A few missionary practical jokes...

Hai Doods!

Yeah I got your letter mom! Unfortunately it's in the other room and I would have to mafan my companions if I wanted to go get it so I'll just have to respond from memory huahua. And yeah! Singing in Priesthood Session is gonna be awesome!!! We had practice this morning and every morning since last Wednesday. So hilarious when we found out about it though cause me, one of my companions Elder Buss, and my district leader Elder Hubrich all got selected and since Elder Hubrich is the district leader, he gets all the mail. So anyways, he came into our room when Elder Buss wasn't there and was like "hehehe let's play a joke on him" and so he stuck Elder Buss' acceptance letter into the next page of his journal where he'd be sure to see it that night. I, recognizing that this joke could be augmented 10-fold, suggested to Elder Hubrich that we pretend that only him and I had been selected even though Elder Buss has a great deal of singing experience as well and it wouldn't make any sense for him not to have been. So all through dinner Elder Hubrich was like dropping hints about how he'd "just gone to check the mail before dinner" and there was some great news he needed to tell me. So when we got to the classroom he gave me the letter and we were like celebrating. Elder Buss of course was looking rather shell-shocked and since the entire district was in on it we were trying not to laugh as Elder Buss tried to appear happy for us which he did quite admirably to be honest. Anyways, the joke went on for a little while and we all started to feel really really bad hahaha. So anyways, then I was like "Mannnnn... if only there was SOME WAYYyyy that all THREE of us could sing...." and then Elder Buss realized the joke and was like "WHAT?!?!?!" Laughs were had. But the moral is.... um... it was pretty hilarious. However, I think it was funnier at the time.

Point is, it probably wasn't as good as when my last roommates Elders Randell and Jacqueir saw some random room inspection form in our room and filled it out for our room, giving me and my then companion, Elder Chan, a horrible score and a comment that was ostensibly from President Baker (My branch president here who I think you might know dad since he's been involved with china for a long time and stuff and I think he said he met you one time... anyway he's the man) that said "Elder Christensen and Elder Chan, I am very disappointed with your beds, this is a warning, next time will be punishment - President Baker"... So we thought we were in like huge trouble and were like "oh no!!!"... turned out we weren't and it was pretty funny since president baker would never write anything like that anyway and our side of the room wasn't even messy ha.

Anyways, practical jokes aside, this week went pretty well. Sundays and Tuesdays are my favorite days of the week since we have awesome talks given by incredibly inspired leaders. Yesterday, since it was fast Sunday, we had a couple of really good talks by our MTC Presidency. President Smith is always really hardcore but still the man and gave a really cool talk preceded by a stern warning that "teenage pacifiers" (chewing gum) will not be tolerated and if anyone has any caffeinated drinks stored in their rooms they should throw them out and if they get a headache from caffeine withdrawal, then it "serves them right" hahahaha. But after that he gave a really great talk on receiving answers to our prayers which was an answer to prayer in and of itself since I fasted yesterday to strengthen my testimony on receiving answers to prayers. It was great to say the least. The other talks were also really good.

I met a sister at dinner last night from San Francisco which was neat. She was telling me about how Asians are like the majority there which is good I suppose haha.

Love you! Thanks for your letters and your support! I hope you find a place to live soon... that doesn't completely bankrupt you :) Just keep praying about it and I'm sure something will come up. Another thing I've been learning recently is how much the scriptures have in them. So multifaceted. Can't believe I thought they were boring before I came here haha. Oh and btw i report to the travel office at 5 am on Oct 6 for my flight into the Oakland Airport (which I didn't even know existed...). Yeah K bai!

Love,

Ian