Week 72 - Jan 16, 2016

Week 72 - Jan 16, 2016
Jacob:

Hello, everybody! This week has been a pretty good one. We had the Hail and Farewell this week, and there was a special after-dinner presentation by T. C. Christensen about his latest movie The Cokeville Miracle. It was a good night, and I can't wait to see the movie as soon as I get back!

We also had a temple trip this week. I wanted to take a card that hadn't had initiatories done on it yet, but when I took it in to the room where they did initiatories they gave me a few extra temple cards they thought I would have time to do before our endowment session. It turns out, however, that it takes about an hour before all the cards got done with initiatory and my own card had been saved for the end. The temple workers told me that my own card was the most important, and I got it completed before our session started.

I am having a good time up here. Recently I have tried shopping by writing my own shopping lists. I am currently in the process of using up as much non-perishable food as I can before I leave. I have also been considering setting aside some money to return to the mission. I was hoping to take a couple more years of school, but when it comes to other things I have some counselors up here that will help me cross that bridge when I come to it.

I also have some pictures to share with you from this month. I hope you enjoy!
Tony: 

Remember to make healthy food choices while you're eating non-perishable items and saving money.  If it comes down to saving versus eating healthy, spend the money it takes to purchase the healthier choice.

Tara:  Hi Jacob... sounds like a good week!  I can't wait to see your pictures.  I'm glad you are enjoying the time you get to spend in the temple.  I am hoping that we can go through the Salt Lake temple with you sometime after your mission.  I'm glad you got your own name done.. sometimes it seems like I get everyone else's names done first... but that's ok, as long as mine get done also.  I'm glad you are gaining experience and independence in the shopping area.  As dad said, just be sure to get the things you need to be healthy and balanced.  We are trying really hard, as a family, to take good care of our bodies by exercising and eating healthy foods.  How are things going with Elder Dull?  Do you still keep in contact with Elder Rodriguez?  Occasionally he posts pictures from his mission on facebook, and you were in a few of them!  Don't worry too much about what you want to do after the mission.... we will figure out most of that as it comes.  Finish strong... keeping your heart and mind focused on being a great missionary through all of it.  We are so very proud of you!   Love you bunches... mom

January Hail and Farewell

Salt Lake Temple

Food line at the Hail and Farewell

President Tate, Elder Dull, and ME

Me and Elder Dull, my companion

 

Week 71 - Jan 9, 2016

Week 71 -  Jan 9, 2016
Jacob:

Hello, everyone! I am doing very well over here in Salt Lake. Our mission is getting bigger. In fact, I overheard that if our mission gets any bigger we'd have to change our zone shopping for our p-days. Speaking of shopping the vehicle we usually take for our shopping group was being used by the people at the Granite Mountain Records Vault, so we had to shop at Harmon's. It's harder to navigate than Walmart, and it's expensive too. Fortunately I managed to crunch my shopping down to at least $20.

Our apartments have been inspected for bedbugs, and only 4 of the 20+ apartments actually had them. Fortunately, ours wasn't one of them. The reason being; we cleaned it out. I helped by cleaning the soap scum from the bathroom and cleaning out the refrigerator and oven. I know how to clean, but my companion Elder Dull knows how to deep-clean, which shows what a little preparation can do. We also have some steel wool, which really helps with those "invisible" stains that hide on our counter-tops.

Elder Dull loaned me his camera, and I gave it back when the new one came. I might send you some pictures of the Hail and Farewell (aka "Hail and Wail") which is this next Monday.

How are you doing? have you started on your New Year's goals yet? I hope that this next year we can make the most our situations and pray for everyone's well-being.
Tony :  That sounds great.  We'd love to see pictures of you and your pals
using your new camera.
Tara:  Hi son! So good to hear from you! Sounds like you have been doing a lot of cleaning lately... Good job! That is what we are doing at home right now. I'm glad your apartment is clear of bedbugs.   That's a relief to me!  Sounds like a bit of an adventure shopping at a new store today... Hopefully you got enough food for the week.  Is it snowing in salt lake today? We are getting a really pretty snowfall right now.  Did you get to watch the bug sniffing dog?  I love you!!!   Mom
Jacob: For the dog to perform his job successfully anything that caused a draft like fans or heaters had to be removed. You can't, however, turn off people. We had to be away while the dog did his job, and we couldn't come back until the evening to avoid running into him. Besides, the housing coordinators told us that he's not a person-type dog.

Tara: Sounds pretty cool... I bet it would have been fun to watch him do his job.  We would love to see some hail and farewell pictures.  Just make sure you are in some of them! Is everything going ok in your new assignments? What is your favorite job to do?

Week 70 - Jan. 2, 2016

Week 70 - Jan. 2, 2016
Jacob:

Hello everyone! Not much happened during the past week except for the new year, of course. This year I plan on doing some exercises each morning. The only thing I could come up with, though, is sit-ups and push-ups. If you had any ideas I would love to hear them. I appreciate your concern for me, so I will also try to limit my sugar intake.

As far as getting a new camera goes, my companion Elder Dull gave me one of his cameras. It works just as well as my old one, which I plan on taking to the swap meet. If you haven't already sent the camera, you can just keep it.

We had a pizza dinner on New Year's Eve, and yesterday we had some training on bedbug prevention before apartment cleaning and more Bible Videos. We get a special sniffing dog coming in on Monday, so he will (hopefully) know exactly where the bedbugs are coming from.

Everyone sounds like they're having a good start to their new year, and hopefully we will be prepared for the year ahead of us. I hope you have a good year and I hope to see you as next year rolls around!
Tara: 

Hello! Glad that you are doing good. Do you have bedbugs in your apartment? Let me know, because there are special sheets and pillowcases that can help keep them out of your bed and off of your body. 

We watched the pbs version of last years concert with the muppets.  It was really good but they edited some parts out... Like the part you told us about with the count! It was still really good though. I will have to watch the dvd we gave you sometime so I can see the whole thing. 

Sounds like you gave some good goals for the new year... I am excited to work on mine! What are you doing the rest of today? 

Jacob: Just as a reminder, send family emails to my Gmail account, so I don't get distracted by it on any day other than p-days.
Tony:  What happened to your ldschurch.org one?
Jacob:  I still use it, but I prefer it if we could save our conversations for p-days
Tara:  Will do. I think I may have been sending stuff to your other account. Sorry! Did you get your Christmas decorations put away yet? Our tree was turning brown so we took it all down.
Jacob: Yes, I did take it down. It was sad, but It's best that we move on with our lives.
Tara:  Yes it is. . What are you doing the rest of the day?
Jacob:  We are planning on making dinner, then we plan on watching a driver's training video. I hope that we are attentive to what is being taught to us.
Tara:  Seems like you see driver training videos often? Is it the same one, or are there different ones?
Jacob:  It is usually the same one. I assume that it would be the same one. Seems like the other elders learn more from it than any other video they've seen.
Tara:  I hope you are learning from it too... I love you a bunch and hope you have a good evening!   Be good and do good!

Week 69 - Dec. 26, 2015

Week 69 - Dec. 26, 2015
Jacob:

Thank you for all of the wonderful gifts! I can't wait to share what I got with you as soon as I get home. By the way, did you ever get to see the 2013 Christmas concert on TV? There's a lot I plan to see once I'm back. I've decided not to pull down my Christmas tree until January comes around.

We have had a couple more flurries come through, with just enough to cover the ground for the holidays. On Christmas Eve we went to different apartments to do some caroling. My district joined with another district, so we decided the best way to cover the most ground was to have our conductors in the middle of the hall with two elders on each end.

On Christmas we got to open presents and make our phone calls home. We also had a big Christmas dinner at the stake center and watched last year's Christmas Devotional and a couple Bible Videos. However, we had to cut the devotional short because it was going past curfew time.
I hope to hear a bit more about your Christmas and maybe see a couple pictures. I thought how it was a time of giving just as many of the people in the scriptures did with no thoughts for themselves.

This Wednesday was our temple trip, and I was told that it was the birthday of the prophet Joseph Smith. Today is another missionary's birthday, so we agreed that we would go with him to City Creek for a big birthday dinner. I'm told that since some of the Christmas mail didn't get through to the elders that we should expect a lot on Monday. I hope that we won't have too much, though!

Hope to talk again soon!
Tara:  Hi son! So good to hear from you two days in a row!  Kents family just got here and we are playing with the kids. I will take a few pictures and send them. These pictures are from bowling last monday night. There were lots of Legos in the bowling alley and I thought you might like the picture of them.

Week 68, Dec. 19. 2015

Week 68, Dec. 19. 2015
Jacob:

Hello everyone! My p-day is now on Saturday, and my companion is Elder Dull. He's a fun guy, and I hope to get along with him. My new day zone is Data Quality Support and my evening zone is Church History Special Projects, which are both behind-the-scenes stuff so you won't hear much about what goes on there.

Winter storms hit here during the past week. The first one last Monday went on for so long that the Church campus had to be closed, which meant that all the young elders had to be sent home early for extra scripture study. I'm told that next week will be worse, so I hope to be prepared.

I am so excited for the phone call! I have myself scheduled for 8:00 am and plan on an average call time of 40 minutes per elder.

I hope that my package isn't too heavy. If it is, I can just have the zone leaders help me out with it! I am just so excited! I hope to hear from you soon!

-Elder Derricott
Tara:  We are so excited too! Less than a week till we can talk with you!!!  We will be ready at 8 am!!!!  So what kinds of stuff do you in data quality support? Did you get a note from the Andersons and/or Stapelmans... They said they left one last weekend when they were down there.  What else do you have planned for Christmas besides phone calls?
Jacob: Unfortunately, our zone is kind of in "limbo" right now. We're waiting for a new program they call "NICE," then we have to get some training done for that. Right now we're looking at a shared Skype account to determine which employees will be in at what time. Other than that, it's all rather hush-hush. We hope to have a full Christmas schedule before the big day!
Tara:  Emily and I are heading out to do some Christmas and grocery shopping. Did you get a package that the young men and women sent? What was in it?
Jacob:  Do you mean the young adults or the youth?
Tara:  I think it was the youth
Jacob: Yes I got their package
Tara:  What kids of stuff did they put in?
Jacob: They had some Christmas treats, a wooden ornament, and some stain remover!

Dec. 11, 2015

Week 67, Dec. 11, 2015
Jacob:

Hi, everyone! This week has been an interesting one. I have been reading and marking a study guide based on the talks from the October General Conference. I find myself enjoying the modern-day examples of faith and figuring how to apply them to myself.

On Christmas the missionaries plan to talk within two blocks: the smaller districts like mine will probably get calling hours from 8-1, and the larger districts get call times from 7-2. We will get more information in the upcoming weeks, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to plan ahead of time. I sent another envelope with an early Christmas present, but I am also looking forward to the phone call.

It's nice that Erik and Emily are making the most of their time! Maybe they would like to share some advice from what they've learned? I also hope Erik gets better!

I'm afraid I can't send you some pictures for a long time. Something happened to my camera to turn it on in my pocket. Now when I try to turn it on it makes a scary grinding noise, says "lens error," and then shuts off. Because of the noise I'm scared to fix it.

This week our zone had a big luncheon and they put together some boxes of goodies like cookies, mini oranges and Christmas snacks! We had a young elder's conference and the main theme of it all seemed to be about gossiping and bullying. It was very powerful. I would like to ask the mission presidency if they made any recordings or transcriptions of it so we can view it later.

I am looking forward to the Christmas packages and phone calls! See you soon!

Happy Holidays!

Tara:  Hi son!  Good to hear from you!  Tell me more about the study guide you are using for conference talks? It sounds cool. As for the camera, I suggest you fiddle around with it and try to fix it... It isn't doing any good as it is now.  Let us know if it gets fixed or if we need to look for another one for you. What did you do with the Christmas boxes you put together?  I assume there was someone you gave them to?   Hope I get to hear more from you today!!!  Love you!

Jacob:

Actually, our zone put the boxes together for the young elders working in our zone.

The study guide contains all the Conference talks and organizes them like the scriptures so that we can refer to them in meetings and classes.

I have a meeting with a counselor today so that they can see what I would like to do after my mission is over. It's around 2:00, so don't be surprised if I cut out a bit early.

Week 66 - Dec 4, 2015

Week 66 - Dec 4, 2015
Jacob:

Hello! I hope you're starting to get into the holiday spirit, because I am! The FamilySearch Center has already got a couple of trees near the steps and some poinsettias scattered around. I've started setting up the holiday decorations that I was sent in the mail, while trying to keep our apartment clean. It got here just in time to start the advent calendar, too!

During this past week I was pulled aside a couple times by a patron who had trouble indexing. I was even called by her personally when I wasn't technically on duty. I may have to bring this up with my zone leader whenever I get the chance.

If you ever get a chance to get to one of the Discovery Centers (in the FSC in SLC and soon to be in the Family History Library, also in Seattle) here are the stations to familiarize yourself with:

1. This is where you take a computer tablet, enter your FamilySearch account, and take a "selfie" of your self before taking it to the different interactive stations
2. Discover: Find out what your name means, how many people share your name, and what happened the year you were born!
3. Explore: Learn where your ancestors are from and when they migrated to America.
4. Experience: Take a "time machine" back to anytime between 1820 and 1895 to see the house that you ancestor might have lived in.
5. Picture: A special camera places your face over the face of people from different nationalities so you can see what you would look like if you dressed as them!
6. Record: Answer some questions about various topics, some relating to family pictures. There are two options for this one; a small room for single people, and a larger room for friends and families.
7. Share: Put some "takeaways" on the large tree to view before you send the story to your email account once you return your tablet. It only shows what you've done, so save this one for last!

It's fun to talk and share with you the different things I experience each day.

Tara:  Hi son! Are you still there?  I'm so sorry I didn't get an email sent yet!!!! The past few days have been busy and even though I have thought of you, I didn't get a chance to write.  Glad you got the decorations and are looking forward to Christmas!   I will write a good, long letter next week !!! I love you so much!!!!

Jacob:  Thanks for responding to this one. I was afraid that you wouldn't get a chance! As long as I know that you are there, it makes me so much happier! We're actually finishing up email time up here, so we might get a chance to talk more next week.

Tara:  So sorry my boy! I look forward to hearing from you so much!!! We are excited to hear the Christmas devotional this Sunday... Are you going? We are having fun getting your Christmas package put together.   We all love you and miss you!