Week 7 of the MTC

Familia

Well I only have another week and a half here at the LDS Penitentary (that is what some people call it because some days it feels like you will never get out).  They don't let you out early for good behavior. Hahah All in all' it is pretty good though.  Life is good!  It almost seems unreal that I only have a week and a half left.  There is still so much that I could learn in here.  We should get our travel itinerary today sometime and know exactly what time we are flying out.  Hopefully I will have the chance to make a phone call in Salt Lake before I fly out.

We had yet another district come into our zone yesterday.  We are now up to five and we started with two.  The oldest district is leaving next Tuesday though, so the numbers will start to go down again.   Guess who is in the new district?  Elder Easton Cox from Manti!  Crazy running into people that you already know here.

No general authorities were at the fireside on Sunday. But there was a special fireside on Friday that Elder Bednar spoke at! I think 7 of the 12 were in that fireside with us.

I was guessing that the ward in Manti would get a new bishop really soon.  It has been quite some time since any change had happened.

Sounds like when one Howell starts to mend another one gets hurt.  What is up Alecia and Mckay?  Hope you both get feeling better soon and are back to full health.

This week I have been thinking a lot about prayer.  How can I improve my prayer? How can I listen after prayer?  Looking in the Bible dictionary under prayer helped me out a lot.  I don't have my Bible with me right now, but it is like the 4th or 5th paragraph that is what I will talk about.  It says once you realize your relationship with God, prayer will become natural.  Prayer is actually a form of work. The Lord wants to bless us but we have to be willing to put forth effort to obtain these blessings. 1 Nephi 18:3, Nephi is shown "great things" because of his prayer. The key is once we realize that relationship with God, we will want what he wants.  We won't have the desire to ask for anything that isn't in his will for us.  I really liked D&C 46:30 for this.  We just have to be willing to ask (Matt 7:7-8) because the Lord already wants to bless us.

Elder B. Howell

Elder McKay

Hi Mom,

 

This week has been really awesome!  I'm not even sure why, but God has really been blessing Elder Turner and I with success and solid teaching appointments. We had nearly twice as many teaching appointments this week as any other week in our time together and only two of those were multiple appointments with the same person.  Lol, the funny part is that it could have been even better if I hadn't....

 

Sprained my back again early this week!  We were invited over to a member's house for dinner and he asked us to help him move his new pool table from the garage to the second floor of his house. (Ulterior motive for inviting us over?)  Anyway, so the three of us sweated, struggled and groaned getting the thing into his loft, but we were finally victorious.  The next day, my back was seized up the same as it did a couple days after my duplicate auto accidents last fall.  Serious pain, nausea, couldn't twist or move my neck; pretty much the whole nine yards.   So I laid up in bed for a day, called Sis. Barry the next day and spoke with a doctor and headed out on trade offs (in the car) with our other gimp, Elder Grant, who is hobbling around in a boot to keep his ankle from getting worse until surgery. Lol, it was kind of fun to see me walking around all stiff and E. Grant hobbling around with a big black boot in the first real downpour that we've seen this summer.  (By the way:  tracting in a downpour is actually kinda fun.  The rain here is warm!)

 

Sunday afternoon, more adventures came our way.  Either God was trying to keep us from doing something stupid, or Satan was preventing our work, because when I walked out in the morning, my bike tires had been slashed and were flat.  I took Elder Grant's bike since he uses the car, but we were only about 2 miles out when the entire crank and pedal fell off the left side. Taking this as a sign, we walked our bikes back to the apartment and attempted to repair mine enough to last an evening, but without any luck. By this time the afternoon was shot and most of our appointments were lost.  The day was salvaged though by members taking down to the hospital twice to give blessings.  Lol, it's about the only productive thing that happened though.

 

So....three days out of the seven were pretty much ineffective for Elder Turner and I, but even in those four days we had far more success than we've seen yet in a week.  Pretty miraculous, eh?

 

Well, I'm glad to hear that your week has been decent.  The cleansing of the apartment sounds like it was pretty nasty.  Some missionary apartments may approach the level of horribleness that you saw, just without the smoke.  ;)

 

Which reminds me that I missed a few very important days:

 

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO DANIEL AND JACLYN!!!!

Lol, and Happy Fathers Day to Dad as well, but knowing Dad, he probably doesn't recognize it as a Holiday anyway. 

 

I'm glad Gabe and Joe had fun with the pageant.  I'll bet they didn't get all the chairs taken down before sunrise though....  =P  Haha, not that anyone will probably ever want to challenge Terry, Jon, and I on that one.  Keep me updated with Grandpa Howell though; I want to know how he's doing.

 

As for your questions though, we currently have three baptism dates set: 2 for July 17, and 1 for July 10.  We also have another three that we'll probably set this week as well for mid July. Families and old people are great!  For some reason, people seem a lot more open to the gospel of Christ when the "end of life" is near....

 

Photos of the week:

There have been fires burning all through northern Florida and Southern Georgia for weeks now.  The smoke has been just hovering over Brunswick for nearly two weeks and it's been getting really bad.  I took a photo of this sign by a church and thought their quote from God was pretty funny. The other photo is from a rainstorm Saturday evening.  It came on so fast!  You can see the wall of black clouds that just swept over our previously blue sky day and started dumping on us!

 

 

Love ya!

 

Elder M. Howell

 

Elder Ben

It sounds like it is going to be a party in Manti this week at the house for pagent.  With family and friends visiting it should be fun. Joe dont worry about the lighting crew usually one night is bad and then they get it all fixed for the next night.  Sounds like you and Gabe have been enjoying it so far.

 

My district did sing!  We sang yesterday at the missionary orientation devotional for all the missionaries comming in this week.  This group I think was said to be one of the largest to enter the MTC at one time.  Something like 600 this week....I only had about 350 my week.  All the practice paid off and it sounded great.  Yesterday I actually got to leave the MTC campus...ya before you get to excited for me let me tell you I went to the dentist with Elder Lanier.  He had a couple of teeth that were hurting him so we went in for a check up.  Turns out he has several cavitys so we will be going in again on the 1st.  It was really weird to be off campus though.  After spending the last 7 weeks in here it was weird even to see the rest of the city.  There is a different feel in the city.  Once you walk into the MTC you can feel a change, there is so much safety in this one little block in the middle of the city, and you can feel it.  I did meet someone that worked at the dentist office who used to live in Seattle.  He was giving me pointers to drink orange juice.  He said that because there is not much sun in Seattle alot of people get loss of vitaman problems.  He says orange juice will not only help that but will keep you happy....hahah :)

 

This week the MTC is a bit crazy!  They have blocked off the main building because they are holding a new mission president seminar.  They call new mission presidents to a third of the missions in the world each year.  The new mission presidents are then here for a week of training and instruction by the first presidency and the twelve.  Lets just say security has increased by about 800% in the past 2 days.  We have a special fireside on Friday and a normal scedualed fireside on Sunday my guess is we may hear from one of them this weekend. Elder Lanier has to give the opening prayer on the sunday fireside so we will be sitting on the stand.  May get to meet one of the twelve in person.

 

This week I came acoss some scripturs that I really enjoyed.  One of them was Luke 18:22, when the savior says come follow me.  I then cross referenced this to Moses 6: 34 when the Lord tells Enoch to "walk with me."  This isn't always the easiest thing but it is refered to more times then just these in the scriptures. We are only asked to follow and walk with him.  In the missionay purpose we are asked to invite others to Christ.  We cant really invite someone if we arn't on the paths ourselves.  We have to follow what the Lord says and follow him before we can be a help to others.  Alma 26: 3-6 I belive talkes about what will happen if you come to this state.  You will be an intrument in the hands of God, and the people you bring to him will be strong in the faith.  I know that isn't exactly what is says but is is something close.  May we all get to that path and then continue to invite others to it. 

 

 

May the Lord be with you all

 

 

 

Elder Howell

Elder M.- Transfer 2, Week 4

Hi Mom,

 

Thanks for updating me with what's happened at home.  How is Grandpa recovering?  I take it he is probably still at the hospital if he can't move or talk, but will Grandma be able to take care of him at home from here on or will she need assistance with that?

 

I was also pretty sorry to hear that Sandy died as well.  She was a pretty good dog, though it looked like she was getting pretty old the last few times I visited home. I'm glad she went peacefully. Does Dad have any plans to get another one?  I can't imagine him wanting another rambunctious puppy like she was when we first picked her up from the pound...

 

Well, this week has been somewhat downer.  Our district leader here came down on his foot wrong while he was playing basketball last weekend. The earliest we could schedule an appointment with a doctor was today, so he has been icing it, etc for the past couple days and it looks absolutely horrible. We finally got him in to the clinic today and it turns out he ripped several tendons in his foot/ankle and will need surgery.  The mission president still has to work out whether that can be done here or whether he will need to go home for a few months.  The elder is really distressed about it and we're all hoping that it can be taken care of here.  We have another elder from our area finishing his mission next week, so Brunswick may be downsized to two companionship's instead of three.

On the bright side, I'm glad to hear Alecia is doing ok and that she won't need surgery for her situation.  When she gets the cast removed and switches to the boot, will she be able to get back in the pools?  =)

 

That rocket launcher is a money machine!  And it has definitely gotten more mileage than I ever anticipated it would.  Ha ha, I think that is pretty funny that a family would come all the way from Salt Lake on the 4th just to be there at the park to launch rockets!  Good times.  Maybe this concept should be expanded and you can have Jacob entrepreneur a rocket launcher production facility to sell those things all over the nation...

 

I look forward to receiving your letter and Dad's packet.  Was this something that he wrote up just for me, or did he want me to have a copy of his latest project?

 

In interesting news, I am now senior companion (whatever that means). President switched us mid-week, but it seems like the only thing that changed is that I am now the one to do the end of week report to the DL. Everyone keeps predicting that I'm going to be a Zone Leader soon, but I am avoiding that as much as possible.  I've lived with Zone Leaders the entire time so far and have seen what they do and have no desire to be a part of that.

 

We set a couple of baptism dates this week, so that was pretty cool.  We also found a guy who grew up with a few Mormon kids, but never really heard much about the church.  When we explained the Book of Mormon, he took a copy and told us he wanted to read the whole thing in a week and wants us to come back when he's done.  We're expecting some miracles there.  :) 

 

The focus this past week has been a lot on Charity and the story in John 21 keeps coming back to me. When Jesus first met Peter he called out to him, "Come, follow me"  and Peter immediately left his occupation (fishing) to follow him. After Jesus died, it looks like Peter as the apostle really had no idea of what he was to do next and just decided to return to his old life style and occupation of fishing (vs 3). When Jesus appeared to them on the shore, Peter recognizes him and dives in to get to shore quickly where Jesus asks him, "Lovest thou me?" "Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee."   Then came the command, "FEED MY SHEEP".  Three times, this same dialogue occurs....   When I read this, it comes across almost as a rebuke to Peter -  "Peter, I told you once before to follow me and you did for three years.  Why now are you going back to fishing?  Return to the apostleship where I called you to be and feed my sheep!"  It has really hit me hard that once a life is given to Christ and once you have committed to follow Him, there really is no going back to the old ways of life. Which has really made me think of all the attachments I have kept in the world and where my heart truly lies.  The question over and over again, "Do you love me?" keeps bouncing around in my head.  I dunno, it's an interesting thought - where do my loyalties truly lie?  Is this mission just something I am doing for a couple years or is "feeding His sheep" really going to be my lifelong pursuit?

 

"Do you love me?"

Does your life really reflect that love for Him?

Luke 14:26-27 (with JST); Matt 10:37-39; 2 Pet. 2:20-22;

 

I dunno, it's been bouncing around my thoughts a lot the past few days. Take it for what it's worth to you.

 

Well, time is once again running short.  I love you all!

 

Elder M. Howell

 

MTC Week 5!!!!!!!!!!! (Ben)

Family--

Well, first off I realized that tonight is the first day of pageant.  Good luck to Gabe and Joe on the opening night.  Gabe, it is awesome that you are doing the dancing part.  I think that you will really enjoy it.  Do you have to lift the girl for the sacrifice?

Alecia sent me a Dear Elder saying that she broke her ankle while running.  It sounded pretty bad in her letter, but then other letters after even made it sound worse.  She pulled a ligament also?  Alecia this really puts a damper on your plans of working for the summer.  I hope that it heals fast.

Sounds like Daniel is just making the most of the summer.  Already hitting up the lakes and going camping.  I really don't envy him biking 34 miles a day though.  I guess that is one way to stay in shape over the summer for cross country in the fall! :)  I hope that my scooter will be of some use to him.

Gabe keep training for the fair run.  You have to continue the tradition.....I think we are on 9 years of winning that.  Ya, no pressure or anything! :)

Dad, I am sure you have forgotten or didn't care in the first place, but fathers day is this weekend so.....Happy Fathers Day!!!  Dad, is Italian close to Spanish?  I think I was sitting next to the Italian Elders at lunch and I could pick up parts of their conversation.

My district has been practicing a song so that we could tryout today to sing in a devotional.  We are singing "the armies of Helaman."  Part in English and part in Spanish (I somehow got roped into singing with both the English and Spanish parts).  We just tried out about an hour ago and I thought it went really well.  The Spanish may need to be pronounced a little better, but my district actually sings pretty well together.  For the tryout we had to sing in front of the MTC presidency's wives.  They are all amazing in musical ability so it made it a bit nerve racking for some in the district.  I think we find out in a couple of days if we have a call back or are singing in a devotional.  I think the whole zone was getting annoyed with hearing it about 10 times a day so they are happy that we finally tried out. hahaha

We ended up getting another district in our zone this Wednesday.  It just keeps on growing!  Elder Lanier and I couldn't dodge the bullet any longer and so there are two of the new guys in our room now.   Elder Wright (one of the guys in our room now) was homeschooled!  He is from Arkansas and seems like a pretty out going person so we should get to know them pretty fast.

Thank you for your support,

Elder Howell

Weekly Photos From McKay

Sorry, not much time for a weekly letter.  The other elders are rushing me since they don't have anyone they love enough to write.  =D  JK, but here are a few photos from this week's adventures.  I thought of picking up a possum and sending it home for Daniel, but the only ones I can find are dead on the side of the road.  Maybe he would like a possum hide?  =D

 

They are huge on the Confederate States of America down here!  Lol, memorials everywhere.  People still fly the confederate flag along with the Georgia state flag.

I also included a photo of the old city hall and me after a long day of biking.  Thankfully, it was relatively cool that evening with a good breeze coming in.  P.S.  Palm trees are sweet.

MTC Week 4--Elder Ben

Family and Friends,

Well I didn't receive an email from the family this week (besides one from Jac).  I'm sure you are all doing great but it is nice to hear an update.  Reading McKay's letter I heard that Gabe took 2nd in a race!  Way to keep up the family tradition Gabe!  Next stop -- 1st at the 4th of July race and the County Fair race!!!  Keep training over the summer.

We had a district move out of our zone on Monday/Tuesday and head for Chile.  It is really weird to see them go.  Just makes me realize that I really have been in here that long.  A couple of them bore pretty personal and powerful testimonies on Sunday...I think that group was just about as prepared for the field as the MTC could make them.  We then received a new group of Elders yesterday.  I really haven't got to know any of them because they were busy unpacking last night and don't get the first P-day with us today.  There are 12 Elders in this new district and no sisters.  Yeah! my district is no longer the new guys of the zone.

In the gym at the MTC they keep records for exercise things.  The mile is a 4.48 so I was thinking about trying to break it before I leave.  Then I realized that I only have five weeks and one hour a day, 5 times a week to practice, without my running shoes.....ya I don't think it is going to happen.   Speaking of records, I think I set on the other week.  Not what you are thinking though.  It is my PR for how fast I could fall asleep.  Now family you know that that is pretty fast, but this took the cake by a long shot.   We were studying as a district one day in the common area of our building.  I was feeling pretty sleepy throughout all of this and was trying to stay awake.  My companion just explained to me what we would be teaching our investigator for our next lesson and had turned to talk to another companionship in the district.  When he turned back to me (no more then 30 seconds) I was asleep and they had to wake me up.  No kidding!   I'm not even sure how it happened.  I guess I still have my touch of falling asleep anywhere at anytime!

Yesterday while playing volleyball, Elder Jackson (in my district) went up to block a ball and it hit straight on with his finger.  The resulting effect could kind of be explained by an earthquake.  The joints on his index finger kind of acted like the plates of the earth might in an earthquake.  One part of his finger literally went under the other one where his joint is.  He said it didn't hurt too much.  He was taken off campus and a doctor was able to slide it back into place.  Crazy right!  He is fine today...his fingers are all bruised and fat but they are fine.   I'm not sure if anyone is going to be blocking any more spikes in volleyball.

I hope that you received my pictures.  I will take a few more because I heard that the ones that were taken were a little far away.  Not much time for picture taking in the MTC though.  Not too much to report -- we continue on with our studies and learning Spanish.
 

Life is good,

Elder B. Howell

Transfer 2, Week 2 (?) -Elder McKay

Hi Mom!

Thanks for the package!  I really was not expecting that and had a total blast opening it.  The cinnamon rolls were kind of stale, but I still enjoyed a couple of them.  The fruit leather was perfect though!  :)   Lol, we inflated the bouncing party balloons right away and started beating each other.  We must have put too much air into them though because they both popped after a few minutes.  Talk about loud!  My ears were still ringing several minutes later after one of them exploded near my head!  I don't plan on having any pork sandwiches tomorrow, but I did get some baked beans for dinner (yay!).  Unfortunately, we're busy enough that there won't be time to make a cake either, so I had to resort to a Wal Mart clearance rack cake and some ice cream for tomorrow night's after-planning party.  Hehehe...don't spread the word, but we're also planning on a raid on the other Brunswick elders with hundreds of those little party snaps!  War is on!   =D

Hmmm, this has actually been a pretty slow week where nothing really unusual or interesting happened.  Let's see....  Oh, ok, there was one moment that reminded me a little bit of Acts chapter 3.  We were biking along M.L.K. Jr. Boulevard into the ghetto when we hear a, "Hey you!" from a porch and someone waving out the corner of our eyes.  We skid to a stop and go back a few yards to find a middle-age black lady with a beard (no kidding) chilling on her porch with a joint of something that smoked.  "You boys got any money?"  We told her, no, we don't have any money ("Silver and gold, have I none), but we do have the word of God ("such as I have, give I thee").  She looked us up and down for a few seconds and then waved us off with a disgusted look saying, "I've already got all I want of that."  It's kinda sad how sometimes people can't see the need for something when they think they already have it.

We returned to the cochroach fighting ring last night - it was brutal and desperate, but this time the final score was Cochroaches: 1,  Elders: 0

We finally turned out the lights and went to sleep without finishing the hunt.  (sneaky little buggers...)

We have a recent convert in our ward who is from Australia.  Haha, her accent is 100% Aussie!  She calls all of the elders "Lovey".  She also has a monkey and several turtles (tortoises?) that she brought to the states with her.  I've attached a photo with me and Mick, a 52 pound turtle that is only "just a baby".  Apparently, he'll get up to about 200 pounds.  Now that's a turtle!

We also have a lot of trains that come through Brunswick. Some of these cars have some intensive graffiti art and I've attached a photo of one that Daniel might like - I know he's a Garfield fan.  :)

I'm glad to hear the family is doing well though.  It sounds like Lou is loving Phoenix.  Mmmmm, pool hopping.  Lol, we have a pool, but we just can't use it.  =P  Mom, I'll bet you have the pageant memorized more than any of your kids do after going through all of us having parts and quoting them around the house year after year.  "Behold, Zarahemna, we have not come out to battle against you that we might shed your blood for monarchy or power!  But behold, this is the very cause for which ye have come against us!"  Bwahahha, I think I might quote that this evening and Drive Elder Turner crazy tonight!  He gets great joy out of that sort of thing though: I already have to quote The Princess Bride and Incredibles for him almost every day.

Gabe finished 2nd!?  I feel like the odd Howell out...  It sounds like Joe is also turning into a speedster.  Maybe one of the youngest ones will compete for Daniel's running throne someday.  As for me doing P90X, well, let's just say I'm doing a trimmed down version of it.  :)  We don't have a whole lot of equipment or the actual fitness booklet or anything, so one of the Elders is just leading us through as much as he can remember from memory of what he did previously.  We do that about two or three times a week though and I'm enjoying it.

Rollin Nielson is in Florida, huh?  Does that make three or four of us from Manti that are serving in this state?  I guess I'm in Georgia, so I escaped.

Good luck with all the summer weddings. It still seems weird when people like Charles and Martha are getting married - I still think of them as super young, but I guess that just means I'm really old.  =P

Thanks for the prayers, I definitely need them!

Love ya'll,

Elder Mac

Elder Mckay and Mick

Elder Benjamin's Photos

Elder Lanier & Elder Howell (1st mission companion)

Elder Howells' District

Zone: 3 districts all Spanish speaking

All serving in the U.S.A. 

Elder Howell & Hermana (Sister) Hickman will both be serving in the Seattle Washington mission

Serving in South America

Elder Jacksons' suitcase full of Mountain Dew

Week 3 in the MTC for Elder Ben!

Hola to all,

Sounds like the family has been pretty busy this last week.  We have had people moving, getting roasted in 109 degree weather, running in state track, going to Disneyland, running in western regionals, battling crazy insects in Georgia, getting married, and being wicked Lamanites in the pageant....phew...what a week!

We had a companionship leave for the Peru MTC on Wednesday morning.  Elder Richards and Elder Jensen were in the same room as Elder Lanier and I, so now it is just the two of us. 

For all of the people that are just dying for pictures I printed some of them out and will be mailing them today.  With my non-computer ways I can't find a way to email my pictures, or have time to do it. I will be mailing my SD card to Sheena and she will be able to crop them and touch them up (some of them are far away).

Gabe and Joe, keep up the awesome tradition of being wicked Lamanites!  Maybe someday one of you will have to defect and give mom a righteous Nephite that she so deserves.  Although I agree, there isn't much more fun then being in a costume that shows a whole lot of insect food (skin) for the biting, freezing some nights as it rains on you, and getting limited amounts of sleep. Nothing like the experience!

Jacob, I don't like the sound of your job at all.  If I saw that it was 109 degrees outside I don't think I would get any selling done.  Instead I would be inside drinking a glass of ice water.  Keep up the good work though it sounds like you are selling a lot down there.

Daniel, no bueno on getting a cramp on the regional run.  There is always next year I guess. Where are you going to be working at during the summer? Keep me posted.

Jaclyn and Zack + kids how was Disneyland?  Sounds nice to have a little vacation! 

Alecia, you have now graduated and moved!  Hopefully you can find a job soon in AZ.

McKay, love reading your updates.  It's good to hear about missionary work....and your crazy insect stories.  Sounds like everyday is a new experience to write about.  Happy Birthday!

Not to much report with me this week.  I continue to learn in the MTC....but still look forward to getting into the field.  It is weird to think that I haven't been out of a block radius in over 3 weeks!  hahah  That has never happened before.  It is weird to see all the new missionaries coming in...they are so confused as to where to go and what to do.  I hope I wasn't like this.  The MTC is getting so many missionaries.  With school being out everyone put their leave date for around now.  The past 2 weeks the MTC has gotten over 2 thousand missionaries and every place is pretty packed.

Well time is running out for me.  Love you all.

Elder B. Howell