Short and Sweet - Heading for Germany!

Hey everybody!

I wish i had time to write a detailed E-mail but I have to be quick today.

It is my last day in the MTC and I am pumped to get out. Not because it's not wonderful here but it's because i keep hearing all these stories about germany from my teachers and it's not helping my patience.

I will be leaving the MTC at 7:30 in the morning tomorrow  to salt lake and once i get through security i can find a phone and will hopefully have a good amount of time. I bought a phone card and everything already so it should all work out just fine.

Anyway, I love you all and I can't wait to talk to you tomorrow morning!

Love,
Elder Eldredge

Ready to Fly!

Hello!!!!

Elder Hoggan and Elder Eldredge

ONLY ONE MORE WEEK!!!!!!!!!! Don't get me wrong, the MTC is one of the greatest places a person could be. But that doesn't mean that getting your flight plans isn't the most exciting thing ever! I'm so pumped to go and do some real missionary work. And for some reason i really want to hear a german try and pronounce "Eldredge." It doesn't really work well with german pronunciations. so that will be funny and i might get some nicknames.

I will be allowed to call from the airport and we will get through security and everything at around 10 to 10:30 or so. I'm not really sure though. sometime in the  morning next tuesday I will be able to call so don't be off not answering the phone or things like that.

It's good to hear about all the stuff going on. Doesn't surprise me one bit that kenji was quick to tag things. It's also cool to hear about the BYU wards activities as of late. Glad that everything is going well in your calling dad. Not much has happened in the last week. we're just trying to get through this last week without slowing down at all.

The german is getting better and better everyday. In fact we just finished every grammar principle so we in theory know everything but vocabulary. but that's coming on it's way.

The whole district

I did get the package if it was the one with the cookies in it. Thanks grandma they were awesome!

Still haven't heard from many of my beloved family.

Oh guess what dad, we will be flying to Amsterdam and then Munich so i will be in your mission for a few hours! That's cool.

I'm sorry that i don't have any legit missionary stories like shocking people with the spirit or stuff like that. We'll see if I have anything next week.

Love,

Elder Eldredge

The Challenge

hello family!

is haley really pregnant or not because she said that she was kidding. anyway she better be pregnant if you say she is. [editor's note: Ben jokingly wrote that Haley was pregnant - which she's not, unless there's something she's not telling]

The MTC this week has been a blast! we are all getting so much better at speaking german that we go days without speaking very much english at all. It's hard but we've done it. I am also about thirty pages into das Buch Mormon. so i'm in chapter 13. alot of the stuff i can read without the help of the english version.

we also switched up the leadership in my branch so i'm no longer my district leader. But my companion and I were called as zone leaders so that's cool and all. We have a lot to do now.

I had another really cool experience this week. a few days ago i had this really strong feeling that i should always keep my oil with me at all times, which came in handy when we had a sick sister in need of a blessing last night and no one else had any oil. So i gave my first blessing. It really made me be happy that i am able to exercise the preisthood and that God knows where we need to be and what we need to be doing in order to use it. He knew that the sister would need a blessing so he used me as a tool. That's really what the priesthood is.

Oh a nother cool thing! I gave a totally unscripted talk about the atonement in german this last sunday. It was cool because i had a talk written but just as i was supposed to get up and speak i decided to just leave it becuase i didn't like it so i just spoke from my heart. We really do learn at an unreal speed here. only one month in and i can be asked to speak without knowing beforehand, and still do well in a foreign language.

Ben-

That's sweet that you got you drivers liscence! I'm sure that you feel a great amount of freedom. It's also kind of strange that you talk to youself..... oh well, keep doing it. you never know what you can teach yourself.

Sucks that your back is hurt. I hope you get to play this week. just don't hurt yourself more. But since you have all this freetime i want to give you a challenge. it's up to you if you want to do it or not but if you do you will be happy that you did. Purchase or find a cheap paperback book of mormon, and read through the whole thing with a blue scripture marker. every time that you see a reference to Jesus Christ (literally or symbolically) mark it. Don't mark anything else. I think that you will be shocked at how much you learn. Also if you really want to learn, do it in 59 days, which is about the same amount of time that it took joseph smith to translate the book of mormon. I think that you will be incredibly amazed and strengthened.

Anyway, the choice is yours. I wish i had the time to do it with you but i can't study for my own enjoyment here.

Also you better paint me a picture of a wolf on the moon in a space suit planting a flag with dead aliens all around him. That would be sweet. oh and here is a cool phrase i learned lately that you would like "Shade für dich." It means "sucks for you!" ask dad to help you pronounce it.

Well i better go now. the time is running low.

Chuss!

Love, Elder Eldredge

P.S. I haven't heard a word from many of [editor's note: yes it really ended right there]

Over the Hump!

Hey everybody!

I am now half way finished with the MTC!!!!!!!!!! thank Goodness because i'm really wanting to be in germany already.

Since i haven't said anything about my teachers i suppose that now would be a good time to do so. They are really Great. we have two full time teachers, Bro. Wagley and Bro. Goldsmith. They both have strengthened my testimony so much and have become good friends of mine. They've even inspired me to want to come and teach at the MTC when i come home. Hopefully they will still be here and i can teach with them!

I'm glad to hear that conference went so well! It was great here as well. we watched every session of course in our missionary clothes and then we also had a devotional and watched some older talks from the MTC. so we watched people talk for like two days straight without having to go to class or anything.

I was challenged to an ice cream eating competition by sister Kearl. that was scary to me because she really loves ice cream! She's really small but she put down ten bowls of ice cream! I did put up a good fight with seven bowls but i just couldn't eat anymore. you would never suppose that such a small person could eat so much ice cream. needless to say, she gained respect from every Elder in our zone.

I have a really cool story for you actually. at least i think it is cool. Once a week we do something called TRC. this is when we meet with a german speaker but they don't act. they are just themselves and we have a nice conversation and share a gospel related message. While preparing for this event I felt so strongly that we should share about the importance of families. the second man that we spoke with had told us that he doesn't talk to his family much and he only sees them perhaps once a month. when we left the man we spoke with was supposed to write about the experience and our teaching abilities. on that paper he wrote that after our message he felt like he should be a lot closer to his family from now on. we even challenged him to call his family members and tell them that he loves them.

Just one of the many times that i've seen the hand of the Lord in the past three weeks. He knows what people need to hear and feel when we could never. as long as we listen to the promptings of the spirit we can be effective missionaries and disciples of Christ.

Well my timer says that i have about two minutes left so i should probably finish up. perhaps you would like to see a little german.

Ich liebe Sie alles so viel und ich bin so dankbar das sie meine familie sind. Ich weiss dass das buch mormon wahr ist und dass joseph smith ein prophet war. Ich liebe das Evangelium Jesu Christi und ich werde es mit sehr viele volken sprechen uber mein zeugnis.

aufwiedersehen!

Elder Eldredge

MTC Part Deux

 

The MTC is amazing. I love it here. the language is coming really great too. we didn't convert our first investigator but we just picked up two new ones. It can be a little bit akward at times because we have two teachers and they are our investigators. and also our old investigator, marcel, is one of our new teachers. it's all really cool and fun to be teaching in german.

 

I've had to stay away from the foursquare court just to stop myself from diving. i now run and then play volleyball. it's still hard not to dive at times but i have been a good boy.

 

We're really learning how to work the system here. we know when to do laundry to not be in lines and have to fight over machines.

 

Our district is all really close now. We are like family in a way. They made easter bearable when i missed everybody. And speaking of easter, in my package, what is the story behind the joseph smith ring? I'm pretty sure that it symbolizes eternity but i don't know why it is a joseph smith ring and all.

 

I know that Kelton is coming in tomorrow and i'm way excited! i will probably see him a lot. there is a chance that i might even be able to host him and greet him to the MTC. Daniel pimentel on the other hand is not coming to the provo MTC. i can't remember which one he is in but it's not here. Chase weight also is leaving this week but he is going to the brazil MTC.

 

Great to hear that everything is going well.

 

I love you so much and i think of you all the time.

 

Elder Eldredge