Episode 3: Chapstick!

Hey mom,

Happy birthday to dad and Tyler! I´m so bummed that I missed it but I hope they had a good time. And tell James I miss him too and I wish he could be here with me.

I´ll be fine without the suit. I´ve just been wearing sweaters to any activities that require suits so it really isn´t that bad. And the cold isn´t that big of a deal because we are almost always inside.

I was actually able to get some chapstick so I am feeling great now.

For  my daily schedule, I am usually in classes all day, with breaks for meals and an hour and a half break for gym. It really gets very monotonous, but there are some good parts. We have a few "investigators", who are actually just some of our teachers, that we teach almost every day.

On Sundays the entire CCM meet together for sacrament meeting and priesthood, and then we separate into our individual districts for Sunday School. We also have a few devotionals from President and Hermana DuVall and end the night with a random church movie.

I keep all of my money in a little safe in my closet, so no one can take my money. I´ve only bought the hymn book but in two weeks we are going to take a city tour to a few shops that the elders usually pick up some souvenirs from.

I haven´t received anything from Dad yet in the mail, but it will probably take about a month from when he sent it to get here.

I am allowed to email anyone, I just only have an hour to do it so that´s really the only restriction on my end. Anyone is free to write me and I will try to write them back as soon as possible.

It´s weird to think I've already been here two weeks. We are getting brand new North Americans tomorrow so it will be interesting to see that from a new perspective.

I miss you and everybody else back at home and I can´t wait to see you at Christmas.

Elder Daniel Parker

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Hey dad,

Happy birthday! I´m sorry I couldn't reply to your email last week. I ran out of time so I didn't get to write anything.

Thanks for the picture. The plaque looks great and that´s exactly what I wanted for my scripture. It still just doesn't seem right to have that be my plaque.

That´s so sad to here about the people in Venezuela. I've had the privilege to get to know some missionaries from Venezuela these past two weeks and they are super cool people. I guess it just takes a rotten leader to ruin a country.

That´s great to hear about the man who is going to the temple. It´s such a great place and I really wish everyone had the opportunity to go there. I had the opportunity to do a Spanish session today and it was so cool, but also very hard.

That was a really great thought about Alma. I was actually just studying his and Amulek's preaching to the people of Ammonihah and they are just such powerful missionaries. The hardships they endured were unthinkable, and yet they still stayed true to their calling.

It´s been great to hear from you and I can´t wait to see you at Christmas.

Hasta Luego,

Elder Daniel Parker