careful.

Tab's reply:

Well hmmm.... I don't remember getting my car towed unless it was from several months ago (like 8 months ago) when Elder Estipona and I exchanged our old car for a new one. But we dropped it off at the place in Morristown, so I can't think of why they would have had to tow it. It definitely wasn't a parking violation. You should ask Sister Gilbert, especially because there were two other missionaries in our zone who were in an accident this week and their car was towed. Either way, no biggie. I'm fine.

FYI - I called Sister Gilbert to let her know she may have called the wrong mom. Come to find out it was an Elder McMillan and she had her information mixed up. We had a good laugh. I love the senior couples who work in the mission home office!

Now for the weekly emails!

Hi Dad!

It sounds like your trip to Dayton Ohio gave you a little bit of an idea of what it is like in New Jersey. I don't know about good restaurants, but lately the weather has been super humid because of the rain storms we get every other day. I remember one p day last transfer that we went to go play rugby in Mercer Park. There is a small lake there, and so I think that added to the humidity. But I got drenched with sweat like I never have before. Sweat was dripping from my hair, nose, fingertips, arms, everywhere and I don't usually sweat much compared to others. I soaked through my pair of garments (not knowing I would sweat that much) and a thick cotton t-shirt to the point where someone who touched me would get their hand wet. I hate humidity! But it hasn't been that bad in a couple of weeks.

Maybe I can soon find a good place to eat that isn't too expensive... the next trip I make to New Brunswick I'll get some food at the grease trucks that were featured on Man v Food. I'll let you know how that goes.

Well I'll write to mom and include the status of our investigators and members. How did you like that broadcast??

Have another good week and I hope you don't get too busy.

Love,

Tab

Hi Mom!

Ha!  No Skinny pants. I don't have any skinny pants though. I have my favorite jeans that Regan dried so kindly until they became a size or two smaller so those are nice and skinny but I haven't found a time to wear them. I might just make them into a tie. Jeans make cool ties. But there are some missionaries who skinny their pants and I always found that a little odd. Messanger bags, yes they are fine.

This week was pretty fun - we had a good nice pday playing basketball and then our all mission activity on Wednesday. I got to see a lot of friends and talk for a couple of hours.  I took ten million pictures so that was good. We had an absolutely awful skit, in part due to the fact that the two crucial players weren't able to come and so... it was rather bland. But I don't care too much. We did make a cake too, and it probably took second to last place. Good ole zone 9! I'm not much into skits or cakes. However, I saw Elder Thompson and talked to him for a good time and the same with Elder Guymon and Elder Estipona and a couple others. So I had a good time! Then for the rest of the week we did busy work with meetings, taking people places and going to the church for things... which often took a lot of time out of our proselyting. The last month or so has been like that and so I am excited that this week probably won't be like that. Our area is awesome and I love the ward but zone 9 is so large that some call it exile because you are so far from everything and everyone. I don't like it, but that's not too big of a concern.

We got to see Ange and Arding a couple times this week and they are doing well - we're working on getting Ange to develop scripture study and to go to the temple, and Arding is working on reverance (and a variety of other things). He's a loud one and so in church we have to tell him to quite down a lot. But he's never been to church before in his life, so we have to expect he knows nothing about reverance. We are teaching him though. Johnson is still a champ as ever but he still hasn't been able to go to the temple either. He just graduated this week so he will be able to go soon!

Our investigator Jos has continued to keep commitments - she's awesome - but her family doesn't want her to join the church. Her dad is a good guy and he served a mission for the Catholic church but her mom doesn't know much about gospel truths and she is hard headed, so that's a problem. The only reason she still meets with us is because she's 21 and her dad said she could learn more about our church for informational purposes. Anyway, we don't really know what to do now cause neither of her parents really want to talk to us. So we just pray something will change soon. They are great people though.

Other than that, not much is new. We picked up two new investigators who are friends of Jos, which continues the line from Courage even farther. We also met this kid, Darlington, who is a less active member and friends with Johnson! He is amazing but we haven't been able to visit him for about two weeks. He's planning to serve a mission. I'll tell you more about him next week. That and I think we've given about 10,000 waves in the past week. Or something close to that! I'll send you some pictures if I get time before I leave.

My mind has reached an impass of thought.

I'll talk to you next week!

Love you,

Elder McLain