Happy Thanksgiving

Hi!

Well it was another pretty slow week...  seems to be going that way across the mission now for some reason.  Winter is tough.    I got your package!!  Thank you!  I wish I had something exciting to tell you but its been pretty much the norm.  Thanksgiving went really well!  We had dinner at the Carlson's.  They feed us every week, they are pretty cool. I couldn't really taste anything though...  The night before we had dinner with a member in his way cool apartment.  It's right on the shore and it overlooks the bay and all of Cleveland.  He lives on like the 20th floor too so its pretty cool.   But anyway we had tortilla soup and I burnt my tongue from it way bad.  I woke up Thanksgiving and had like little blisters on it and couldn't taste anything haha it still hurts really bad.   Thursday morning we went over to the Jacklin's and had breakfast with them and the other senior couple and the 2 new office sisters that came this week.  It was so fun.  The Hokansons are going home this week though so I am sad about that.  The office staff is like our grandparents out here haha especially when we are neighbors with them.  After dinner we went and played basketball for a few hours.  It was fun and it was nice to have like a full day off to relax.  Much better than last Thanksgiving haha I read my journal from last Thanksgiving and I wasn't very happy haha
I am so excited to see the baby!  Especially in an NU hat! haha Have they decided on a name or anything yet?  I cant wait to see her at Christmas.  What are your plans for Christmas?  Are you just going to Boise?

Well hopefully we have a better week next week.  I am excited for tomorrow.  We are having our Christmas conference in Kirtland.  We are doing it with Youngstown so I get to see my whole zone.  Although it is bitter sweet because I have to say bye to Elder Johnson and Elder Dowley...  They are going home on the 17th...  haha honestly that will probably be the hardest goodbye yet.   I love those 2.  Both of them changed my life.  Hopefully I will get to see them soon though.  I may have Elder Johnson convinced to go to USU with me in the fall but we will see. He doesn't think he is good enough at football to walk on at USU now that they are good haha
Well I home you have an awesome week and I cant wait to hear about the baby!!

Love and miss you!
Elder Skalla 

Slow week….

That is sad about the funeral and stuff.  Thats is good they are taking it so well though.  I dont know what we would do without the gospel and plan of salvation...  It'd be tough.  

This week was horrible teaching wise… We couldn't get any appointments or anything all week.  It was nice weather though so we got to bike and stuff so that was fun.  I really don't have much to tell you since it was so slow.  I did get a little good news.  I was talking to Elder Newey and Elder Read on the phone and they are ZL's in Tallmadge together and Elder Newey just spent the last 6 months in Alliance so I was seeing how everything was in my old areas.  Do you remember like 9 months ago when I was all excited in the library about some guy named Jay coming up and talking to us about food storage and we gave hima  Book of Mormon and stuff?  Well Elder Buxton and I tried to teach him but we could never get a hold of him and he was always busy so we never saw him again.  Like a month ago Elder Newey and Elder Read ran into him again somewhere else.  He just came up to them and started talking to them and said how he met a couple missionaries a few months back. They made an appointment with him and taught him at the church and Elder Newey said he thinks he may have read the whole Book of Mormon we gave him.  When we first found him he had no idea what was in it and Elder Newey said he was talking about everything up until the 3 Nephites in 3 Nephi.   I guess they had a really good lesson and he is still hard to meet with but really interested.  That like made me so happy though!  God is good! 

Thats about the only exciting thing that happened this week though.  We are going to a members for Thanksgiving and then probably playing basketball.  I dont know what the difference is about football and basketball or what the difference is about not playing football on thanksgiving but we can on any other p day but whatever. 

I will keep thinking about the christmas thing.  I dont know if I want to do the DVD thing but I will let you know.  I have a couple of those DVDs with it on there from last year.  It is only like 6 mins long though I don't know if I need to give it to people, we will just show it like we did last year. 

Well I hope you have a good week and a nice quiet Thanksgiving!  

Love and miss you!  

Time is going fast…

Hey I am glad there aren't any vacations to tell me about!  The election was quite disappointing to everyone here.  Most people are mad because voter fraud and all this other stuff about how there were some counties in OH where Romney did not get one vote and all kids of stuff so we are still hearing about it every day haha.   The other day tracting this lady on her porch yelled at us and was like "Romney lost guys, go home!"  I started walking across the street to talk to her and then knocked on the door but she wouldnt open it.  We have been doing this like what 180 years now and people still dont understand, its crazy to me haha.  

Sorry I am e mailing you today,  we were at a funeral ALL day yesterday.  The lady Elder Curtis and I gave a blessing to our first night here passed away so we were helping out with the funeral.  She LOVED the missionaries cuz most of her family are not members so they wanted to make sure we were there.  Thats my third funeral I have been to on my mission.  I never really thought I would go to any.  Especially people that I kinda know.   We had a pretty good week though.  We started the triple up on Wednesday.  Ill be honest, it's not my favorite.  It takes longer to do anything and its weird tracting with 3 and bringing 4 people into teaching appointments and stuff.  My new companion is Elder Hicken.  He is from Sandy and is actually in President Sorensen's ward.   (Found out he is the new stake patriarch)   He has only been out 3 months so he just got done being trained.  I am the only missionary I know of who has ever trained and greenie broken at the same time haha. **mom note: I love missionary terminoligy

Its a long story with the Subaru (photo below) haha I thought I told you but I guess I forgot.  We were in like an alley type street one of our first nights here and it was dark and raining and we had 2 members in the back seat and I couldn't see out the back very well so I was looking at elder Curtis out the side window backing me and I guess he didn't see the telephone pole and I backed into it.  haha It's pretty sad when you back into a pole with someone backing you haha.  Thats why we were driving the van because ours was getting fixed.  I am the driver all the time. Again...   You are supposed to get like transfers off driving but I have been driving every day since December 7th last year when I got Elder Buxton.  Since he couldn't drive, Elder Anderson got his license stolen and Elder Berryessa lost his, I had to drive.  Its ok though I dont mind it. 

Man it makes me sick Kris is coming home so soon.  That went by so fast...  Its gonna be my turn before I even know it.  Elder Johnson and Elder Dowley go home in 4 weeks.  I am seriously gonna cry haha.  I get to see them one more time before they leave.  I still remember Elder Johnson and I talking about how weird it is gonna be when he goes home when we were together and it just seemed like the day was never gonna come.   I hate when people go home haha. 

I like your DVD idea for Christmas!  But what is gonna be on the DVD?  I will keep thinking of other things too and let you know if I come up with anything.  Dont mail anything to me until you find out if I am getting transferred or not.  I will find out on the 17th and let you know the 18th.  Its ok if I dont get anything till after Christmas.  Dont spend more to get it to me by then haha.  Oh and Yes!  please send me a conference ensign!  With some stamps in there too :) 

That is so sad about Dads friend...  I cant even believe that.  Do they know what happened?  Was he the one with the girls my age? 

I hope you have an awesome week!  Sorry this letter is kinda boring.  Love and miss you!

 

Elder Skalla

Dent in the Subaru :(

Back to normal…

Oh man I don't even know where to start with this week.  This has probably been the longest, craziest week on my mission.  It seemed like it took FOREVER.  Maybe it was just because everything was out of the norm and I wasn't getting the groundhog day effect of doing the same things every day haha.  I hope I will remember everything... 

It started Monday right after I got done e mailing you.  It was raining and windy but nothing crazy when we left the library but we got a text saying we all had to be inside by 1 Monday afternoon and weren't allowed to leave until they told us we could.  We were just super board in our apartment all day Monday but then president said if we had appointments Monday night we could go but other than that we had to stay inside.  We had one at like 6:30 so we went to that.  After that is when things started to get crazy.  We were walking out of the appointment and the wind had picked up a ton and the sky kept lighting up green from transformers blowing up everywhere and the power kept flickering.  Driving home we kept getting hit with branches and stuff from the wind.  We were driving down Lake Rd which is this way long straight road and as we were driving everything just went black.  It was kinda cool, it was like a movie.  I looked in my rear view mirror and just saw all the lights going out in a row till the whole city was black.  No stop lights or anything.  It was actually really weird being in a big city but having it be completely dark.  We kept driving and made it to the bridge which goes over the bay and man I thought it was gonna blow the van right off the bridge.  We like kept going back and forth, I couldn't keep it straight.  We finally made it home and luckily Elder Curtis had his little flashlight so we found our way in.   We just planned like normal and then hung out with the assistants for a while before bed.  The wind was just howling at that point and you could even hear the waves crashing and sometimes a tree falling inside our apartment.  It was seriously so loud.  I took some Advil pm and put some ear plugs in but neither of us slept very well.  It got pretty cold in our apartment and the wind was just so annoying.  Tuesday morning we got up and got ready and showered with our little flashlights. Luckily there was still enough warm water for both of us to get 5 mins each of luke warm water before it went freezing.  We had cereal with warm milk over candlelight for breakfast, haha then we just had our normal studies with our flashlights.  It like didn't even get a little bit light till like 9 and even then it was still pretty dark.  Then it got rough.  I went back to bed for an hour, studied, worked out a little and just like sat around board to death until like 6.  Then president called and told us to come to the mission home to spend the night.  It took us like 30 minutes to drive 5 to the mission home cuz every road we took had a tree down but we finally got there.  It was us, the assistants and like 12 sisters there who all didn't have power.  It was actually pretty fun, we just studied the scriptures about storms and sang hymns and stuff, it was a good time.  Slept much better that night and then in the morning we all studied together again and then everyone left at like 10.  We went back and our power was still out Wednesday morning.  We went out that day and did our best to work and stuff.  Our power came back on at about 7 Wednesday night.  We were lucky.  Some members just got theirs back Sunday night.  It has been interesting the damage you see driving around. Just hundreds of trees down, some smashed on houses.  Out of everyone I know here only 3 members had damage to their house.  Saturday we literally spent the entire day helping people clean up yards and chop up trees and stuff like that.  It was fun, but man my back was soar.  I haven't worked that hard in so long haha. Everything is pretty much back to normal now.  I have never seen so many power trucks in my life so it looks like they were working hard to get everything fixed.  I am sure it is still a mess further east though. 

If the storm wasn't enough to make the week crazy we had some more curve balls thrown at us yesterday.  We had our ZDM yesterday and President pulled Elder Curtis and I into his office.  He had to let Elder Curtis know his grandma passed away.  The mother of his uncle that just passed.  Poor kid cant catch a break.  He is taking it really well though.  He was pretty quiet the rest of the day.  This one was unexpected.  Then President pulled me aside and let me know we were gonna be in a triple up this next transfer...  He said he hated to do it to me while I was training but we had an odd number and needed someone that knew what they were doing to take on a "newer" missionary...  So now I pretty much get 2 greenies haha.  I assured president I still had no idea what I was doing but he wouldn't change his mind.  So this transfer is gonna be pretty weird.  I hate being in triple ups but oh well we will make the best of it.   Oh and in other bad news President nixed us playing in turkey bowls this year.  I was upset cuz I didn't get to play last year and this ward has a huge one.  Not sure what the difference is about playing football on p day and on Thanksgiving but whatever.  Its not like I came here to play football anyway.  Well that's about it I think.  I just can't wait to move on from last week haha. 

 

I like your Christ and the government thing!  I may use that sometime.  I am so excited for this to be finally over though ha ha.   It has been wonderful for the church but man I am sick of hearing about it haha.  Some guy just walked up and he was like so you think Romney is gonna win tonight?  I just said Who? with a confused face. haha  His face was priceless.  Well I hope you have an awesome week!  

Love ya! 

 

Elder Skalla 

Storm info….

I got a surprise note from Elder Skalla this morning along with some pictures of the storm damages in NE Ohio.  I will add pictures later but here is his note:

Well it has been a crazy last couple days haha I will tell you more on Monday but I am safe and doing well.   We were inside all day yesterday and about 14 of us had to stay at the mission office last night.  Looks like we will be there again tonight.  Power has been out since Monday at about 8pm.  Our landlord says rumors are we may not get it back till the weekend.  Elder Curtis is doing some training stuff online so I figured I would send you some pics.  No one has power and no one wants to meet with us and we can't tract cause it's still raining like crazy.  It has been tough!  The closer to the lake you are, the worse it was .  And you can throw a rock into the lake from our place so it was pretty insane.   On Monday we were at Wal-mart and before we left I was like I am gonna buy a flash light just in case cuz I don't know if mine works and if this is gonna be as big as everyone says it is I don't wanna be stuck.  Dang good thing I did cuz mine was broken.  We spent all night Monday and all day Tuesday with our tiny flashlights.  We still had a little bit of warm water Tuesday morning so we got a quick showers in the dark haha. Then had to study with our little flashlights and I had a candle a member gave me in Y-town.  There are like a billion trees and power lines down ALL over.  It took us like 30 mins to drive the 10 min to the mission home last night cuz there were trees blocking roads so we kept having to find new roads hahahaha and we didn't even get hit that bad… 

This is the home of a member.  

Comforting note from the MP…

Dear Parents/Guardians of Missionaries in the Ohio Cleveland Mission,

 Tuesday 30 October 2012   11:39 EST

Due to hurricane Sandy and its impact in the US Northeast Area of the United States, we want to report to you that each and every missionary in the Ohio Cleveland Mission is safe and accounted for.  We have experienced much rain, strong winds, some snow, and some power outages.  Please know that your son/daughter is well.  Thank you for sending him/her to serve the Lord as a missionary.  We pray that the Lord will bless you and your family.



Sincerely,

Michael L. Vellinga

President, Ohio Cleveland Mission

Riding out the storm…that they don't know about!

Hey! 

 

Well I got my ballot in the mail a couple days ago so I guess I did my part haha!  Mitt is in Ohio today and a bunch of people were going to go see him this morning.  I guess it's getting pretty crazy here with the election.  Still annoying… no one wants to talk about anything but the election haha, even members.  We can't talk about missionary work, it's either politics or some big storm that is supposed to be coming.  I feel so out of the loop on everything haha.  I am supposed to tell you that the mission is prepared for the storm and to not worry haha. President sent us a message and made us all promise we would tell you that.  It's funny, we have no idea what is going on yet they just tell us to have food and flashlights and to plan on staying inside the next couple of days haha. It has been raining and really windy the last couple days.  Like all day every day…  It's been miserable.  Wednesday and Thursday last week were beautiful though.  We rode our bikes all day both days.  Lake Erie has been crazy though.  The waves are HUGE and you can hear them from inside our apartment.  I guess its supposed to get even crazier.  I will be way upset if we don't get to go out...  It will break my streak.  I have done missionary work every single day I have been here.  Haven't had one sick day or full day off.  Which is a blessing cuz missionaries are constantly getting sick here. 

 

So I am very grateful for the package I will be receiving and I will enjoy it as my LAST one.  I am begging you, please don't let anyone send me food or candy in a package.  I have been eating healthy and its bad enough eating desserts at members houses. I don't need any at home.  I know you want to send me packages and stuff but trust me I don't need it.  Nor any ties or clothing haha. I already have too much stuff that I cant pack.  Everything has been holding up well and I have taken care of it all so most of it should last through my mission.  Gift cards to anywhere are good! There is a QDoba in my area now that I have been catching up on.  haha but don't bank on that for Christmas cuz odds are I will be gone before Christmas.  I do have a couple things I want for Christmas though.  

I did get the letters from the ward!  They were awesome.  I will write back to the Robbins and send Bishop another letter. 

 

That's sweet brother Chipman is Bishop!  Good thing it wasn't dad haha.   Man it will be so weird coming home.  EVERYTHING is changing.   Oh well.  

 

This week went really well!  Found a couple new investigators.  We tracted into a mom and son and went back to teach them this week and it went so well.  They are a way nice Catholic family.  The son is 12 and is like 6"2 and super mature.  He studies religion on the weekends for fun.  He plays basketball obviously.  I told him I knew a few young men that would probably worship him if he came to play on the church ball team.  It was an awesome lesson though, basically they were really curious about the church and she wanted to know why we were so dedicated and why we wanted to do what we were doing so we just bore testimony of why we are on missions and then taught about the Book of Mormon and how it relates to the Bible and how they support one another.  They thought it was the coolest thing ever how you could cross reference it.  That was basically the most exciting thing that happened this week. 

 

Your taco bar thing sounds awesome.  Just make sure there is enough.  Zone conference lunches are something we always look forward to haha. 

 

Well I hope you have another good week and you can keep recovering from all your vacations.  Love and miss you!!!

 

Elder Skalla