Week One

This week we got a message from Elder Brandon, the senior missionary who -- with his wife -- are responsible for 70 young Elders in the Family and Church History Mission. He said that they were concerned about how red and chaffed Eric's hands looked and asked if we could send him a hat and some gloves. The senior missionary who is training Eric lives in Highland. He came by our house this morning to pick up the had and gloves and some other goodies for Eric.

And now, Eric's letter this week:

Yes I'm surviving my training.  Family Search doesn't seem to like your (mom's) side of the family so finding stuff is a lot of hard work, but it's loving the Larson side of the family so I've filled out a lot there.  You probably have them/seen them already, but I found a ton of pictures of Lehi Larson Sr and his family and I found that pretty interesting.  I also found a journal entry from Peter McBride while he was sailing to Boston which really made me excited, but you probably have that already too.

My trainer is Brother Gilbert is my trainer, and he's a really cool guy.  He's living in Highland but he still drives all the way down here every day which is incredible.  He has dyslexia yet you wouldn't know it unless he told you because he's really good at coping with it.  And he apparently used to work with the FBI and hunted spies.  I still don't know if he's joking about that or not but seeing as how he is observant on an almost superhuman level he just might as well have.  He really likes me too.  He likes how I actually remember everything he teaches me which apparently doesn't happen as easily for the Senior couples he has to train.  

For the record, I think the nurse and Elder Brandon are taking my dried up hands a lot more serious than they probably should be.  I feel totally fine, and so do my hands, even if they don't look too pretty right now.  My coat keeps me really warm, and it does that to my hands too when I put them in my coat's gigantic and snuggly pockets.  So honestly I don't know if gloves will help that much but whatever, I apparently have no say in this.  

Yes we do realize that the flu is pretty strong here.  The young elders are doing okay so far but the senior missionaries are dropping like flies.  There's hand sanitizer everywhere and we're disinfecting like crazy.  And we were seriously told by President Peterson that we should probably politely decline handshakes from the senior couples if they attempt to.  

I've got plenty of pictures, but you guys didn't send me a cord or anything so I can send them to you.  Luckily another elder has an SD card reader that I was able to borrow real quick, but either way, you should probably look into sending me something like that.  

And yes I did get the letter you sent me mom.  It was really nice and surprising and it came to me on Thursday night (our mail doesn't get to our apartment until about 9:15 PM when the district leader comes to check on us to make sure we're in the apartment, and he also hands out mail and announcements and junk.)

And to answer you question from that, I will be moving out of my current apartment on Tuesday.  I'm supposed to be living in a 4 man apartment, but it's currently getting some renovations.  So the 4 Elders were split into two and are now living in separate 2 man apartments until Tuesday when we'll all move back together.  My current apartment is on the 3rd floor and my window and balcony is facing the stake center, and the spot where you guys dropped me off to meet Elder Scotto.     

So let me give you quick summaries of my week now:

SUNDAY: I went to Music and the Spoken Word with Elder Scotto.  We left really early despite the short walk because we don't have much to do on Sunday (Church doesn't start until 2:15) because of that we got really good seats on the balcony right next to where Brother Narrator-Guy-Face talks.  (I forgot his name okay.  He's the guy that spokes the word in between the songs.) I will probably be attending this every Sunday because I can and I love it.  

The Stake Center across from my apartment where my branch goes to church is probably the weirdest (and oldest) LDS church I've ever been in. In the chapel there's a giant stain glass window of The First Vision right behind the pulpit and stands and junk.  It's really weird because I always thought that we weren't in to that kind of stuff when it comes to our churches.  Even though I'm not that far from home, I still feel like I'm experiencing culture shock.  And that shock is coming from the other missionaries.  All the missionaries are very kind and spiritual, but they have the weirdest way of baring their testimonies.  This one Senior Sister went on for about 10 minutes rambling about very obscure doctrines and stuff I barely understood, and I'm also pretty sure she said some stuff that should only be said in the temple.  And pretty much everyone that bared their testimony bared it like that.  But they were all very eager to bare their testimonies.  In fact, this is the first time I attended a meeting where it had to be said "Please limit your testimonies to about 5 minutes so everyone can have a turn" and then almost have the congregation stood up and went to the stand.  

MONDAY: Elder Scotto is a really nice guy and we get along just fine.  But I've been realizing lately that we really don't have that much in common.  He likes cooking, and that's about it.  He isn't really familiar with any of the stuff I like so it's kind of hard getting any conversations with him.  Oh and I got more training and that's about it.

TUESDAY: Aside from more training, I got a really bad blister on the back of my left foot and I didn't realize how bad it was until I got home and realized the blood had stained my sock.  I got it treated the next day.  I also got assigned what is called an Evening Zone.  I only do Evening Zones on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights.  I'm doing something called Photo Duplication.  I got to the Family History Library.  People from all over the world request for pictures of certain certificates on certain microfilms.  I go and get those microfilms in our gigantic library of microfilms.  I then put the film on a scanner and search through the thousands upon thousands of certificates on the microfilm.  (Every certificate has a number stamped on it so I know which one to look for without reading the names and junk.)  Then I scan a JPG of the certificate once I find it (since these certificates are really old I try to touch it up the best I can and do my best to make the handwriting legible) and then I put it on a flash drive and it gets sent to whoever wants it.  It's really fun and I am told that I'm really good at it even though I only have about 3 days of experience with it so far.

WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY:  Pretty much nothing new happened and I kept doing what I described above.  I got a really bad bloody nose on Thursday and had to go to the nurse's office.  (If you don't remember, it's on the 3rd floor where I get my training.)  The nurse sat me down in the waiting room and had me plug my nose for about a half hour.  There were two sister missionaries there (not senior sister missionaries, SISTER MISSIONARIES MY AGE FROM THE OTHER MISSION ON TEMPLE SQUARE)  and they both appeared to be from France judging by their name tags.  Since we're not allowed to talk to each other we just kind of sat there and it was pretty awkward given my bleeding nose and such because it was pretty gross.  That's when the nurse saw my hand and asked Elder Brandon to call you guys and I was just kind of like "Uhh...if you say so..."

FRIDAY:  The blizzard that started on Thursday IS STILL GOING UP HERE.  The snow is so bad that I was sent home from training a couple of hours early.  I had to sit in my apartment alone for a couple of hours because Elder Scotto works up at the vault (pretty cool huh?) and it took him forever to get back because of the snow.  We have about a foot and a half of snow up here and it is not fun.  

SATURDAY(today):  We were told that because of the snow, we wouldn't be driving to Wal-mart to shop today.  Which is sad because this means we're going to have to shop at Harmon's.  While Harmon's is right across from Temple Square and an easy walk, it's super expensive when compared to Wal-mart so I'll have to be smart when it comes to my buying today.  This also means that I'll have to haul all my groceries home, which might be hard given the snow.  And that's about it.

Anyway even though it's only been a week I already feel totally used to the missionary life and I feel more spiritual now than I ever have been.  I can only imagine how I'll feel in two years.  

Love, Elder Larson