So You are probably wondering "what the heck is Elder VanKammens problem? Has he lost his "kazoozle" while on his mission??" Well....maybe! don don don >_< (scary sound)
First Green Green and Greeny. My favorite color is green :D Yay. Then, I live on Green Ave. and then I am a Greeny ( a new missionary in the field), and I lived on Village Green Dr. and my house is green HAHAHA!
Anyways, the week has been such a success. I came in on the airplane which was actually quite small for what I am use to since the airport was a small one. The best part was I got to walk downstairs on to the tar mat. I felt so special :D There were 7 of us on the plane and on our way out, we met the Mission president, President Tew. Such an amazing President! Once we got our bags into the van we headed straight to the Church building/mission office. Before the interviews with the mission president, we had a little to eat. Pretty great especially since we got up on Tuesday at 4:30 and took a bus to the airport! Oh I forgot! THE MTC WAS AN AMAZING EXPERIENCE. <------that just about sums up that subject. Lets see where was I....oh, so we had our whole little orientation and mission driving rules then we got our companions assigned!!! It was exciting hehehe. Of course I got the one the "counts"; the best companion in the mission (that I know I have only had one :P). Mainly because his name is Elder Counts (random fact his ancestry of names has been Pitcher, Read and Counts how about that for last names). Great Missionary! Right off the bat we got along. He is very easy going elder. Found out he loves tennis so this will be a fun time. He has only been here about 2 transfers (each one is 6 weeks), so about 3 months and just finished his 12 weeks of "training" where you get an extra hour for companion study. Right away we were moving, I left the church got the bags in the apartment which By the way the address is 3812 Green Ave #D, Los Alamitos, CA 90720 I will be here for at least the next 12 weeks if not more so you can send letters here, but for larger packages that don't fit in mailbox send those to the Mission office on 6500 E. Atherton street Long Beach, California 90815.
After that I got to buy my food to last me till today and got my brand new bike which works GREAT! Then we went to dinner and later that night went out tracting heading home , and to bed at 10:30 only to wake up exactly 8 hours later at 6:30 :P.
That is what my life was like on the first day. The days after have been just as crazy the last week. Pretty much I have not had what you could call a "normal" missionary day yet so far. Much because of orientation, meetings district meetings, and a Zone conference where. Elder Packer of the seventy came and talked to the mission through out the day from 10am-3pm.
We have had a ton of success in terms of finding investigators and teaching lessons. Within my first full day here on Wednesday we had found 2 new investigators M and E which CRAZY coincident because HE was a PROFESSIONAL baseball player for the cardinals!!<--- I know RIGHT! So he is having a very difficult time in life right now and I hope that we can help him find his purpose and be able to come closer to Christ. Then J and J are golden investigators that are a newly married couple. They are just so happy and loving couple! They have this young cat that would run around well we were talking to them and it would come close to you on the ground then lunge at you when you looked at it.
OH THEN there is Brother R he is an 85 year old man that is just the funniest guy. His wife and many of his kids are members of the church but he is not. My first day out we go to his house say hi and stuff then we try to teach him. He talks A LOT just trying to leave is hard because he gets distracted a lot. Teaching him is really funny because, for example, he doesn't smoke but he has a cigar. So we ask if we can throw it away but he says, oh you don't need to worry I will not smoke it. I haven't in the last 2 years. Oh, and he has been taught by missionaries for about 40 years now.... one of the missionaries that taught him on his mission here is in our ward!! But for the first time this week we actually are seeing a ton of improvement. He says he knows he needs to be baptized and will give us an answer at some point after he calls his son and talks about it.
Well, my time is cut short and I have to go now, but I wish you all luck! Sorry I was not able to write back to some of you. THANK YOU for everything and send letters if you want :D then I can have more time!
LOVE,
Elder VanKammen
p.s i know i am typing fast so my grammer is bad. and i am in the los alamitos ward :D
First Green Green and Greeny. My favorite color is green :D Yay. Then, I live on Green Ave. and then I am a Greeny ( a new missionary in the field), and I lived on Village Green Dr. and my house is green HAHAHA!
Anyways, the week has been such a success. I came in on the airplane which was actually quite small for what I am use to since the airport was a small one. The best part was I got to walk downstairs on to the tar mat. I felt so special :D There were 7 of us on the plane and on our way out, we met the Mission president, President Tew. Such an amazing President! Once we got our bags into the van we headed straight to the Church building/mission office. Before the interviews with the mission president, we had a little to eat. Pretty great especially since we got up on Tuesday at 4:30 and took a bus to the airport! Oh I forgot! THE MTC WAS AN AMAZING EXPERIENCE. <------that just about sums up that subject. Lets see where was I....oh, so we had our whole little orientation and mission driving rules then we got our companions assigned!!! It was exciting hehehe. Of course I got the one the "counts"; the best companion in the mission (that I know I have only had one :P). Mainly because his name is Elder Counts (random fact his ancestry of names has been Pitcher, Read and Counts how about that for last names). Great Missionary! Right off the bat we got along. He is very easy going elder. Found out he loves tennis so this will be a fun time. He has only been here about 2 transfers (each one is 6 weeks), so about 3 months and just finished his 12 weeks of "training" where you get an extra hour for companion study. Right away we were moving, I left the church got the bags in the apartment which By the way the address is 3812 Green Ave #D, Los Alamitos, CA 90720 I will be here for at least the next 12 weeks if not more so you can send letters here, but for larger packages that don't fit in mailbox send those to the Mission office on 6500 E. Atherton street Long Beach, California 90815.
After that I got to buy my food to last me till today and got my brand new bike which works GREAT! Then we went to dinner and later that night went out tracting heading home , and to bed at 10:30 only to wake up exactly 8 hours later at 6:30 :P.
That is what my life was like on the first day. The days after have been just as crazy the last week. Pretty much I have not had what you could call a "normal" missionary day yet so far. Much because of orientation, meetings district meetings, and a Zone conference where. Elder Packer of the seventy came and talked to the mission through out the day from 10am-3pm.
We have had a ton of success in terms of finding investigators and teaching lessons. Within my first full day here on Wednesday we had found 2 new investigators M and E which CRAZY coincident because HE was a PROFESSIONAL baseball player for the cardinals!!<--- I know RIGHT! So he is having a very difficult time in life right now and I hope that we can help him find his purpose and be able to come closer to Christ. Then J and J are golden investigators that are a newly married couple. They are just so happy and loving couple! They have this young cat that would run around well we were talking to them and it would come close to you on the ground then lunge at you when you looked at it.
OH THEN there is Brother R he is an 85 year old man that is just the funniest guy. His wife and many of his kids are members of the church but he is not. My first day out we go to his house say hi and stuff then we try to teach him. He talks A LOT just trying to leave is hard because he gets distracted a lot. Teaching him is really funny because, for example, he doesn't smoke but he has a cigar. So we ask if we can throw it away but he says, oh you don't need to worry I will not smoke it. I haven't in the last 2 years. Oh, and he has been taught by missionaries for about 40 years now.... one of the missionaries that taught him on his mission here is in our ward!! But for the first time this week we actually are seeing a ton of improvement. He says he knows he needs to be baptized and will give us an answer at some point after he calls his son and talks about it.
Well, my time is cut short and I have to go now, but I wish you all luck! Sorry I was not able to write back to some of you. THANK YOU for everything and send letters if you want :D then I can have more time!
LOVE,
Elder VanKammen
p.s i know i am typing fast so my grammer is bad. and i am in the los alamitos ward :D