My Last Letter?

Hey Peeps of Mine,

First off, I have some news. My travel plans have changed. I will not most likely be able to email you guys next week. I will be on a bus all day so I probably wont be able to write at all. This may be my last letter. Don’t stress though cause only part of my travel has changed. I will still be arriving in Salt Lake the morning of the 27th and still have the same red eye flight from Bogota to New York but everything else is going to be way more drawn out. I now get a 14 hour layover from Medelin to Bogota. I’m really hoping as it gets closer that the Bogota Mission or the MTC might be stepping in and taking us to the temple or something but at this point I think we will just be bored out of our minds at the airport but at least I’ll have 6 other Elders to hang with. Our connection in New York is tight, only 1 1/2 hours, so hopefully customs goes super fast. I’m going to be skipping breakfast it looks like. I’ll be in transit 26 hours not counting my 6 hour bus ride 2 days before through super curvy roads. I’m hoping to not throw up this time but I’m pretty excited. I’m officially trunky!

Also thanks for the money that you sent me for a few last minute souvenirs I might want and the extra travel money for next week. With my huge amount of travel time I’m going to need extra food for sure with the long layover and the bus.

As for food I want for my first meal back with the family, I don’t really care, but I will be asking you to take me to In-n-Out on the way home so I can buy a greasy american hamburger and a big dr. pepper. If everyone wants to join us then thats fine too.

I actually only really have 1 week of real work left. Next Monday I will load up all my stuff on the bus for my long ride and then be at the mission home Monday night. Tuesday is official transfer day and all the guys going home will be here for a special “deMTC” class. It's an all day class they do down here for 6 hours about self sufficiency. It's mainly for the latins since they don’t know what to do with their lives after the mission sometimes, but I’m pretty sure I will be able to learn a lot. We then will spend the night again in the mission home and I’ll fly out Thursday morning for Bogota.

In the mean time I’m still going strong. This week was great. We were able to help a couple that we are teaching do all of the errands they need to start their marriage process. The just have to pick up their records from the notary today, then they will go to the tribunal to get a date for marriage. I am so happy that they are going to get married, even though I’m not going to be here. They really want to get baptized but since they were not married cause of the high fees to do it, we had to put them off a bit. They also finally made it to church this weekend. They loved it. Also all of the members provided a warm welcome. I have high hopes for them and what they are going to be able to do in the future. They have already said that they want to go to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity. This last week that I have should be an awesome week to give them the last little help that I can before I leave.

Something funny that happened this week was we locked ourselves out of the house. I left the keys on my desk and the door looks by itself when we leave so we had to pry the window open with a knife to open the door with a stick. The only problem was that as we had the knife in the window it slipped and cut my comps thumb so he bleed all over the house. It wasn’t a bad cut, it just bleed a lot. It was funny.  I felt so bad for him and then we had to clean up the mess.

As for my health I’m fine and don’t think I need to see a doc when I get home. I still feel tired but my fever is gone so I think I will be fine. The heat is not helping for sure.

It was really nice to hear about Lydia’s first week or so in the MTC and that she is getting over her homesickness now and liking what she is doing. Nobody likes the MTC so you really can’t judge from that. As for the MTC freaking me out, Dad was wrong. I didn’t hide it from you. I never had that, never had a melt down, never cried in to my pillow at night. I was just a tough little cookie. I did hate the MTC but that was for other things. I sent her a super long letter through Dear Elder last week. You have a 7000 character limit and I had like 200 left. I also asked the sisters in my district to write their testimonies about their missions. I’m going to give them to her in the MTC when I see her for my visit.

Well, I love you guys! See ya in 10 days.

Toodles, 

Alec

P.S. I care about your fiber, I have for a long time now.

P.S.S. As for Valentines Day, i didn’t realise that it was on Saturday until I was about to go to bed and looked at the date. Oh well.

My comp and his blood on the house.

Eating fish.

Splurged on some Jet candy bars.