Make WAY!! He's Arrived!!

We just received this letter and PHOTOS today from the mission president! Our first photos of him being a real missionary! Hurrah!


Dear Families,

Your Missionary has arrived safely to T.H.E. Mission!  Upon arrival we met your missionary at the airport and took them directly to the mission home where they were fed Texas Bar-b-que and met the office staff.  An orientation by the office staff followed lunch while individual interviews were conducted by President C.  That evening they were invited to share their testimonies.  The following morning was focused on training after which they met their new companion and were transported to their area of service.  They are now out diligently searching for our Heavenly Father's children and doing the work of the Lord. Thank you for sending your daughters and sons to us, they have added great strength to our small army here in the Mission. We love them and are so grateful to have them with us. You will find attached a picture of  your newly arrived missionary with Sister C and myself as well as their arriving group.

We are writing to confirm your e-mail address.  We use this method to keep you informed in case of hurricanes or in getting you other important information concerning T.H.E. Mission.

We are delighted that your Missionary is here and look forward to working with them.

Sincerely,

President and Sister C.

All the new missionaries, just arrived.

Pres. and Sister C. with the new ELDER!!

Elder Rice with his trainer, Elder H.- His first companion!!  Wahoo!

E.T. Phone Home

Benson called this morning from the airport, and I wanted to try and capture everything I can remember him talking about before I forget.

He started off saying he saw Mack Wilberg at the airport so he approached him and told him his mom was (me) and that I play in the orchestra and to say hi. He said Mack must be kinda shy or something.

He wasn't able to see Music and the Spoken Word this past Sunday due to class conflicts.

There are 11 missionaries traveling together to the same mission. 7 Elders and 4 Sisters. With the odd number of missionaries, he had been assigned to travel in a three-some companionship.

There are a couple of other 18 year old missionaries going out with him.

He loved the MTC, particularly Elder Holland who came and spoke to everyone.

The food wasn't bad at the MTC.  We asked if he had put on weight and he said he weighed himself that morning on the luggage scale and he weighed 177 pounds. He's pretty sure without all his heavy missionary clothes on he weighs somewhere around 160 pounds. We gave him a hard time about his clothes weight, really- 17 pounds? Really? :-) Ok, maybe he is more than 160.

He had a few snags in the MTC with getting along with someone, but he couldn't/wouldn't elaborate since there were ears all around. We think we know what he's talking about from a letter he wrote his friend, but it wasn't anything too serious. In a nutshell he was sticking up for an underdog to his district leader.

He was able to get everything packed, and the space bags helped a lot. So since he gave some away to other missionaries he would like me to send more.

He described the MTC being hit with the same "ice sheet" that we were all hit with. He said walking to the Temple was awfully painful until he got the coat that was sent to him, which he's so very  grateful for. He says he's getting lots of use out of it.

He says for the missionary plaque that the ward will hang up for him he wants Proverbs 3:5 listed as his favorite scripture: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding."

He's trying to keep a journal and wants to get better at it.

He sent a package back to us for pickup. It has the sweatshirt we needed back and a few other things.

He was looking forward to talking to us again at Mother's Day. In the meantime, he's going to ask the mission president (at our request) if he can have a voice recorder so we can send voice messages back and forth in the mail. I know other missionaries have done this, but we wanted to see what his mission president had to say about that.

He had a whole pile of quarters to talk to us with and a 3 hour calling card for backup just in case. He was not going to be unprepared!

He was looking forward to his first commercial airline flight. Well, technically he had flown once as a baby and he's gone flying with the neighbor in his private 2 person plane. He thinks he'll be used to popping his ears after the years of going up and down the hill to our house and having to pop his ears every time.

Josh asked if he could take over Benson's phone and in the process delete all of Benson's contacts. He said sure, he'll have to get new ones when he gets back anyway. The girls then asked if they could have his shower radio but he said everyone has to share it. Separately share it.

He saw some different mission presidents' pictures up in the hall at the MTC, and picked out some of his friends' presidents. Then we talked about some of the mission calls, farewells, papers being sent in, etc. of his friends.  He said he was so glad that he had gotten to go so fast but was bummed not to see more friends at the MTC. He had seen a couple of friends at mealtimes, but that was it.

He said that with the growth happening so fast in the mission field, that he should be expected to be a trainer by this summer with the huge rush of missionaries. He also said they are building dorms as fast as they can, and adding beds/bunkbeds to rooms.  They may even take out desks to make more room for beds. They will also plan to use the Marriott Center for the big devotionals.

That's what I can remember for now. Just throwing out random remembering thoughts.

He sounded happy, loving, and already sounding like he had a missionary voice: gentle and softer. BUT he still sounded like Benson in there.  :-)

Week #2: Last P-day in the MTC

I'll check on the phone call thing, (we asked if he's going to get to call us on his way out of town, we've heard rumors the missionaries get to call) I'm getting a haircut today and I have to send out the package today before I head out because I got a ton of candy and can't eat it all.

Ha ha Jacob is funny (his cousin who leaves for the MTC in 3 weeks), tell him he needs to at least have a story where it involves cops and maybe for extra points get the stake president to be part of it. She's (his mom) right though like he needs to study everything in PMG, like everything. It's basically all we use and the only thing you'll need is that and scriptures for studying.

I didn't realize till yesterday that I could look up my temple name in the scriptures and find the spiritual meaning of it so easily. Like why do we get our names? like what relation does it have to our spiritual selves?

Sorry you didn't get an email yesterday, for departing missionaries they move their P-day to the Saturday before so I have it today, but I couldn't tell you that till today. (Yeah we kinda were sad that we didn't get an email yesterday, but I knew there would be a reason!)

Tell Nanna and Bubba I'm so thankful for their letters about like our ancestors being involved in missionary work.

Tell Jernette and P-A-P-A that I love hearing what they're up to and everything! We should probably put grandma in a bubble ball so she doesn't keep hurting herself. I really like having their support on missionary work and like what they're doing (they are addiction recovery missionaries) and that I need to look for the Stefanies out there in the world. (Stefanie is my sister who has many struggles with addiction and it's consequences and is distanced from the church.)

I feel so confident with missionary work like I wish I was being sent to St. George so we can get Kaleb on board. (Kaleb is my sister Stefanie's son, so he's his cousin) Study preach my gospel all the way through and go see if you can go get him baptized, he wants to, he just needs his parents approval is all, and he needs a testimony as well.


So I got to watch Music and the Smokin Word on Sunday! I emailed my branch president telling him how I had a mom in the orchestra. It was in the middle of the class and the computer in the room got a message from the front desk. It was really out of the ordinary because it was almost like a warning pop up for computers and it played the first few notes to called to serve in a phone ringtone styled sound and it said Elder MBR needs to pick up the hall phone. And the hall phone is something you only use in emergencies because it doesn't have buttons and goes straight to the front desk. It's red too, almost like a nuclear phone or an emergency hotline phone on the wall. So I picked it up and it said the front desk needed me and they said my branch president just called and said it was okay for me to attend MatSW with the sisters if I sit in the back. So I went and I saw you Mom!! You were right at the front row in front of the conductor just barely to his left. I only had time for that one song before priesthood meeting started so I was thankful I got at least that song in and it was like a big band marching style one probably because of the inauguration.


I think once I get into the field I'll be homesick. I almost was here but our district kind of came together almost like a family so I haven't been sad yet. It's just you feel homesick when you don't have a family around you. So by Tuesday it might get really hard.


We did infield orientation yesterday and a couple people from The District  (required missionary watching before coming to the MTC, it's online and really awesome reality tv about missionary life. You can find it here) TV show helped teach it. The blonde guy Elder Christensen and Sister Voyles she had short hair. It was really good and we learned about goals and I thought at first it was going to be the boring part but it was really good. I learned when performance is measured performance increases. When goals that are achievable are set, performance is advanced at a faster rate. They have us applying it to missionary goals but I was seeing the possibilities of it with anything else.


I'm excited to head out to Texas soon because then my mission will actually start. I don't think 2 years will be too long for me because when I forget myself and just keep working it seems like time flies by so fast that I am already in bed again the next night. These last two weeks seem like days for me. It only feels like a couple days ago I got dropped off but now I'm almost half a month done out of how many are left, 23.5?


I don't know what it is but like on a mission I think I love everyone more, because it just seems like I get emotional way too easily and I've never been like this before.


I'm sleeping well at night and haven't had to use the sleep aids. It's just if I'm in bed before 10:30 I know I get the blessings for the next day because getting up hasn't been hard at all when I've been worried about my roommates being bothered by the annoying alarm clock. So by accident everyday I wake up at 5 and like half way sleep till 6 just because I'm so worried I'd sleep in past the alarm clock and it would just go off and bother everyone. It's different when they're people you haven't lived with like a brother who turns it off for you.


I'm really glad everyone liked the shout outs last week!

So in the 1M building there are pictures of missionaries in the field baptizing people. In one of them they had to cut out of the ice a rectangle baptismal font and everyone else was wearing coats around them. I'm kind of glad I wouldn't need to do that in Texas. I'll take a picture of it.

I found the Tillemans on the mission presidents wall. (President Tilleman was our bishop in Arizona and then our Stake President- we LOVE that man and his wife Holly) I also found an article about them on lds.org on the main page look at the left side and go down till you see like Canadian news or articles and President Tilleman is the first article on the website. It's his life's bio and stories he's had as a president. He petted an investigators dog who never bites, got bitten, was walking out saying it was totally fine slipped and fell on their concrete stairs and was knocked out, and when he woke up the paramedics had him on a stretcher and he was yelling to that investigator "it's alright! I asked to pet your dog!" and the first person that got baptized when he got back after re learning to walk was that same investigator. (The full article can be found here. I have a personal update on the article, President Tilleman was only in the hospital for 17 days, even though the doctors had predicted 9 months, part of the amazing miracle of healing.)

So I gotta go with my companion to get breakfast but I'll write more if I can later!

Elder Texas

p.s. He signed his real name, but I'm trying to keep his info private, including names of companions and investigators and cities.

Bonus Email

Even though our Elder said he'd try to write again, we were surprised Saturday morning that he had written at 9:00 the night before! Love it!

Josh- what's up?? how's having the coldest biggest room in the house? I hear you dug the car out of the snow. How is school going? still as busy as ever? study preach my gospel especially pages 176, 89, 1, 17, 31, 47,103, and definitely 185. That book is really really important almost more important than scripture study. It's been written by modern day prophets and apostles so essentially it's scripture but it gives essentials to teaching and it still refers to scripture. You'll be really ahead at the mtc if you do. I showed people your apple splitting thing and they think it's the coolest thing so they do it every day almost. I only did it like 2 or 3 times, it's that cool.

Jessica- keep aubrey in line. she's a trouble maker I promise. practice the viola. and sweep the kitchen when no one is looking.

Aubrey- keep jackson in line, maybe even steal a piece of candy out of his candy hording stash, but then when he notices secretly put a bigger better candy in it and then later tell him you did. If you do this like 3 or 4 times I promise he will really really like you.

Jackson- keep jessica in line. you won't understand this but it puts equal powers in each of the houses (u.s. government). ask josh about this, he will be the mediator but tell him mediators don't yell or force, just resolve with quiet calm solutions.

Alex- do you remember you're my brother? do you see kenzie sometimes? can you spell your name on the computer? are you Josh's pet monkey? go on a mission you can have ice cream bars any time you eat. tonight we had pizza so I had four pieces of pizza and I found out if you eat it upside down (the pizza, not you) but still pointing at you, you taste a lot more of the pizza rather than tasting through the bottom crust layer. Then I had an ice cream bar because I ate my whole dinner.

Everyone- Don't forget to try the cookies and cream chocolate milk the byu creamery offers. You can't get it in a drink dispenser machine but you can if you go to the creamery and buy it, it tastes really really good. We get it from a fridge so it's in bottles. Try to be sensitive of Kenzie, we don't want to scare her away or anything. So ask mom before you ask her any questions about what's it like having things different in her life or anything that could make her feel bad. (Josh) She is sensitive to your kind of sarcasm, I understand it but she might take it literal. I feel like I'm peter pan leaving the lost boys and making sure they don't hurt wendy or anything.

Y'all take care!

Elder Rice

FIRST EMAIL

I know, we just got our first letter yesterday, and today he sent an email, I almost died of happiness! 

Here we go:

So my pday is Fridays here, I'll try again today to write you an email, or if you don't get one expect a letter, did you get that last letter I sent?

I just got done with my laundry here so I'm headed off to get ready for the day and do personal study which I might be able to do some email during then.

I am doing fantastic! Can you send me some info on how to send packages or return the sweatshirt because I can't fit all that I got in my suit case. I also leave on the 28th now so I have like 9 or 10 days before I leave.

I love you! I love you! Thank you so much for the letters and packages! That was a lifesaver when it comes to finding something to eat at night with my medication! I love you again!

They won't let the elders watch Music and the Spoken Word here, do you want to try to call up the MTC and make some changes for me because you have some hook ups or contacts? They just won't let the elders watch it with the sisters because they immediately start relief society after they watch that and the elders took too long to get out. Maybe Mack Wilberg or the new conductor or Barry can be of help to change their mind so I can watch it because I haven't gotten to have any music since I've been here and I think I've been more stressed because of it. I have cd's but they don't have cd players here because we're too busy for them.

I love You!

We got our FIRST LETTER!!

While we expected to hear from Benson through email, possibly today, we were pleasantly surprised to get our first letter, hand written, in the regular mail instead! His friend received a letter from him yesterday, so we were filled in and knew he was alive and well (made my heart so happy!), but what a gift it was to receive our own letter and in his own handwriting. Sweet joy!

HELLO MOM, DAD, AND FAMILY!

I'm doing great! My companion is Elder L. from Idaho.  My arrival day and first day were both really exciting!  They pulled all my cases with me up to the 1M building, the registration area, it's the main building behind the gate everyone sees.  So when they ushered me there I went from desk to desk about twelve times where they confirmed all my information (date of birth, home address, name, parent's name, etc.) and then I got my MTC I.D. card.  Through the registration I got 2 elder badges, a pocket clip one and a magnetic clip one like mom's MoTab badge. They took me through orientation and that's when I met my companion, it was in my classroom. The whole beginning MTC experience isn't hard at all, it's like the temple, you're ushered around and they help with any questions, they help clear any confusion.

So my companion is really cool, he reminds me of my last seminary teacher Brother Y. They both graduated in a small town, in a small school, both schools had a combined total (combined with the junior high) of 300. His whole grade graduated and there were about 15 of them at the graduation. So my companion isn't shy at all. He was interested to know about all my letters from you guys, grandma and bubba; he was like that must mean that if I got that many letters I must have a girlfriend! So Elder L. can be pretty funny sometimes. The other Elders in my residence (dorm room, sacred name because it's been blessed and set apart) are Elder W. (he's our district leader) who is from Utah and plays football, and then there's Elder K. who is Hawaiin/Korean, from Washington. They're all great elders. I'm the senior companion in my companionship until next week probably. But our whole residence is going to the Texas Houston East mission which will be a fun trip when we're done here because we'll all go together. Our district consists of Houston East missionaries as well as Wellington, New Zealand missionaries.

But everything else is great here! I showed my residence at lunch how to split an apple with a finger, table, and a fist; they thought it was unbelievably cool and had to show others as well as try it. The following meal I choked on an apple chunk and since I can't leave my companion even for the bathroom, I grabbed him and sped walked to the bathroom. It took a while of coughing and failed attempts at gulping water before half came out and half went down. Almost every elder who came through made sure I was okay. Maybe I was blessed enough to live because I grabbed my companion, or maybe I had a lot of prayers to help me.
 
But the rest of the food is great here! Tell the Marbles I met Elder B., he's only been here a week but he's zone leader over our districts and he seems like he's been here for weeks or months. We met our branch president and he's kind of short, about 5' or 4'10". He says he won the division championship wrestling in college because he was the only one in his weight class, "but it isn't worth beans" he says.

Getting to sleep can be difficult but I've been getting up on time. It's not difficult being at the MTC, only because of one reason. It's longer than school for sure and there's a lot of class time and note taking time but it isn't hard at all because I enjoy it. It seems like a lot of seminary and missionary perp, but that's what I enjoy. So if you learn to enjoy mission prep and seminary this part of the mission isn't too much to handle.

The arrival night we had a teaching experience where we went into three rooms, and in each room there was an actor pretending to be an investigator (they are really good actors, probably even paid). In that room was about 30 missionaries...

anyways I'll need to continue that later so I can finish this up. So like it's funny, I'm like the opposite of Harry Potter when the mail comes in. Nobody really gets mail, except when anyone does it's a couple of people and then I get like 5 or 6, it's hilarious! Keep it up! I gotta mail this so talk to you guys soon.

-Elder Texas

No Nada

Still nothing. 

I called the MTC to see when his P Day is and while they couldn't tell me anything specifically, they told me to expect it could take up to a week and a day to hear from a missionary, just the way P Days fall.  And to expect his P-Day is right around that.

So Thursday. Cuz, today is a week.

Or else someone's going to see a concerned mom turn into a bear. Yup.

Goodbyes

To read the full story of him becoming a missionary and going to the MTC, be sure to check out the family blog.  There is a link to the family blog on the right side of the bar, but we will also link you up here.

We have not received any letters yet, but we hope to hear something soon!