FINALLY A LETTER!

Okay so after I got home from work I turned on the computer.  I figured there's no way that there would be a letter from Kodi cause it's not his Pday.  But I opened up the mail program and hidden between some other emails was this one:

Hola mi quierido familia, lo siento, estoy muy bien y mi compenero es maravilloso! estamos estudiar la idoma bueno. lol   I LOVE IT HERE!!!   Oh and our schedule changed so my p-days are now Thursdays.  The spirit felt here is absolutely amazing.  I love you to death!  Yes I have recieved every letter from you and enjoy reading them. The food here is amazing!!!   My companion can't say the same but oh well.  Because the food is so amazing that when I got here I weighed in at 127, and I am now 156 .  Thirty freaking pounds lol, idk where it all goes but still! lol.   The temple is amazing here.  The weather here is nice, above 60 most days and then rain like nuts! But i love it, it's not snow lol.  Nosotros Tenemos un bienvenido maestro, (we have a new teacher) Hermano Angus who served in chile. Our regular teacher served in the Canada Calgary Mission Spanish speaking, Weird eh? I get made fun of for being a Canadian but its all good fun. I am singing a solo in our next devotional, if you could hie to Kolob lol, oh these past two devotionals we have had apostles talk to us, first Richard G. Scott and this past Tuesday, Dallin H. Oaks it was amazing!!!  The spirit felt was sooooooooo strong!!!   I haven't had one thought of home since I got here.  I sent a letter on Monday letting you know what has been going on, I also included a pic of Elder Bonfield and I, he is also a Canadian and loves Albertans.  I need more ties too, please lol.  I love you guys and hope you guys are doing well.  I love you Mom and without your example I wouldn't be here.   Teiler, Mi Hermano, Never say that you won't serve a mission, it is the best thing you can do for yourself!  I am running out of time but just know without the love and support of all my family I would not be able to still be here.  Whom the Lord Calls, The Lord Qualifies.  And if any of you know the feelings of the spirit or want to know, read Galatians 5: 22,23, yes dad I am turning into a scriptorian lol, you should see my escrituras!  Yo se que Jose Smith es una profeta de Dios, Y Jesocristo es nuestro Salvador, El quiere todo personales a regresar y vive con El.  Les Quiero mucho

Always yours

Elder Maki

It's a cool thing as a parent to see how these young men slowly change into men.  I can't believe that Kodi has gained 30 lbs in the MTC.  Makes it sound like we never fed him eh!  Well the next post should have some pictures in it.

WHERE'S THE LETTERS?

As you must be aware, a mother must hear from her missionary regularly.  Well it had been a week since we dropped Elder Maki off at the MTC and we still hadn't received any emails from him.  I know that they are allowed to email from the MTC so we were expecting that he would have had a P-day by now.  But still no emails.  So as it turns out, we had the info for Kodi's lds mail account.  So if figured, worst case scenario, he was not sending the emails to the proper address.  It was a long shot but I figured I'd try.  So I logged into his myldsmail account and began searching for some clue that he hadn't forgotten to send his mother that long awaited email.  Couldn't find any clues at all, but just as I was about to scold him long distance, I looked in his sent mail folder and BINGO!  He had actually sent two emails, one on the 15th and the other on his P-day. He hadn't already forgotten bout his family, he was alive, and he did address them to his mother.  Wanna see em'?

OK here they are.

Dear Mom,

             Hola mi quiero padres,  I love it here and i love the people i am getting to know! my companion is Elder Dowdle and for sake of time i will not attach any fotos, but i love you so much.  Teiler as I have been here, I have come to realize, it IS ok to be good.  I keep on keeping on, especially with the whole armor of God.  Te amo Hermano!  I have dug my garden, my seeds are growing, and within the next few weeks I as well as you will reap the blessings thereof.  I love you guys so much! (btw forward this msg minus the dear mom to the rest of the FamJam! garacias.) The MTC is great! Elder Dowdle and I along with our roommates Elder Kata (tongan) y Elder Edwards (utah) already pray in spanish and we are all going to the same Mission.  Anyway Mi Nombre es Elder Maki, you voy el misionero de la iglesia de Jesucristo de los Santos de los Ultimos Dias.  Te Queido mis padres y mi Hermano!

always yours, but now, also the Lord's, Elder Maki

Dear Mom,

       Hola mis padres! This place is amazing, the spirit is so strong! Last night was emotional and the in the fireside Elder David B. Wirthlin spoke.  A relation to you know who was amazing and the closing song was the most amazing rendition of called to serve that I ever sung. I had to stop because I was crying! I didn't receive your last letter because we don't get mail on Saturdays or Sundays so hopefully today. My companion is AWESOME!!! lol . He is a big goof and I need you guys to send me another 8GB sd card for my camera, we cant upload pics here so I will send my card home, you will upload it and send it back, and I will fill the other card up and send it and it will be a cycle si? Anyway Les Quiero Mucho! Teiler, you Better serve a mission. it is amazing!!!  Yo se que el envengelio de el Senor Jesucristo es verdadero. y familiares es eternidad. nuestros Padre Celestial vives, en el nombre de Jesucristo. Amen.

Pretty Cool Eh?  So we have sent him some emails correcting the faulty email address.  Wouldn't it be cool if the person he sent them to wasn't a member and ended up joining the church.  That would be like a general conference kind of story.

I am sure that we will (and by we I mean Mom) be waiting anxiously every Monday for those treasured snippets of Elder Maki's new life.  We already have seen such a change and growth in his life.

THE TRIP HOME!

Well after we dropped Elder Maki off at the MTC, we headed back to the Hotel to get our stuff and head home. Just a note: The Holiday Inn on University Parkway on the west side of I-15 is totally awesome. It just opened in October of last year and is beautiful.  They gave us a late check-out time and told us that there were other missionary's families staying there too. They have fantastic service, free hot breakfast, pool, jacuzzi, fitness centre, the whole nine yards.  It was a great stay.  Anyways on to the post.  We wanted to get on the road but we had a few stops to make first.  We needed some snacks for the trip home to Alberta and a few other things.  I had to find my Caffeine-free Dr. Pepper, and some Veronor's Ginger ale.  We decided to stop by the BYU bookstore to see if they had any Finnish Language books.  Teiler wanted a Fredette jersey and I have a friend from Lethbridge who works at the BYU bookstore, so we tried to find him too.

Y? - Just because!

We finally got on the road for home at some time around 4 PM ish.  The weather that day in Provo was 19-20 degrees celcius, it was really nice outside.  The further north we drove the more the skies closed in.  We started to get rain at about Ogden area and then it just kept getting worse and worse.  We had torrential down pores for about 3 hours.  As we got to Milad pass the snow started pounding down, but luckily the road was warm enough that it didn't stick.  We finally drove out of the weather at Inkom Idaho, and then the roads were clear and dry.  We overnighted at Idaho Falls as we had done on our way down.  The Holiday Inn Express that we had stayed at was booked so the front desk dude phoned around and found us a room at the Ameritel Inn.

We got up in the morning and got on the road.  The officer at the border was one that I had had before and we were quickly on our way home to Stirling.  We picked up the dog and settled in at home.

MTC

The Maki Family in front of the Provo Temple

So a bitter-sweet day for the family.  As Shakespeare said "Parting tis such sweet sorrow."  It's an amazing thing to send off your first missionary, but difficult at the same time.  Mom had a tearful goodbye as Kodi kissed her on the forehead and hugged her tightly.  Dad was proud and offered words of encouragement.  Teiler actually hugged his older brother and told him that he loved him.  Something we previously had only hoped and assumed.

As a former missionary I knew and understood the feelings Kodi was going through.  The excitement and anticipation he was feeling were all too familiar for me.  I was anxious to get him through those MTC doors so that he could start growing and progressing as a full time ambassador for the Saviour. What a cool place to begin a mission.

Mom and her Missionary

For Mom the toughest part of sending him in there was not being able to know exactly what he's up to and only being able to hear from him once a week.  Thanks to DearElder.com she is able to send him a note everyday. I know she is looking forward to that first letter/email as confirmation that he is still alive, and doing well.

Elder Maki and his Bro just reflecting

Our goal with this blog is to keep family and friends up to date with the happenings of Kodi's service in the mission field.  We will include pictures and letters/emails of his experiences.  He is super excited to be speaking Spanish and we look forward to sharing his mission with all of you.

TEMPLE SQUARE

On Tuesday we spent the day on Temple Square.  We parked under the conference center and had decided that Mom, Kodi and I would attend a session at the Salt Lake Temple.  We had never previously done a session there.  Teiler had a limited use recommend from his bishop, so he went and did baptisms and confirmations while us adults attended a session.

Hey where's my grub?

After we were done at the Temple our stomachs told us it was time to eat.  We went to the top of the Joseph Smith Memorial building and ate at the Garden restaurant.  It was really tasty.

We went across to the conference center and had a tour.  Our guide was very nice and made it very personal.  He chuckled quite good when we were in the Conference center right by the production box that's on the floor in front of the pulpit.  Teiler thought it would be funny to hear the acoustics of the building so he let out a few strange sounds that reverberated clear as a bell for all the others to hear.  We went all over the conference center.  We saw all the original paintings by Friberg and toured the roof and ponds and gardens up there as well.

Twins?

We then went and viewed the movie in the Legacy theatre about the life of Joseph Smith.  After that we went to the North visitors center and spent some time there talking to numerous sister missionaries.  Did you know that there are 200 sister missionaries serving on Temple Square?  The first Sisters to greet us talked to us for a while and knew right away that Kodi was a missionary.  They congratulated him and as we were about to excuse ourselves to walk around, I asked one of the sisters, are you that same sister missionary who is in the KSL video about missionaries and the MTC?  She blushed and tried to be all humble about it, but the cat was out of the bag.  Just that morning Kodi and I had watched a seven part series that KSL did on the MTC and missionary service.  It was shown between the Sunday Morning and Afternoon sessions of general conference the week before.  You should check it out from KSL.COM. Here's the link:

http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=296&sid=14959815

We finished up at Temple Square and then headed back to the Hotel.  A busy day, but very spiritual and enlightening.