January 3, 2011 -letter

Dear Family,
Sorry mom, I didn’t realize you sent me an email until after I had sent mine off. I only had 30 seconds to read it. I think I got the general idea of it and hope I answer all your questions. I have been getting Uncle Greg’s emails, I haven’t been responding to them, I don’t usually have time. I like getting them though. I’m pretty sure you can get on my email. I don’t know what the web address if but probably something about my LDS mail. My username is camdenadin and the password is byufootball. So could you print them off and send them to me please, thanks. Thanks for all you do for me.
I don’t remember anything else you wrote or questions you had. I hope you all had a good New Year. I did. If you have more questions, just DE them.
Love,
Elder Waite

January 3, 2011 -email

Hello everyone!

How is everyone doing? How was the New Years Party? We didn't party it up to much here, actually we didn't party at all... I was thinking about the riot we had last year, I hope you had as much fun as we all did then. Its been pretty weird here lately, I think that our MTC experience has been pretty different than most other missionary's, being in here for the three biggest holidays of the year is different. Its been fun and I've enjoyed it but I'm not sure we have been learning as much as we usually would. the past two weeks we've had lots of different teachers come in as subs, and because of the semester change all the teachers who are students are getting switched around also. Its been interesting.

This place sort of shuts down during holidays. The book store hasn't been open since Thursday, and the mail room has only been mailing stuff out for a couple hours every day, so none of us have gotten mail for a while. So i hope everything is fine on your end. The Book Store couldn't have picked a worse time to close, Friday and Saturday I was pretty sick with flu like symptoms. I think I ate something that wasn't cooked or something. I ran out of my pepto, luckily the front desk was open and they gave me pretty good supply. Fasting was pretty rough yesterday because I had pretty much been fasting the for the two days before also, I don't think there was a missionary here that was happier to see food than I was last night. However my happiness was short lived because while I was at dinner I saw E' Cox, he was supposed to leave today. I've been talking to him some and he told me that he has some health problems. Poor guy, I feel bad for him, so whenever you guys see him, just give him a big hug from me. he told me the doctor was sending him to Logan, and his fam was coming at 6, so i had to say goodbye to him. I'm better now, and feel pretty good.

No word as far as re-assignments go, I'm hoping for the Temple Square mission, but that is probably not going to happen. I'll be excited wherever I go.

Man I love you guys, it was good to hear your voices. Sadie acted a little scared when she heard my voice, that was kinda funny. Sorry I didn't get to talk to everyone.

Love
Elder Waite

December 27, 2010 -email

Dear Family,

This has been one of the coolest Christmases ever. I hope you all had as much fun as I did, it’s been literally a riot here...

Somehow Christmas snuck up on me once again, and on Christmas Eve I found myself thinking "Holy cow... I can't believe it’s already here." This past week has flown by, as have all the others. As a district we have had lots of fun telling each other our family traditions, or about some of our best memories of the past and best of all going to pick up our packages. Christmas Eve was a normal day except we had a Fireside that night, it was very good and we all felt the spirit of the season. The MTC presidency talked and told lots of stories, and the story in Luke 2 was read to us. After that we watched Mr. Kruger's Christmas, I'm pretty sure I've seen that show every Christmas of my life... but that made it that much better.

Christmas morning I woke up around 4, I don't know why, my body must just have a yearly alarm clock set for then. So I opened my presents, thank you so much for everything, the tie is sweet, I've already been offered 4 ties for it. but I think my tie trading is done, I like my collection as it is. We had a talent show in the morning, President Smith raised the roof with a harmonica number at the very beginning, and the rest of the talents were amazing. The MTC has talent, we all got pretty rowdy, which was kinda bad because the next meeting was with E' Nelson, but it was good. He stayed with us all weekend, we had three meetings with him.

Christmas night we had another Fireside with two legit actors who told us a shortened version of "A Christmas Carol," I'm glad I got to see that, it probably wouldn't have been Christmas without it. Pres. Smith gave us an assignment that night, we were to read Isaiah 9:6, Isaiah 52, 3N 1:1-23, Luke 2, 2N 9:21-24, John 3:16-17 and to record our thoughts in our journal.

I hope you all had a good Christmas, I did, the words “God be thanked for the matchless gift of his atoning son" were in my mind

love e waite

December 25 and 27, 2010 -letter

Dear Family,

                It is just after 6:00 on Christmas Day.  I just ate the sack lunch we were given to eat for dinner.  We have about an hour until we need to be back in the 19m for another devotional.  19m is the gym that we also have devotionals and stuff like that.  We’ve spent lots of time in there lately.  Christmas has seemed to sneak up on me once again this year just like every other.  When I woke up yesterday I didn’t even realize it was Christmas Eve, We’ve been singing Christmas Hymns since Thanksgiving maybe, no matter how much I want the Christmas Season to last longer and to get more out of it, it will never be enough.

                 I hope you guys had a fantastic time at Grandpa’s.  I hope you were able to get my package I sent you, and that you could open it for Christmas.  If not, you will all have a late present.  I listened to that tape, I loved it.  Thanks everyone for talking.  It was fun hearing your voices.  Janie sounded so different.  I think she is talking lots more.  Thanks for the pictures and that sweet tie and clip.  My companion liked his stocking and so did E’ Cox.  Me and E’ Christensen had our PEZ dispensers in the front pickets of our suits.  We got a lot of weird looks but it was cool.  So there are 2 other Elders here that I have got to be really good friends with, we are all really good friends but I really like these two: E’ Kay and E’ Farley.  E’ Kay, as I’m pretty sure I’ve already told you is from Swan Lake.  We talk about all sorts of farm stuff.  What we miss.  E’Farley is a rich kid, he lives by Deron Williams.  But his hear is in the right place.  We play a lot of Connect Four together, we are usually faster getting ready than our companions, so we play lots together.  It is my new favorite game.  I’m not sure why I just told you that except for the fact that I just beat him.

                Yesterday and today have been lots and lots of fun.  This might be one of the most different Christmases of my life up to this point. 

12.27.10

Well I wanted to write lots more on Christmas but we didn’t have time.  It’s Monday, I’m doing laundry.  We just got back from cleaning the Temple.  We cleaned in the cafeteria.  I was assigned a fridge.  I pretty much took the whole thing apart and put it back together after cleaning it.  It was lots of fun, mostly to not be studying.

                How was Christmas for all you guys, what did you all get?  How was Gpa’s house?  Christmas here was really cool, I already told you about some of it in the e-mail this morning but I’ll tell you a little more now. 

                I wasn’t particularly excited for the talent show but it turned out to be the highlight of my day.  I thought there would be tons of piano songs and dumb skits but no… I loved every minute of it.  Mostly what was done was guitar, magic stuff, jokes, piano stuff, but it was a really good serious-not to serious ratio.  After the talent show we all sang “The Twelve Days of Christmas” MTC style.  It was legit.  These were the things we said.  It’s pretty corny but true.  1 rock solid testimony 2 haircuts free, 3 new companions, 4 chocolate milks, 5 hours at gym, 6:30 wake ups, 7 lukewarm showers, 8 hours of rest, 9 vaccinations, 10 new commandments, 11 ?, 12 hours of class.  This was complete with actions.

                Before we ate lunch we were in the entrance part of the MTC looking at some of the pictures and statues in there, my companion turned to me and told me that someone who looked like either E’ Nelson or E’ Bednar just parked in the Apostles parking spot.  The whole MTC presidency was standing around so we just decided to act casual and see what was going down.  Sadly a security guy came up and asked us to leave, but we didn’t go very far.  It was E’ Nelson, it was pretty sweet.  We were the only missionaries in the whole MTC that weren’t surprised to find out he was speaking to us.

                Anyways, things are really going good here.  At the first it was easy to see my Spanish progress but for the next three weeks it was kinda tough to see but lately I have been getting lots better again.  It’s kinda cool to see.  Sometimes when I am speaking I think “How do I know this already?” and then I remember about the amazing gift of tongues. 

                So you might be getting a call home from me soon, but it will only be 5 minutes.  It’s not official yet but there is a good possibility we might be getting reassigned temporarily.  I am actually kinda excited about it.  I don’t even care if I am going to the Snowville mission haha.  We are supposed to know Wednesday at 4:00.  You guys could probably call Salt Lake and find out also.  I’m going to maybe record it on Arianna’s recorder.  Anyways we’ll see what happens.  I wasn’t going to tell you but you probably won’t get this letter til Wednesday anyway so I hope you probably won’t get too excited.  I love you guys!

E’ Waite

December 20, 2010 -email

Greetings from the MTC! How is everything going? Are y'all excited for Christmas? I know I am. I got a huge package full of presents, thanks. I haven't seen Elder Cox yet, I was hoping I'd see him yesterday but no. So who is going to get the Noel Prize this year? Have you already decided? I've been thinking about who should get it, and like usual I can't think of just one family, so good luck with whatever you decide.

I've really enjoyed the stories you sent Mom, and so have some of the other Elders in my District. They will probably get more used today because the temple is closed, so for the two hours that we usually go there will just be spent in the dorms. Next week we'll get to clean the Temple, I'm pretty stoked for that. However that also means that depending on the day we leave I won't be able to go to the temple again...

It’s been a good week. Elder Christensen and I rocked it steady by getting 54 Key Indicators, the best in our zone in two months. Key Indicators are just our numbers of how many lessons we taught and how many investigators we have we really worked hard. One thing I've noticed since being here is how much time we have in a day, and when we plan good how much more we can get accomplished. It’s weird but when we have five or ten minutes to spare, and we don't do anything, I start to feel guilty for not using that time a little better. I guess it’s good that this is a learning experience.

Elder C says hi and thanks for the Christmas stocking. I say hi and thanks for mine also, I've opened the CTR ring and the Gold Fish already. The CTR ring is great, it doesn't fall off my finger at all... in fact it’s sort of stuck on. It’s not really stuck, but I jammed my finger last night and my finger is huge, so I can't get it off. That’s alright, I really like it, I love to spin it.

Espanol is awesome.

Love Elder Waite

December 13, 2010 -email

Hey there Fam!

Hello, How is everything going? It’s so great to hear from all of you, thanks for all the Christmas cards and DE’s (especially you dad). I love to hear about everything the fam does in a day and what is going on at home. That little nativity set is the coolest thing around!!! I love it. I had to wait til this morning to get it from the post office because they were closed when I went to pick it up on Saturday, but it was worth the wait. The lemon bars were delish as well... however, I think that when a post man reads fragile on something he takes the liberty of not being nice to it like he should, but the taste of them was still the same. When I opened them and realized what they were I went and put them in the microwave and purchased a milk to drink while I ate. It was so good to have a taste of home. Thanks Sadie for helping Mom make them.

Things are swell here at the ol' MTC, we teach lessons to other missionaries and they are progressing investigators, the missionary picks a name and thinks of a person they know in their head and tries to be them so we can answer 'real' questions and see what really happens. It’s a far cry from being legit but it’s still kinda cool, we are having two baptisms this Friday, you can all come. I am also getting baptized on that day... my name is Corneilus and I am extremely intellectual. I am another investigator also, my name is Hugo (yes the Hugo in Peru) nobody has been able to baptize me yet. I kinda feel bad that I’m so tough on the missionaries but they told us to think of real people, and he is definitely real.

Elder Christensen is going to Adequipa, I told him to baptize the Yanque family.

I met some missionaries from Mexico, they say that Moterreyans are considered cheap. I'm not sure what that is supposed to mean but it made me more excited to get out there.

Last night we got to see the BYU Mens Chorus for the Sunday night fireside. It was sweet.

Not much time left, I love you guys. Merry Christmas!!

Love

Elder Waite

December 6, 2010 -email

Dear Family,

Santo Vacka!!! Japan?! Who would have thought, pretty sweet. Congratulations Mariah. That is so cool, sounds like you had a lot of fun opening it with everyone there, I'm glad you got some sweet video footage of that so I can see it. If we would have been making bets I would have guessed somewhere in Europe for sure, I guess it’s a good thing we weren't.

Thanks for the copies of poems and such, La Familia y El Cristo Viviento are legit also, I carry them around everywhere. I've already memorized both poems, and recite them so I can fall asleep at night.

Everything here is great. Yesterday I was made district leader again, it’s kinda weird because I'm sort of a transplant but I'm still excited. I am still with Elder Christensen, I get along with him fine, but sometimes he doesn't like to get out of bed so I'm pretty sure he hates me, I'm always turning on the light and talking loud right when I get up... poor guy. We teach really well together, he teaches very sincerely and is kinda soft spoken. We are at about the same level in Spanish so that's really good.

Thanks for all the DE's I love getting them and hearing about the cool thing you are all doing. Hopefully everything is good back home, all the animals are still alive and everything.

I love it here but I can't wait to get out in the field, I've gained two pounds since I've been here but it feels like ten. I am sleeping lots better, thanks for the melatonin, it works like a champ! The past two weeks we have only taught two lessons in English, all the rest have been in Spanish.

Mom I'll write that stuff you told me about in a letter as soon as I get the one you sent. Could you please send me Cody’s and Josiah’s address'?

I don't have much to write about this week. Thanks for everything you do I love you guys!

Love,

Elder Waite