In Peru... Finally!

Thammy

The enter button doesnt work and neither does the apostrophe but its all good. Im in Peru!!!!!!!!! Dont get worried or freak out or anything, but I really didnt have the flight of my life. I puked 7 times yesterday hahahahaha. I ate once and I couldnt hold it down. I really wish I would have been smart enough to put the dramamine in my carry on. We had twenty minutes in the Georgia airport to get on the next plane so I didnt have any time to call you or find any dramamine. I have been motion sick all of today too. Its been extremely rough to concentrate, but Im sure I will get better and all will be well. I met my companion today. I dont remember his name because its spanish, but he speaks about as much spanish as I do english so its really fun to talk and laugh at eachother.
I hope I never have to ride another plane again, but if I do I will get some dramamine in me. So far, my experience has been kinda bad, but Im really trying to have a good attitude. I woke up this morning, looked out my window, and just started laughing. The CCM is like a little oasis. It is clean and beautiful here, but outside the gates is just scary. The buildings are run down and everything is foggy and moist and noisy and spanish. I think I will come to love it here. The entire nothern mission (only four of 150 in the CCM are going there) is jungle. There are no major cities, and in an area bigger than Utah, there are less than 5 stakes. Time to get to work!!!!!!!!!! For some reason, the enter button worked once, but only once haha. I just had my first meal here, we had rice and unidentifiable meat and something else that a local couldnt explain and chunky chunky juice and "pito pan" which is just a hilarious little piece of bread. Apparently mail is going to take a while to get to you all so sorry If you dont get any written letters for a while. Ive had four hours of sleep in the last 30 hours or so and Ive eaten one meal so I need to go take a nap before my system just stops trying to keep me alive haha. Its really not that bad. Everything is fine mom. its funny, all the paper is wet because of the humidity. I love you all. I hope you have a good Thanksgiving!!!!!!!!!!! I cant wait to see what they whip up for thanksgiving dinner hahahaha. Elder Emett p.s. my old district is here and its so cool to see them again!!!

VOY A PERU!!!!

Thammy

VOY A PERU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It will be my companion and I plus a few other Elders leaving tomorrow. I know a couple of them pretty well now. I'm gonna go buy a calling card today so I can give you all a call from the airport. I don't know which airport I will call from, but I will try to call. I will fly from here to Texas, then to Miami, then from Miami to Peru. I hope there is a layover in Miami haha. I will write Beckham a letter today, I have been busy so I didn't write one back, but I did get one from her. I don't really mind if I get late Christmas. They don't even celebrate Thanksgiving there and I'm not sad at all. I wrote in my journal two years ago that I loved watching Christmas Vacation with the family, but it's not something I would want my kids to watch. I'm glad you all agree.

It's gonna be sad with no Christmas tree. It's gonna be sad without my district, but I can't wait to get there.Stake Conference sounds choice. I don't even know what that is. I don't have much to write. You have a letter coming your way with the top 7 reasons I stayed in the Provo MTC. One thing I didn't mention in that letter is that my companion and I finally decided we didn't want to leave and now we're leaving. I will e-mail you from Peru and tell you lots more than I have to say now, but it's time for breakfast. I hope I get to talk to Jake tomorrow, that would be chill. Tell the family hi for me and have a good thanksgiving!!!!

Elder Emett

MTC

Theammmy

Sorry if that last e-mail made everthing sound just awful. Everything is great! I have a companion and we are best friends and we are doing great with spanish. We don't have one classroom, though. We actually have two. We use our old classroom for MDT time and the other classroom (with people in it) when they have a teacher. We have not been forgotten, I just have a sense of humor. The travel office is still no good though. Keep sending your letters here, I am getting them. I got the package of cookies. I will be giving you a phone call when my visa comes so don't worry, you won't be left in the dark. Please don't come pick me up, cuz if you try I won't even talk to you, not even in Spanish. We could have gone and greeted the new missionaries, but we didn't want to.

I don't know where it would be best to send Christmas to. Holidays are not celebrated here, so you could really just keep it until I get there in a couple years. Please send me a picture of Addie. She is the only Emett I have never seen and I've dreamt of her 3 times now. Everyone who comes in my room loves our family picture, we have the best family of anyone here- no joke. Tell jake. I'm stoked Zac went to a fireside! Those are the greatest! Keep reminding him about the atonement.

Was Ben Sadies king too?? Has Thanksgiving happened yet? I can never remember when that is, but I guess that's good cuz it don't exist in Preu. Tell Zac I'm gonna write him a letter right now, and tell ben that he should have got one from me either yesterday or he will get one today cuz I sent it Tuesday. Time here is so fast. It feels like it was just barely barely sunday. Sorry I don't really have anything interesting to say. If you ever see Chase around tell him that I love him and not to eat the chicken when he gets to the MTC. I love you all.

Elder Emett

Stuck in the MTC

Theammy

No se. I haven't one clue what's going on with my visa. There is this place here called the travel office. The less you go there, the happier you are - that's a real formula. Nobody who works there has probably ever experienced the joy of a smile and probably never will. My Elder and I are encouraged to check there every day, but every time we do we have a sub-par experience. I'm probably being harsh. All I know is that we are waiting for the intercom to call us down and then we will be out of here the day after that happens. Our situation is so weird. We don't really have any teachers or even a classroom anymore haha. We are District X. We are having a good time and making the most out of it, though. I come up with a reason, every day, why God wanted me to stay here. Life is just better when I take time to notice His hand helping me and preparing me for whatever it is he wants me to do. I'm STOKed for Zac. He is such a lady killer. I never even went to FHE with the college ward haha. I hope he enjoyed it and I hope he plans on moving in with me when I get home.

There isn't anything like listening to an apostle of Jesus Christ talk about His gospel. More powerful than anything they say during their talks is their testimony of Christ. It gets me every time. Please break up your e-mails into paragraphs, trying to find the question marks in the e-mail is like a giant game of EyeSpy (I know I spelled that wrong, it looks weird Ispy, or maybe I-spy) and It's just not figured into my schedule. I'm glad Ben had a good time at sadies with KELSEE Broadhead, she's tons of fun. I had a seminary class with her. I love how weird everything is there. Sandra is in Hawaii and Linda is with the Fullers and Matt finally likes us now that I'm gone. Sounds like my prayers are working!!!

I've had two dreams about Baby Addison now. According to my head she is really cute and she doesn't like me. Sounds like all my other nieces! Can't wait to meet her! I could maybe could be here for Thanksgiving. My companion and I are 100% convinced we will be serving in the Provo, MTC mission. Our first area will be the in the cafeteria somewhere. I hope Thanksgiving is actually celebrated where you guys live, cuz nothing is here. And of course I remember when James came over. Tell Shaersti that there are roughly 690 days in 23 months (the remainder of my time away), 16,560 hours in 690 days, about 993,600 minutes in 16,560 hours, and there are roughly 59,616,000 seconds in 993,600 minutes. That means I will be home in roughly 60 million seconds. See ya then.

Elder Emett

Elder David A. Bednar

Thammy

This is my extra p-day time and I want to tell you something real quick! My companion and I have tried to come up with reasons why we are not in Peru and we came up with another reason Tuesday night!!! Elder David A. Bednar came and spoke to us! It was so cool! Everyone in the MTC has assigned service to do twice a week and we get to set up the chairs for the devotional, so we were in there setting up chairs when he just walked in and starting preparing for his talk! He is a good guy. His talk was one of the more amazing talks I've ever heard ever ever ever. We are so lucky, we have been here four weeks, and had an apostle come in and talk to us every week! Russel M. Nelson, Richard G. Scott, M. Russel Ballard, and David A. Bednar!

Still no word on the visa situation. We are just doing our very best to be patient and learn as much as we can. Hearing about Scoots's baptism was pretty cool! Tell him congrats for me! I'm positive I look at our family picture more than anyone else in the family, it is up on my desk and I love it. My companion asked me if Riley had some kind of disorder cuz he was making a dumb face haha. What I'm trying to say is I never realized how important my family is to me until I got here. I hope everything is going well and Jason and Mills get moved in nice and easy. I will probably call if I get my visa.

Elder Emett

Meeting the Ambassador

Thammy

The meeting with the Ambassador went GREAT! He came and stood in our classroom with his wife, two other official dudes with him, a tour-guide with the MTC, and two of the Governor's personal body guards. It was a little intimidating at first, but he was such a nice guy! He came in and, in Spanish, talked a little bit about how much he loves visiting the missionaries and the certain fire and glow about them. This guy isn't LDS. He looked right at me and asked me how many weeks I'd been here (I was standing right next to him so he kinda directed all his general questions to me) and how much experience I had in spanish. I hacked the language like it never deserved to be hacked trying to answer him, but I think I got my point across. As he talked with us, he kept pausing and commenting on how he could just feel something about us. He asked me why I gave up two years of my life when I could be going to school or starting a family, to go to some country I had never been to and serve the people. They asked us not to preach to him so I did the next best thing! I shared my testimony of living the gospel and how it changes lives and the desire I had to share that with the Peruvian people. The spirit in the room was so strong. Two natives from Peru were there and one of them shared their testimony with him, it was really neat. He told us it surprised him to see 19 year old kids that were focused and sure about what they wanted to do with their lives. After our testimonies, he told us that we had "true conviction" and that we knew what we were saying is true. It was a neat experience to watch the Holy Ghost work right before my eyes. After the meeting was done, we all went out into the hallway and got a big group picture. The guy from the MTC taking the picture told us it would go in the New Era! I'm not sure how valid that is, but look for it just in case!!!! The whole experience went great, he told us he would fix the visa problem, though we are yet to receive any word on our visas still. Thank you so much for all your prayers! After he left, the natives of Peru came and talked to us about what Peru is like. The Hermana from the north told me that in the village she is from they live in tents and cook over open fires. They eat ants, worms, and crocodile....yeah, crocodile. They raise them as pets there. They are right next to the Amazon which is filled with pirhanas and she told me not to go in the water if I'm bleeding hahaha.

Everything is going great. It's just Elder Telaroli and I left from my district. He is a really good guy. He played football in high school and he is a monster. He doesn't scare me tho cuz we are best pals. He looks out for me. No se who all the other missionaries were in the room, except for Jarren Harris. Me and him are good friends now. I hope everything at home is going well, it sure sounds like it is. Tell Scoot congrats on the baptism. I love you all, thanks for all the letters. I have no idea how long I'm here for, but I will most likely get to call you when I get my travel plans, and don't worry I'm not breaking any rules by calling you or emailing you. I have to get all kinds of special permission haha.

Elder Emett

Hand Written Letters Home

Taking Kolby to the MTC

Mom was crying so hard she almost couldn't smile!
The night before he entered the MTC, Kolby got to go to dinner with a group of his friends that are going to college in Salt Lake.
Ready to go!

Family Pictures

We took family pictures on the night Kolby got set apart. We won't have our whole family together again until after Ben gets home from his mission. What a super cute family!

Kolby's Mission Call

I recognize that this is not in order, but I just got some stuff for Kolby's blog so I am putting it all on.

The Peruvian Ambassador

Dear Thammy,

Don't expect an e-mail every thursday, but you get one today. First off, M. Russel Ballard came and talked to us tuesday. Our third apostle in 3 weeks. That never happens here. All the talks have been so amazing! Second, I know why I didn't get my visa to peru......... The Peruvian Ambassador is in Utah. He is taking a tour of northern Utah with the governor. He gets to choose whatever he wants to do here, whatever he wants to do. This is THE guy. The "one phone call and every visa to Peru is automatically cleared" Ambassador. Huge deal. He decided he wants to come and visit the missionaries at the MTC, but he doesn't want to visit all the missionaries. He wants to visit the missionaries going to Peru. That includes eight missionaries, one being me. He will be coming into my very own classroom I spend eleven hours a day in and watching us learn about spanish and Peru. We are to greet him in spanish, then ask some questions about Peru. We have been practicing what to say ever since we found this out yesterday. He will be here at 2 today, but that's not even the most amazing part of the story. Right after he meets with us, he will be meeting with the First Presidency of our church. He will sit in a room with Thomas S. Monson and talk to him. Obviously his meeting with the missionaries will be brought up and obviously we need to put on a good impression for him. I don't know how or why, but we have been chosen to represent 53,000 missionaries worldwide. We have been praying constantly to have the spirit with us and put on a good impression for the Peruvian Ambassador. Please pray for us. We need all the help we can get.

And last, tell Scoots happy birthday!!!!!!! I have been learning about baptism almost non-stop for the past three weeks and I wish I could go to his baptism, but it's ok. I'm where I need to be. Let him know his brother loves him and that baptism is the right thing to do. I know I didn't understand the covenant and promises that go with baptism, but I hope you can all help Scoot to realize some of those things.

I'm so nervous right now, but I know that all will go well. Tell the family I love them and I will be in Peru shortly.

Elder Emett

Postponed at Utah MTC

Thammy. Obviously I'm not going to Peru tomorrow morning, but it's ok. I love it here! I am totally fine and looking forward to being in Peru sometime soon. My whole district, except two, is leaving early morning so tonight is my last night with them until I get to Peru. It's sad, but I will be seeing them so soon. In class, we learn about doctrine as well as spanish. We spend 11 hours of our day in the class. Only half of that time is supervised by a teacher who will teach out of Preach My Gospel for half the class, then spanish for the other half. The rest of the time is MDT time where we study personally, in a companionship, and do more language study. It's a pretty tough schedule, but we are all being blessed so much that we don't even notice it. Waking up isn't even a challenge. The minute I get out of bed, I'm ready for the day. I'm sorry this email is going to be so short, I don't have a lot to say. I just talked to you on the phone earlier haha. I tried to get out of it, but oh well. Just know that I love you all. Also, after every email you're sending me it says you are a mom of 10, gramma of 9, 2 RMs and a current missionary serving from 2010-1012. You're off by at least a thousand years. Give baby Addison a kiss for me! And yes it's fine if you forward these to anyone, especially the Clayton family. Love Elder Emett