Thursday, September 13, 2012

Mission Letter #2



Well, we got letter #2 from Scott yesterday.  It didn't come as early in the day as the first one, but it was complete with pictures!
(here's some highlights!)

 
September 12, 2012

Everyone!

So if you guys remember my letter last week, a majority of it was about how amazing my district is. Well guess what?

It no longer exists!!

 


For some reason unknown to me they split up only our district. So me and my comp aren't in the same district/zone/ward/classes as any of the friends we made the first week! Honestly it was so hard at first, I couldn't think about it because it made me so upset. But I will be fine. We still hang out with our old zone as often as we can. We went to the temple with them this morning and we have our same roommates. (kyle litzenberger and tyler jones)





  Since we were new to the ward me and my companion were asked to give our testimonies in sacrament meeting. That went well. Our new 'Mission President' was president of the Moscow mission for a while.
Russian is coming along well. I feel like I'm the only person here that is not stressed about learning the language. So I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. We can now teach the basic lessons, but we need a script for the most part. One other thing that stinks about our district split is that we don't have the same teachers we had before. Our old ones were the greatest. One was that investigator I was telling you about from Ukraine and the other 2 go to BYU.

All the 'older' missionaries who are going to Russia are really cool and they help me out a lot with learning the language.  

Oh, I think I mentioned our 1st 'investigator' in my last letter. He is honestly one of the coolest people I've ever met. He grew up in Ukraine and was converted when he was 20 then went on a mission to Moscow. When he was taking the discussions he would hang out with the missionaries all the time. And he said it took over 100 lessons before he was baptized! 

  
 
 Dad asked if I knew 2 sisters (literal) that are both going to Russia (two different missions). Yes I know both of them! One is (was) in my district, she is the missionary me and my companion gave the priesthood blessing. And she is doing fine now. But apparently they said she was going to have to have surgery on her throat or something, but that was before we gave her the blessing.

Well sorry these letters aren't very organized; my brain is on another level at the moment. I blame it on the Russian.  I love you all and miss you! Thanks for your prayers.

 -старйшинa Scott Allen
I wonder how many statues Scott will ride in Russia?!

 
  -->
Scott's roommate from BYU was in the MTC with Scott two weeks.  Elder Jarvis left Monday for Chile.  Scott says he sees lots of Mt. View missionaries, which is always fun.  He asked about cousin Marcus's call--which should come this week!!  It would be great if they could be in the MTC together for a time


We love his letters!  Thank you for your prayers and support for him! 

Love, 
Lori 


Wednesday, September 5, 2012

IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT! mission letter #1

Scott reported to the MTC at 12:30 p.m. on Wednesday August 29.   A LONG WEEK LATER we received his first letter(s)... 
IT WAS WORTH THE WAIT!

I have now felt another emotion that I have never felt before!  My sister, Dawn, has told me several times that I will LOVE having a missionary.  I think I am beginning to feel what she was talking about!

I love every word of these letters!  I hope you all do too.  Yes, I am a proud missionary Mom and couldn't be happier!  Wednesday will be my favorite day of the week!  I'm still trying to decide how often to send Scott's missionary news on to you, but here is the first of many updates from Elder Scott Allen!  Enjoy!

love,
Lori

____________________________

On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 6:36 AM, Scott Allen wrote:
Thanks for the email, dearelders and package! I really enjoy those dearelders so keep them coming. So, the mtc is amazing and I thought I would be 50% homesick but really I am only like 2%. I hope the Allens had a good day on Tanner's birthday, I have been thinking about him alot recently. Tell Aubree I am SO sorry I didn't get to see her on Wednesday! I didn't want to be late and I got a little excited I guess.
Well I think our district is the most impressive district in the mtc, I'll give you a little background on each elder just to impress you.

My comp Teren Bingham (Donets'k Ukraine): from Thatcher Arizona. Look for him on the cover of the New Era (August 2011) and also he is the main football player in the mormon message 'same jersey.' He is a hardworking kid and really spiritual and laid back and funny. If I had to compare him to somebody in mesa it would be Jon Forrest.

Originally we had an elder lambert in our district (Rostov). He was a CLONE of Jason Garry. So smart but had an amazing sense of humor and humility. He was a rower at Stanford! and he was too smart for us I guess, he got moved to an accelerated program to leave in 6 weeks!

Elder Litzenberger (Donets'k): from washington, vale dictorian (sp?) of his high school. He has only done 1 year at BYU yet he is done with 3 years of the Mariott school in finance. He did an internship for KPMG which is sweet. He plays tennis and snowboards and has family from Austria. Reminds me a bit of Tucker Denton

Elder Jones (Donets'k): from west jordan ut. He is alot like Michael Costello. He is a ladies man (was) and played rugby at snow college. He is the funniest one in the district.

Elder Kongaika (Moscow): from Huntington beach. He played football at byu and is now committed to ucla after his mission. He is alot like Davey Allen and what I imagine Tanner to be. He is so nice and he understands why he is here.

Elder Miller (Rostov): from liberty Missouri and took I think 5 years of chinese. Some of the things that he says are just outright hilarious. He is an awesome missionary.

Well sorry to bore you all to death, I just like to brag about these elders because they are so awesome. The sisters are great too. I was a little surprised when I got called to be district leader because any one of them would do just as good a job.

As far as Russian goes I feel like it is coming along well. I can say a simple prayer/testimony and we have been teaching an 'investigator' named Bain from Ukraine. ha ha Elder Jones always does this Bain voice from Batman, maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about but "I was boRN IN THE DARK!"

It sounds like fast Sunday was awesome. We had a testimony meeting and we also watched pres. Monson's 85th birthday celebration. And Tuesday night we had a great devotional where an area of the 70 spoke with his wife. They are straight out of Germany and were really funny.

How are you guys doing? How was Labor Day? Did you go to Strawberry? Jason how is MVT? and basketball? Send me pictures of homecoming! Amy how is Jordan? I have taken pictures, well, one picture for you guys.. Maybe I'll take some more and send them next week. Love you mom, dad, Taralynn, Kory, Bowen, Amy, and Jason! bye!

Elder Scott Allen
I'm back. I forgot to tell you a cool experience I had this week. One of the sisters in our district was really sick and she couldn't really talk and the doctors didn't really know if it was an infection or what it was. So I offered to give her a priesthood blessing and me and Elder Bingham gave her one. It was the only blessing she has ever received. The next morning she still didn't look great so I was thinking uh oh maybe I did something wrong but then when I saw her that evening she was 10X better and she was able to talk normally and everything. Thought I'd share that quick little experience.
Love you again!
Elder Scott Allen