Luke's Letter April 27, 2009

April 27, 2009

Hey Mom and Dad,

Hola! It sure sounds like you had a super fun week with Starla and Emma and are continuing to have fun. Thank you for doing that recorder tape thing, I'm super excited to get it! First I'm going to try to reply to all your letters and stuff then I'll let you know about new stuff this week.
I'm excited about the garden for you, i can't wait to see it. I remember seeing on a movie once that human hair keeps deer away, so if you keep hair from when you cut everyone's maybe try that. I dunno. But I do remember that chicken wire we used to have around the court haha.

About those Quechua dictionary things, I wouldn't send them now, cause I have no idea if I'll be speaking that at all and don't want unnecessary items to pack with me when I travel. I'll let you know when I'm down there, and I'd probably just buy some. Thanks though. I would love to hear any other info you get about Antofagasta as well.

Telly let me know about their car situation, I hope they can get it figured out. I can't believe she's going to have a baby boy here so soon. I can't wait to meet him. I better get lots and lots of pictures.

So when I leave for Chile... Dear Elder stills works but you have to pay for it? That sounds like it still might be cheaper if its like a monthly payment and you can send lots of letters. That'd be cool. I hear that the mailing system in Chile is pretty reliable, but to be safe whenever you send packages you lie about whats in it, and you put stickers of the Virgin Mary and Jesus on there so people won't try to break in and steal. So that sounded like good advice.

Grandma Carol asked me if anyone wears cuff links because she has an elder in her ward who does and my answer is yes, there are a few that do, but very few it seems like. I think they look cool and nice but I don't think I would ever really wear them. Except for maybe very important occasions.

I love hearing your stories about Julie, they always make me laugh. I wonder why brady brunch came up? i wonder if it had anything to do with Dallas always calling brady that at school. I can hear her throwing in the word frog into her songs too, thats very funny. Hopefully she is able to lose weight with going off that med. My weight the last few days has been around 169-170! So about 10 lbs is what I've gained so far. So that's cool.

Well I was made district leader this week. I'm not very excited about it, but oh well, I'll do what I need to do. I really have to make sure I'm a good example with all obedience now, which is helping me. But I don't like how I have to be the guy who gets on people when they're not doing what they're supposed to, its no fun, but it needs to be done. We're having some drama in our district with one companionship that is a trio. They are just having issues with when they teach, and then two of them always are off track when they need to be studying so when the one tries to get them back on task they get all defensive and everyone gets upset. Also Elder Callis is still struggling with his testimony, which is tough. I'm fasting today for those two reasons because I'm not sure what else to do. Hopefully this at least does something. I feel pretty inadequate as district leader though because the elders in our district really do have so much potential and ability to do amazing things, and I feel pretty humbled that I would be chosen to be a leader of them. I'm doing my best though, and hopefully I am able to serve them in a way that helps everyone. Today we have a zone conference and I and another district leader from our zone with a teacher are doing a team teach thing about obedience for 15 min four times as the zone rotates around classes. So I'm trying to think of a good way to teach that without being redundant because we hear about obedience so much while here at the MTC.

Can you believe that next wednesday marks 7 weeks being here? And soon I'll be on my way to Chile with only 22 months to go! I really am excited to get to Chile and see what its like to really teach the gospel, hopefully then I'll really be able to get lost in the work and not think so much about how I can't wait to get home haha. I miss you all so much, especially today for some reason. I've had quite the homesickness. I love you all and can't wait to hear from you some more!!!

Love

Elder Skene