The Craziest Exchange of My Life!

 Hola,

This week has been so fast but so awesome. Definitely a great week. I love serving in the Cheyenne Ward and Elder Wheeler is such a hardworking Elder. I'm the kind if guy that like I don't care at all whether my companion is like me or not, I just care if you want to work hard with me. Elder Wheeler likes to work so we get along well haha. Yeah it's been a pretty good week. 

Handing out cookies

First of all, we delivered cookies to a bunch of our friends and thanks to one of the cookie visit we put Isaac on date to be baptized. That was sweet. We literally sat down and had a talk and put this man on date. Then we also found a lot of solid new people to teach. One time as we were walking Elder Wheeler felt like walking forward a bit more and so we did. Then immediately a guy named Josh pulled up and was like, "you guys have been trying to call me, I wasn't ready to meet then but I'm ready now." That was pretty cool and we've had two lessons with him already. Josh is a pretty funny guy. He sells merchandise and he's gonna make some missionary merchandise line for us. I'm so hyped. 

Elder Wheeler and I are teaching English now at a Spanish resource center. Elder Wheeler isn't even called Spanish Speaking and now he's teaching English to a bunch of Spanish speakers. He honestly teaches it better than I do sometimes so that's interesting. We mostly talk in English anyways. I want to get as much Spanish practice as I can so I try to speak Spanish a decent amount but also English so they can learn too. It's honestly pretty fun. 

Okay but now it's time for the lit story of the week. So basically I've been doing some exchanges throughout the week. I went another exchange with my district leader and that was fun. But the most crazy exchange was with Elder Jessop. So Elder Jessop and Moa are my zone leaders and since I'm training a new missionary the zone leaders wanted to do an exchange with me. Elder Moa went with Elder Wheeler and they apparently had an absolutely spirit filled exchange where they put a referral on date in the first visit. It sounded pretty incredible. My exchange however was very interesting. I had companion study with Elder Jessop and then halfway through he's like, "yeah so Elder Pack actually I have a pretty bad stomach/ bacterial infection so I'm not feeling that great so if halfway through this exchange I pull the plug don't be surprised." I was like oh dang okay. So naturally we then went to in-n-out for lunch. Then we had a member visit and about 20 minutes later, Elder Jessop is like, "I need a bathroom, like right now." So then we go to a church bathroom so Elder Jessop can release the beast. 

So we're in the bathroom and Elder Jessop is making some interesting noises in the stall and everyone else in the bathroom is like what is going on. Because there is a baptism going on, there is a decent amount of people. I'm laughing like crazy so I need to leave the bathroom because I can't breath and so then I wonder into another room where Elder Child and Whipple are doing weekly planning. I join in with that for about 30 minutes and Elder Jessop comes in and is like yeah we need to end exchanges. But this is where things get crazy. I'm like bro I have so many things planned and I know Elder Wheeler needs to be with Elder Moa sooooo. Then we realize Elder Child needs to pack since he's going to Ecuador, so we make a new plan. I'm going to do another exchange inside the exchange and be with Elder Whipple. Elder Child is going to pack for the rest of the night so Elder Jessop joins him and sits on the toilet for the next 5-6 hours. So that was fun.

Elder Wheeler my companion

Elder Gonzalez

Okay so now Elder Whipple and I are together and we go to our homies Josh's house and he asks us to move his printer. We're like, okay sure we can help with that. Turns out it is a jersey printer so it is absolutely massive. It's 8 feet by 3 feet and weighs 700 pounds. So Elder Whipple and I are like what is going on as we move this thing. Then we have another lesson with him but this time he's changing into a Donald Duck costume for some reason as we teach him. It was crazy. I'm pretty sure he was changing into it for work or something but that was fun. Then we ended exchanges 3 ours later. 

One thing I've noticed is that my weeks are really the same. I'm really scraping the bottom or the barrel for these emails. Last week I literally talked about shampoo. So it's honestly a miracle I've written this much about my week. Life is still good, I love working with Elder Wheeler, and I've learned a lot about myself and who I am. This experience really has changed me so much and I feel like a whole new person sometimes. I still make dumb jokes and all that, but I feel different. 

"Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life."

-3 Nephi 5:13 

This gospel is truth. I know it as a fact. Like I know the sun shines or I'll wake up in the morning. This is truth. I'm putting my whole heart and soul into this and working so much. Sometimes people accept or sometimes they reject it. More often the latter. I see these people as I walk past them in the street and I just want to stop everyone and tell them who they really are. Sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. I know there is a God. I am His son. Jesus Christ is real and performed and infinite and eternal Atonement for me so I can live with my family again after I die. I know that is truth.

Sincerely,

Elder Pack

An older picture of Elder Caldwell and I

Yummy taco dinner

Oysters and Cup Pong

 Hola,

Another week down, and I've officially hit 10 months as a missionary. Pretty sweet. I'm now in the double digits so I can sound like an experienced missionary! Just kidding, I still sometimes has no idea what I'm doing. But that's part of the fun. I think that will get me ready for life, just not knowing what I'm doing at all and just winging everything. Anyways, let's get into the week. 

The Tacoma is still sweet. We love the Tacoma. Also I think my skin is healing well from all the sunburns I've gotten while on bike. I've noticed a huge difference in my redness of skin. Heck Yeah, life's good. But I still look like a tomato but that's whatever I guess. The Tacoma protects with that. Elder Wheeler is a pretty fun guy too. Loves to learn and ask for help when he needs it. That is a good skill to have and I struggle with that sometimes. I don't really ask for help when I need it. He's a good guy though and I like working with him. He's learning a lot and so that's pretty neat. I think the best learning tool is failure so I let him fail a lot so he can learn what to do next time. I could tell him things but really experience has taught him more than I could ever teach him. For example, I like to go up to random people and tell them my friend has a question to ask them. Its soo fun.

I've really learned a lot about myself since I've been here. Living with a dude 24/7 really teaches you a thing or two. One thing I've learned about myself is I am a huge perfectionist. Things literally HAVE to be perfect and that never occurred to me til now. That attribute of mine is something I've been trying to drop. I think I've been doing a better job of it. I've really stopped caring about a lot of things. I have been trying to work on two Christlike attributes these next couple weeks. Patience and Love. I want to show unconditionally Christlike love and patience to Elder Wheeler and to my fellow peers. I think I've been doing a lot better. It's really been good for my mental health too. I'm less stressed and all that stuff so yeah that's neat. 

Anyways, here is a fun thing though I've noticed this week. Girls shampoo is so awesome. I ran out of shampoo a couple days ago and I went to the store with Elder Wheeler on P-Day to go get more. I found some shampoo that was definitely not for guys but wow this thing is sweet. Why haven't I been using this stuff my whole life. My hair is just like so silky now. Life is good. Just thought I'd share that with you and all the wisdom I'm receiving on my mission. 

Also, I had exchanges with Elder Hatch again. I love that Elder so much. He's so funny and smart. Just a great guy to be around. Plus, I set up some pretty fun things for that day. First of all, a member fed us oysters. I do not like seafood. But, I wanted to try eating an oyster. Wow that stuff is gross. I'm sorry if you like it, that's totally fine. But in my taste buds, it's nasty. Apparently they're alive too and that just weirds me out. So yeah oysters aren't my thing. It was a lot of fun though. Elder Hatch was just downing all of them and I only ate like two. Nasty. I just tried to slurp it down my throat without chewing or anything. It was so weird. 

Yeah that exchange was so weird. We also went to Elder Hatch's baptism during the exchange and were going to be late and they needed to fill the font, it was so stressful. I don't know why we did the exchange with a baptism on the same day but whatever I guess. I ended up getting like 50 "check your speeds" on the Tacoma as I was driving over. Another funny experience during the exchange was when it was later in the evening at night when we left the baptism and showed up at my apartment. A massive group of people was just raging outside our apartment in a party. We pushed through some of them to get to our apartment and someone yells, "YOU GUYS WANNA PLAY BEER PONG?" Everyone is yelling and stuff and the four of us are just like uhhhh.... then we're like nah we're good. We then go inside and my district leader leans to me and says "Elder I really wanna play cup pong and not drink." And I'm like Elder we probably shouldn't play cup pong with those guys. Then the two other new missionaries are like "Sure! Let's do it!" And I'm like bruh. So we go the door and said a prayer to leave the apartment and after the prayer all four of us are like yeah... we shouldn't do it. But then we still left the apartment to drop off Elder Hatch and they asked us AGAIN to play. My district leader insisted we should just play but not drink obviously, and should just contact them and I'm like bruh what? NO! Turns out it was a really good idea not too because someone we were teaching was there and was watching us the whole time. So... that was good. 

Well, at the end of the week and after all our hard work we realized that no one that we were teaching came to church again. We had so many people that said they'd come and I was so hyped, none of them showed. It was kinda frustrating. Elder Wheeler and I were just grinding and these people straight up didn't show. It's whatever I guess. Part of missionary work I guess. Keeping commitments is so important. I really have learned the value of a dependable person. Anyways, I know that I'm doing what the lord wants me to do and all that so it's no biggie... but don't get me wrong I love seeing miracles. 

This has been a great week and I love working with Elder Wheeler. I like helping him learn how to succeed on his own and it's a lot of fun. I wouldn't mind training my whole mission but I know that probably won't happen. Thank you all for reading my emails! I hope you all have an incredible week and I'll talk to you later!

Sincerely, 

Elder Pack