May 30, 2006

"And I need shelves built into
your old closet for my fabric crates and then I'll be setting up my
sewing room." - NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO x100
Hi Mom!!
you can see what part of your letter caught my eye the most.
The house looks great! i know why you waited for me to leave now! things would be broken very quickly.
Im so proud of you for graduating soon! thats so exciting! you should get a giant cut out of me for the party ,so im like there, but not. Have you contacted Clayton's mom about working at Kaiser?
You and your mini look good together. Nick calls it your happy box, or somthing like that. So we have this crazy catapillary problem here in MAss. they are EVERYWHERE. like a bazillion of them, no jok.e its nasty, but kinda funny when you see one of them fly onto somebodys head (they swing down the long strands of silk, or whatever). its funny, but nasty at the same time. Its like 90 degrees here, but 40 last week, so the weather is very humid and random. I love it!
So we have an issue with mail we believe. let me explain... Here is a diagrom of our front porch
[1] [2] [3] <--- doors
there are like 3 homes in 1 house (if that makes sense), so mail boxes must have names on them to get mail.
1. we live here (left rear)
2. landlord
3. some other person
somehow, the mail people interpret left rear as door 3... still working on that one, but we arnt sure how reliable our mail is. its been quite a problem.
We have slept outside the past few times because its so hot int he appartment, and the A/C machines smell like mold... its stick, but itll be better soon i hope.
Im sorry our house isnt the party house anymore. i guess its cause im gone.... ::laugh::....
Im loving the mission. things are going great. this past week we set Baptismal dates with Sue, and with Autumn!!! that makes 3!!! the Lord has blessed us with success. its crazy how opportunities to teach and such, are kinda floating in the air in front of us, as if the Lord is dangling it there for us missionaries to take and work with! its amazing! We had a great memorial day, and ended it with a bbq at an inactive families home. The kids were slip n sliding, and wernt exactly warm to us. that is, until we went slip n sliding in full proselyting clothing lol. im sure Elder Pabst will send u a pic. it was fun. then we played baseball, and ate hot dogs!! it was good times. The other day we also did Ear Candling. does that ring a bell at all? its weird, look it up on the interenet. its some strange hippy thing. it was cool though. somthing missionaries would do,right?
alright, i gotta run. i love you all, and miss you all. The Lord's work is the best thing ever, and time is flying by waaay too fast. I pray for you all every night. take care. Search Ponder and Pray and the mysteries of teh universe shall be unfolded before you! Alma 13!!!
Elder Onken

May 23, 2006

Hey there!
What a past few weeks! Things have been going crazy!
It was good to talk to everybody on mother's day, even though i was sick as a dog. im better now, and the work is going great!
We have a new baptism comming up in June. Michael Price is the 10-year old son of Stacey Price. She has recently started comming back to church, and has been bringing her children.
We have also once again reestablished contact with Meg and Autumn! things are looking up, and the spirit is giving me good vibes about it.
Veronika is doing a marvelous job at the assignemnts we give her, and it wont be too long now until she asks to be baptized.
Sue has also taken huge steps. She and Larry have moved up their marriage date, and she has stopped drinking coffee. We are going to try to set a baptismal date for her.
However, on the flip side (opposition in all things, right?), there have been some devistating things happening.
a person we know has relapsed back into a smoking habit
a mother and her son were murdered on saturday, by the mother's husband. supposedly he was not happy with their conversion to the church, and decided to settle his frustration with a hammer. the media has been in a frenzy. it will be interesting to see what kind of influence this has on the work and church in all of Mass.
Our District Leader was emergency transfered this last week because of a series of dramas that has been occuring in the zone. I really dislike drama, and its frustrating to see it happen amongst missionaries. Elder Nielson (AP) , and Farr (ZL) came to our District Meeting, and i was so emberassed because of the distrcit. Everybody except for Elder Johnson and I were acting like children. I cant see why people come on missions, when they are just going to act like 5-year olds. Dad told me not to murmur so much, so im going to have to repent for this letter.
I have to change back to myldsmail, but ive set my gmail account to forward all emails sent there to the proper address. Im still worried about the fact that some emails havnt been going through! i reply to everything i read, so thats an indicator for all of you to know if i got it or not.
Things are going well with the work here, and im loving the mission. The church is true, and there is no other way to say it. i have been pondering upon the phrase "one eternal round" lately. I guess its just intersting to think about the omnipotence of God, and how much he is watching out for us all, and knows exactly what we are going through and need. Prayer works, always remember that. and read the book of mormon! its the best handbook for life!! love you all, and pray for everybody. much love, take care!
Elder Onken

May 8, 2006

Mom,
Im glad im missing all the construction lol, you MUST send pictures!!
Sounds like youve been busy with being on-call, geeze, it must be crazy!
If you get a job at Kaiser, i think thats where Clayton's mom works!
wouldnt that be cool if you worked together?!
Yup, sunday we get to call! thatll be fun, and enjoyable! im not sure
where, and when ill call, but probably at around 12pm your time. we
have dinner every sunday with the branch presidency at 6 our time, so
im not sure what the calling time will be like... but they said they
could call from their house.
hahah send me pics of you in your new car when you get it. i lauigh
whenever i think about it. your going to be a little menice on the
road lol.
This week has been interesting...
Elder Youd is awesome, and i love him a lot, but hes soooo trunky. He
has started to kind of shuck off the rules, and it bothers me, but i
dont want to make this transfer even longer by causing contention, ya
know? is that good, or a bad attitude? its tough, but ill talk to the
Pres about it i think. Elder Fletcher and I are still going to write
our book, but itll take a long time to do the fax/revise thing. lol.
the investigators... Meg and Autumns baptizmal dates fell through. we
havnt been able to contact them for a week now... its really sad. its
all in the Lord's hands now (as it has always been). Missy has also
moved back in with her boyfriend, and doesnt come to the lessons
anymore... its sad
However, Veronika is like .000001 seconds away from being baptized!!
Sue has moved up her wedding date, and is excited to say "i can answer
yes to all the baptismal questions soon!!". We have also reactivated
Stacy Price and her kids, and her son needs to get baptized, so we
will be doing that soon i imagine!! thigns are going so well, and i
love it here!!
Here is another funny story for this week:
So, Richie and Cheryl are two blind people in our branch. this week we
visited them a few times. the first time, they taught us how to type
and read braille after we built their cd racks. However, the second
time we visited, they asked us to give Cheryl's dog a blessing... that
was interesting... "Agent, by the authority of the..." etc. Youd was
on the verge of busting up laughing, it was kinda funny, but one of
the those things we never would have thought we would have done on our
missions!
This week has been hard, but the lessons and teaching has been great!
the branch now has home teaching, and we hope to increase our numbers.
we have asbout 50 peopel come to church now, so we are almost enough
to get a building!! its so exciting! i love it here, and im loving
being in the service of the Lord. I look forward to talking to yall on
sunday. Love you and miss you!!
Elder Onken

May 1, 2006

Mom,

Congrats on finishing your school work (for the most part)! Im so proud of you! i tell anybody who will listen about your upcomming graduation. Take pics of the party, and send them to me so i wont feel so left out lol.

So your Mini is comming in soon, eh? i bet your ecstatic! i saw one the other day and took a picture of it for you, red and everything.
Nick and Jamie should now be called "the boring ones". geeze lol. Chelsea is better off without Ryan. if he keeps calling her, its a sign that he 1) doesnt want to let go, so the only reason he broke up with her is so he can hook up with other girls and not feel bad, or 2) hes playing games. in either case its a less than savory way to act. "those who live by [drama], die by [drama]".

Im glad that im not home for the remodeling work. im sure id just get in the way.

the Greenalghs are like the coolest people ever. I gave a spiritual message when we were there for dinner, and i was talking about "where your treasure is, there will your heart be also", and i guess it encouraged their kids to give up this video game Runescape that they had been addicted to.

Im still here in North Adams, but Elder Fletcher went to Cambridge (longfellow park 2 ward). Elder Youd is my new companion, and he is way cool. he was just Zone Leader, but hes going home at the end of this transfer so ill probably be in North Adams for 3 more months, which i dont mind at all!

The investigators are doing alright, but the biggest step this week is that Stacey Price and her family have started comming back to church!! im so excited for them!

Crazy story this week: Sister Harrer, this old little lady, asked us to go do so service for her. First thing she asked us to do was to bury her cat that died... she said it was the best of the 400 cats she has had... no joke. 400!!!! i admit, it was hard to keep from laughing. So we burried it ,but she kept on dropping the bag with the cat in it, and it was really nasty how its paws started dropping out and stuff. it was narly. So we said a little prayer and Elder Youd and I debated on whether or not we should dedicate the grave.... just kidding! but, sister harrer did give a little talk about how she would see the cat again at the ressurection. it was kinda sweet. After that, she asked us to spray the wasp nests, but not to kill the wasps... instead she said "i love the little guys, but the get in the house. dont kill them, if they start chasing you just run away...." i was like... uhhh, okay... there is a scripture somewhere that says that poisons wont hurt the Lord's annointed right? overall, this week was full of good service, and great lessons! Veronika should be getting baptized soon, i think we will challenge her next week. thigns are exciting, and we are going to start a home teaching program soon!! woohoo!! Im blessed to be able to see and feel my testimony grow daily. i love my mission, and i love the people! im so glad to be here. thanks for all the love and support. the church is true, no doubt about it.

Elder Onken