One More Week in the MTC

Last week, Chris asked us to send him a "hideously ugly tie" to wear for the last few days in the MTC.  We found the perfect one!  It's a very lovely green, floral "pillow tie."  He can inflate it and use it to sleep through class, or study time, or his flights- whatever.  We are sending it to him tomorrow...

Chris is really excited to leave for Taiwan.  He said, "I can't believe it's my LAST HECKIN' P-DAY here!!! So crazy! Is time going by this fast for all of you as well? I can't believe how fast it's gone by! I'm looking forward to getting to talk to all of you next week!  Before I forget, we got our travel plans on Thursday!!! We leave here at about 8:30am next Tuesday and we head to the airport. We have a :50 minute layover in LAX and then we fly for many hours and have a 1:15 layover in Tokyo, Japan (freaking awesome!) and then arrive in Taibei about 9:50 pm local time and have a 3-4 hour bus ride to the mission home! Oh goodness. I'm super excited though!!!"  

We think that he will be in Tokyo at about 1:30 am Utah time, so it will be interesting if that is when he calls us.  We will be happy to talk to him whenever we get the chance, though!

We are also hoping that he makes it to Taiwan uninjured. Last week he wrote to us about getting hurt.  He said, "Last Friday, during gym, I really messed up my back.  I tried to live with pain for 3 hours.  I couldn't stand, I couldn't sit, I was just... pathetic.  (My companion) offered to give me a priesthood blessing and I accepted.  He finished and I stood up to shake his hand and there was absolutely no pain anymore.  none.  From excruciating to pain free in an instant.  How cool is that?  That just shows how powerful the priesthood is!"

Then, in his email today he told us, "I hurt myself again on Saturday. Don't tell Hunter, lol! Don't worry, I'm totally okay now. I ran after the 4-square ball so I didn't die and I lost my center of gravity, stumbled forward and stepped sideways. I think what happened was my kneecap fell out. LOL. I couldn't walk on that leg at all for about 10 minutes. An elder from another district helped me get to the trainers office. The lady there started poking my knee and asking "does that hurt" over-and-over. Nothing hurt though...So she asked me to stand up and walk and I was all better. Jesus loves me. :D  I'm not going to gym anymore. I wanna get to Taiwan in one piece!"

On October 3rd, three weeks ago, Chris finished reading the Book of Mormon.  He had set a goal to finish while in the MTC, and completed it in 7 weeks.  He also said he "marked at least one thing on every page, and some pages are completely colored in. lol!"  Way to go, Chris!

We are excited to have a missionary in Taiwan!  Thanks to everyone for supporting him!