July 25, 2016 First P-Day Email From Virginia

Mom note - Pardon his lack of proper English. I'm not sure where the "Hecka" and "ain't" came from! But here's the first letter from the field. Many of you on his email list already got it. 

Hey everybody!!!! 

It's been a hecka crazyish first week. Ok so where to begin.... I had to get up at 2:30 am on Monday morning to get to the plane on time. That sucked. Oh wait! On the Sunday before I left, at the devotional at the MTC, we all watched this amazing video called the Character of Christ by Elder Bednar. Once it was over and the lights turned back on, Elder Bednar was actually there!!!! It was so awesome!!! 

For those of you that have seen The District, you know Sister Payne? Her brother was in my MTC district. Elder Payne is such a chill guy and now he's here in Richmond with me. So yah, I made it here to Richmond, Virginia. And I finally got my iPad. I thought it was gonna be super fun to have an iPad, but it has so many restrictions on it, I can barely do anything on it. Almost pointless. Almost. 

Anyways, my trainer is way awesome! His name is Elder Davis. He's from Riverton. He's been out for a year. We actually have the same birthday, but he's a year older than me. He loves cars, like me. He ran cross country, which sucks, cause he's making me run hecka fast everyday. Until he started letting me ride a bike while he ran. Hahahaha I'm so fat. I already gained 10 pounds. *Takes another bite of ice cream.* 

It is so humid here!! Each time I get out of the car, my glasses fog up. Oh, by the way, we just got a brand new 2016 Nissan Altima. It's hecka nice. But what isn't nice is that my apartment doesn't have wifi. So, my first area is called Waynesboro.  Y'all should send me a banana with a postage stamp on it or something. Hahaha. 

Anyways, back to the important stuff. So on my first day here, we went to a member's house for dinner. Since I'm new, they call me a "greenie." So the entire meal I had was dyed green. It was legit. Tracting is literally the worst thing in the world. And it doesn't help that it's like 90 degrees and 95% humidity. I was literally dripping sweat everywhere. It sucks. If a missionary ever comes to your door, let them in and at least give them water. Also, if they ask to do service, give them service. Service is the best thing ever. Cause we don't gotta wear church clothes for that. Hahaha. 

But there are hecka giant spiders here. Like, I've found a few that are as big as tennis balls. And if you know me, you know that I run even if they are the size of an airsoft BB. And I have a billion mosquito bites literally everywhere. It sucks. But oh well, guess I'll have to get a straw and suck it up.

There's this awesome grocery store here called Sharp Shopper. It's a store that buys other stores' almost expired stuff and sells it hecka cheap. We can get a liter bottle of Naked juice for $1. It's literally the best thing ever. I'm gonna get so fat because of it and people feeding me all the time. 

Anyways, teaching people isn't as hard as I thought. But sometimes you gotta kinda argue with people. Which ain't good. But we got 3 people on date for being baptized. And that is pretty amazing. 

But anyways, I love it out here, but I also miss you guys. I love and miss you all so much!! I'll email you all again next
Monday! ✌🙏
 - Elder Turner

HE MADE IT TO VIRGINIA!

I'll be one of those moms that stalks their missionary. Thank goodness for Google Earth 😉 Oh and also for flight trackers.

I got to talk to Liam for 13 mins just before 6:00 am on July 18th when he was at the airport ready to fly out. He sounds great and ready! There was a long line of missionaries waiting for the phone so he could talk very long. He was going to call back when he got to Atlanta, but no payphones there. 

I got a call from the mission secretary that evening letting me know that he was there safely at the mission home. She said he was upstairs eating dinner and would be staying there that night. Then his trainer would be there the next day (today) to take him to his first area. The secretary is supposed to email me by the end of the week to give me the address for his first area. If anyone wants to send him a package or REAL mail, contact me for his current address while he's gone. 

I did get a short email from Liam last night. He said he just got his iPad set up and that he can read his email every day but can only reply on Monday, p day.  So email him when you can. He loves to hear from family and friends. I hope he receives a lot of supportive and encourage emails from all of you. 

Now his adventure begins! I can't wait to hear about all of his experiences in Virginia. 

Last P-Day At The MTC

I watch all day on p-day for an email.  I finally got it!  Here's his letter from today, with a little editing and deleting. I only took out 2 sentences that were to me about mom things.  I bet you can't believe how long this letter is!  At least it makes me feel so much better to know that he's actually having a good time and doing well.  I'm have been so worried because the MTC is such a huge change from the regular life these kids have had.  I'm so proud of him for doing this.

"Hey, can you send me all the emails of the family? I forgot to get those. I didn't bring my flight info with me, so I'll go get it later and send it to you.  Jared got to be Cole's host! So that was pretty cool for them. I'm excited to go out to Virginia. It's nice here, but the food here gives us ......   Jared's dorm room is one floor beneath me, so I've been going down and talking to him every night. We're gonna try to get a picture with Cole tonight, so I'll send it to you on my next P day. I don't think I'll have a P day next week, cause we leave on Monday, but that won't count as a P day for us. Me and my district got yelled at last night for screwing around and being super loud. Haha oops. But I love it here and am having lots of fun! Tell everybody that I miss them."

 Liam's district

 The nose shot?

 Elder Price and Sister Jenkins from our ward at home

 Missionaries are very serious.

 With Elder Tuttle from our ward at home.  

I'm so glad that these guys have each other there for support.

Maybe this is when they got yelled at??  But looks like they are having fun along with all their training.

Fun Pictures from The MTC

My friend shared these pictures with me and I had to share. I've been so worried about him. It helps to see him having fun with some friends from church. I know he is prepared and I know he can do this.  He's going to grow and learn so much.  It's just so hard because he was just a teenager in high school less than 2 months ago! Now here he is.  This is going to be a faith building time for sure.

First P-Day Email

I received a tiny email the day Liam got to the MTC, just saying that he was there and alive.  I was hoping that he'd send a longer, more detailed email when he finally had his first p-day, but he didn't really.

Basically, he said the first few days were really hard, but once he got to Sunday, it really flew by.  That's how I've felt.  He's seen like 15 people in there that he knows and will be getting together with the others from our ward tonight to get a picture.  His companion is pretty serious and knows a lot and is really keeping him on task.  That's probably what Liam needs. He said they are mostly learning how to teach by the spirit, which is what they need to do.

He's already gained 5 lbs because there's so much food at meal times!  I hope he runs that off because we don't need to be buying any new clothes.  But he said they eat at like 4:30 so he's starving by the time he gets back to his room. Then he said his computer time was about up and he needed to finish his laundry.

I got a follow up email just asking if I could drop off a couple t-shirts and socks. I was looking forward to a little more detail, but what was I really expecting? It's Liam. 

Maybe he'll have more time to write next Thursday. I hope so. I need more pictures! I'm just glad that he seems to be doing ok.