Week 2

Hello everyone!

I am on week two and it feels more
like I've been here for a few months now. Mama I'll apologize in advance. I
forgot to have the letter you sent by me while I started typing this e-mail.
I'll try my best to answer the questions I remember but I can't guarantee
I'll get them all.

To start
off, DearElder.com letters are working. I've gotten one pretty regularly
since I talked about it last week. I really enjoy getting the
messages throughout the week from my family and friends. Thank you to
everyone who has sent me a message thus far and thank you for everyone else in
advance. And to all you others... *cough* ANYWAYS! I'm going to try my best to
answer all of the messages (DearElder.com or regular mail) with letters. My
companion has like 80 stamps that he's very willing to share and around 40
envelopes but I don't like to mooch so Mama could you please send me some?

Things seem
to be going really quickly now. The language is hard, but it's coming. My
companions are awesome and we have a lot of fun together. My district is
awesome and we're really good at supporting eachother. This week we actually
had a change in the branch presidency so just as I started getting used to the
reports and routines of the first branch president we got another. Luckily the
new one is the old one's councillor. Mama, you wanted to know if we hear from
any general authorities during devotionals. The answer was no until last night.
We had Elder Holland come and speak to us and it was phenomenal. He's such a
powerful speaker. He told us we as missionaries need to take better advantage
of our best converting tool, The Book of Mormon but first we need to become
converted to it ourselves. It was a great talk and we had an awesome discussion
about it afterwards as a district. He also talked a lot about how we should not
let a mission be a mission but have it become part of our lives and that we
ourselves need to become true converts of the message we carry. He talked about
how we need to live our missions now in a way that we won't regret in the
future. That reminded me of a quote I read on a navy seals picture which said,
"There's two types of pain in the world: The temporary pain of discipline
and the permanant pain of regret". I think this is a powerful statement I
want to learn to apply in my life.

Next thing,
now that we've gotten all spiritual, let me ruin it with the funniest
thing to happen to me this week. I was getting the mail as usual (which I have
to do twice a day) and I walked behind a certain elder because I had to get to
my district's mailbox which was right on the other side of him. I squatted down
to put the combination in on the locker and he turned to walk away. I don't
know if he didn't see me or what happened (P.S. I have never seen this elder
before in my life) Well he turned to leave and he let the winds loose on my
face. My companions were both standing there shocked for a little bit
wondering, "Did that honestly just happen?" I didn't see it but apparently
this elder made a surprised face himself as if he had no idea that it was going
to make noise (according to Elder Fillmore there's no way he didn't know it was
coming because of the way he "lifted his leg" to let the process of
pressure relief occur). And I, instantly held my breath as I attempted to put
the combination in to the lock on the box as quickly as possible so I could get
out of there. Haha we all started laughing really hard and the elder apologized
and shook all our hands and left beet red in the face and embarrased.

I don't
know how much else there is to report really. It's the same routine every day,
not much new happens and I think that's part of the reason why the stay here
seems to be going by so quickly. It's a good experience but I'm also far more
excited about getting out to the field. The other Elders and Sisters that were
here before us are leaving this next week and then it'll just be our district
and one other for the next few weeks until new russian speaking missionaries
come in.

I really
miss all of you and I miss doing a lot of stuff. I have just recently gotten
the motivation to really start working out again. I was just learning to do
handstand pushups before, the most I got was 5. Hahaha I'll get better eventually.
I beat the push up record which was 105 or something. I don't care to be up on
the board at all though. If someone beats 115 then I'll just try again. Haha
then pullups I'm still working on. It's weird because they have a pullup bar
outside our room but not at the gym. So most of the time when I'm at the room
I'm either tired or hustling to get somewhere else. Most I've done here so far
though is 32. Record is 35. Maybe I'll beat it, maybe I won't. I've been
sneaking away into the stairwells where people can't see me to do flips because
I miss it so much. I'm definitely going through guitar withdrawals. We had a
stress management lesson here and although I honestly don't feel stressed, I
realized that pretty much all of my stress relief methods are against the
rules. Flipping, Guitar, Rugby, and their gym sucks and they don't give us
enough time to work out for me to really kill myself in there. So... I'll just
have to deal with it some way when the time comes that I get really stressed. I
honestly don't think that'll happen here at the MTC though. The spirit here is
awesome.

I think I
answered all of the questions but one. But I'm saving that one for the end
because it seems like everyone is so interested about it (at least my family).
Oh yeah, Mama please continue to send the letters in German. They can't print
umlauts but it's good to have some kind of German in my life still. In fact if
you'd tell Omi and Opa about DearElder.com that'd be great too. I feel like I'm
going to lose all my muscles and all my German while I'm on my mission. So I'll
do whatever I can to keep those. And just in case you didn't get the tiny slip
of paper I slipped into my handwritten letter after I sealed it, my approximate
departure date is the 17th of April. My 10 week program turned into an 8 1/2
week program. Although they claim it was always 8 1/2 but they call it 9.

Now, for
the moment you've all been waiting for... The true story behind the shoulder
sling. The true part was that I was herded everywhere and that I got to the
class before anyone else then we went around and introduce

*** THE TIME LIMIT FOR THIS
ELDER/SISTER HAS EXPIRED. HE/SHE WILL BE ALLOWED TO E-MAIL FOR 30 MINUTES ON
THE 7TH OF MARCH ***

Letter February 22, 2012

Well this first week in the MTC has been... an adventure. On the first day I came here and they herded us like cattle. From one area to the next, with little orientation as we went. I was introduced to our class and was the first one there, the teacher spoke only in russian so it was pretty confusing. But then the rest of the class came (the rest of the district) and there was 4 companionships total. 2 sets of elders and 2 sets of sisters. We went around and introduced ourselves and as we talked about hobbies I said I did flips and they wanted me to demonstrate a few. I've never really done flips in full church attire before so it was pretty scary, turns out that's not what I needed to be afraid of. I threw my leg backwards to do the flip and started to jump up, but I kicked the desk behind me, so I didn't rotate all the way around. I was basically vertical in the air when I came down and hit the ground. I managed to get my head out of the way last second by throwing my arms up really quickly but I ended up dislocating my shoulder pretty badly and I've been pretty miserable ever since. They sent me to the medical place here at the MTC (still not really sure what they call it here) and I've had to wear this ridiculous sling and brace every day. I can't sleep because it hurts really badly to lay down and roll on it accidentally or something. So one night while I was up really late because of my arm I thought to myself, "Man... I miss telling BS stories to my friends and family back home."

Bahaha! I really do miss telling you ridiculous stories, the first and last parts are the only parts that are true. The MTC has been a really great experience, total russian immersion has been kinda tough but I'm getting it slowly. I started out with one companion. Elder Fillmore, but it turns out one of the elders in our district was a genius and he knew 5 different languages and he came early because he was from costa rica and couldn't change his plane ticket when the call date was changed the second time. So he was really good at russian already and got transfered and is leaving in two weeks now. So now I'm in a companionship of three with Elder Fillmore and Elder Welch. They are both great guys. It's been really fun getting to know them and to learn to teach the Gospel with them.

I've had to be pretty resourceful while here because a lot of things I used to do I can't do here anymore, especially when it comes to working out. They won't let me do hardly anything that I want to do so I've just been doing lots of pullups (I'm going to try to beat the MTC record of 35) and skills training to be able to do cool stuff (for example we can't put our feet on the wall for handstand pushups, so I'm going to try to learn to do them without the wall) Then I realized I forgot deodorant, so I've been using my shampoo as deodorant, and it's been working rather well.

The things we've been learning here are amazing. I've been surprised at all of the things that I've been taught. The spirit is amazing here and this is such a great place to learn. Most of the language study happens as we are taught lessons about how to teach in russian. We taught our first investigator (a teacher acting as an investigator) on the third day we were here, in russian. It was quite the experience. We've had the opportunity to teach him every day since then though. I feel like I'm reverse engineering the thought process of what to teach. Our purpose here is for us to invite others to come unto Christ by inviting them to have Faith in Jesus Christ, Repentance, Baptism, and recieving the Holy Ghost. So with that in mind, the first day we testified and asked him to read the Book of Mormon and it was hard because we're trying to speak russian. But next time we invited him to be baptized after we explained the benefits of baptism. But yesterday it all came into perspective as I realized that chronologically, the first thing they need is faith in the restoration of the gospel, and that's why it's the first lesson. I never quite understood why we chose to teach that in the first lesson. But now it's all slowly starting to make sense.

I thought it was kind of funny when I read all of the e-mails I had because they said, "I hope your P-Day isn't on Wednesday because that would be terrible, to have to wait that long" etc. etc. Well... My P-Day is on Wednesday. So I'll send and e-mail every Wednesday and Wednesday is also the day I'm allowed to send out my letters, so expect letters after that. A cool thing that they do here though is called DearElder.com They will print your e-mails and give them to a missionary the day of (depending on what time you send it). So if anyone is interested in that, I'd be more than excited to get those kinds of letters from you.

Oh yeah, one other thing. On the third day I was given the responsibility of Senior Companion and District Leader.... I was not excited at all, I thought it would just be more work, but so far it really hasn't been too hard or bad of an experience. Well I've run out of time. Sending letters is the best way to get to me because I only have half an hour on the computer to do e-mail. If you send a letter or send it via DearElder.com I can read it whenever I have free time.Thank you all for your prayers and support. I can definitely feel them as I prepare myself to become a good missionary. - Elder Chun

P.P.S. All the friends who thought they'd see me at the MTC. I haven't seen any of you yet.

Final image in our minds. Walking off with a very helpful, yet respectfully quiet Elder...

Teary moment of truth...

MTC curbside dropoff

Moments before reporting to the MTC

Ukraine, here I come... with my favorite backpack of all times

Saying good-bye

Saying good-bye to my Sterling Scholar Foreign Language little brother Samuel. Yes, February 15th was quite the big day - one sent to the MTC and one went to the Sterling Scholar interviews.

Tuesday night was absolutely AWESOME! After our stake president had wonderful counsel for us all he was set apart around 9 pm. After that each of us received the most powerful blessing from Elder Chun. It was so apparent that he was just a tool - a worthy tool of course - in the Lord's hands. What a great way to start a mission. If any of you young men are preparing to go soon, I highly recommend leaving your family members with a blessing. They will treasure it and the moment for the rest of their lives.

Yesterday was good, too. After a father's blessing we went to take some pictures in front of the temple and with the MTC backdrop. The dropoff itself wasn't as 'cut-throat' as some have made it out to be. We were given plenty of time to get out, even catch a few candid shots with our little camera and send him off with very tight and teary hugs. That moment was tough - no doubt - the realization that 2 years are such a long time hit later that night but we are so excited for the adventures and opportunities that lie ahead of him.

PS: Sorry for the typo on the website, the city he is going to is abbreviated DNEPRO not DNETRO ;-) but I got your message anyway