John - July 28, 2010

Hey everybody,

Well things here have been pretty normal. Our district leader got put in as our zone leader and they put me in as the new district leader! Yeah, now i get to hand out everybody's mail at the end of the day. Basically it means more work for me. Its funny in our room we have E. Harvey and i and our previous DL now ZL, E. Christensen and E. Rawlings. So the only person in our room that doesn't have power is E. Harvey, ha its kinda funny. Well i heard adam got put in as a ZL (zone leader) thats pretty cool. When we had our "temple walk" on sunday i got a picture with him, Bailey i mean Elder Shaffer and Elder miller. Those two were our roommates in college. So thats always fun to see them around.

I'm suprised by how many people i know here! just this last wednesday i knew like 3 new elders. and the week before i saw a few more. Its way cool to see them all come in, and some of them i haven't seen in a really long time. Oh i saw Elder Callister just the other day, yesterday actually, and he said he was shipping out the next day(today)! I just can't believe that it feels like he had his first day a few weeks ago. So i got a picture with him before he left. He is going to be an awesome missionary; I mean we all knew that before, but you can really see it here.

Mom thanks for the package of cookies, i just opened them last night and they look good. I haven't cracked them open yet, but i will today for sure. Well last week i sent a letter with my memory card in it, so i hope that gets to you, By the way do you think i should use a padded envolope when i send that? i just put it in a new one. I hope it gets to you.

Dad hah i love reading your letters about girls camp, and how fun it is. Haha. I hope to hear more about it. and i want to hear how the lodge was in Idaho. also I've been doing pull-ups everynight and push-ups everynight, and now i can do like 10 pull-ups with my nuckles to me (or palms out). All the way down too! When i got here i could only do 8 and i think i cheated al lot to do those. So i've made some improvements. I just thought you would like to hear that.

Well things here are just the same. It's so crazy to think that in about 2-3 weeks i will be in El Salvador! That is so cool! i just get excited every time i bring it up. It never gets old. One of our teachers is out of town so his sub is a Sister that served in El Salvador! so that will be way cool to hear from her, about everything. Also one time another sister came into our class that served there and said a few things. I asked her about the temp and she said that one time it was 110 degrees or so outside in midday! So thats new. i didn't think it got that hot.

So something spiritual that happened to me this week. Well today we went the temple! It finally opened, so that was way cool. and wouldn't you know it i couldn't find my temple reccommend! I really have a problem with that. So since i haven't had to use my wallet since i've been here i stowed it away. and i could not find it. I was getting a little worried about it too. so i said a pray along with most of the members of my district im sure. and Elder Orton said did you look in your scripture case. so the last place i looked was in my scripture case in the classroom. It was in the zipper part of it! That was cool. And another one that i think is even cooler. was yesterday. So it was after breakfast and i know i had used my blue card to swipe for food. so when we were in the classroom i had lost it! Yeah i know i am having trouble with losing things this week. I swear this doesn't normally happen. anyway. so i had lost it, and it was getting close to lunch time, when i would need this card to get my food. And food is pretty important to me. hah i love my oranges! Right so i found my chap-stick which was also in the same pocket, and i found it on the ground to my left. so i look around on the ground breifly and i couldn't find it. So now im getting kinda worried about it, so i sat in my desk and said a little prayer to our heavenly father and basically said that i had lost my card and to please help me find it. So i got up kinda waiting thinking about where i could have left it. Then a thought came into my mind (from the spirit no doubt), that i should look on the ground again. So i pulled out my desk, was looking around then i picked up a spanish gramatical book and there was my blue card! Some how it got under the book. I Don't know how. anyway, i mean it seems simple now, but at the time i just didn't think about that. well thats all the time i have. I love you all! -Elder John Paulsen

Adam - July 27, 2010

Hey Everyone,

Everything is going great at the MTC. I'm just about to finish week 5... or 6 here and I have 3 left. It's so weird to see people come and go. You get attached to a group of Elders, and two weeks later, they all leave. This monday, the oldest district in our Zone left for Nicaragua. Now, we're the oldest district and I definitely don't feel like the oldest. I remember back to when I was brand new. I looked up to those older districts so much, so it's hard to imagine that the Elders coming in right now are looking up to me. I never thought that I'd be an example to people here, at least not this soon. So here's some pretty awesome news, Elder Whittaker and I were made the New Zone Leaders on Sunday. We're just movin up and up here. Ha ha. Just kidding. It's actually easier than District Leader from what I've had to do. There is one extra meeting on Sunday, but you don't have to conduct any meetings, interview the Senior Companions. It's way easier! I love it. This wednesday we are bringing in the newest District in our Zone. They are going to El Salvador, Chile, and I think there is one other place, but I'm not sure. E. Whitt and I teach them a few rules, show them around the residence halls, and on Thursday, we show them around campus. I remeber when Elder Trent and Elder Little (Our old Zone Leaders) brought us around. It was so much fun, so I hope I will be able to make it fun.

So one of the cool things that happened this week was during our TRC last wednesday. So a TRC stands for Training Resource Center... I think. And what happens is every week you have a situation including an investigator. You have to go in and teach them the specified lesson according to their needs. There are two parts to it, the first is a spanish task where you have to talk to the investigator about clothes, food, or furniture. Then the second part you have to teach. For the first 4 weeks, the lessons are in English, but last week we moved over to Spanish. I was really nervous to teach the whole thing in Spanish, but our teacher, Hermano Salmón, kept telling us that if we have faith. We can be like Jesus and "Walk on Water". It was pretty inspirational, but we just went ahead and tried to teach the lesson the best we could in Spanish. We started off and it was really rough! I kept freezing and didn't know what to say, and Elder Whittaker started teaching a part of the second lesson. I tried to tie it back into the lesson, but I'm sure it sounded Ultra-Awkward! I was jumping around from point to point, so the lesson didn't flow at ALL! But we made our way to the Restoration and started talking about Joseph Smith. I began to recite the first vision in spanish (which i had just learned a few days earlier) and our investigator put her head down. She seemed like it was getting a little emotional for her. I actually didn't notice this because I was thinking too hard about what i wanted to say. But we made it to the end of the lesson. Everything seemed like it went pretty well, I asked her to pray, and she accepted. She started praying and about half-way through, she started to cry. She felt the spirit and so did we! Even though we had a rough lesson, we brought the Spirit which is the most important part!

I know that even though I'm struggling with the language, the Spirit will always help me convey my message. I love this church so much, and I love you all! Write me and let me know what's happening out there. Love you all!

-Elder Adam Paulsen

John - July 21, 2010

hello everybody!

i'm so suprised that I've been here for five weeks. The weeks seem to go by faster and faster now. things are going good. Just trying to master spanish. this week for our TRC, which is like our test, we are teaching the first lesson en español! My companion and i just split up the topics and try to remember as many things about the subjects we have. so i can kinda give half of the lesson by myself! We still have a lot of things to work on, like actually including our investigators in the lesson. Because in spanish its so hard just to think of a question to ask them, so at the moment its like we are giving them a lecture. ha its okay though i know that in time we will get good at this. We are memorizing some things in spanish like the ariticles of faith. I'm on the 4th one now.

well things with my companion are... going i should say. He can be really hard to get along with. like he gets into aurguments with everyone in class. one of the things he said was and i quote because i thought it was so rediculous," stupidity is one of my pet peevs" or one time i told him he needs to learn how to hold his tounge, and he just said that he couldn't on this one. But its okay, i get over it.

so thats about how the MTC is going for me. I'm not sick or anything, feeling fine. Hah one time for lunch actually just the other day i ate four plates of food: two bacon/Guac. burgers, and two Gyros. They were good. oh and two little salad bowls. umm yummy. We had a Devotional last night, given to us by Elder H. Ross Workman, emmitus member of the quorom of the seventy. It was really great, he talked about a lot of things, some things were about softening our hearts. he said that when we our hearts are hardened the spirit cannot penetrate it. So that made me think that i need to open my heart to others(my companion), and be more understanding of others(my companion). he said some really great things last night. then we had a district devotional, which was fantastic. i felt the spirit many times! Love it. Love the Elders in my district.

So last week, Sunday, they were supossed to change the district leader, but E. Christensen(our DL) said he was talking to Our Branch President, President Peters, and from what he said, it sounded like Pres. peters didn't know it was time to change the DL. So either we will have a change this coming sunday, or E. christensen will be our DL for the rest of the time. Before we knew about this, we were all saying who might become the new DL, most of the elders were saying it was going to be me... so thats kinda exciting. Oh also on sunday we changed from senior companion to junior companion. So now im the senior comp! Oh yeah now E. Harvey will have to listen to what i want to do! hah just kidding i ask him what he wants to do all the time, so it doesn't seem like a dictatorship. Although that was kinda how it was when he was senior comp. Not going to lie.

Hah for P-day today some of the elders in our district say we are going to make a commercial or a tv show for our spare time today. its going to be way funny. we'll see how it goes. sorry if i don't all write you today, its hard to write everybody today. so many letters.

Oh mom so i put on the doc martins today to test them out. Ha and i think its ways funny, because the souls are like atleast an inch thick, so i go up to E. Christensen, who is taller than me, and now I'm taller than him! Ha its funny, i feel like I'm walking around with one inch lifts on. which is kinda what im doing. Also if you want lana to send that tie, that would be sweet, just put in some random candy; like junior mints or something. Sweet! Well thats about all i can think of what to say, well i love you all! i got to go i've got 30 seconds left! bye. Elder paulsemn

Adam - July 20, 2010

Hey Family and Friends,

This week has been pretty much the same as every other week. Nothing super exciting happened. The biggest thing I guess is that I got released as the District Leader. Don't worry, I didn't do anything wrong. They just switch everything up halfway through the MTC. We lost a few of the Elders in our Zone though. One of them had to go home after his 8th week here because he had some anxiety issues. We also send 4 more Elders to the Peru MTC tomorrow morning. And finally the oldest district is leaving. They are all going to the Nicaragua mission and they leave on monday. That means that there will be two new Zone Leaders called. Since I was a District Leader, I have a good chance of being it. But let me remind you all, It doesn't really mean much to have a leadership position here. It just means you can give a good testimony. Ha ha, It'd be really exciting to be a Zone Leader though.

It's good to hear that everyone is having fun on their vacations. I wish I could go with you all on them. But the MTC is great, I guess you could call it a vacation. I feel like i'm staying in a hotel sorta... I mean you wake up really early. Leave by 7 with a day packed with things to do. And don't come back to your room until 9:30 at night. And it's been really hot this week so I guess you can qualify that as a vacation.

So this week the gym has been closed so we've had to go outside during our hour of gym. Yesterday we started playing kickball, the most AMAZING game on the earth. I thought the MTC World Series of Softball was great, but I didn't know about the joys of kickball. As usual, my district dominated everyone we played against, but it was so much fun. One time, while I was up to kick, i ran at the ball in hopes to kick a homerun of course, but did... something and my shoe flew 30 feet in the air. I didn't know what to do, but I just ran to first. No worries though, I was safe, but my shoe ended up going farther than the ball. Ha ha ha.

We also have started what I call the MTC Olympics. Everynight we end up doing a different "Event" that involves odd skills. The first night was "High Jump". The goal was to jump and hit your head on the ceiling tiles. That was pretty fun. I was one of the few Elders that was tall enough and could jump high enough to do it. The next night was "Pull-Ups", it was just to see who could do the most pull ups. I found out that I'm not very strong. It's a good thing I can use my height as an excuse. The next night was "Candy Catching". We got in a circle and would throw a piece of candy to the person next to you. Then you would have to catch the piece of candy coming at you. We did a long distance competition, and a multiple persons competitions. The longest catch was by Elder Koons which was about 25 feet. We also had a maximum of 5 people throwing and catching at the same time. It's alot harder than you think!

Well, the MTC is going great. I love all the people here and what I'm learning. I've learned so much Español and I know that I have a lot to learn. I can´t wait to get to Coast Rica and share this gospel with the people there. I know that if I have the determination and faith, that I can do anything. I heard a talk this last week by Elder Halverson about missionary work and I really liked what he said. My favorite thing was "Satan wins when you decide that you can't do it." I loved this because I know that I can do anything. That I've been called as a representative of the Lord and that with his help, I can do anything. That my success in the work is determined by ME. I've also learned that "The Spirit is the single most important part of this work" -President Benson

Love you aalll.

Elder Adam Paulsen

John - July 14, 2010

Hola!

well things are going good around here. I'm not sure exactly what to say. My companion and i are getting along just fine. The Elders in our district are all awesome, i love all these guys. Its still hard work though, I'm always trying to look at a paper to memorize a scripture. Right now we are memorizing Section 4 en espanol. but yeah thats all that. So this week they are putting back the bleachers into the gym and so now we can't play volleyball or basketball and worse i can't play four square! hah its okay though we have the outside stuff, so we can play beach volleyball and the machines upstairs are still available. So its okay. umm so we had Ronald Halverson speak to us last night for our devotional, and that was way sweet. We had our district devotional after that, and i think that was our best one we've had. It was awesome. Ooh even better we had jenny Oaks Becker, or something like that, speak to us on sunday. She is the daughter of Elder Dallin H. Oakes! He was there too! that was sweet. She is an amazing violin...ist? anyway she has a lot of songs out. So she played like 3 or 4 songs for us. It was awesome! i could feel the spirit so strong durring that talk. Love it! well its wierd to think that I'm half way with being here in the MTC. only about 4 or 5 weeks left! wierd! Oh and another thing mom and dad i hope you have gotten my stuff out for my visa and all that. If you haven't then i will probably get re-assigned temporarily to a new place. And another thing i was walking through the halls in the main building, M1, and i say a picture of Liz White with this really old lady! I think I've heard that before, but i got a picture of it. So maybe I'll print it off here and send it home. So that was cool. When i saw that i said it outloud to my comp. and this one guy walking by heard me, and apparently he knows her too! that was funny. he said that the picture just next to it was of the guy she married, Bro. White, and i just thought that was so cool! so i noticed that like a few weeks ago and i always forgot to tell you. Yeah, so I love you all! i hope you are all keeping busy, i know i am! -Love Elder John Paulsen

Adam - July 13, 2010

Hey family,

It's day 24th day in the MTC and I'm coming up on my 1 month mark. I will have completed 1/24th of my mission in just a few days. Thats so weird to think that. Well, this week has been pretty boring. Everyday seems like the one before, but I love it here so much. You'd be suprised how different everyone acts here and how peaceful it is. Some of the more interesting things that happened this week... We got to hear an amazing devotional on Sunday. The speaker was Jenny Oaks Baker, a prestigeous violin soloist that graduated from Juliard. Oh, and did I mention that she is Dallin H. Oaks' daughter. She spoke and played her violin for the entire hour, and I felt like it was such a blessing to hear that peaceful, loving music. It's been really hard not to have any music to listen to here. I don't understand why they made the rule that you can't listen to it, but before Sunday, I would have died to be able to listen to some MoTab! And my prayer was ANWERED!!!! Let me tell you about the power of prayer. I asked for MoTab, and got a million times better. I loved listening to it. Oh man, I still can't get over it, and it was three days ago.

Our zone got a new district this week, they are really quiet and never come out of their rooms at night. They're like little mice, they are so anti-social, so I don't know much about them. They have three sisters though. They are a lot more social. Hopefully they will open up a little more to us. It's hard to enjoy the MTC when you don't have friends to talk to.

Spanish is coming along great. I still don't know how to congugate verbs very well, but I can get the point across. This week, I have to teach someone how to pray, and give them a short message about the power of prayer. Next week we have to teach the entire first lesson in spanish. Shoot me now! I don't understand how after five weeks someone thinks that we can not only talk to investigators, but teach them about the church. Pray for me! I know that I have the Gift of Tounges and if I put all my confidence and trust in the Lord, he will make it possible.

Here's a spiritual thought from one of my meetings this last week. Confidence in Latin translates to Con = With and Fid = Faith. Therefore, when we have confidence, we have faith in something. It can be faith in Jesus Crist, in God, in our leaders, or in ourselves. We need to know that we can do anything the Lord asks of us. I know that I can serve a mission. I don't have a doubt in my mind that I can because I wouldn't be here if the Lord didn't think I could. A great scripture that says this is 1 Nephi 3:7 (I don't have my scriptures with me but) It says something like this " I will go and do the things that the Lord hath commanded. For I know that the Lord giveth no commandment saveth he prepare a way to accomplish the things which he has commanded" Nephi had amazing faith in his Father and in God. He walked throught the desert multiple times and each time took multiple days, and he never doubted that he was doing the right thing. He had such great confidence in the Lord and I know I can have greater confidence like Nephi. Constantly strive to let your confidence grow and you will be blessed!!

I love you all and can't wait to read your letters!

Always,

Elder Adam Pete Paulsen

John - July 7, 2010

Hola mi familia!
things are going well here. I think I'm really starting to bond with my companion, Elder Harvey. Anyway. things are going good, the spanish is still a working progress, but now we've gotten through all the gramatical things. So thats good. Now i just got to work on forming the sentences on the spot. So I've decided there are a few things wrong with this place, One is that they don't allow ultimate frisbee, and two... well i can't really think of a second one at the moment. So I'm starting to enjoy this place, Waking up in the morning is not difficult anymore, just part of the routine now. So the best time of the week is for sure gym time! I went and did some frisbee out on the field, but its not very fun if you can't play ultimate and the guys here weren't the best(my companion), but no worries i still had fun. Now I'm in a little team callled, team Unity, we play volleyball. its pretty sweet. Elder Christensen and i spend half of our time playing volleyball and half of the time working out up stairs. The only bad thing is that they don't have free weights here. they only have machines and there are like 12 machines totall. We make it work though.
Our"Game Night" is tonight! Right now we are working on giving the second lesson in our "TRC", which is game time as our teacher calls it. Elder Harvey likes to talk a lot durring the lesson, so hopefully tonight i can get some words in. Also we are talking to our investigator in all spanish and taking him/her to the bus.
So for our 4th of July we had a special devotional that was about our forefathers and how they were inspired to write and do what they did. Also this country must have been protected by the lord! well after that we went outside to watch some of the fireworks. It was pretty sweet, not as good as going over to Jordan high though and watching them there. It was cool to see though. we got to stay out really late that night! Till 11:00, wow crazy right? hah yeah thats the latest I've stayed up in the past two and a half weeks.
well its good to hear that you all visited grandma, and good to hear she is doing good! Tell her i love her! well tonight i will be writing letters to everyone i can. Hopefully i willl have time. And mom and dad I will write to you First! Last week i thought i would save the best for last... not a good idea, might i say. well i love you all! Love Elder Paulsen.

Adam - July 6, 2010

ey Family and Friends,

So this week was pretty interesting. We had a lot of fun things happen, and a lot of ... we'll call them interesting things. This week I got new roommates. Elder Davis and Elder Foreman. They are some pretty cool Elders, but I miss having the room to myself (and Elder Whittaker of course). Elder Davis is from Salem Utah and is really quiet. Elder Foreman is from Utah and California. He moved there two years ago and has just been living there for fun. That's the life! He's completely opposite from Elder Davis, but the seem to get along well. Elder Foreman loves to talk. Even when everyone is about to pass out from exhaustion, he'll have a conversation for everyone to hear.

Spanish has slowed down a lot this week! I was just so used to picking everything up so easily because I've learned it before, but now i'm learning new things and it's a lot harder. I do feel like I'm able to speak a little better, but it's still really sketchy!

So last week I told you about the Vaccuum thing... well I take it all back! I was asked to not tell people or show people how to do it. We got in a little bit of trouble, but they realized that we weren't the people to blame, so they let us off the hook. I was a little worried for my life though.

I love the MTC. It makes time fly by. I can't believe that I've been here for three weeks now. I feel like it's been maybe a week, or two, but definitely not three. However, I still feel like I'm going to be stuck here for eternity! Costa Rica doesn't feel like it's realistic, it's just too far away.

On Sunday, they called new Zone Leaders. They called Elder Holt and Sanchez. A lot of people were trying to guess who the next ZL's would be and they thought that Elder Whitt. and I were for sure the next ones! Ha ha, well, they were wrong! I'm sure that Holt and Sanchez will be great ZL's.

On Saturday, July 3rd, we heard the Stadium of Fire practicing for later that night! We were outsiidde playing a game of softball when we started hearing real, normal, outside-wold, music. I heard Journey, a few older bands, and best of all... Carrie Underwood! It was a nice little break from the music here... what am I talking about... there is no music here.

All week long, my district has been playing the the MTC World Series. This series is a best out of 5 games between my district and the oldest district that left yesterday. It has been so INTENSE!!! Everyone was smack-talking at lunch, egging everyone on, and getting so excited to play. The first game was a win for my district. Then the other district tied it up. The third game was close, but we pulled ahead on that one and made it a 2-1 series. Game 4 was the most intense softball game I've ever played in. Everyone was yelling at eachother, and trying to do whatever they could to score. My team was up for most of the game until the 9-weekers had a good inning and ended up winning. The 5th game was a blow-out and we ended up winning it all!!!! These softball games made this week so much fun!

I've been having a great week here. I've learned so much about the Plan of Salvation and the Restoration. One thing that I learned that I thought was so interesting was about the Spirit World after we die. When we die, we go to the Spirit World which is like a waiting room before we are resurrected and judged. People say that we either go to Spirit Prison or Paradise, but that's not true. It's simply a state of being. Whether we know where we;'re going and we're happy, or we're doubtful of what will happen nextt.

Well i have one minute left. I love you all and I can't wait to get your letters. Tell me about what is going on in the outside world.

Always,

Elder Adam Paulsen