Week 1

Dad,

Hey I did get your letter, and I want to thank you for it; it was so good to get a letter from home!  I love you guys so much and miss you (the good kind haha I'm not homesick quite yet).  Its been quite an incredible experience here, the spirit is so strong and I've been learning a lot!  The only thing that sucks is sitting in a classroom for 8 hours EVERY SINGLE DAY!  The second day I got here we started teaching, that was so scary!  As my companion and I continue to teach "investigators" we learn more and more that we don't teach but the Spirit does.  We are getting a lot better at learning how to bring the Spirit and meet the needs of the investigator rather than just teaching some random lesson that doesn't pertain to them at all.

The food here tastes really good, but is AWFUL coming out the other end; I'm pretty sure my district hates me because of how much I fart!  My Companion is Elder Bean, he is from Blackfoot, Idaho and is really cool and has such a strong testimony.  We have bonded so much and work really well together; the other companionships are jealous of our relationship and how things just seem to flow for us.  My alarm clock is still intact, I actually keep forgetting to turn the little switch to turn on the alarm, thankfully my companions have one too, so they always wake me up.  It is so hard waking up and staying awake in class!  In my zone there 8 people going to Tallahassee and 7 going to Ft Lauderdale, but I have met a lot of other people going to Tallahassee as well!  Thursday (today) is my P day, and we get to go to the temple today!!  I am honestly so excited!  

I have seen so many friends (Nicholas Ogden, Bryce Young, Brady Theyer, Spencer Fox and a lot more!) and have gotten some pretty solid picture, but I don't know how to send them, so I'll have to wait until I get to Florida for someone to teach me.

 Conference was absolutely incredible!  I just wrote a little bit about it in my email to mom, and I'm going to write you a letter telling you more about it later tonight, but getting up and standing with all the missionaries was one of the most powerful things I have experienced; the spirit was so strong! when we sang We Thank the O God for a Prophet the line "and those who reject this glad message shall never such happiness know" really struck me.  I need to try my absolute best to bring the message to everyone, but some people will reject it... that is so incredibly sad; it breaks my heart!  If they don't accept the message they wont know what it is like to be happy; they say that they are happy how they are, but they wont know true happiness.

Wait, you have to tell my about home!  Who's in the playoffs?  How are the angels doing?  The Dolphins?  And the Utes?  What are they ranked now?  I heard that Oregon lost again to Colorado, is that true?  I need detailed sports updates so I can know how my teams are doing and who to laugh and make fun of because of their team hahaha.

 Oh and also there is this website called dearelder.com it is a way for you and mom or whoever to write me a letter that will arrive to me the same day that you send it, so I dont have to wait until P day to read it and I can write whenever I want, just not email.  You just go to the website and click on write a letter and then fill out your address and then mine and write whatever you want.  It only works for the MTC though, not the actual mission field, but I would love to hear from you guys that way as well, so please let everyone know about that.  But I will always look forward to email you and mom each week! 

I have to go right now, but I'll be able to call you at the airport and talk for a little, I dont know what time I'll be there, all I know is that I wake up at 3:30 AM!  And I am writing a lot of letters today, can you send me more stamps?  I shared the goodies with my roommates: Elder Bean, Elder Turner and Elder Millard. 

Okay, I have to go.  I love you and I pray for you and the rest of the family every day!  I'll email you my next p-day, keep me posted on sports and life at home.

 I love you so much!

Elder Schipaanboord.

HI mom!

I am assuming that you sent that email before you got my letter, well at least I hope you got it... but my first couple of days were really hard, not because the work was hard, but because I had no idea where to go and where everything was, every building here looks exactly the same! But I have gotten my bearings and understand mostly everything now. It is really hard to get enough sleep here, because we stay up talking and laughing and then write in our journals for like 30 minutes, so we don't get to bed until like 11:45 haha. My companion is Elder Bean, he is from Blackfoot, Idaho, a town of only 10,000 people! He is really cool and we have become really close! Thankfully I'm pretty sure that I have packed everything, except for pictures of people!

Thanks for sending pictures of the family, that was honestly the best part of being here until now! That is one thing that I would like more of, pictures of family and friends! I miss you guys so much but its okay cause I am still pushing forward and haven't looked back! 

Conference was absolutely incredible!! There were so many missionaries there and everytime we stood and sang, I could feel the power that was in the room and being the cry baby that I am, I started to cry! I learned a lot at conference, even though Elder Turner and I studied Lehi's dream through a couple talks... hahaha! I am also writing you a letter tonight, and I will tell you more about conference and my experience with it in there! Until then, I only have an hour on the computers, but I'm going to separate my time into two shifts so I can see if you have responded. Feel free to ask any more questions and don't forget to tell me about home!

I am trying to figure out all of the secrets to the MTC as well hahah! Today was laundry day... and nothing changed colors and everything turned out clean, its a miracle!! Gosh I am so jealous you got to go up to Mirror Lake, I love that place so much, I bet it was absolutly amazing with the leaves changing colors and the weather is perfect too!

Mom, I'm so proud of you!! I've raised you well; you've learned to love the Utes just as Dad, Evan and myself hahaha! You have to take pictures and tell me all about it and all the funny signs you see at Game Day, yes even if they lose!

Love you, 

Elder Schipaanboord