Snail Mail Has Arrived!

A few days ago we received a thick envelope with personalized letters to family members. How fun! I have to say that there was one sentence in the letter that is going to never be forgotten as Elder Connole (Mr.-no-function-until-10:00) says, "Getting up early isn't that bad."

Hey Mom,


Wow! What a busy week so many things going on. I'm gonna add some things that I didn't put in the email, bear with me bk I may repeat some things.

I'm having a lot of fun while I'm here despite how crazy structured everything is. That's been the hardest part for me. Getting up early isn't that bad.


Ok so here is like run down of what's been going on.


After your parents dropped me off I got my name tag, a few other items and it was straight to class from there. (BTW feel free to include any of this on the blog) I saw 4 people from my BYU ward on that day--2 missionaries, 1 cafeteria worker and 1 girl I knew just after I got dropped off. It was fun to see them. :)

I mentioned the Elder Holland visit in my email. With my emails I'm gonna start outlining what I want to say so I can fit it all in.

Thursday was p-day for all the other Elders in our zone but not for us so we were not too thrilled about that but whatever. This whole week has been non-stop learning and it is awesome. I'm the most advanced in the language in my class so I have a lot of opportunities to teach, which I love doing. I'm really surprised at how much I remember from high school.

Gym has been awesome. I play volleyball every time and it rocks, my setting skills and blocking skills and even my spiking skills have gotten significantly better! Saturday we had a service project, (aka cleaning the bathrooms) the lady who was supposed to show us what to do was late so we just talked for a while until then.

Everyone here loves that I can do a back flip and (some word that was not legible) think I'm super awesome. lol

Sunday was fun we walked around at the temple, took some pictures and just relaxed, it was nice to be able to do that.

Elder Light and I are really good at teaching about the restoration, we learn in class to teach people, not lessons so we get to know the person and then base the lesson around their needs. The Spirit that comes when we do that is incredible.

We had a devotional on Sunday, the speaker was ok, but the singing was so inspiring. All of us sang "Praise to the Man" and the conviction, sincerity and power of it was astounding. I loved it.

There is another Elder (Elder Stephens) who can tumble in my district but he hadn't done it in a while so in gym one day he face planted. It was really funny after we knew he was ok.

One of my teachers went to Spain onher mission so she has a funney accent because Spaniards pronounces most of their "s" sounds as "th" sound but she is a great teacher as is our other teacher.

On Tuesday we had our first "TRC" experience. Basically volunteers come in and we practice certain scenarios with them. We met 2 different couples and 1 solo guy. I understood mosta ll the Spanish they threw at me but poor Elder Light definitely got lost. The last guy (Napoleon) talked a lot and really quickly but the Lord helped me understand the majority of it. We then taught him the message of the restoration in English and we felt it went pretty well despite the fact that we didn't cover everything we originally wanted to. But we are teaching people not lessons so he got everything he needed to at that time.

I got my typhoid shot and the swine flu shot done so I am all vaccinated up and ready to go.

Tell baby bro I ate some cheerios just for him :) (the two year old had prayed for Patrik to be able to have "lots Cheerios"). I miss you all, but I'm so busy that usually I don't have that much time to even think about you all. But I keep you in my prayers at night.

Love ya!

Elder Patrik Connole