April 23, 2000

Family,

Guess What?! I can hardly contain myself! OH MY GOODNESS! I can't stop saying "oh man"! Holy Crap!!! GEEZ! WAHOOOOOO! I can't even believe it! Geez. Oh man! I guess you're hoping I get on with it but I can barely contain myself! Let me start from the beginning, but I don't know how I'll contain myself.

Since all the teachers here have to go to BYU and since BYU's semester just ended, there's a humungous schedule/living quarters/teachers/branch switch, which is actually pretty sad. But we just learned about the intricacies today - before, we had just known it was coming. Anyways, because Elder Howard isn't abel to walk around (I'll get to that later) I, being the D.L., was the only possible candidate to go to a confidential meeting between the APs and the Branch Presidency with the other AP, Elder Klemin. It was here where both of us, and the Branch Presidency, saw the papers about this. None of us were expecting such a humungous change as the ones we received, and coupled with several mistakes, led to much confusion. To make a long story short, I weas stuck in this meeting for such a long time that both Elder Klemin and I decided to forfeit lunch, because the lines were so long. So as you can imagine, but the time dinner rolls around (we don't get breakfast mind you) I was starved, so I applied the peer pressure onto my faithful comp and we showed up to dinner 5 mins. early. By the time we showed up the lines were already pretty long, but by the time we finished the hall was packed with elders. This is bad if you want to get in the cafeteria, but if you're in it's good because there are lots of people to look at. So I'm sitting here and this guy in line looks so familiar - actually, I was able to remember his name, which was Joe, who was one of my friends at EFY last year! I couldn't even believe it! I don't think he remembered my name, but we kinda exchnaged info halfway across the cafeteria. That was cool, and it got me thinking about my friends who should be and who are on missions, like Doug and Tarrik and James and Michael Christensen. But by now I was finished and my comp and I began to wade our way through the fray in the hallway. All of a sudden I pass this elder who looks inantely familiar. I furrow my brow, grab his arm as he walks by, and question, "Michael Christensen?" He stops, looks at me with a fraction of a second of bewilderment, and then with a totally new face of total surprise says, "Nick Onken?" I was like "Dude!" I totally felt like Ammon and the sons of Mosiah after 14 years of not seeing each other. I couldn't believe it! I just kept pointing at him and yelling. It was so awesome! It turns out he's been here for about a month. He's headed to the Phillippines. I couldn't believe it! I got his address. He said he got my HS graduation but couldn't write back because some address was wrong.

4/24/2K Well, it's Monday now, and I still can't believe it. I saw James yesterday afternoon and told him, then today at lunch I ate with Michael and told him James was here and we took a picture. So awesome! It's weird calling James Elder Wyett, and Michael Elder Christensen. I rarely see Trevor around though.

Today was the first day of the new change. I actually love this schedule now. I'll enclose the entire packet excluding the week I need, but it's pretty similar to the rest of hte time, but with like 4 more huge blocks of time given to us to pack - one on the Monday we don't leave, and one on Friday and Saturday. But since we're moving from 12M to 17M, all the way across the MTC, we're going to be backed Tuesday night during the District Meeting, then we move 7:30 a.m. Wednesday.

Last Wednesday we lost perhaps our most favorite teacher, Hermano Stuart, then that Thursday was lost Hrmo Johnson and then Saturday we lost Hermana Swensen and Hrmo Johnson. We had all become really atttached to them, and I wouldn't hesitate to think that more Elders than I felt a little resentment at first towards our subs, but we got over it with the help of Hrmo. Howell who tends to "bajar la cana" - pretty much means "lay the smack down." or "preach with force." We describe him in spanglish as "hablaring con fuego" speaking with fire. He's a teacher supervisor which means he doesn't have any districts but he walks around and helps the teachers out - he's their boss. Anyways, we've developed with him a pretty tight bond because for the first two weeks we really didn't have any real teachers, and he would come in and teach us frequently. I'll see if I can grab a picture of him if I catch him around. Anyways, today we're waiting for our teacher in our new room and we see Hrmo. Hatch walk by then kind of lean back and poke his head in, saying "You guys know who your teacher is?" to which our reply was "no." He then grinned and walked in, and said, "It's me." We were so stoked! We had really come to love him a lot. While we were waiting for our new classroom to be vacated we saw Hrmo. Johnson (with whom we've actually had a little miracle, but more about that later) who, when we showed him our schedule, called it the "Club Med" Schedule - at 5:45, a little dinner, a little gym, some personal time, get to sleep whenever . . . it was hilarious.

Well, I want to send this letter off so I'll address those things that I mentioned earlier and send this off!

Elder Howard: About Tuesday, he was complaining of an upset stomach, which is fairly common around here so we really didn't pay any heed to it, just gave him some Rolaids. By the time I woke up the next day, though, I had no idea what that had meant. Apparently, at about 1:30 a.m. he had started throwing up, and was in a ton of pain. Since his companion Elder Klemin, was also out of commission (he had just had 4 wisdome teeth taken out), his roommates Elders Womack and Allen stayed up trying to help him, and meanwhile cleaning the mess. He continued to throw up until about 4 when they called the front office. A security guy came down and, seeing the condition of Elder Howard, called for a van to come pick him up. Once the van had arrived, about 5-10 min. later, Elder Howard was in so much pain he was oblivious. He didn't know who the security guard was, and when he was told that the van was here it didn't compute. They were able to help him to the van, though, and when he got in he just laid down, and by this time he coudl barely speak. Elder Klemin, Allen, and Womack went with him and after taking some blood from E. Howard, they brought him back. At about 6 a.m. he started throwing up again and luckily the test results were back and they were 99.9% sure it was appendicitis. He was in the hospital for about 3 days, and just got back Friday. Even now he looks pale, gaunt, and his eyes don't really focus on anything. But the doctors said that if he takes his medicine and walks around once in a while like they told him, he'd be able to fly out with the rest of us, his original travel group on time - on Tuesday. We're all praying big time, but we know that he'll be fine. He was able to tell us, though, that it didn't burst but that when they took it out it was "hot and juicy", ready at any second to burst. No Thank You!

Hrmo. Johnson: This guy, at first glance, acts just like he looks: monotone, boring, nerdy, clumsy, etc. He would also keep sticking his tongue out, and he had a habit of looking out the window for literally 90% of the time, even when he was talking. Anyways, a week of him and we were complaining to our teachers about him. Our morning teacher, Hrmo. Stuart, challenged us to lov ehim with all our hearts. He really laid it on thick, and since he had Hrmo Johnson after lunch we were really pumped to do this. So, we all showed up to class especially early, sang and prayed and waited patiently for him to show. Once he walked in, instead of us mumbling our hellos we each almost jubilantly exclaimed, "hey, que tal?", etc. He seemed totally shocked at this, and you can't imagine his face when we each jumped to our feet, lined up and all gave him a firm handshake and a hug. His eyes were huge and his mouth was a gaping half grin. It felt great! Such a spirit prevailed there at that moment. I gained such a testimony of the power of charity! I went into there totally wanting to love him but not expecting any change in him - heck, every time he came in, before he even started the lesson he would put all his bags and jacket down and commence the infamous "chalkboard cleaning." He would start at the left side, and in beg vertidical swoops would move across the chalkboard getting every single piece of board visible, and if needed would apply the elbow grease to get those tough spots. He would then scrape the botton of the eraser along the edge of the chalk tray, kind of like when you're scraping the mud off your shoes. Then, he would move all of the little clips at the top of the board and slide them, 2 to a slide, all the way to the end. And he would double and trible check to make sure they were there. Then, he would drag the eraser along the border of the chalkboard, careful not to jiggle in any way the clips on each side but good enough to reach every spot. Keep in mind that throughout this entire ritual he would not say a word. Once he had the board cleaned, he would with the eraser, push all the collected chalkdust on the tray to one end and hold a trashcan underneath and push all the dust into it. Finally! done! Sure the board looked nice, but . . . well, I guess whatever floats your boat. Then, he would commence to give the lesson, which 75% of the time consisted of each of us reading a sentence each from the charla, until the entire charla (23 pages) was done. That was class. This is why I wasn't expecting him to change, but I was expecting him to feel the spirit differently than ever before from any district he had had before. Well, the make a long story short (and to save my poor arm) he totally opened up. He stopped the tongue thing, looked at us much more frequently (we did have a good view, 5th floor on a corner over looking the Provo temple, the street, and the gorgeous mountains in back), taught us how to clean the chalkboards (an entire science, let me tell you!), and revealed one of the most hilarious, healthily sarcastic personalities I've ever met. His lessons turned into edifying discussions and we began to really look forward to his class. In fact, he even told us about his meeting a girl in the "binder room" for teachers and asking her out (not without much good numored prodding, tho). We couldn't believe it, and we were pumped for him. We even told all our other teachers about it for days.

4.25.2k Well, here I am. still not sent off so I'll write a bit more.

By this time in 7 days I'll be in the air, with Valencia Venezuela as my final destination. I can hardly believe it! My spanish now is, for the MTC, pretty good, I'd like to think, and what my teachers tell me. How blessed I've been! My memory now, here, is nothing like I've had before, and I know exactly why. But still, I don't have the first charla (discussion) memorized yet and I am not expecting to be understanding anything, especially in Venezuela, for the first month at least. In Venezuela, they cut off a lot of letters, like s, t, d, n, and some more I forgot. They speak really quickly there too. Oh great. :P I can't wait!!! Sometimes I'll just have flashes of such joy, such anticipation about actually being in the country of Venezuela teaching people!

I really need to send these out along with the pics. Sorry mom, this was so long. A pain to put on the CPU! But I felt I had a ton to catch up on, and I'm sorry that I've been negligent on that.

Yo amo a mi familia, y estoy muy agradecido por todo mi familia. Estoy muy agradecido por nuestro padre celestial, y todo el me ha dado, y tambien por nuestro hermano mayor y su sacrificio. Este evangelicio es tan verdadero, y le amo mucho. La oportunidad para arrepiritir ha llegado a ser a mi una cosa tanto sagrado. Que Milagroso! A hablar y conversar con mi querido padre es una cosa muy bonita, y estoy muy agradecido por este. Otra vez, amo a mi familia ya mis amigos. Nos vemos!

Elder Onken

Some bad news: (4/26/2k) When we all returned from the devotional, we were all shocked to find Elder Howard in extreme pain. Elder Norton, who stayed behind to stay with him, recounted the story to me later that night. Elder Howard apparently had been able to stand the unexpected, mounting pain for a few days until last night, when, while we were gone, asked Elder Norton if he could call the front office. They needed to speak to Elder Howard and since he was too weak to walk, Elder Norton lifted him onto a chair and pushed it to the phone. At first, Elder Howard was so sick that even tho the temp in the building was warm he was freezing, and he couldn't even hold the p hone to his ear. Elder Norton held it to him at first but once Elder Howard got in contact with his parents, he found the strength to hold it and Elder Norton went in our room to leave him alone. After the call, Elder Howard was drained but sobbing, and they both embraced and cried together after Elder Howard told Elder Norton that he was going home that night (he only lives in Bountiful.) When we returned, Elder Howard was having a hard enough time laying in bed so we all gathered in his room around his bed to give him a blessing. - see journal entry please -

[journal entry]

Tonight, though, as been quite a slap in the face. Elder Howard, who had been having trouble with appendicitis for the past week or so, has chosen, not by his choice I'm sure - to go home and recover. Such a blow to me was this news! I know that he understands the importance of a mission, I know that he loves the Savior, and he's a righteous Elder, which means to me that this decision must have been extremely hard to come to. Lots of praying, no doubt. Apparently his parents or someone else will be here to pick him up. This will be a huge blow to such an amazing district. I don't know about the other elders, but to me we're still his district. When we came back from the Devotional (angel abrea), it was the first thing we heard. Elder Norton, who had stayed back with him, was almost finished packing upon our return. President Swensen had stopped by to see how we were doing and to ask me some quesitons about our move tomorrow, and was just as devastated as I to hear the news. As soon as he left, we all gathered in his room around his bed. His face was pale with pain, his voice labored and soft. Elder Klemin, his companion, asked him who he would like to give him the blessing and his quick and firm reply was "you." Such love and admiration between these two Elders of the Lord! It was chosen that Elder Allen and Elder Womack, his roomates, would stand in the circle and the rest would kneel. Elder Allen annointed and Elder Klemin began. Through tears, Elder Klemin pronounced a blessing upon his companion with such love and empathy that left not an eye in the room without tear, not a spirit magnificently touched. The spirit, love, and power there that I felt was nothing any human mind could conjure, ever! It was pure testament of the love and power of God, nothing less. It is for this joy, this mercy, our Father, that we labor so. It is not a sacrifice at all, actually I have come to be so thankful that I was allowed to come!

At about 11 that night, his parents showed up in front of his room (which is adjacent to ours) so we all had a chance to meet them. I was kind of surprised to find them in such peace, smiling and thanking all of us. I had no doubt that their peace, their tranquility was from nowhere than that of the power of our Heavenly Father. [End of entry.]