Stuffs

Here is the latest update from Elder Mellor from 6/10/13! He had a great week and met probably his favorite person in the world. I am so grateful that he is safe and well! 

So I didn't really write down any experiences that I wanted to share with you guys like I normally do so I don't forget, so I am going to have to wing this. 

 

We have been working with this lady named Tonja since before I got here and she has had problems with smoking.  Finally on this Saturday we are baptizing her if she stays off the smoking.  Also I am confirming her, this will be my first time doing this.  Another thing is that most likely my companion that is training me will be moving to a different area in July, and I will probably be getting a new one.  I am not really worried though.  Ok maybe a little bit.

 

The Elder Bednar conference was great it was 3 hours long too!! Although we had to stay the night at the Elder's apartment in Hershey, but it was kind of cool because all of the street lamps there had Hershey's Kisses on the tops of them!  I wanted to get a picture but I never got the chance to.  We all got to shake his hand at the end and I gave him one of those one handed handshake/hug things.  So I did get to hug him like I wanted too!  Then afterwards we all took a picture with him, the three of the 70 and the mission president and his wife.  I really have no idea what they are going to do with it though.  I hope they send it to me.  There were three of the quorum of the 70 there too by the way.  He is really funny when he is not in general conference.  It was really cool to see him in an environment where he could be more relaxed.  At one point he called one of the 70 to address a comment and he just walked over to a table thing that was next to the podium and just sat on it and was just chilling, sucking on a mint (which he popped a couple in his mouth while he was talking, he was pretty skillful about it too.  I barely noticed).  I was sitting in the very front pew and he was right there.  Where I was sitting when Bednar sat down his gaze naturally settled on me.  he was looking right at me!  It was a little unnerving because he has really dark eyes and it felt like he was peeking into my soul. 

 

This conference was not a lecture from Elder Bednar.  It was more of a workshop in the sense that he asked a lot of questions and we asked him a lot of questions.  I was actually lucky enough to be able to participate and answer a question he had, and I made him laugh too.  I looked behind me and I was like "wow that's a lot of people".  He just busted up it was pretty cool.  He told us one of the study methods he has is to take a new inexpensive paper back copy of the Book of Mormon and just mark it up all over in relating to a question he had or something he wants to study.  Then he writes a one page summery of what he learned, then puts it on a bookshelf.  He has about 455 of these books too by the way on a bookshelf at his home.  He told us how his sons often ask if they could read them and his response was hilarious! He said that if they tried he would cut their hands off (he said he literally told him that too!).  Then they asked what about after he died. He said and I quote: "I will spend my last breath on striking a match and burning that bookshelf so that you wont be able to see it.  And that I will make sure I don't go to the spirit world until it is all ash."  It was hilarious!  I wish you guys could have been there.  The principle of that was to emphasis that spiritual knowledge cannot be transferred from one person to another, but it has to come by learning from the Holy Ghost.

 

Oh dang what else did he talk about?  I know it was three hours of greatness, but I am having a hard time remembering it, of course everything will probably come back to me once I have to leave.  If I remember anything else awesome I will send an email out to everyone about it, if the computer doesn't kick me off for sending a bunch of pictures.

 

 

So one of our recent converts (Chris) are moving to Vermont (moving in with his girlfriends Grandma and his girlfriend so hopefully he will be able to stay true and go on a mission.  He has had us all worried).  Anyway since it was our last week with him we decided to watch the movie 17 Miracles with him.  Near the end of the movie I had to leave to go give a blessing to one of the members mom, at the hospital (the rest of my companionship stayed there) so we gave him a blessing before I left so we could all be a part of it.  I wasn't the one giving the blessing though.  For the members mom she wasn't going to die or anything it was just a surgery that she has done before.

And now, for pictures! 

Elder Mellor made himself a Birthday cake the day after his Birthday. Haha 

Elder Mellor now 20 years old! Can you believe it?!

Elder Mellor really appreciated his Birthday cards from Grandma and Grandpa and from Aunt Jeanette and her family! He thought it was really cool that you had to blow out the candles in the Yoda card. 

Elder Mellor wants a cool flag like this eventually to remind him of his mission! Apparently it is hanging up in his Companion's doctor's office. 

That is all for this week! Until next time!! 

Hello from PA!

Here is Elder Mellor's weekly update from 6/3/13! Let's start out with some pictures!

Elder Mellor cut his own hair! (With help from his companion)

SOme treasures that Elder Mellor found! The bottom two are from some candy shop and the top two are from an Amish market which is pretty cool! Its honeycomb and real maple syrup (which he just drinks because apparently it tastes better by itself than on stuff.) He said he was going to send a little bit to his family which probably means his big sister won't get any. BOO. Hahaha

Elder Mellor's Birthday Doughnut!

He actually succeeded in making honey sesame shrimp from a honey sesame chicken mix. I am so proud!

Poor little Spike Jr. He is keeping him under a light to keep him warm but accidentally hit him with the light and flattened him on the top! And he makes fun of his big sister for killing cacti...

And without further adieu here is Elder Mellor's letter! He is doing so well and teaching and growing and it is a miracle. I am so proud of him! See for yourself! :) 

So we had a situation on, I think it was Tuesday.  So we got home Tuesday night at 9:00 PM like we always do and it smelled really bad.  At first my companion thought that my  other companion threw away chicken or something and that's what it was.  But then we also heard a weird noise like the toilet was running (it is a little broken where you have to jiggle the handle to get it to stop flushing continuously).  So I went up to the toilet to jiggle the handle, but it wasn't running..... DO DO DO DO DO DO DO DO TWILIGHT ZONE!!!!  

 

HAHA just kidding.  So we looked in our supply closet/place where the water heater is stored and heard the water running, but couldn't find the leak, then I stepped on it in the carpet.  A closer inspection revealed that there was like rat poop on the ground.  So we have a water leak and rodents.  So we called the landlord at around 9:30 and he said he would be there in an hour.  He didn't get there till about 11:40.  I was so mad because I had to stay up and wait for him!  He just turned the water off and said he would come back in the morning.  Well we still had to shower and we had district meeting the next morning.  So we ended up taking a shower at the YMCA that was on the way to the church, where we had the meeting.  Apparently YMCA's don't have shower curtains, it is just a square room with shower heads popping out of the walls.So my companions and I had to see each other's naked backside.  I am just glad that it wasn't till after we finished showering that all the old men came in to shower, so at least I didn't see a ton of naked old men.

 

Eventually that day our landlord got our water fixed and found out that the pipe had been chewed through!  So we really did have some kind of rodent.  He set traps and hopefully he catches it.  So that was my adventure for the week.

 

I have been thinking of a lot of different ideas for inventions, so I decided to get a notebook and write them down and draw diagrams of them.  Unfortunately I don't know how to draw so I couldn't do that part.  On that same topic does anyone know how a mister system works (you know like the ones at Disney Land or in the ticket line for the movie theatre)?  I had a really cool idea regarding that. 

 

Also some people have been wanting me to talk about the people I have been teaching so here is the run-down.  I think I already talked about the person that told us they wanted a break from us for a while.  It is the person who her recent convert husband was going to baptize.  So I will skip her.

 

One of the people we are working with her name is Tonja.  (As a side note she also has a daughter named Kazhia, except she spells it differently.  And yes she is black before you ask)  She has been taught long before I got here and she has had trouble quitting smoking, but we think that she will be able to stop and be baptized on the 15th of this month, so that is our goal for her.  She is a stay at home mom.

 

Another person we are working with is named Lovely (my companion never met her and just had an address and he asked someone who wasn't her "Are you Lovely?"  I bet that was awkward) (and yes she is also black, to be specific from Haiti).  She is really cool and progressing well.  She is a stay at home mom and is pregnant with her 3rd child and she is about 8 months in.

 

Lastly we have been trying to get ahold of this particular fellow ever since I got here, and yesterday we finally got to sit down and talk with him.  His name is Nathan and he works at a place called Eat-N-Park.  I think it used to be like a sonic or something, but I am just guessing from the name.  Now it is a place like Village Inn and it is just as popular too, they are everywhere.  He gave us some pie and it was super good! (he makes the pies there too from what I gather).  Anyway he grew up when he was little as a Mormon but doesn't really remember any of it and wants to know more about it.  His wife is awesome and really interested in it too.  She is really cool and fun and calls herself immature a lot but it is just fun.  and they latched on the message very quickly.

A Few Pictures!

Here's a few of the pictures that Elder Mellor has been sending to us!

Random animal statues Elder Mellor found fascinating

View from Elder Mellor's apartment! He said that there are so many hills and trees that it makes him feel like he is in a bubble.

for Mother's day Elder Mellor made a waffle cake! 

He was surprised by all the fog! 

Birthday package from his favorite sister! :) 

His favorite. :) 

His cactus Spike Jr. to remind him of home! 

His peeps were apparently stale, so they got put in the microwave! Haha

Catch Up Time

Sorry I have gotten so far behind on posting Elder Mellor's letters! We will get all caught up in this post! 

May 6, 2013

Sorry last weeks was so short,  they kicked me off the computer at the library because someone else wanted a turn so I had to get off.  Also the library will be closed on next Monday for memorial day or something so I don't know if I will get to email you guys.  I hope we cane work something out.  This past week was pretty normal.  Nothing out of the ordinary happened.  Thank you Kazhia, Mom, and Dad for the birthday packages they were wonderful. 

There is this really cool talk by Brad Wilcox titled "His Grace is Sufficient"  it is really good and helped to to better understand the role of Jesus Christ.  

We get weekly coupons sent to our apartment and I found a coupon for the ham I buy so that was awesome.

I have an investigator named Tonja and she has a daughter named Kazhia (except she spells it differently).  Also she has a lot of the same mental problems I do, so I can relate with her well.

So during Zone Training Meeting my mission president accedentaly let it slip that it is in fact Elder Bednar that will be speaking with us on June 8th (we all laughed at him for it).  It also was pretty obvious that he emailed us to read these 3 Bednar talks to get spiritually prepared for it.  I am super excited about it and cannot wait.  I hope I will be able to shake his hand or better, give him a hug!  

May 13, 2013

I will stop putting a number after my weekly update so I don't have to clog up my mind with remembering that stuff (and no it is not just because I forgot what number I was on!).

 

I have been having this weird thought lately that maybe I should become a psychiatrist instead of working with computers.  That way I wont have to do as much math (I am bad at math) I think.  Also my patriarchal blessing does say a lot about education (among other things pertaining to that job), and that job would require a lot of it.  We were explaining what a patriarchal blessing was to one of our recent converts and she thought we said patriotic blessing, it was pretty funny.

 

I will know who will be speaking to us at the conference in two weeks, so we will have to wait till then to find out.

 

 I got to go now bye

May 20, 2013

Sorry last weeks was so short,  they kicked me off the computer at the library because someone else wanted a turn so I had to get off.  Also the library will be closed on next Monday for memorial day or something so I don't know if I will get to email you guys.  I hope we cane work something out.  This past week was pretty normal.  Nothing out of the ordinary happened.  Thank you Kazhia, Mom, and Dad for the birthday packages they were wonderful. 

There is this really cool talk by Brad Wilcox titled "His Grace is Sufficient"  it is really good and helped to to better understand the role of Jesus Christ. 

We get weekly coupons sent to our apartment and I found a coupon for the ham I buy so that was awesome.

I have an investigator named Tonja and she has a daughter named Kazhia (except she spells it differently).

So during Zone Training Meeting my mission president accedentaly let it slip that it is in fact Elder Bednar that will be speaking with us on June 8th (we all laughed at him for it).  It also was pretty obvious that he emailed us to read these 3 Bednar talks to get spiritually prepared for it.  I am super excited about it and cannot wait.  I hope I will be able to shake his hand or better, give him a hug!  

May 28, 2013

Sorry I wasn't able to send out a weekly email yesterday like normal, it was Memorial Day and all the libraries were closed.  So I tried to make some Sesame seed shrimp with those packets (I found where to get them by the way)  and it was super good and yummy!  I will send out a picture of it later.  Also on an unrelated note my companions have all said that I snore really bad and one had to buy earplugs,  I think I get that from my dad.

THANKS FOR ALL THE BIRTHDAY WISHES!!!

When I have the conference on June 8th with Bednar I am going to try to corner him and get him to sign my book Mom and Dad sent me.  Pray for me hahahhahaha.

I didn't do anything to celebrate my birthday and I was going to make a cake but we didn't have any eggs so I made it today and I will have to wait till dinner time to frost it and eat it.  Also my companion forgot even though he said he wrote it down and didn't remember till later on in that day when I mentioned it.  It sounded like he was going to do something fun too.  So it was a little disappointing.

Also I got to drive the car this week, and then after a couple of days my companion stopped letting me drive, because I was so bad at it, but it wasn't my fault because the roads here are really windy and hard to drive on.  I was a little upset for a while, then I got over it.

Elder Bednar said something interesting in that book I got for my birthday (It is really good by the way, thanks Mom and Dad!).  He said that the natural consequence (wow how did I spell that right?) of seeking out the Holy Ghost is a desire to learn more, and I have seen that on my mission a lot.  I hope that all of you can learn as much as I am right now.  My companion calculated that during the 2 years we serve on our mission equals 49 years of active church service.  That is a lot!

My companion taught me how to cut my own hair yesterday (it was actually just shaving most of it off, hahaha).  

Plant Time With Zack! Haha

First of all for mothers day I will be skyping home at 8:00 PM (my time so I think it will be 6:00 PM your time you should look that up), so please be ready I will call you first to get your Skype information.

 

We also have 2 more baptisms on this Saturday and we might be able to get one more person if she will let us on that day.  One of those people is Chris I think I told Dad about him.

 

I had to go on exchanges with other missionaries this last week and I learned that my area is the best in the district.  As in it has more people to feed us and more people we are teaching.  I was thinking about how Vikings used to put their dead on a ship, light it on fire, and set it out to see, and that the creator of Star Trek sent his ashes to space to orbit the earth.  I want to combine them when I die, by putting my body in a space ship and sending it into the sun.  That way I could have a space Viking funeral.

 

Can you ask Kristen if MI paste will help with these white spots on the gum line of my teeth?  If so I would like some.  Also if it isn't too much trouble if I could get a couple more short sleeve shirts (size 16) that would be great,  there isn't a rush since it is still in the 70's, but summer will be here eventually, and I heard that it gets up to 90s with a lot of humidity.  Don't feel obligated to send me stuff when I ask for it because I usually don't need it.

 

Since I have been talking so much about plants I am going to have an actual section titled:

Plant Time With Zack!!!

 

I have been thinking that having a cactus here would be awesome.  Not only does it not need much care, but it would remind me of home.  Plus cacti are pretty cool.  Also my companion found a picture of a plant and it was a mini banana tree and it looked so weird look it up.  So that would be cool to have too.

The End

 

 

Yesterday some members (young couple with 3 kids) fed us steak fresh from his father's farm in Idaho.  Also there was this amazing dessert that was in this order:  Jell-O (with Raspberries inside), some sort of yummy cream that tasted like whipped cream and cheese cake, and pretzels on the bottom.  It was super good.  I am SO glad it wasn't Mexican food since it was May 5th.  I guess it is not a big deal at all here.  For obvious reasons.

 

Also today we will be getting a third elder in our companionship, so there will be three of us. He is waiting on a visa so there was no room at the MTC because of all the missionaries coming out.  Part of me wants to call him our lackey and make him back up the car (because they make us get out of the car and have someone back the driver up and it is always me because I am not driving at the moment), but I doubt I would do that.  It is funny because the ward is always wondering when we will get another set of missionaries (because someone told us we would), so we joked that instead we got an extra elder.  We are picking him up tonight and it is really cool because we get to leave our area and hang out there for our Pday before we pick him up.  We get to leave our area because that is where we are picking him up, I don't think I made that clear.

 

The Mtn Dew cake was a failure it just tasted like regular cake.  I think it cooks it out, so I have decided to give up on that.  I  think that there is a ghost or something inside of my apartment on top of my microwave, because a piece of my cake went missing when I set it on the microwave and I didn't eat it and neither did my companion (he doesn't eat sugar).  And apparently my companion's last companion put some walnuts on the microwave and they went missing!  And he found a piece in his shoe!  Also apparently a Transfer is used as a unit of time on my mission.  It really threw me off when I first got here.

04/29/13

My companion told me that they are making new quads in August,  that is really cool.  I think it is the first time they changed it since the 70's.

 

Also I learned that one of my former bishops is friends with some football guy named Joe Montana, whoever that is.  I think dad knows. 

 

I got my Easter package on Thursday and it was great!  Thank you for it.  My favorite things to get are (in no particular order) food, CD's (music and talks and firesides and such), and books.

 

We just had a golden investigator say she didn't want to see us anymore and it makes me really mad and upset and frustrated and it just broke my heart and made me want to cry.  Also speaking of bad news the person I was going to confirm and my compy (I call my companion that sometimes) baptize, changed his mind about being baptized for the THIRD time (I haven't been there for all the times), so we wont be seeing him anymore either.  He has commitment problems.  Going on my mission has defiantly been the hardest thing in my life, but it is also the most rewarding.

 

I am listening to this song right now about missionary work called "All times, All Things, All place"  you should give it a listen.

 

I never thought that I would have said this before but repentance is my most favorite thing in the world.  I feel like , I think it was Alma, who said he wished he was an angel so he could cry repentance unto every living thing.

 

I realized I never described my apartment to you guys so here it is.   My apartment is like a really small 2 story apartment it has a living room with a fireplace 2 desks a coffee table, a recliner that doesn't work very well (like it doesn't rock back very well it is really hard to explain), and a couch.  By the way we are going to be getting rid of the coffee table and couch to make room for a dining table since we don't have one right now. The kitchen has the washer and dryer in it.  Upstairs is a small bedroom with 2 beds, a bathroom, and an exercise room.  I made a video of it but it is too big to send home through email so I have no way of getting it there.

 

My ward has 100 active members out of 400 so it is pretty small.  I don't think I have talked about my ward yet.

 

I will be 20 soon in about a month isn't that crazy?!!  I am really excited, and kind of sad, as to what a birthday in the mission field is like.

 

So apparently the church has a disaster relief/ service organization called helping hands.  Anyway my entire mission (the area like the different stakes and stuff so it is pretty much the whole state) is participating in some sort of service with the helping hands and we all got to wear these yellow vests and I think my companion took a picture of me in it but I am not sure.  If he did then I will send it.  Anyway what we did was went out to a place called Raccoon State Park about an hour away from my place a little outside my area (don't worry my mission president said it was ok) we had to get a ride from a member and they bought a box of doughnuts and they let me have some and it was awesome!  Anyway getting distracted again, we did a bunch of stuff for them, I shoveled gravel, made a path with woodchips that they called mulch, and cleared a path for said path (like removed all the tree leaves and branches and stuff in the way) I got to use a really cool looking handsaw to cut a branch off a tree.  The saw was kind of curved.   We were there from 8 AM to about 2 PM and I got a little bit burnt since I didn't think about sunscreen since the weather is so nice.  That made me think that an Aloe plant would be cool to have since I burn so easily.  Although I don't know how to make my own gel from it.  I bet Elliot would know.  You should ask him for me.

 

My companion is kind of mean, he makes me clean with him for like an hour every Monday and if I didn't do a good job he makes me do it again.  He is a neat freak :(

 

I am going to be making (or trying to) A Mtn dew cake with a Mtn dew glaze.  I will let you know how it is next week.

Here's Elder Mellor at the Helping Hands Service Project he talked about! 

Elder Mellor in some new dress slacks. He probably wouldn't want me sharing it all over  the place, but her just looks so handsome! :) 

04/22/13

Here is an interesting factoid!  Did you know that Joseph and Mary were first cousins?  That was a fun little fact I learned while reading Jesus the Christ.  So apparently there is this new Mormon site called Mormons and gays and it is about the churches stance on homosexual relationships. 

 

There are a lot of different birds here and they are all so pretty and amazing.  There are also these really gross and ugly giant bee called Mammoth Bees.  They are really gross and kind of scary.

 

One of the people we were supposed to baptize on Saturday got cold feet on us and didn't come (for the third time, might I add also it was the one I was going to confirm) so we aren't going to see him anymore.  But we did baptize this one girl, although the only thing I did was give a little talk in the program.  One of the people we have been working with asked us to baptize him so we got a date for him and for another person.  Also we have two other people we are very close to committing them to baptism.  So that makes, I believe five people we should be baptizing in the near future.

 

The closest temple to me is in Washington D.C.  and it is way out of my area, so I will not be going for the next two years unfortunately.

 

Thank you for the package!  it was really great and I love it!  Me and my companion are listening to that talk from elder Cook and you guys should listen to it as well and use that advice to give all you sacrament talks and such.  I wasn't able to get the easter one unfortunately, but I think my mission president will bring it down when he does interviews with us on Thursday.  So hopefully I will get it then.

 

I couldn't find the sesame package so I will have to wait till next week to find it again maybe I can find it next week.

 

I am going to the dentist today at 2:30 so I will let you know how it goes next week.

 

I just got back from the dentist and they fixed me right up.  I had a really small cavity that wasn't very deep so he just drilled it out and filled it real quick with out numbing it (so it hurt a bit).  then he just filled it real quick and now I don't have a hole in my tooth.  They also gave me 3 sample size toothpaste tubes of enamel/sensitivity protection.

 

The dentist's office was a house converted into an office and we drove past it a few times during the week while we were going places.  So it looked really sketchy.  I thought it was going to be a front for human trafficking or something. But once we went inside it looked really nice and everyone there was nice and they took care of my teeth well

Elder Mellor is loving seeing the variety of none desert plants in Pennsylvania!

He tried to make a giant Mt. Dew pancake. Haha Silly Zack

Elder Mellor and his companion had a baptism! He gave a short talk at the program! He said it went great!

Apparently this is Elder Mellor's average meal...Are we at all surprised? Hahaha