September 24, 2007

Mom,

you went to a LOT of church! gosh. Its crazy the Brady is going into the MTC!!! i can hardly believe it!! geeze. What did Dad speak on? Sounds like a cool fireside.

What a small world that Roseanna is in their ward!! The mormon world is even smaller, right?

Let me know how the West Point thing goes. I havnt heard much from Dad, so im not sure whats going on. I need to take the CFA ASAP though, because im getting weaker. We just dont have the time to work out. Ive lost a lot of strength already. I was at 18 pull-ups before, but now im at about 14-15 again.

The weston 1st ward rocks. its initmidating too. We have people like the ex-CEO of DELL in our ward, and Danny Ainge is in the bishopric (Celtics General Manager), two of the Marriot sisters, Orin Hatch's son. Etc. Its great though.

This week we had two zone conferences with Elder Hinkley. They were amazing. Other than that, its just been getting to know the ward. The work is going great though. The spirit has been strong. We were led to a home where there was a party going on, and we ended up setting up a return appointment next week with like 7 people there. We got all their names and contact info and gave them a bunch of things to read. Miracles happening everywhere.

Well, i gotta run. love ya and miss ya!

Elder Onken

September 18, 2007

Mom,

Sounds like you had all sorts of adventures there in the caribbean! im glad.

So the new area. Well, we are shotgunning the Weston 1st ward. Its a really great ward. we are excited to get to work here. It's not really near Belmont because the Mission Office is moving to Natick. Which is right near where we live. So we are commuting for the next 2 weeks. Elder Ririe is awesome. He is from SLC. He plays soccer, and wants to become an OB/GYN. He wants to delvier babies. i told him that you were a labor and delivery nurse and he thought that was cool. The new apartment is filthy. the elders that were there before were messy. we have a lot to clean. but we never have time! So what do we do in the office? we are the assistants to the president, so it involves anything and everything he would need us to do. We do the reporting from the ZL's, and compile it and send it to Salt Lake. We pick-up and drop-off the new missionaries. We help with transfers. We tour the ZLs. We run the Zone conferences. We do a looot of stuff. Essentialy we dont get a lot of sleep, hardly any time to eat, very little time to proselyte, and lots of other things. like this week, our p-day is only 3 hours. Its fun though. thats for sure.

We are going to try to schedule dental appointments for me and elder Ririe with a member who will do it for free. We have unlimited miles and a sweeet truck so we can go to merrimack NH for that.

Things have been hectic! we had 2 zone conferences with Elder Hinkley. That was sweet. We also had an investigator fireside with him. we had to drive all over getting translation equipment. It was sweet having 3 languages being translated. Could have had 4, but no cambodians showed up.

The ward is sweet, but we dont have much time to proselyte. its especially crazy because we are shotgunning. Both of us have done it before though, so its not somthing new to us. Give us a week and things will be going well.

well, we gotta run. lots to do! ttyl!

love ya,
Elder Onken

September 2, 2007

Mom,

So we do email at the Family History Center because its the only computers that will allow Elder Lee to email in Korean. So holiday or not, we get to write.

So you got me bedroom furniture? too soon. Gosh. You have an eliptical? what the heck. crazy stuff.

Oh man, West Point Papers? my stomach hurts. Pres asked about them last week. Ill have to update him. i see that my candidate file is opened and registered. lets just get it done ASAP. My file doesnt show anything like transcripts from CHS, or BYU-H turned in. It has my SATs and stuff, but nothign else. I hope Dad does that before sending me the papers.

Thats cool! How is Chris doing? its good to hear you are still in contact with them.

Well mom, thigns are going well. we set another baptismal date. thats 3. All of them are pretty solid. that zone is now at 14. we have picked up from about 5 to 14. things are going well. still having some trouble with a companionship in my district though :/

yesterday we had dinner with a new member, another family, and some of the single peeps in the ward. We sang for them in Korean. it was cool. Im pretty much a professional now... yah right.

We were tracting yesterday, and we started talking with these two people who were having a campfire. One of them, a drunk man, was not necisarrily being rude, but he was semi-heckling us. He was saying lies, and nonsense into the ear of the lady there, who was intent on our message. it was a visual of how satan tries to distract us. he doesnt communicate any intelligence, just trys to reassure people with nonsense and unimportant things. However, we just ignored him and kept testifying. At one point, he just shouted, "We know all ABOUT Christ, we dont need to hear from you", and i just turned to him and said "yes, but do you KNOW christ?", and he just sat there quiet for a few moments, then we said "because you CANNOT know Christ unless you keep his commandments. its just not possible". It really impacted him and the lady. he even tried to give us 20 bucks, but we refused. It was an interesting experiecne, we will see if anything comes of it.

And im sure you heard, i got permission to see Clayton on Saturday. It was a weird experiecne. like being in a dream. combining of two different lives ive had. Im still kinda weirded out by it. IT was good to see him. We went to the temple, and i showed him how i contact people on the trains. I think his friend especially liked learning more about the mormons.

well, thats about it. i love ya and miss ya. i know your going on your vacation soon. i hope you have a good time. transfers are on the 13th i think. T-calls on the 11th, so about anotehr week.

miss ya, love ya, ttyl!


Elder Onken