FINAL WEEK at the MTC!

Can you believe how quickly nine weeks have flown by?!?  Almost 10% of the mission is over!

Jaren was excited to see his friends when they came to the MTC two weeks ago.  He doesn't get to see the friend going to India much, but they are in the MTC choir together.  The other is going to Berlin and they see each other often. 

He tell us there are about 65-70 missionaries in their zone, so because of the numbers, they have called a third counselor in the branch presidency.  Jaren told us of the rumor he's heard about why so many missionaries are being called to Germany right now.  I won't tell you about it until I do some research and see if it's true.  It's pretty cool speculation, though. . . so stay tuned!

Jaren is really excited to meet his mission president.  He has heard from missionaries that were there when he first arrived and met his mission president, that President Ninow is always smiling.  I guess he is 44 years old and a business man.  He has a son on a mission and three or four other sons at home.

Here is what Jaren says about trying to get everything learned that they are teaching in the MTC, plus what his mission president wants him to learn. . . "I'm also very busy trying to do last minute things that President Ninow wants accomplished before we get there, supposedly, we are going to try to memorize the first lines to about 20 hymns that are used in the street preaches, then learn how to master street contacting and placing a Book of Mormon."  I told him to not stress about all of it.  How can you really know some of that stuff until you get out there and put it to use.  He will have a trainer, after all, but I know the more prepared he can be on this end, the better.

We are hoping to hear from him on the 8th or 9th.  I guess they get to call some where along the way.

Jaren was excited about receiving a package from some of his friends.  He drew a picture for me of what some of the cute candies looked like.  They were made to look like mice. . . I am not excited about anything to do with mice, so I would have freaked out!  But that's a story for another blog!!  Thanks, girls, for the package!

I can tell he has turned his mind to Germany.  His letter was about practical things on leaving the MTC, you know, adapters and more p-day shirts because his won't hold up much longer! Oh, and the travel day.

I don't know when I will hear from him again to know when I might post the next letter, so I might email everybody when I hear.

Now. . . not a lot of family news, but there are more darn dog stories!  So you know that Milo ate (not sure how much he ate, but at least chewed up) his tarp.  Well, this weekend he was yelping in his kennel when it was storming so we put him in with Winston.  By the end of the day he had torn Winston's tarp up, too.  Holly felt bad for him, so she attached a large moving box to the top of both kennels (these kennels are attached together).  Well, within a couple hours Milo had torn that up, too.  There was cardboard all over his kennel!  Holly, who has always defended dumber, I mean Milo, looked out at him Monday with cardboard all over in his kennel and said, "Wow, what a dumb dog!"  She finally saw Milo like we have always seen him.  Oh, and my brother-in-law, Gary, and I took the dogs walking with us Saturday and as we walked on the bridge that goes across the river, the dogs  freaked out!  How many times can I say that in one blog?!?  They did NOT want to go across.  Now, it's not like this was a swaying walking bridge across a mighty roaring river.  No, this was a paved road bridge across a very low Weber River!  I'm not sure what they sensed.  On the way back, I thought maybe it would be easier the second time across, but NO.  Winston sat down in the middle of the bridge with a truck coming and was pulling against his collar and leash.  I was thinking, so you would rather get hit by a truck than walk 10 more feet across this bridge?  Gary said, "these are the stupidest smart dogs I have ever seen!"  The good news about this whole walk-with-the-dogs experience is that I burned more calories than I would have otherwise!