Elder Brantley Shattuck:

Merry Christmas - Elder Shattuck & Elder Shaprio

December 18, 2008
Yesterday was our Christmas conference and that was the reason I didn't get to e-mail yesterday. I just finished a meeting with the zone leaders throughout the mission and we had a guest speaker, Elder Clayton Christenson from Harvard and a member of the 70. He came and did a case study with us. It was amazing, he is a very brilliant man and we had a lot of fun listening to him help us understand some things. The spirit was strong today. He was amazing!!! Wish I was smart enough to go to Harvard just so I could learn from him.

I really hope we don't miss each other again today but if we do just know that I am doing really well. We have a woman named Helen who is getting baptised on the 3rd of January. It has been an amazing experience to be able to teach her, she was already converted when she came here to the states and we simply were asked to go over the lessons with her and make sure she is ready and prepared for baptism. She grew up in and is from Malaysia with a Hindu background(which accepts all religions that do good) so it is a huge process for her to proclaim Christ as the Savior and that there is only one way. She is fully converted though and I love teaching her.

I often times wonder if my calling in my mission is to just teach older single women, I think the Lord knows that the young women would get me in trouble, but men would fear me because of my natural good looks and smooth confidence, so he has me teach older single women...... there is no such thing as righteous pride just so you know, I will repent.

Christmas conference was pretty good, it was full of corny little gimmicks put on by other missionaries and some of the mission presidency. The last part of the conference was all spiritual though and we heard from our mission presidency and their three wives. It was great, President Ward(1st counsel) told a story about a tall red headed boy who went on his mission and served very faithfully and then talked about the moment he stepped off the plane and into the airport. His entire family stood in the same spot watching him walk down the long and lengthy hallway smiling with such excitement and happiness. He then described the individual members and what they were doing while watching their son, or older brother, walk down the hall with his hair parted and his name tag on....... No one moved an inch, until the Missionary's father took off sprinting to give his son a hug that he had been waiting for two years to do. Time seemed to stand still as the two giants stood there embracing each other with tears rolling down their faces. President Ward then asked the question, "Do you get the sense of what it means to come unto Christ" ...... I have been pondering about this story for a while and it really has given me a great image of what it might be like to run into my Savior's arms and cry with him knowing that I have done what he asked me to. It will be such a wonderful and joyful day!

I hope Christmas goes well for you and you get everything you have ever wanted. I will call sometime during the afternoon maybe a little earlier and let you know when I am going to make my real call, plan on like 11:00 -1:00 your time though.

Thanks you mom, I love you, and just so you know, you shouldn't hate sending my package to me through the office, it just means you need to send it earlier next time:). Love you, Elder Shattuck

Elder Scott Snell:

Dec 7, 2008
The news about Elder Worthlin was broken to me in a way I didn't see coming at all. Yesterday we had a record breaking 11 people at church, half of which are almost old enough to get baptized. Anyway I was talking to my Branch President and he asked me, "Elder Worthlin passed away." I had no idea. The mission had not told us. I called to the other missionaries on the island and sure enough they heard the same thing. It was really weird. I guess once they go to sitting during conference it is only a matter of time.

I have a feeling I will be seeing Christmas from a whole new point of view this year. Speaking of Christmas, that means I get to call home. This time they want you guys to buy phone cards and send us the info by email. Like the number and such. And then we will call you at a time that we can set up. Our if you want to just call me I am sure we could do that to. If you do get a card, make sure it is one I can call from outside the U.S. to the U.S. because there are some that only allow you to call from the USA out. So the other thing is now in our mission we are buying our own bikes. I went and looked at a couple and to get a decent bike I think I can talk the guy down to about 230,000 won, which is about $200 US dollars. So yeah, what I am trying to say is maybe that should be my Christmas present. I am sorry to throw this on you. Right now cause the exchange rate from dollars to won is really good it might be less. At one point it was about 1 dollar to 1500won. I don't know what it is now though. Anyway, that would be appreciated cause it would be really nice to have a bike in this area.

So this week was kind of weird. I guess it is typical island weather though. One day I was out picking oranges in my short sleeve shirt, it was beautiful. Pluck them of the tree and eat them right on the spot. But then 2 days later have it snowing like crazy all day. None of it stuck on my side of the island but it stayed up on the volcano. It's just chilly now. I still haven't had to break out my coat yet but I have a feeling it is coming soon. I hope you all enjoy your Christmas season. Elder Snell


Dec 15, 2008
This week was a good one. I got a total of four packages this week.
Two from home, one from Ky and one from the Walkers. Thank you all very much. Mom I did finally get your deodorant package and i am sad to say that the pies didn't make it. I was pretty bummed and not to happy with the mission secretaries who send the mail. But the others made it to me safe and fast. Thank you for everything.

I have not bought my bike yet but I did see the money so I am very thankful. I am going to the bigger city on the island this week so I have more of a selection. We don't have much to choose from in my little town.

I love you all but I've got to go, we are spending p-day with our mission president. We are watching a Christmas Carol. I love you all and miss you. Elder Snell

Elder Matthew Hansen:

November 23, 2008
Soon things here are really going to change a lot. My companion is going home on Wednesday and my new companion comes on Thursday. He is from South Africa and he is coming straight from the MTC so he is brand new. I will be training so it should be interesting. I am kind of nervous but excited at the same time. A change is needed here and I just hope that it helps. Next week we are planning for 3-4 baptisms so I hope that all works out, that will be cool if it does. Other than that there isn't a whole lot going on here. We don't ride bikes, we just walk or take the buses which are still pretty interesting. We haven't done a whole lot of tracting, I think I need to learn how to do it again because my companion doesn't like to do it too much. But we still get some referrals which is better anyway, they always progress much better. This past week wasn't too bad. The worst thing that happened was at a members house, ha the food. Do you remember on Grumpy Old Men when they pour out the chunky-sour milk? Well that's exactly what I ate here. They call it "Natural Yogurt" but its just sour-chunky milk. I think its the worst thing I've had yet, I was gagging but I got it down and that was a relief. I'm surprised it didn't make me sick, I'm lucky I guess. I just thought you might want to know that.
Elder Hansen

Elder Brantley Shattuck:

November 12, 2008
Tonight I am going to stake correlation to speak with the stake presidency, mission presidency and also with all the ward mission leaders that come.... it is a pretty fun meeting. President Wixom always goes over the numbers and statistics of what is going on in the mission. It is pretty neat to hear. All I have to do is pretty much go over last month’s accomplishments and successes and represent our zone. It is fun to go and do.

There is a member that works at the Pentagon and will be getting us a way awesome private tour of the Pentagon for our zone. It will be way sweet, it is kind of like a behind the scenes tour I guess. There will be 18 of us going, that will be a funny sight going into the doors of the Pentagon!

Helen (Hindu investigator) is doing really well though, she is still looking and set on getting baptized on the 13th of December which will be way awesome. She has come to church and is doing great. We are working with a couple of other people as well. I hope they will receive answers to their prayers and decide to move forward and get baptized.

We also get to go and help put Christmas lights up at the D.C. Temple which will be a neat thing to go and do! I will really enjoy that, I love the D.C. Temple, it is really neat.

Anyways, I love you mom and know that I am fine and healthy and loving life. Love you, Elder Shattuck

Elder Andrew Peña:

November 3, 2008
Ok first off its been like a month since I've emailed and I had so many things to read I have 15 minutes to write this update so here it goes. I trained for a transfer and now I'm in ............ Visalia!!! Step training, same area different companion. He is from Logan, Utah and is awesome. I love him and he reminds me a lot like Grant and is tall and skinny like Scott. We have been together for 2weeks now and we are still covering two wards in Visalia, the 4th and 6th wards! So it's my 3rd transfer here and I love it. I could serve my entire mission here. It's the best. The members are awesome and we do get fed pretty much every night. There are maybe one, maybe two nights we don't get fed a week, but that's why I'm getting so fat. I've packed on 15 pounds!!!! YIKES! Now instead people won't have to say "like a fat kid loves cake" they can just say "like Andrew likes cake." Missions are awesome and I really miss all you guys and it was so good to hear from everyone. The library was under some remodeling for a couple of weeks that's why I was not able to email. We are going to have two re-baptisms and three investigator baptisms on the 15th. They are having their uncle do the re-baptisms and I'll be doing the other three. The family is amazing and I'll be sending pics in a couple weeks! Thank you so much for being my fam and I love and miss you all. You're the best. Now for today, two other elders want me to give them haircuts so that's what I'll be doing today. Missions are still awesome and amazing. Scott is on a tropical island in Korea! We ran into a Korean lady the other day and made me think of him and I asked her how to say "how are you doing" and man is the language funky! That's crazy! Well, whenever any of you see Cody or Cade - tell them I can't email them so tell them to stop being lazy and to sit down for 10 minutes to write a letter. Church is TRUE see ya in....one year and less then 6 months! Elder Peña

Elder Scott Snell:

October 27, 2008
To start the day off we went and climbed one of the highest mounts in Korea. I think it is actually the highest in South Korea. It is Mount Halla, if you google Jeju, it is the big huge thing right in the middle of the island. I am exhausted and my comp is even more beat. You know, they don't make them in Korea like they do in America. I am sorry but we spent the whole time waiting on the two Koreans. It was still a lot of fun. It was gorgeous because all of the leaves were changing colors and such but the fact that you had to watch your feet the whole time made it hard to see the scenery. I took some good pictures on the way up and when we got to the top 2,000m, it was foggy, we were in the clouds and you really couldn't see much. It was fun but I probably won't be doing it again any time soon. Things are going good. I got to play a lot of soccer this week and gain a lot of respect for soccer players cause I am definitely not one of them. Koreans take their soccer serious. They don't mess around with that stuff. It reminded me of church basketball. But they were actually pretty good.

I love you all and miss you but i do love this beautiful island with its palm trees and no snow. Again everyone, until next week, remember the church is true and that i love you. Elder Snell

November 2, 2008
This last week we had an unexpected visit from one of the area presidency so they called us up on Tues and told us that our flight to Pusan was leaving on Wednesday at 8:30. Well that was nice of them. The airport is on the other side of the island so we slept over at the other elders house and left in the morning. The meeting was good, I got to see a lot of my old companions and hear my trainers last talk. He goes home on the 24th. That is weird to think about. I am headed to a Buddhist Temple today. I love you all and miss you a ton. Elder Snell

November 9, 2008
This was a pretty good week, we were able to set a baptismal date with our investigator and work hard. It is crazy to think I have already been on this island for about a month. The time really is flying by. This week I had the opportunity to teach my ward about Preach My Gospel. Remember that my ward doesn't speak English. Anyway, I was pretty nervous. I had prepared as much as I could for it and I started. I decided to talk about member missionary work cause as all missionaries know, referrals are an answer to our prayers. I told them to imagine walking down the road and all of the sudden a stranger says hi and says I have this really amazing book that will change your life. Sounds a little sketchy eh. Well, now imagine that that stranger is a foreigner. Yeah, even worse. Then I proceeded to tell them that I am that stranger everyday. Yeah, every once in a while, someone will listen but not very often. I told them how members are essential to this work and it is so much more effective when they can help. It was really powerful and I ended by bearing testimony about how a ward is a family, that we are all God's children so we are all one big family. I told them how I loved my family and I was thankful that I could spend forever with them. And how amazing this gospel is that we should be jumping at the opportunity to tell someone about our church. When I was finished it was really quite, everyone was crying and it was the strongest I have felt the spirit in a long time. I think that I am going to like it here in my new area.

November 16, 2008
That is crazy to think that next week is Thanksgiving. It looks like I will be eating at some restaurant with the other Elders on our island. I would go out and kill me a turkey but they don't have guns in Korea and I am not as fast as I once was. I blame it on the rice. This last week was good, my investigator who was a smoker for 30 years just got baptized yesterday so that was really cool. I was sitting in church yesterday with my investigator waiting for it to start and kind of wondering why we were waiting, well my Branch President comes up to me and says Sister so and so is not here to give her talk so can you give a talk? Remember we don't speak English over here. Well of course I could not say no so I had about ten minutes while they passed the sacrament to prepare. I ended up talking for a good ten minutes, it was not too bad. I think God was watching out for me. Well, it came time to close and the lady who was suppose to pray wasn't there so guess who got called on to say the prayer? You betcha, me. Then we had the baptismal service with the kids running around and screaming, it was really nice. I miss American church most weeks. Oh well, I had to lead the Baptismal service too. That's the life when you are the senior in a small area I guess. Oh well, its what I signed up for. The transfer is drawing to an end and who knows, maybe I will have a new comp next week. Maybe not, I don't know. I Have already been here for a transfer. It really flew by. I love you all and miss you. Elder Snell

November 23, 2008
Well another transfer is over and it is the first one that I haven't had any changes made. I have the same area and the same Korean componion. I am really worried cause that means my Korean will only get better. I know you are a little confused right now but you have to remember as my Korean gets better my English gets worse. You do remember that I have to call home next month. I am working on training my companoin to translate just in case you can't understand. I am still down here on Paradise Island. We actully had quite a bit of snow the other day up on the volcano. I didn't see it but the other missionaries said that there were quite a few accidents as they were headed back to their area. I actually had to buy a sweater this last week to wear with my suit. But we haven't had to break out the coats yet. Speaking of suit my one is fitting pretty tight lately I am thinking that I will have to go get it let out. I blame it on the rice still.
So Thanksgiving is this week and that is crazy to think about. I think that we are plannig on having a lot of food when we have district meeting this week. I love you all and miss you.
Love your son and brother Elder Snell

Elder Adam Walker:

November 4, 2008
Today is my 5 month mark already! And for the news on where I am going! I am going a very long ways to a town down in Virginia on the Virginia, North Carolina line. Martinsville, Virginia is the name of it. I leave Elkins tomorrow morning at about 4:30 or 5:00 am to start heading down. It is going to be a really nice day of driving, I'm sure we are figuring with all the places that we have to go, I will be driving for about 7 or 8 hours. So that will be nice! My new companion's name is Elder Chin and he has been out for less time than I have. He learned Spanish in the MTC and is a Spanish speaking missionary for our mission so that will be really interesting that's for sure. I guess President trusts me or something, I have only been out for 5 months and I am going to be a senior companion and he also wants me to be a District Leader. haha so I get my first leadership position. I am the youngest person in the mission with a leadership position so I guess I have some expectations to meet up to. It will be great though. The stake I will be in is the Roanoke stake and the the area I am going to is a large Branch, the branch is bigger than the ward I am in right now so it won't be much different than what I am in right now. I am excited for it though, it will be really neat.

Jack is the one that quit smoking, Floyd, he promised me last night that he would quit smoking by the end of the year so we will see how that one goes. I won't be here to see it but hopefully he will. He has been doing good this week, his wife flew to Vietnam to take care of some family problems but she is going to be back in about a month. He has been really nervous about that because of the Communists that run that country but other than that he is doing really well. He is doing good with the smoking though, he has been tempted really, really bad with the cigarettes but he hasn't fallen into it and smoked so that has been really great. We did a ton of service this week and thank goodness we are still all alive. haha, Smith had a washer fall on him while we were helping this lady move and then yesterday he had an ingrown toenail taken out because it was killing him. Its been really quite this week, but we are all doing really well. It's our last day together here and its amazing how fast time is going. I'm a little sad to leave this area, I really do like it quite well but I guess change happens so you just have to deal with it. It will be a nice change and also nice to meet a bunch of new people. Other than all that, nothing too exciting is going on, I'm all pretty much packed and ready to go for tomorrow, just a couple more things to throw in a bag and I will be good. I don't have my new address yet, but I will let you know either Thursday or next Tuesday, it just depends on if we are going to be able to email for a min to tell you our new addresses and everything. Life is great and I'm loving this missionary work and time is going so very fast, I just have to keep holding on!
Sure love you all! Elder Walker

November 12, 2008
I am way young to be in a leadership position. Some missions you get called early in your mission, but in this mission that I am in, you usually don't get called until you get older. I will just have to give my best and everything will work out. Today we had a General Authority come and talk to us at Zone Conference. Elder Arnold was his name and he was awesome, awesome teacher and he really laid down a bunch of stuff on rules and everything. Our mission really needed it and our numbers will go up because of it so that is good.

With my new companion I am learning a little Spanish but not too fast, its tough and he doesn't know it that well so it is tough for him to teach me. He has not been out very long, he is a good missionary though so that is what matters.

The town that I am in is pretty good sized, there are 3 good sized towns that hook together and it makes one good sized town, its a change from what Elkins was and the people here are much more normal so that is really nice. Our apartment is much nicer as well, I'm not complaining about my old one but it was a little run down, I know I can't complain because I know what dad had so I guess I am pretty blessed. The drive here to my new area was awesome, it took all day though. We left our apartment in Elkins at 4:30 am and I didn't get here until about 7:00 pm or so.

It was interesting, the General Authority that came today stressed to us that when we go home we have to go to college at all costs, he said sacrifice anything to do it cause you are not going to be able to get along without a college education. He was really bold with us but it was really good. I liked it.

Elder Chin, my companion, is from South Jordan Utah, I knew it would only be time until I got a Utah companion but now I do. I have had Washington, Oregon, Idaho and now Utah. So quite a variety. Something else the General Authority told us, buy a house, and pay it off as fast as we can. Nothing new for me to hear. Rough times are ahead and he said if you don't have your house paid off, you will lose it. Very interesting. Missionaries get this mindset that they are going to be here forever, but it is only for a short while. Life continues after these two years are up. Time goes so very fast is is crazy! There are only 4 missionaries in my district so it is not that big, the farthest town I have to go to for training and everything is 25 miles away, a town called Rocky Mount. Here in Virginia everything is much closer I really like it. We were in Roanoke earlier today for our Conference and it is a really nice town, probably the nicest in the mission and it is about the size of Salt Lake. It was good to see some taller buildings, a couple were 40 or so stories so not too bad. The area I am in right now is a branch but the branch is pretty big. Over 100people come every week, they just don't have enough priesthood leaders to make a ward so its just a huge branch. There is a couple millionaires here in this branch as well so maybe Christmas won't be too bad after all. We are actually at one of their houses right now emailing. All the libraries are closed for some reason so we are just emailing from here for the day. Its not too bad. Overall, everything is going really well, I'm glad to hear you are all doing well as well. I love you all so very much. I just thought of it, but I guess it is already December next month, it just clicked and I will be able to call you on Christmas! That will be awesome and I am looking forward to it. But until then, I have a whole bunch of missionary work to do. I will talk to you later. Good luck with everything and stay safe. Don't have to much fun snow machining without me! I know you won't cause I am not going to be there to dig you all out when you get stuck so I'm not worried!
Love you- Elder Walker

November 19, 2008
The new area I am in is pretty good, I have not got used to it yet so that part, kind of stinks and the towns are all togther so I still have a hard time getting around while I am driving and everything. But we seem to manage. My companion has a GPS and it is way nice to have, so that helps us get around a little bit better. Gas here is $1.78. I'll bet you're glad to see it go down. It got up into the 80's here last week, it still is a little warm. It is supposed to stay in the 50's over the next week so hopefully it doesn't warm back up till next summer. They have not seen snow here in this town for over 10 years, don't think I am going to see much snow this year here in Virginia. The elevation here is only about 900 feet so I guess with that it doesn't fix up for too much snow. Oh well, I guess just one more winter after this one and then I get to go home to a place where there is snow all winter long. But it is going to be weird not seeing snow. I guess, who knows, maybe I will get transfered back up into West Virginia, supposably it snows quite a bit there. Time is going so fast, November is already two-thirds of the way over and I have a feeling it is not going to slow down.

We have 3 dinners scheduled for Thanksgiving and we will probably have 4 more before the day comes. Everyone wants us to come to their house and its turning into a war so we are trying to slove it by just going to everyones. It will be a fattening day. We don't go to the mission home though. At least as far as we have heard we are not. The Cowleys would have all the missionaries go to the mission home for Christmas, but with the Thornocks we will see what they do for sure. New leadership means new ideas so we will just have to see.

My companion is craving carrott cake, it seems like that would be a great suprise. His mom is not a cook and neither is he. I had to teach him how to boil water yesterday. I know it's bad. He doesn't know how to clean anything either so it is going to be interesting. I will train him though, no worries. He kind of is a spoiled child, and gets anything he wants. His mom never cooked anything, they always just ate out so being with me is interesting for him cause I'm teaching him how to do a few things. We are starting with small things like Mac and Cheese and Roman Noodles, all he knows how to make is Easy Mac. I tell you, being a missionary, you get all kinds! Its great though. As for the work here in this area, nothing is going on, very slow. It is in the hard core Bible belt and you are either a Mormon or pretty much a Mormon hater, its crazy. We knock on a ton of doors and I have only had 1 person actually let us in since we have been here in 10 days. We have two investigators that are pretty good ones but other than that, not a whole lot going on here. We just try to find new people everyday. We have 2 people we are going to see tonight because they ordered some free Bibles and Book of Mormons so hopefully some good comes out of that. We are also going to try to set one of our investigators for baptism tonight. We will just have to see how it goes.

A funny thing happened yesterday though, we were at the senior citizens center volunteering and a Baptist preacher came to preach to them for a half hour or so. It was so funny, he was shaking in his shoes cause we were just staring him down the whole time and you could tell he was just trying to direct his speaches right towards us, we were just waiting for him to say some false doctrine, and I was going to stand up and straighten him out, luckily he just said that his back was hurting and that he was not going to be able to stay any longer. I guess when you have missionaries from the true church, they are intimidating or something!! I love it when stuff like that happens. I love just giving them the "don't screw up look". Preachers are scared of the LDS missionaries here because we know the Bible better then they do and we catch them by surprise. It's awesome. Well, everything is going well and Thanksgiving won't be too bad I am sure. It's only 2holiday seasons that I am missing out on, I guess that's the least I can do for Heavenly Father, right? I love you guys. Elder Walker