Last Email from the MTC

This is us "Saving the President" ..."It wasn't planned just happened".

With his class and teacher Brother Bindrup

This is Nathan's last email before he leaves. He sent home a few pictures and so I thought I would post a couple of them. He flies out on Monday. We are looking forward to talking to him on the phone. I hope you enjoy reading his email and I hope we have one to post next week.

Hey everyone what’s up? So this week was better. We got our first apostle as a speaker on the last Devotional we had here. FINALLY!!! Waahoo! It was Elder Richard G. Scott. He did a great job it was a fantastic talk. This week my companion’s ankle got really swollen so yesterday we went to the health clinic here at the MTC and had them check it out. They didn't know what was wrong so they sent us off to the some kind of foot doctor. So we went out into the real world… I know intense. They don't know what’s wrong with his foot so they x-rayed it to see if he had a stress fracture but he didn't so they gave him some stuff and if it’s not improving by Friday he can't leave with us on Monday. But the really intense part is… as were standing outside this place waiting for the shuttle back to the MTC. We have two ladies probably 23ish come up and talk to us and we were like thinking is this allowed?!!? I mean were not even use to talking to the sisters in the MTC, it was intense. Then some guy drives by and says hey. Then he steps on his breaks and goes into reverse and comes back, and then he asks us if we needed help. And were thinking do we look like we need help. But we said no, he says, let me give you something. And then were like OK buddy were not 3 were not falling for the I have candy get in the van trick. Turns outs he wanted to give us some money to buy dinner. But we told him we were still in the MTC and we were waiting for the shuttle back. We told him that we were leaving on Monday and we were off to Singapore. Pretty intense I know. That’s my real world experience. We have a five hour and 30 min. layover in LAX and we are planning on giving out pass-along cards and some Books of Mormon it’s going to be pretty sweet. We’ve learned quite a bit and we can speak the language pretty well now it’s just understanding what people say over there ha-ha. So we have 4 days left really only like 3 since we don’t count Sunday’s because it’s just packing and meetings no real hard core learning going on ha-ha. I can't remember what the really long word means, something to do with judgment in the Muslim court. And I am pretty much out of time so sampai minggu.

Saya Mengasihi Kamu Elder Watkins

Itching to leave...

Apa Kabar Setiap Orang! (Hello everyone)

This week was alright not too much to report. We should be getting our actual flight plans today since we leave in like 11 days, so were all excited. The language goes good for lessons and such not so much for everyday vocabulary ha-ha but I’ll pick that up somehow over there. We got a new teacher who served in Malaysia-Singapore mission named Brother Maynes from Oakley Utah. So now he is telling us all the words we learned in Indonesian aren’t used in Malay so we are learning basic words all over again sadly :( oh well. So story time I suppose.... So this goes down on Monday (Senin) and I am flossing my teeth being a good missionary who wants healthy teeth and guess what happens as I floss my bottom teeth? My stupid permanent retainer breaks off on one side!!?! I mean what the crap is this! Isn’t it suppose to be permanent and floss goes and breaks it off? So good thing I have the pull in and out one for my bottom teeth or I’d be screwed.... So 1 more p-day I have left after this one we have 1 more day of everything right now except 2 Sundays and 2 Mondays but the one Monday is when we leave and it’s just straight up fun stuff with what they call culture day. We were the host missionaries yesterday, which was fun stuff. It had been over for about 20 minutes and we were walking to lunch and had our host stickers on still when 3 cars roll out with 6 new missionaries who showed up late so the MTC police was like, Hey you two go and help these guys so we did. It was hectic since everything was all closed for the original planning.... wadu.... so for another hour we helped 6 new missionaries find out what they are doing ha-ha the lady said we could just leave them and let them figure it out but I remember how sucky the first day was in the MTC ha-ha. Oh and its SYL speak your language all day every day till we leave the MTC and then it will be like that in Malaysia ha-ha. We found out that there isn’t a middle class really it’s just really poor or rich so it’s got some extremes that way. Our new teacher was telling us how there are head hunters still around and stuff and that there is a religion that’s called Ibon traditional and all they do is one time a year they get together sacrifice a chicken and get drunk. So this will be some intense culture but I am planning on not being ethnocentric(SP). Mempertanggunjawabkanyalahnya that is the longest word in the language it’s pretty intense. Elder Porter from Delta is having his parents make us some Malaysia shirts there pretty tight they sent us a demo one. They are sending us one cause the stupid MTC doesn’t have one for Indonesia, Malaysia or Singapore so we all felt super robbed it’s pretty cool. I don’t have anything else, so if you guys have more question feel free to email me them so I have something to write in this.

Selamat Minggu Elder Watkins

The rest of the Salami Story...

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Hey what’s up? So this week was alright. We were host missionaries yesterday so I saw Jared he looked a little scared but who wasn't on the first day. We saw tons of new elders there was like 354 new missionaries coming in yesterday. The MTC was a little empty there were actually extra seats in the main fireside area. Our teacher Brother Bindrup left yesterday for his CIA job in D.C. where he will use his Indonesian as well. It was a sad day but a good day. He showed us pictures from his mission and told some stories it was awesome. Then to top it all off his wife came in and we got to meet her and then she had 11 JBC!!! Wadu!! So it was an awesome day. What even made it more awesome was the bread from Grandma Berlin thanks so much you rock! So... about the salami that afternoon my companion had to mail a package so I started to talk to the mailroom lady about the rule on sending salami and she explained and so forth. The main mail lady there turned around when I said salami she looked at me funny and she sent another mail lady off to the back. This other lady is explaining the rules on packages and says if it’s cooled or they can smell it they open your package. And then I hear in the back ground we still have it. The lady is still explaining and I hear in the back ground it’s vacuum sealed and still cooled. Then this other lady comes out of the back with the salami!! Then the head mail lady was like what were you planning on doing with this salami? And I was thinking well duh I was going to hit people with it and not eat it at all... but I explained how we were planning on eating it with another district all in one night. And she’s like well do you still want it and I said oh yeah! And I got it waah-hoo. So that night we had a feast and it was awesome. So I ended up getting it in the end. BUT DONT SEND MORE I MIGHT NOT BE THAT LUCKY AGAIN ha-ha. So there’s that stories and it’s pretty awesome. We taught a man in the TRC last week (training resource center) whose name is Jackson from Orem and he just came back from Indonesia 5 months ago and joined the army reserve and is an interpreter for the military in Indonesian… way cool. He said that there are a high number of jobs in the CIA and in the military for Indonesian speaking people, which is way awesome. Last week we got a new group of missionaries heading off to Hawaii so that’s to President Peterson, right the mission president that you guys know? Yeah well they are pretty cool and we played them in basketball and had to whoop up on them :) Their pretty cool I told them to look for Elder Hatch over there when they get there. Another story there’s a place called the RC which is the call center for missionaries to call back the people who order there free BOM or Bibles etc. I called a man named Jeffrey Smith in like North Carolina and he was way cool. He just talked to me about how he lived in Utah and how much he loved LDS people. He lives on a plantation now that has been passed through his family. He said that he loved us and he knew what we believed in was true because it was based on Christ and how we need to be more like him. He was way cool. He said he wants the missionaries to come over every week and he'll feed them dinner and then listen to their message! Which was way awesome. He then proceeds to tell a story about how he got out of jail in Mesa Arizona or something like that and he has a problem with alcoholism and says he still does but he just had been released from the jail (his overnight stay for something) and he was contacted by two sister missionaries. He said he was rude to them but wanted to hear their message but didn’t so he’s always felt bad and then proceeds to tell me that I need to have a fantastic night and have a BBQ ha-ha but he was a great man. I bore my testimony and told him I would send a thing out to get the missionaries to him. It was a great experience even though I hate the RC so much. You generally get very angry people.... umm I can’t really think of anything else so Selamat Minggu! (See you next week) Elder Watkins oh yeah we should get our flight plans like next week some time or early the week after. And sadly we still haven’t had an apostle come to speak to us :(

Yellowstone Vacation

Yellowstone in all its Beauty

The Wildlife we saw in Yellowstone

It was hard to think about doing a vacation this year with out Nathan but we knew we needed to do it for Landon. He was six years old the last time we went to Yellowstone and it was his idea to go since he doesn't remember very much of it. You usually have to book rooms in the park a year in advance so I took a chance and called and asked what dates they had available in August and we worked it out with Jeff's work schedule and headed out. It was perfect weather. We love to get up early in the morning and hike down to the falls when everyone else is sleeping and you can enjoy it all to yourselves. We saw lots of wildlife including grizzly bears, black bears, a fox, big horn sheep, wolves, antelope, deer, elk, eagles, osprey, a badger and of course tons bison. We saw a mom and her two cubs three nights in a row which were really fun to watch. We had a great time but the back seat was a little too quiet without Nathan reminding us when it was time for food.

Scott Lake Fishing Trip

The Lake Trout Jeff caught on Dunvegan Lake

The 42 inch Trophy Lake Trout

The 39 inch Trophy Northern Pike out of Scott Lake

Jeff went with the CES Group to some remote lakes in Canada last week on a fishing trip. No cell phone service after he left Saskatoon, Canada! Great for him but not so great for me so I was surprised to get the email below on Saturday. He had a great time...I felt like I had two missionaries out. Landon ended up with Strep throat. So it was a quiet weekend for us. The pictures above are of some of the Lake trout he caught.

They have the internet available in the recreation room so I thought I would send a quick update. The time here is the same as SLC. We had a great day of fishing. We flew out to a lake called Dunvegan. I caught at least 21 lake trout. I caught 5 trophy class fish. The biggest was 42 inches. I missed out on the biggest fish of the day by 1". I did catch the most trophy class fish out of anyone. Jeff Thompsen caught 3 and he was the next closest.Tomorrow we are going to fish for Northern Pike on Scott Lake. Hopefully it will be as good as today. The weather was 68° and partly cloudy. Not too bad.

Apparently they search your packages...

I thought I would post this picture he sent home. I am sure glad to see they let them out once in a while. Here is his letter from this week...

Apa Kabar setiap orang! (Hey what’s the news everyone), everything here is going alright.... it’s really boring and I glad I am on week 5 and that’s what makes it awesome. So we found out kind of when the Indo group generally leaves... we go to the airport around 5:00 a.m. from the MTC usually, then fly to San Diego or LA then to Hong Kong or Japan either way if we stop in Japan or Hong Kong and if you have somewhat of a fever in Hong Kong they will put you in to quarantine at their airport so if you have any signs you have to chill there an extra week. So apparently they search your packages or something cause the salami you sent they took it and left a wonderful note instead.... saya benchi mail room.... (I hate the mail room) it says it was either thrown away or it was given back to the delivery service.... so either way, it sounds like it was wasted. Bryce did see my nose (hidung) he said it was pretty nasty I never really saw it but I heard it was bad. It was a lot better the next day. It still hurts if you brush it with your hand hard or something. We also got new beds in yesterday there nice new cast iron beds, same mattresses though just new bed frames. And our AC hasn't been working in our building for the last week or something it’s terribly hot all the time. We got to do Indonesian names at the temple last week so it was awesome and hilarious to watch the temple workers try to pronounce the names. The language is coming better, we really only have religious vocabulary, so we will teach the 3rd lesson on Saturday and its pretty simple because its only like 15 new vocabulary words to learn. We had Malaria education last week, we now have to take a pill every day starting the week before we head over there to help prevent Malaria and then 4 weeks after we get back we have to continue to take it. The guy just told us horror stories about it so I’ll take it and use bug spray. Our teacher said at one point they would go to an investigators house and they couldn’t see the investigator they taught who was just five feet away, because of the amount of mosquitoes. So I will use my bug spray ha-ha. We also have to use sunscreen all the time because the medication you have to take makes you more sensitive to the sun too... totally awesome I know. Well that’s all the time I have Pisau! (knife) ha-ha sounds like peace out but it means knife. Sampai Nanti Elder Watkins