AN E-MAIL TOO THIS WEEK!

Well, My comp and I are doing very well. As for the adventure story of the week I was privileged to Host a Elder from Germany, Elder Bolding, I think. He will be fluent in three languages before he returns home. He is on his way to Poland. So English, German and Polish. His rooms were on the top floor of two buildings so it was a workout for the day.
This is pretty neat. I have met someone from Samoa, Fiji, Marshall Islands, Hawaii, Cambodia, Taiwan, China, Japan, and many more. You never know who is sitting next to you and where they are from. That is why it is good to get to know Everyone. That is part of the gospel, being social. My favorite part of course.
After the talent show we have met so many people that liked our song. It seemed to attract some interesting red heads. Elder Oswald and I were in the dinner line and a Sister turned to us and just started screaming. After quieting down a little she asked our names. After that it was pretty normal but kind of weird when on the way up the stairs to dinner a red headed Elder held out his arms to give me a hug. Before I reached him I was thinking, "elementary school....Jr. High...High School...Scout Camp?.." nope. none of them. I then proceeded to hug this stranger. I asked where he knew me from and he said "I was the red head screaming after your show."
The video that will come either tonight of tomorrow has everyone screaming. It is pretty nuts.

Okay, so...if you want to get to know alot of people fast....go up on stage in front of 2000+ missionaries and do some weird dance moves. There were these Russian Elders that sang "You Missionary Now" It went along with the Lady Ga Ga song "Bad Romance" It was hilarious because of their accent.

The food is getting old...My salads are now famous and they know my name and I don't really have to tell them what do put on the salad anymore. The Chicken Corn on blue is simply amazing. The leftovers have not appeared on the island of weird food yet. ha ha.

The TRC this week went great. The Holy Ghost was very strong, and is always strong throughout our day. Praying is a big part of that. Elder Snow(of the seventy) talked alot on fe en Jesucristo. I mean Faith in Jesus Christ. His famous quotes were "Its so easy and 8 year old can do it" talking about repenting and being baptized and becoming converted.
Anyway, the TRC....the investigators did not believe in God so we had to share personal experiences and scriptures on how we came to know God is real. It was challenging but ended up being our best lesson yet.

Spanish is coming along and I am excited to speak more and more everyday. you will probably get a letter in the mail that is all in Spanish. HNO Ramirez says that we are one step away from being fluent. WOW. Talk about the Gift of Tongues. Being very obedient and saying alot of prayers and studying hard has been a great benefit and blessing.
lets see....
Yes, I cleaned my suit, they cut my hair last week, I miss going to the temple, (temple is closed for cleaning)my journal writing is on fire. The tan jacket you bought be does not fit in with all the black ones so I gave it to someone in need. I have my vest to keep me warm. You shouldnt worry about me. Love you so much. I need more paper that is it.

CHRISTMAS EVE/CHRISTMAS DAY

Dear Family,
It has been an exciting day. I will tell you about last nights events and then go on from there.
It started off with a devotional from Presidents Clegg and Breinhold and their wives. They spoke on the gifts God gave us like music, writing, acting and sports etc; They also spoke of gifts of the spirit and of tongues. (Thanks mom for having me study the gifts of the spirit.) Sister Clegg spoke on the gift of service and what good and bad service for missionaries is. We all said "Yep" if we thought it was good and "ugh" if we thought it was bad. Some service is dangerous and should not be done by missionaries. President Clegg showed a video. He was part of the conversion story of Thurl Bailey in Italy. Cool, huh? After, President Breinhold told some cool mission stories and Sister Clegg read the Christmas Story in Luke 2.

Then, on the way to the residence hall we went. A super hero came at 10:00. I will send a picture of him and me. After singing The Lion Sleeps Tonight in the Zone leaders room and some hymns it was time for bed. Christmas Morning Waking at 6 a.m. I lay in my bed to see if my comp would get up to his alarm. He didn't so I waited till 6:15 and started opening presents. I loved all of them. I ate a can of spaghetti rings for b-fast with the spoon thing Dad gave me. I had too, it was just so cool and shiny. The pictures were awesome. It was cool my teachers were in there. The picture of Megan and me was a surprise. That fish is huge. (a photo of his grandparents in Alaska with his uncle and a big fish they caught.)The picture of Jordan and me was awesome. I put it on the front of my journal along with the crazy picture of the family. After playing with the little bug and busting some tricks on the brain?(we don't know what this is) it was time for Breakfast.
I didn't eat, we left at about 8:15 and headed to the gym for the talent show!!! We needed to be in our seats an hour early. The show started early at 9:15 with President Smith jamming out on the harmonica. And then. . . . . we were up. DJ Chadwick" I heard. "The Ragland Band" They announced our names and that we were doing an MTC tribute. (you will have my new sd card by the end of the week. The video will most likely be up on Youtube under "The greatest MtC song in the World.) Elder Oswald started playing the intro . . . . This is the greatest MTC song in the world,"" The crowd went nuts and when I say nuts I mean it. All the MTC presidency was laughing and cheering too. We were only the second act and we received a standing ovation. (See YouTube video below. We don't know who put it on but it's there) Anyway, we will get a video of it to you some how. So we then watched a lot of talented people and some not so but it was still good. It lasted two hours or more.
At lunch this girl flipped out and her face went redder than her hair. It was very interesting. My comp thought the same thing.
After the turkey lunch thing and shaking a lot of peoples hands, we went to get good seats at the afternoon devotional. Guess Who came? Elder Russell M. Nelson and his wife. His wife talked about signs and had a couple good quotes. The only thing bad about it is that she told every one that Santa is not real. The presidents of the MTC's grand children were on the first row and they began to cry. I felt really bad. Everyone said she shouldn't have done that. I agree.
Elder Nelson spoke of things we should do as misisonaries and told a couple of stories of his own. I will write them down later. He read us the Crhistmas story and read to us the Living Crhist. He testified and blessed us that if were good and focused on the task at hand we would be successful.
We have three new sisters in our Zone. One was sick so they all missed the talent show. We received special permission to check out a guitar one more time and play for them. We went over to the main building and looked for the sisters. When we found them, Elder Nelson came through the front door. He had 5 BYU police around him at all times. I was ten feet away from him at one point, never got to shake his hand.
So we played for the sisters and the one that was sick. Sister Cubaias, played the ukulele. She is from Hawaii. After a sack dinner and a nap, (I love naps on P-days, only thirty minutes is allowed) we went to the gym once more and there were two men that acted out a Christmas Carol. Elder Nelson spoke again and we left to our residence hall with an assignment to read some scriptures as a room. So we did as directed and learned more about the Christ child and His early life. I know Jesus is the Christ and he lives and loves us. Love, E. Chadwick

THE EPIC CHRISTMAS WEEK!

Sunday
Things were going slow for Sunday until after sacrement meeting. (ended at 9 A.M.) We then kicked it into gear and used every spare minute to study. Priesthood was great with a lesson on Joseph Smith and sharing scriptures.
Bro Brown interviewed me in the afternoon. He had me teach him the first lesson in two minutes. Then he asked me to start over and he talked. I testified of the Atonement and the second coming of the Savior. His wife is sick so I added some of the plan of salvation. After a few pointers I left satisfied with the way the interview went.
Then off to choir we went. (I just happened to sit next to the choir director during the temple session on Thursday and he took me through, he is a temple worker.) We sang a song by Gerald Lund and his wife. It was great. Then off to dinner.
At Devotional my companion and I sat on the third row from the stage. Tedd Gibbons was the main speaker. He was dressed in a vest and acted out the life of Willard Richards a close friend of Joseph Smith. It was awesome! He had a lot of details in his head. Down to the judges names and how he saw Joseph Smith die in jail. He recounted all of the night and day and week, yeah the whole life of Willard. We Sang "We thank thee oh God for a prophet" after and the spirit was so strong, almost everyone stood up. Put we were told not to unless invited to by the presiding authority. He did not stand. So we didn't. It was really hard to obey when all the missionaries were not. Then with a prayer it ended. I ended up shaking his hand and we started heading out, when we were almost out the door I heard a familiar voice. I turned around and there was Bro. Lamorux, Megans Dad.
After calming everyone down and starting the movie I ran up and talked with Bob(his wife) and him. They just got called to be in a branch presidency two weeks ago. It was so awesome to see them. I always shared scriptures and talked about the gospel when I was over at their house. I am excited to have another connection. After I talked to them I wrote a quick letter to Megan and gave it to them after the show. Then went back to the residence hall.
Elders Moody, Jensen, Scheffler, Barton were all leaving Monday morning. I got a hand me down tie from Elder Barton. This just so happens to be the same tie my host wore when he picked me up from my parents. (Nov. 17th) Elder Durrant. So the picture mom sent to me, the elder to the far right. I have his tie. Sweet.


Monday
Was a pretty standard day, alot of hard work and learning. We had a new tutor, she helped me out alot. I practice my spanish by putting pictures of Ammon and Moroni and other prophets on the wall and testify to them of the book of mormon etc.
Tuesday (The Most Epic Day)
So, to surprise all of you including my mother. My companion and I wrote a song and have been practicing for the past week. It is called, the best MTC Song in the World. Tribute. We had practiced it four times in the last week. Elder Oswald playing the guitar and me doing funny actions and making faces and singing along. Anyway, That day (Tuesday) at 10:45 we auditioned for the MTC Christmas Talent show. We stood in front of Sister Smith (President of the mtc's wife) and a older lady with a bull cut and 60 other sisters and elders and sang this Song Skit. It is about us walking down a road tracking, find an investigador in the middle of the road who asks us to play the best song ing the word to Save his Soul. So we go on to baptize him but further into the song it ended up being a TRC experience not a real word experience. It is awesome. Anyway, after we ended and Sister Smith stopped laughing and everyone else stopped clapping and laughing the bull cut lady came up and told us that she would see us at Sound Check on Friday afternoon and 2 o' clock. We shook their hands, and Sister Smith said to get a hair cut because of OUR SPECIAL GUEST that is coming (we now look really good with our new Missionary Hair cuts) as we headed out everyone high fived us and congratulated us. We are going to perform in the Talent Show Christmas day in front of 2,500+ Missionaries and Guests. Wow. This is going to be awesome and yeah, really scary. but it is okay, the Lord is definently on our side.
Then at dinner we saw the Bairds. That was cool because I just felt I needed to talk to them. Then the devotional was great. TRC was great that day too. Everyone was gone so my companion and I were investigators.
Wow again. This is probably the most I have typed in 30 minutes. Christmas is going to be great. I have a new best friend, Elder Larsen and so many others new to our zone. I will write more in my hand written letters. Remember, take the mas and put it before Christ and in spanish you have more Christ.
I love you all so much.

Love, Elder Chadwick

P.S. mom we only get the Ensign. Thanks for everything. I am being obediant.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Elder Chadwick sent his sister his schedule.
She said it was okay to share it here.
It kind of gives you an idea of what he is doing in the MTC.
6:15 a.m.Wake up, kneel, pray, shower, get dressed
6:55 Walk out in cold to class
7:00 Arrive and pray, study the Book of Mormon
7:45 Walk in the cold to breakfast
Get weird looking eggs
Sit down, pray, eat
8:07 Stand up, grab tray, put away in cool moving room
8:09 Walk in the cold to class
8:13 Arrive and pray
8:15 Pray, personal study
9:00 pray, companionship study
10:00 pray, language study
11:01 Walk to residence hall
11:05 Get dressed in gym clothes, look in mirror, flex, smile, wink, put on name tag, leave to walk outside in the cold to gym.
11:10 group prayer, break, basketball, volleyball, 4 square
12:00 p.m. Walk back to residence hall half way, wait for mail. Pray mom sent a dear elder, walk the rest of the way to residence hall
12:10 Read letters (if any), shower, get ready
12:30 walk to lunch in the cold
12:35 get better looking food, sit down, pray, eat
1:15 in class, settle in and ready to learn
5:30 Walk to dinner in the cold
6:15 Class-Tuesday's choir and devotional
9:30 back to resident hall to study/chill
10:00 In room, really studying
10:30 Pray, Lights out, in bed
Count how many times I pray. Did you think to pray? Lean now to pray before everything, during everything, after everything. Do your best, God will take care of the rest. That is a cool quote. Anyway, got to go do laundry. P-days are awesome but we still work 3/4 of the day.
Love,
Elder Chadwick

IT'S PRETEND BUT IT FEELS REAL

Dear Family,
Wow, it has been an awesome week. This last Tuesday we taught a lady from Russia, who spoke spanish. She is fluent in 3 lanuages. AMAZING. it was so hard to understand her spanish and almost harder to understand her english.
We helped her move out of her house. (this comprised of picking pictures of furniture off a table and putting them in a box.)
We then had a short lesson on prayer. This was all in spanish. We made an appointment for ten minutes later and left to go and prepare for alittle bit.
We then came back and got to know her alittle better.
We teach people not lessons. That is almost the most important thing we have learned in the MTC.
By getting to know her and asking how church was she told us about her wine drinking and smoking problem. We discussed with her and taught her that her body is a temple. She is now working on stopping this bad habit. We moved right into the Plan of Salvation lesson. The lesson did not run as smoothly but the spirit was so stong.
We always have the investigators read the scriptures and answer a question after. After the second scripture she could not read anymore, she wanted us to read the rest of the scriptures we had prepared. As we looked into this Sisters eyes we noticed that she had been touched by the spirit. We bore testimony about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how he made it possible for us to live with our Families Forever. I told her about Grandpa and how I knew that I am going to see him again.
We invited her to pray about it and she said she would. She is also getting baptized and receiving the Holy Ghost on the 25th of Decemeber. :) I love TRC's and the blessing it is to have people come in and act as investigators. It is so real we don't even notice the are actors sometimes.
Anyway, hope you are enjoying the holiday season.

love,
Elder Chadwick

ps I really don't get that many letters. Even if you send me six good nights every night, that would be funny and cool.
Please do that.
Thanks

Elder Chadwick says he eats a salad everyday. He says he wants to be in good shape for the missionfield.

Their classroom.


P.S. I loved the package btw. It is great. The popcorn is good. the whole zone says thanks. Half of my district left for Peru yesterday. now we only have six in our district. It is good but I miss them. I think it snowed because they left, or God wanted all the foreign Elders to experience snow for the first time. ha ha. It is so funny to watch them pick it up andplay with it.

THE CHRISTMAS PACKAGE ARRIVES!!!

The waiting is over!
We received our Christmas package that included photos and letters.
It was a mother's dream.
Finally, I get to see my son after almost 4 weeks in the MTC.
This first picture if of all the district's nametags in the snow. I guess they clipped them to a vine on the temple wall also. Fun idea!

This is a picture of DJ and the map. He sent hard copy on this with a sticky that said, "I am going to Mexico!"

This is a picture of his district. There is also one in cartoon form. See below.

This is a picture of DJ and his companion Elder Oswald from Idaho. As you can see, he is a bit bigger than DJ.

A picture of DJ freezing with a stuffed bus stop.

The District in Cartoon form.

We are all going to sit down and read our Christmas letters and start on the challenge that he has given us to read and learn more about the Savior this month. I will post more after we read.

WHEN DO WE GET MAIL???

This week with much anticipation we waited for letters from DJ.
All of us.
We waited and waited.
Nothing came.
We thought maybe e-mails on Thursday, his P-Day.
We waited.
Daryl got a hand written letter and well, the e-mail was short to say the least.

Sunday, Dec 5
Hey Dad,
Life is basically amazing over here. Dinner was soooo good. I actually fasted for 24 hours. I didn't eat until 5:15 p.m. today. Testimony meeting was great. A lot of people talked about strength and going through trials. We also had mission conference today.
The MTC Presidency and their wives spoke. It took two hours on hard chairs.... but it was so worth it.
We watched the First Presidency devotional for Christmas. I loved President Uchtdorf's talk. I loved all of them actually. I am sending you guys a package with your Christmas in it. I think you and the family will enjoy it.

AN ACTUAL E-MAIL ON P-DAY

All right, here is the update.
On Sunday I played prelude for priesthood. It was a surprise to everyone including the branch presidency. I had three interviews this week on with the DL, BP, and my teacher.
On tuesday I woke up and said a prayer. Almost died jumping off my bunk bed (just kidding mom) to make my companions bed.
Tues. had to be a good day because we had are TRC. Where actors come play as investigadors and we get evaluated on everything. To prepare we studied hard. We knew we had to get to know them in spanish so that is what we worked on. We had tutoring with HNA Norris and that really helped out. She goes to BYU and is going into teaching. It was great getting to know her. wink wink. jk. Anyway, after we had gym then lunch. At 1:30 the really thing began. The TRC. We had a prayer before we knocked on the door. We prayed for the gift of tongues and that the spirit would be with us the whole time. Lets just say it worked. We knocked, entered and started getting to know them. It was an elderly couple. The cool thing was that we were talking about the apostasy and the restoration and how Peter,James,and John had ordained Joseph Smith. When they ask if angels really existed. I testified that they did and that there was a life after this life. Sister Sandstrom gave me a scripture in the card she gave me. D & C 84:88. (This is a big one for dad and his brothers and sister and grandma so pass it on.) I read the scripture and the spirit was there. And we had to leave because this was the get to know you part. btw, this was all in spanish!!! I have never spoke that much spanish in my whole life. Heavenly Father gave us the Gift of Tongues. It was amazing. We ended up going back ten minutes later and teaching a full lesson on the Restoration and we taught them how to pray. If we could teach them again we would commit them to baptism for sure. We were on a spiritual high.

Next was class, then choir practice. Elder Flores had never sang in a choir before and so I showed him the ropes. He is hooked now. He felt the spirit and the power in rehearsal.We got to see who the speaker for the devotional before anyone else did and half way before rehearsal ended Julie Becks picture was on the big screen. All the girls were like screaming. It was a mad house in the Alto and Soprano section. after practice was dinner. Fettuccini Alfredo. I loved it! Then the real thing.
Julie Beck walked in and waved at us. All 1,500 + elders and sisters waved back. ha ha. The choir sang the opening song. O the love that glorifies the Son. It was awesome. After the devotional, we always have a district review. Elder Flores stood up and challenged everyone to sing in the choir in two weeks. It was great. Julie Beck and her husband did an amazing job. She talked about growing up in Brazil and learning the language and having the first MTC of Brazil in her garage. She also told some amazing missionary stories about her brothers.

Spanish is coming along nicely. It is getting tough but we are doing ok. My companion and I are blessing the sacrement in spanish on Sunday. I am excited. I almost have the first vision and section 4 memorized in spanish. Our goal as a companionship is to be fluent a week before we leave the MTC. There are some new elders in our residence hall, we turned are name tags around and asked them where they got theirs engraved. ha ha. They flipped out.

I love my district so much, they are awesome. I am excited to go to the temple and do a session today. On Sundays I go on temple walks and I have been wanting to actually getting inside the last two weeks.

To my friends and family: Please get on DearElder and send me a message with your address, I CANT EMAIL YOU.
Sorry.
I love you all.
Elder Chadwick