Here is his letter. I thought his P-Day was Thurs, but I guess it is Wed.
Thanks for your support!
Candice
From: Brandon Fine [mailto:brandon.fine@myldsmail.net]
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 1:13 PM
To: Kevin Fine
Subject: Re: Letter from Mom 9-26-10
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 1:13 PM
To: Kevin Fine
Subject: Re: Letter from Mom 9-26-10
Hola Familia Fine,
Everything is going well here in the Salt Lake mission. I'm speaking Spanish on Spanish here, and it's been a pretty crazy first week. My address here is:
Elder Brandon Kevin Fine
Utah Salt Lake City Mission
3487 S 1300 E
Salt Lake City, Utah 84106-2951
I don't drive because a) I don't know where anything is. b) I don't have a TIWI card to log in because I'm not actually a permanent Salt Lake City missionary and c) I probably shouldn't be driving anyway. A few things I learned this week include: Mexicans are very forgiving and patient with those who are trying to learn their language and they'll still understand you even if you conjugate something incorrectly. The definition of "agua" is not limited to water, but includes juice, horchata, kool-aid, and basically any other drink. Interesting mission story of the week: We stopped by to visit Ernesto, who is planning on being married and baptized soon and has a 12 year old son who was baptized a few weeks ago. I was feeling rather awful and we had eaten an abundance of taquitos at a member of the bishopric's house. Gordo (the 12-year-old) informed us that his dad had just gotten home and was asleep and maybe we could try to talk to him later. I became increasingly aware that I was not okay. Luckily Gordo speaks perfect english and is a huge fan of the missionaries, otherwise it might have been awkward for me to ask if I could throw up in his bathroom. Moral of the story, you never know what it is that's going to get you inside talking to investigators. Once we were in, we were able to answer questions and plan for Ernesto. Now, don't you worry about anything. I got some nyquil, some rest, and a priesthood blessing, and I'm feeling much better. I can actually breath through my nose! I've really had to hit the ground running here. There's no time to waste. Get here, get with your companion, and go teach, testify, and invite people to be baptized, in spanish. I'm not very good at it yet, but I can tell that with the help of the spirit I am rapidly improving. They give us money periodically. Because I'm not technically a permanent part of this mission, I don't actually have a card, so they put my money on Elder Chavez's card and then we go take it out of an ATM. Simple enough.
Ok, so you got the bad story. Now here's the good one. Prepare yourself. On Monday we went to do Temple Service in the Salt Lake Temple. The first little bit of it was moving cabinets and stuff around and riding up and down in the freight elevator in the basement. Then we went up to the fourth floor and moved the Apostles' chairs from their room to the solemn assembly room on the 5th floor. You have to keep them in order because they're all memory foam and contoured to fit each individual apostle. Then we put their personal hymn books, which they all write notes in (Elder Holland writes the dates that each is sung), on their chairs. We couldn't find Elder Nelson's at first because it was on the organ in their room, because he had played the hymn on Sunday. We also got to see the top of the dome. Simply incredible. Trivia question: There are three portraits of the three witnesses outside the Apostles' meeting room. Why are they there? Do you know the answer? I didn't. Turns out the three witnesses were assigned to call the very first quorum of twelve in this dispensation. Interesting stuff. So I've now been inside the Salt Lake temple and in parts of it that most temple patrons don't go but haven't yet done anything redemptive in it. I'll be downtown for conference making sure our investigators know where to go and we might even be able to get into a session. We'll probably attend priesthood in Spanish with Ernesto and Gordo. Not really sure what the plan is. I'm excited though.
Let's see, you requested a typical day. I haven't really had one of those yet, but I'll tell you some of the things that are fairly consistent. Wake up at 6:25, excercise for half an hour, shower, eat, personal study, companion study (role play for practice). Mornings like that are pretty regular, the time for language study shifts around depending on what we have going on in the mission and with appointments. Dinner is usually at 5 and we are very well fed. Good thing I like mexican food. They put this sweet chili pepper powder stuff on watermelon. I thought it was kinda weird, but I liked it when I tried it. Have you ever heard of that? Most of our teaching appointments are after dinner during the week because that's when the most people are home. We keep pretty busy. Sometimes people aren't home, so we leave them a note and go talk to someone else. We always have someone to talk to. It's great. Anyway, life is good, the church is true, the book is blue. Have a fantastic week. I love you all!
Suerte!
Elder Brandon Kevin Fine
Everything is going well here in the Salt Lake mission. I'm speaking Spanish on Spanish here, and it's been a pretty crazy first week. My address here is:
Elder Brandon Kevin Fine
Utah Salt Lake City Mission
3487 S 1300 E
Salt Lake City, Utah 84106-2951
I don't drive because a) I don't know where anything is. b) I don't have a TIWI card to log in because I'm not actually a permanent Salt Lake City missionary and c) I probably shouldn't be driving anyway. A few things I learned this week include: Mexicans are very forgiving and patient with those who are trying to learn their language and they'll still understand you even if you conjugate something incorrectly. The definition of "agua" is not limited to water, but includes juice, horchata, kool-aid, and basically any other drink. Interesting mission story of the week: We stopped by to visit Ernesto, who is planning on being married and baptized soon and has a 12 year old son who was baptized a few weeks ago. I was feeling rather awful and we had eaten an abundance of taquitos at a member of the bishopric's house. Gordo (the 12-year-old) informed us that his dad had just gotten home and was asleep and maybe we could try to talk to him later. I became increasingly aware that I was not okay. Luckily Gordo speaks perfect english and is a huge fan of the missionaries, otherwise it might have been awkward for me to ask if I could throw up in his bathroom. Moral of the story, you never know what it is that's going to get you inside talking to investigators. Once we were in, we were able to answer questions and plan for Ernesto. Now, don't you worry about anything. I got some nyquil, some rest, and a priesthood blessing, and I'm feeling much better. I can actually breath through my nose! I've really had to hit the ground running here. There's no time to waste. Get here, get with your companion, and go teach, testify, and invite people to be baptized, in spanish. I'm not very good at it yet, but I can tell that with the help of the spirit I am rapidly improving. They give us money periodically. Because I'm not technically a permanent part of this mission, I don't actually have a card, so they put my money on Elder Chavez's card and then we go take it out of an ATM. Simple enough.
Ok, so you got the bad story. Now here's the good one. Prepare yourself. On Monday we went to do Temple Service in the Salt Lake Temple. The first little bit of it was moving cabinets and stuff around and riding up and down in the freight elevator in the basement. Then we went up to the fourth floor and moved the Apostles' chairs from their room to the solemn assembly room on the 5th floor. You have to keep them in order because they're all memory foam and contoured to fit each individual apostle. Then we put their personal hymn books, which they all write notes in (Elder Holland writes the dates that each is sung), on their chairs. We couldn't find Elder Nelson's at first because it was on the organ in their room, because he had played the hymn on Sunday. We also got to see the top of the dome. Simply incredible. Trivia question: There are three portraits of the three witnesses outside the Apostles' meeting room. Why are they there? Do you know the answer? I didn't. Turns out the three witnesses were assigned to call the very first quorum of twelve in this dispensation. Interesting stuff. So I've now been inside the Salt Lake temple and in parts of it that most temple patrons don't go but haven't yet done anything redemptive in it. I'll be downtown for conference making sure our investigators know where to go and we might even be able to get into a session. We'll probably attend priesthood in Spanish with Ernesto and Gordo. Not really sure what the plan is. I'm excited though.
Let's see, you requested a typical day. I haven't really had one of those yet, but I'll tell you some of the things that are fairly consistent. Wake up at 6:25, excercise for half an hour, shower, eat, personal study, companion study (role play for practice). Mornings like that are pretty regular, the time for language study shifts around depending on what we have going on in the mission and with appointments. Dinner is usually at 5 and we are very well fed. Good thing I like mexican food. They put this sweet chili pepper powder stuff on watermelon. I thought it was kinda weird, but I liked it when I tried it. Have you ever heard of that? Most of our teaching appointments are after dinner during the week because that's when the most people are home. We keep pretty busy. Sometimes people aren't home, so we leave them a note and go talk to someone else. We always have someone to talk to. It's great. Anyway, life is good, the church is true, the book is blue. Have a fantastic week. I love you all!
Suerte!
Elder Brandon Kevin Fine
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