Elder Vernon letter March 29

Well, I've had some good experiences this week. Here's the funniest one.

Rachel sent me a nice letter that told me that a baby goat died. Sooo sad! And then said some other nice things. The funny part is this. In the letter was a small random picture of an eleven year old girl with blonde hair. I've never seen here before. So I pinned it up on the wall and told my district it was my girlfriend. It's super funny because the girl is a little bit chunky. I hope I'm not offending anybody, cuz I have no idea who she is, and it might be one of Prenten's relatives or something. But anyways it is soooo funny because everybody comes into our room and says, "Elder Vernon! is that your girlfriend!" and I just laugh.

This next experience is real good. I was coming over to eat breakfast with my District, and i saw that there was an older guy who I assumed was a branch president sitting closeby. I thought I would talk to him, so I sat next to him and started a conversation. He said he had been a mission president in Spain, and his name was President Craig. he was a really nice guy, and very humble. So I asked him what Branch he was president of, and he said he was actually a district president over about ten districts, and that mine was one of them. Ohhh. Turns out the very next day, he speaks at a big MTC Mission conference. And everything he said I felt related directly to me. His talk was based off of one of my favorite scriptures, Moroni 10:32, and he talked about becoming perfect in christ, and that we could only become perfect through Christ if we put forth our very best effort. It was a changing experience for me where I decided I would try harder to be obedient to little rules. His talk was so amazing. It was like an extension of my farewell talk, and he said things so much better than did, talking about becoming perfect. I was scribbling stuff in my study journal as fast as I could, and then look over at some missionaries just falling asleep and thought, "HOW CAN YOU FALL ASLEEP IN THIS!?" I realized that through the Lord's tender mercies I had been prepared for that experience, and that you receive different amounts of inspiration according to how much you are prepared to hear it. I'm not perfect yet though. Not by any means. My companion still reminds me about little rules I break lots of times a day. however, we are totally at ease with each other now, we had our first companionship inventory and it was real good. We have a good time together!

Well, I'ma go get a haircut! Love ya! I'll write more in letters because I will have more time! BUBYE

Elder Vernon

Report from Jing

I talked to Jing on Saturday and she said William was great and I didn't need to worry. She said he looked really good in his "shiny" suit. She laughed and said he was speaking Mandarin better than ever. He was "Hun Hao" Very good!

Letter from William

So Dad got a letter from William today. Dad was all excited because he got a letter and I didn't. So he opened it and out fell a letter to grandma Carey with no address or stamp on it. Then he saw more in the envelope and pulled out a letter for Parley. The outside said, Don't open this dad!

march 17

William went into the MTC a week ago. All those who have seen William (Jordan Barton, Ben Chamberlain etc.) say he is doing very well at the MTC

Write Willi A Letter!!!!

Hey, this is Parley. Just so everyone knows, it is free to write William letters via dearelder.com . Just click on the write a letter link and select the Provo MTC. It gets there the same day if you write it before noon and gives him an actual paper copy not just an email. Once he leaves to Taiwan it won't be free though.

Hallloooooo!!!!!

So, mamamama, I'm on a mission. Don't you just miss me a big whole bunch? I'm not really homesick yet. Things have been just a bit too crazy for that. Our schedule has been not very consistent and I haven't really settled down yet. But it will get better, once I get used to it, the MTC won't really be so much hard, as it is just monotonous. I have such a fun district. My district leader is so awesome, his name is elder Tito, and he's a huge Samoan from Australia, going to Auckland New Zealand. Elder Corbett Mcallister is my friend from Mr. Crook's chinese class, and he's in my district. My companiiero is named Tyler Judson Oram, from Kaysville. He reminds me a lot of Les Pardew. Brother Pardew at age nineteen. He has a really strong testimony, and although he doesn't know much chinese yet, he learns quick and can hear tones okay because he likes to sing. We went to the temple this morning and it was really fun, It seems like five weeks ago that I was in the temple last monday with the chinese zone that I now already know so well. It was such good mission prep to go volunteer at the TA because now I know all the districts that were ahead of me, and I can speak chinese to them. Chinese is no problem. Except for that nobody else speaks it. They tell you fifty times a day to SYL, and i don't really want to just talk to myself, so I feel like I'm not progressing in my language as fast as I could, but oh well. It was really tough because there were two elders who were bumped up to go to Taiwan six weeks early, and although they had both lived in China at one point, I felt like my Chinese was just as good as theirs, and if I had some tough goals to look forward to, like teaching the first lesson in chinese, then I would work harder and go a lot faster than if I'm looking forward to say "ni hao" in a park to someone. But, I shouldn't compare myself to others, just deal with what I've got. I asked my teacher again and he said I was here for twelve weeks, and I just got more embarrassed than I was before, and things got pretty rough there for a while, because I think Satan took that thing that looks like a problem, and blew it up in my face so I got kind of upset. But who knows all the reasons that things like that happen? Not me, only the Lord, so we'll see how it turns out. I guess that's why we need that faith stuff. Sunday was fun, because I had more study time. I felt like before then, I hadn't even had time to read my scriptures or study chinese because ALL we were doing all day was listening to old guys talk to us about being exactly obedient and how much they loved the MTC. yeah, it wasn't that much fun. I like the food. A little bit too much. I eat a whole lot, and then during exercise time, I'm too lazy to go run, I just play basketball with some other elders. There's this other elder in my district that's a real baller, going to Leeds England, his name is Elder Herlin and he's super funny. He figured out how to say buckets in chinese, shui tong and that's all he would say.

I love you all...

I hope you got that was from legacy. We got to watch the Joseph Smith movie last night, and I felt the spirit really strong and cried and then felt spirit friends tell me i'm okay, so truly I'm just okay. and then in the temple I sat in the celestial room for a long time, it bothered my companion but I didn't care, so i'm just fine. write me letters it really feels good to get letters! this is my new email and I only have twenty seconds left on my time limit! aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! 10!