MTC Holiday Season

December 4, 2013

Dear family and friends,
  I was so excited to receive your letters in the mail! You guys are awesome! I hope to get back to all of you that have written me, it just might take a little long because of my schedule and the time limit on the computer today, so I will try to hand write letters back. Please keep writing to me, I love to hear what's going on back home and I feel the love :)

  
  I'll talk about this week backward. 

TUES: Yesterday it snowed for the first time! Woke up and went outside at 6 and there it was just beginning to snow with a thin layer already formed. Twas Glorious! But my companion didn't think so because he's a Minnesota man where it apparently gets -40 and he has learned to hate the snow. But the other two Elder roommates are from Cali so we are all freaking out and taking pictures and one Elder is picking up snow with his bare hands and just having a ball. After we had our fun, we went to the bookstore where I needed to  

Snowflake tie from the Eltons

pick some stuff up. I was wearing my blue snowflake tie (Thanks Eltons!) that day. I put my stuff on the counter and the cashier said " Hey, nice tie" I said,"Thanks, I thought it would fit the recent occasion today(very enthused)" and as I'm walking away he mumbles "yea, unfortunately". So us Cali strong men are like the only people here enjoying the snow. Everyone's telling me that I'm gonna get tired of it in a week, which is probably true, but I just love it because it reminds me of coming over here to go skiing in Alta, and those were some great memories of skiing we made there. Oh, also, yesterday I sang "Angles We Have Heard On High" in the choir. I'm no good at singing but my companion is and somehow he managed to convince me to go even though I had to miss dinner, and I love my food. (even if it's the MTC food)

MON: My comp and I had to do a lesson training called TRC. This is where we go and teach a little message to some return missionaries who speak Romanian. So we had a lesson planned and everything and knew what to say and had all the Romanian phrases that we needed. So we knock on the door and a lady greets us and says, Ce face? We say, you know, bine, bine. și tu? She says, bun. Elder Oldham says, Ma numesc Elder Oldham and I say ma numesc Elder Houk. She askes me "De unde suteți?" I say California and she says Vista? At that point I was like, she knoooows where I live?? I say da and then she says this big long block of Romanian giberish and in the middle of it I here the name "Remsburg" So I was like whoa oh yea ummm (I could only speak Romanian to her and she could only speak Romanian to me) ....cool haha so I couldn't ask her any questions about any of the stuff, so we just went on with our lesson. So at that point I really wish I knew Romanian, but it was cool that I got to see who she is and she's friends with my teachers and stuff too so it was just funny that we got to teach her because there were 4 other people that I could've had.[There is a Remsburg family that lives in Vista whose daughter just got home from her mission in Romania a few months ago.]

SUN: Sunday was fast Sunday. We fasted and had a long 2 and half hour MTC Experience talk thing which was pretty good but everyone was tired so when the organ started playing, it was like a sea of rising heads from their chest's. haha. I'm not gonna lie, I was guilty of closing my eyes there for a second, but not as much as my companion and that's all that counts! After the talk thing we had sacrament meeting and I decided to bear my testimony. I talked about how the priesthood had blessed my life and family and how that I may not understand everything or every piece of doctrine that I read, but that I can feel the spirit testify to me that these things are true and the miracles that have happened are of God. And it just simply makes me happy to have that with me. That night we watched a talk given on Christmas a few years ago given by Elder Bednar. He spoke about Christ and how being like him we can become converted to the gospel fully. I would explain in more detail but I just don't have the time, but it was a great talk and has changed my view of why I'm here serving my mission and how I should live my life in general.

Saturday and Friday had nothing really worth writing about soooooooooo,

As Zone Leader was in charge of Thanksgiving Service Project

THURS (aka Thanksgivin'): Thanksgiving went great. Yes, I was definitely missing all my family immensely. I wished I was at home watching the parade and the dog show afterward and then everyone coming over and eating and stuff, but I had to get over it because I wasn't home so I just made the best of it and you know what, it didn't turn out that bad, actually it went great (as I said before, lol) In the morning we had this service thing we did to feed the hungry children of Utah with soup bags. Our aim was to make 350,000 of 'em. Since I was a zone leader I was in charge of one of the 70 booths there on the first shift. There were two shifts. My job was to make sure everything at my booth went smoothly. It was an assembly line situation where one person would put in the salt then the vegetables then the lentils and then seal it up and put it in the box. My people did great, almost too good, because supervising is kinda boring, but hey then I got to clean up for an hour and a half after the event (by choice) and that was what felt like my true service.

Romanians, Germans, and Italians

That night we watched a movie called Ephriam's Rescue. This movie is a MUST to see. Hands down best and heart warming Mormon movie I have ever seen! And after the movie there were Christmas lights up! And they were b-e-a-utiful! We took some pics by them, had some fun and then hit the hay. And that was my Thanksgiving.  This week went by pretty fast and I'm hearing it's just gonna get faster, so I'm gonna enjoy every little thing while I can. I love you all and I'll talk to you next week!

-Elder Houk 

This California guy loves the snow!