First Letter from Elder Mender

HELLOOOOOO,

well let me tell you about MY week! it was wonderful! i got to the mtc and they decided that since i was a week behind i should just jump right into classes! so i skipped orientation and went right to gym with my district they are way fun. my companion is elder bigelow we get along great and we also have a third comp elder johnson he is pretty sweet. as you can imagine my first day was a little confusing but i got through it just fine. i have been at the MTC for three days and portuguese and i are great friends im pretty much fluent i have surpassed my whole district and they want to move me to a district that has been here longer.... no im just kidding it is the most frustrating thing ever to learn portuguese!!!! because im not trying to learn it for me im trying to learn it for my investigators in Brazil. that is a lot of responisbilty! but one thing they really stress is to let the spirit help you to learn. so im keeping the faith and trying to have a good attitude about it. i think i just about have praying down which is pretty exciting! life is crazy here but i love it. we wake up at 6:30 (mom im the first one up every day!) then get ready for the day, go to breakfast, and everyday it is a different variation of class, missionary directed time, language study, gym, personal study, and companion study. we also get to eat sometimes if we are good. it is so much fun i cant imagine a better place for me right now. one funny thing thing that happened this week, our district was talking about typhoid and elder bigelow said he took his pills wrong and he hoped it wasnt too bad if he got it. then another elder informed him that people died from it and Joseph Smith had it! then elder bigelow responded with, "Joseph Smith died of typhoid?!" it was pretty funny! also the food here is great! i dotn know what people complained about! so my Pday is friday as you can tell and we got to go to the temple today as a zone it was so amazing. it truly is the house of the Lord.
i would love some emails.... they print it and bring it to my room. so do that please!! i hate lookng like a loser... and i need questions to answer in this letter! oh we elders waiting to go to brazil are known here as VW's (vedubs) its a term of endearment. i hope all is well i love you all! oh my address is:

elder mender
MTC mailbox #340
BRA-SAL
2005 N. 900 E.
provo ut 84604-1793

so send packages letters... you know whatever you want!

oh since my district is a week ahead of me i had the chance to go the trc and i had to teach in portuguese my second day here! it was crazy! well we just did 5 min approaches then we got to do the first lesson in english it was soooooo much fun. ok im running out of time.... WRITE ME!!!!

love,
elder mender

Mitch is a Missionary!

It has been a long time since we had all the kids together for a photo in their church clothes! The day that Mitch was set apart as a missionary was occasion enough for everyone to gather at church and to allow us to get a family photo of everyone together. I especially liked this one of the kids. It was a great shot! Everyone happy and smiling, including Adi. 

President Cook set Mitch apart as a missionary and here are a few of the the things that he counseled Mitch to remember as he prepares to serve as a missionary in Brazil.

• The Lord has blessed you with goodly parents, they have taught you good from evil.
• You have been able to make good choices in your life, including recognizing when you have made mistakes.
• You have been foreordained to be a disciple in this life and have a testimony Jesus Christ.
• Be valiant and fearless, you will have energy, desire, and be a hard worker
• You will love your companions, befriend them and you will be lifelong friends
• You are blessed with gifts of tongues to both speak and understand the language.
• You will be able to relate to and love the people and will bring many to the covenant of baptism.
• Jesus said that he who believes and is obedient will have eternal life, which is the greatest gift.
• You are commissioned to teach, preach, baptize those that are prepared.
• You will be protected from harm, danger, and disease
• Write to your parents weekly
• Share your testimony with your siblings and your parents.

Leaving....Early

Joe traveled with Mitch to Utah to drop off our missionary at the MTC - literally. There no longer is a tearfest for parents and missionaries alike. There is no program at the MTC to evoke emotions better kept in check by all family members. Due to concerns about the Swine flu missionaries are dropped at the curb and can only engage in a quick hug for the family who are in the car (no non relatives allowed in the drop off area)!

Knowing that I could not go through this experience without shedding far too many tears I choose to stay home and since I had already planned a trip to Maine with friends it was an easy decision to make!

Mitch left home at 3:30 am and traveled to Manchester for his flight to Utah which left at 6 am. Once he got to Utah he visited with friends, including the Gwilliams. He made a late night of it probably getting in close to 24 hours without sleep before entering the MTC on Wednesday at 1pm.

One Last Walk....

With fall coming and Mitch leaving for the Mission Training Center (MTC) we took the dogs for one last walk down the rail trail. It is always nice to be able to go for a walk with the boys and enjoy a little quiet time to talk and enjoy nature. The fall colors were definately not at the their peak yet but the trees gave a hint of what is to come. By this next weekend the leaves will be in their full glory! We took the puppies out with us and Mitch gave them a little of what they were hoping for....a run on the rail trail. I think they ran Mitch into the ground. We'll see how he does in two years!

The photo at the left shows just a little bit of the Mascoma River and the trees starting to turn color. This walking path is my favorite since it is right by our house and it is parallel to the river and is just breathtaking at nearly every point along the way!

Mender Family Photo 2009

We have been averaging a family photo about every two years so it was about time! The last photo we had was when Owen returned from his mission and we are scheduled for our next photo when Mitch returns from his mission! Amazing how time flies.....but I sure am glad we have tortured our children with these family bonding moments. Over the years we have had tears....lost shirts (that is a funny story) and lately just alot of laughter as we have gathered for these photos. I'm so glad we have this history of our family and how they have grown over the years! Now that we have grandchildren in the picture we may need to pick up the frequency of our photo sessions!

Our New Valentine!

Baby Adelynne is now officially crawling! She is fun to watch and enjoyed a weekend of Aunts and Uncles giving her all the attention a little girl could ask for. She is an amazingly wonderfully tempered baby and so much fun to be around now that she has let us see that wonderful little personality.

I've been playing with some digital scrapbooking techniques and had this photo that Sariah took and was able to cut out the background as Adi crawled to Sariah. I'm really enjoying taking digital pictures and manipulating them to get get wonderful layouts. Sometimes they can tell a fun story and other times they are just fun photos! I've been taking some of our old photos of the boys and scanning them so that I can work with them digitally. Of course the results are not quite as fun as when you have a digital camera to start with. It is amazing just how much technology has changed in just the last twenty years!! Of course when you think about it twenty years ago we did not even own a personal computer - let alone a digital camera! Thankfully we did have a microwave and a washer!

Board Bunnies Salutes You!

BYU Students and Snowboards, A Funny Combination

Okay, so I’m teaching a couple BYU snowboarding classes this year that give me a reason to get out of bed on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. These cats have certainly given me a lot of material to laugh at over the last several weeks. I have this one dude in my class. He’s a big guy who constantly accuses me of trying to kill him and his classmates. When I took the class down snow stake for the first time, he was one of the first students to go. I watched from below as he took his first turn, fell over backwards onto his back and shot down the whole hill like a torpedo upside down aimed right for me. He shocked me this last week when “Hippie Mark” skied by and wanted to know if anybody was up for sending it off Bishop’s cliff. I said ‘no’ we were not interested, but then my student shockingly said, “Oh please let me go.” I thought he was kidding, but no. So I excused him from class and said he was no longer my responsibility. It was time for class to end anyways. Me and the rest of the class posted up down the hill because we wanted to see the big guy take the ride of his life. He came charging down the side of the run and shot off the front of the cliff. I couldn’t see the landing from where I was, but I could see him shoot out about 20 feet, arms rolling up the windows, and screaming, before he disappeared from view. He reemerged a new man. I could not believe my student had the balls to go off that cliff. Mitch, Board Bunnies salutes you!