The Past Returns Again (W.2)

I hate to begin the email on a low note, but we have some items of business to discuss. Some might call this "housekeeping" but seeing as I neither have a house nor a keeping, I'll refrain from labeling our business. Last email, not only did I forget to attach my farewell talk, I also forgot the handy chart I promised. Yet despite my best efforts at treachery, in scamming my dear readers, it seems I can do no wrong in your adoring eyes, as I received many kind words anyway! Thank you all! Nothing fills me with more childlike joy than email notifications from you. However, promptly following last week's email I was informed that 6 of you don't exist. (So as not to embarrass the guilty parties I won't name them here.) I have 2 theories for how this could be. 

1. You gave me an erroneous email for the sake of evading the wholesome weekly check ins of myself. If this is the case, you shall soon find I'm a difficult man to escape. I will change the 9s in your email to 4s, rearrange the a and e in your middle name, add extra l's to your middle name, and do whatever else is necessary to reach your inbox and shout wisdom at you. Just as in days passed. The past, you see, shall return again.

2. You went into witness protection to protect you from witnessing the greatness of my emails. 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p8DM8yfMLmw8Utp019ajCj-fjVOzmpxiMsFjXRnioDM/edit?usp=drivesdk 

This week has been stacked with classes, which I've learned many things from. For example "people aren't evil. All evil comes from the devil." I was relieved to learn that because this means I cannot be held accountable for my actions.  

^Don't @ me guys, the above statement is a joke. But if Elder Whitchurch is gonna try every email to disprove determinism, I'm gonna use the D of C every email to do the opposite. 

"What's an 'elder whitchurch'?"

"Define determinism?"

"How can I find happiness in today's world of woes?"

Stay tuned for the q and a! 

Brother Meriner

I want to try a little ro describe my favorite MTC teacher for a moment. 

His name is brother Meriner and he's soooooo scary. He's this giant Polynesian guy with a really thick new zealand accent, and a high voice, who knows more about the Bible and the Book of Mormon than almost anyone. He has us teach him sometimes, and sends us into faith crisis so fast. 

"Help me understand, Elders. Why do we need the book of Mormon? What does it have that the Bible doesn't?"

"Ummm it teaches about the kingdoms of glory."

"Is that not in the bible? What about CORINTHIANS 3?"

"It teaches about baptism."

"Doesn't the bible teach us we need to be baptized? What about John 7?"

And this went on for some time. (The scriptures above arent real scriptures cause I dont have a photographic scripture memory like brother Meriner. In case you're wondering, the only thing the book of mormon has that the bible doesn't is a fullness of doctrine. So it mentions kingdoms of glory but doesn't explain them. It mentions baptism but doesn't explain how to perform it or have the prayer we use. Likewise for the sacrament. 

When he pretends to be an investigator he's so serious, and so invested in the role. He calls himself Sarah, but refuses to aknowledge that Sarah even exists when he's not in charachter. He'll just say "who's this Sarah you talk about? I don't know any Sarah?" And if one of us cracks and he adopts this look of perfect confusion and says "are you laughing at my question elder? You think my question is stupid?" He tries to help us practicing by asking the most random questions as we try to teach him.

"What were we doing in the premortal life? We're we sleeping?"

"Ummm we were learning i think?"

"What's we were learning? We are at school in the premortal life? They are teaching us, the ABCs?"

"Elder help me understand. I don't want to live forever. I hate my brothers and my sister's are annoying. Why would I want to be with them forever?"

There was also this one time we knelt to say a prayer, and suspecing no trap I opened my eyes briefly. (I'm truly a sinner.) Brother Meriner had one eye open as was watching. He pointed me with all the emphasis of my young self when I did this same thing to my little sister. I felt like I'd been caught red handed after I did a murder or something. After the prayer he proudly anounces "I caught someone peeking!" (Then another missionary made the mistake of pointing out he could have only caught someone peeking if he'd been peeking himself. To which he responded "I open only one eye. You open both.) I also have a list of the random things he's said during class, that weren't exactly to give us practice, they were just his personality shining through when we least expect it. 

Bro. Meriner: "Does the wind have a body?"

Us (somewhat nervously, suspecting a trap): No?

"Then how does it move leaves, that do have a body? How can something with no body move a body?"

(There was no answer, as we'd all been thouroughly bamboozled.)

Us: Where'd you serve your mission?

Bro. Meriner: "I serve in Spirit Prison."

Elder Hanson: "Are you gonna eat that lolly pop?"

Bro. Meriner: "You want it?"

"Yeah that'd be great."

"Ten dollar."

Bro. Meriner (helpful suggestion for remembering the 7 principles in lesson 3 of PMG): "Count your fingers. If you're missiong fingers, use toes."

After all that though, Bro. Merriner loves us, and he's been amazing for our district.

Ribbon Bookmarks

We need to talk about the distribution of Ribbon Bookmarks. My big scriptures have 3, my book of mormon has 1, and my notebook has 2. Ribbon bookmarks are a recource that's nearly as scarce as counter space, and I need waaaaay more. However I have discovered that each ribbon bookmark can be turned into 2 ribbon bookmarks if I fold it around the bottom of the page to mark a second distinct page. The trouble with this practice though is that if you go to the first passage marked by the larger body of the ribbon bookmark, it's hard to transfer that portion of the bookmark to another page without disturbing the "foot" of the ribbon bookmark, which is tucked in a distinct page (of the same book though, that's surely one in purpose with the other page.) When I'm studying multiple sciptures or using my journal and the scriptures at the same time, I've adopted a forbidden practice. I've started using my journal ribbon bookmark to mark a page in the scriptures, to make up to the derth of ribbons in my Book of Mormon. 

Side note: Some of you may be confused why I'd have an entire email section on ribbon bookmarks, but dear reader, this is YOUR FAULT. Last week despite all my transgressions, 17 of you emailed me. The majority of these emails were telling me how happy they were with my email, and thus I've developed an ego. Now I feel I can rant about anything, and expect my readers to stay engaged. You've created a monster. If any of you were wondering the other portion of emails were saying some version of "what a... surprise to be on this list. I don't remember... requesting your emails." or "pls remove me from this gc."

Bad News:

The gangs here are supposedly super chill with missionaries here, cause they have family members who are members, so my chances of getting mugged continue to plummet. (They call it getting "rushed" here and I love it.) I know you guys were hoping for some stories about my daring escapes from danger, but unless they teach us the gang signs by accident, I will be able to give you none. 

Update: Our teacher taught us all the gang signs so we'd know not to use them accidentally. Many elders who shall not be named have been using them accidentally every since. My chances of getting mugged rise significantly if any of those guys are my companions. 

Different stuff:

Sorry I didn't know what this section was about when I started writing it. (Which happened just now.) 

One of our leaders (brother Vave) was super cool and spent a good hour of class time just telling us mission stories. We were very greatful until we discovered the next day that thanks to his neglegence our snack box didn't get delivered back to the snack people so they could fill it with snaks. (This MTC is weird guys.) So anyway we got no snacks. Also this guy had way more free will than the average citizen. He was showing us his power point presentation on the TV, and to emphasize his point he underlined one of the words on the screen with the black marker he was holding. I think he underestimated just how much this would emphasize his point (there was a collective gasp from the entire room) and he proceeded to go mad with power, abusing the effect to manipulate our emotions. He kept drawing on the TV with no regard for Man's or God's own law. 

My green sweater:

Brothers and sisters. I have a soft. warm. green. sweater. When I walk past the sister missionaries they tuck thier hair behind thier ears, shyly look down, and say "elder Nielson... you look so comfy in that sweater." When I walk past Elders thier eyes follow me with envy. The sweater isn't sparkly, but it feels sparkly in a vibe sense. It's the single greatest possesion I own. In fact it even passed Elder Perry's fashion test. (For refrence he likes to helpfully supply advice when the colors I wear are clashing. He's like a helpful butler I don't have to pay. "Oh no sir. Not olive pants with the burgundy tie. I must advise against that.")

Choir:

Choir here is so tuff. Everyone has to join it becuse there's only 75 of us, and we sing this tongan song called Folofola, which is the tuffist song I've ever heard. And there's this super pretty english song about coming unto Christ. (Top 5 favorite passtimes.) We have extra power because the conductor holds her batton backwards, from the pointy end, waving the wooden handle at us. It surely inspires us to sing better out of confusion. 

This is tangentially related to choir (oh you're surprised I go on random tangents? Welcome to the emails, you must be new here) but they have us read all the quotes all together. Like usually in classes the teacher is like "Can someone read this" and I just stop listening but when they have everyone in the room read I somehow listen even less. Partly out of spite. 

Dreams:

When I say the Past Returns Again some of you know what I mean. Timetravel nonsense. (Elder EM had stuff to say on that, but I'm short on time so I can't get into that.) But anyway there's this TV right outside our room that playes bible videos 24/7 and it lowkey haunts my dreams and nightmares. I'll wake up at 4 AM shivering and hear a faint voice saying "I am the light of the world. All that beliveth in me shall not perish, but have eternal life." And then I fall back into an uneasy slumber. Sometimes my companions and I will be up talking and just hear a gentle reminder from Jesus that he's gonna make us fishers of men if we're not careful. 

I still absolutely love staying up and talking to my roomates though, sharing spiritual expiriences, or having crazy conversations about the trap God set for us all. (Attractive people.) Or determinism. Speaking of which, it's time for some stats.

Stats:

Miles run: 7.5

Times I've run 7.5 miles: 0

People who believe our fate is predetermined: 5 (Including me)

People who know they believe our fate is predetermined/People convinced of determinism because of me: 0 (Unless you count me.)

Pushups: 1740 (Plus 165 more I'll do tonight.)

Times I've gotten rushed: 0

Overall impression of NZ: at least 2

Steel solutions: 1 (the solution as always is steel.)

Wallobies: 1 (curtosey of the coolest elder here.)  

 

Spiritual grind:

I've been reading the Book of Mormon and PMG tons and it's been so awesome. God answers prayers, and will always do so in a way we will understand. Anyway keep emailing me guys, while I figure out how much to tell you every week. I love you all and I'll be back next week. 

Shout-out to my district, I added you all to my email list and you cannot escape.  You guys are super cool and I love you.

Fractured Days Split the Sky

Friends, foes, and valued aquaintances, (you know who you are,) I write to you today from a peculiar little building in northern New Zealand, upon which the sun doesn't shine and the moon doesn't grow and the grass doth not grow. I miss you all, but I miss some of you more than others. (Refer to handy chart below.)

Of the many events that transpired this week, perhaps my favorite was when we had no phones ever. The fun part though was that we definitely needed them 0.2 seconds after landing in LA after our first flight. After wandering the airport (somewhat forlornly, as we'd just said goodbye to those familial relations who'd loved us enough to bid us adieu at the airport) looking for our terminal, we made an interesting discovery. I say it was "interesting" in the way that it's "interesting" when someone tells you they just lost their job and really need money. Which by the way, happened at least once this week while I was trying to start "natural conversations" with strangers. Luckily they were paid actors and didn't throw bricks at me. 

The discovery we made was that there IS no flight to NZ leaving tonight. The travel agents tried to make us think we were crazy, and had hallucinated up the whole thing, but we weren't fooled. So they told us we were staying in a hotel until our flight could be rebooked. 

Naturally we were devestated. What could be worse than staying in a 5 star hotel in the middle of LA, eating steaks with $50 airline meal vouchers, and spending our days in leisure when we could have been locked in on the spiritual grind, eating gruel, and sitting through classes with new zealand locals who don't really like us. So anyway we played a lot of Cornhole and Coup to help us deal with our misery. 

It was actually crazy, we did some PMG study, (thank you for shortening that, me, instead of insiting on using the full title of the book for undefinable reasons) and all bore our testimony and there was this super powerful circle of spirit and God's love and such, in the middle of a random airport, in the middle of LA. I was just thinking how crazy that is that we can have that even in crazy random places. We made tat little circle holy, through sheer force of badly explained missionary words. (Here's a plug for my farewell talk. I noticed not all of you were there. As a missionary, I of course could not judge you for not being there, but my stuffed platapus is inhibited in no such manner, and he has a message for you. As a missionary, I cannot deliver his message as it wouldn't fit the uplifting tone of this email. Good news though, you can regain Wad's respect by reading my farewell talk and emailing me kind words about how much you loved it. Words like "inspiring" and "moving" and "Sagittarius" work best.) <Insert farewell talk link.>

I've only hit leg day once in my life, no doubt good news for my mission, but before you all collectively breathe a sigh of relief, despite the statistical improbability of it, the one time I happened to hit leg day in my life just so happened to be this week, just before leaving on my mission. Thus, I spent my first 5 weeks sore. ("But Malachi! You haven't been out for 5 weeks!" "Time isn't real young one. You'll understand when you're older") Every plane I got on had me suffering, but luckily Jesus Christ bore all things, so he knows how I feel.

Sorry, back to the main storyline. 

Cannon event #2: The Scam

Some of you may not know this, but every other person I meet tries to scam me. The most clever scam from this week though was actually directed at my buddy, Elder G. (I know his last name, but spelling it is hard.) Basically the airline scheduled him a flight to get him to NZ to make up for the fact that they were terrible at thier jobs and made our first flight get canceled, BUT the flight they scheduled him for had the wrong date. I mean the date was mostly right, but it was one year in the future. But that was only the beginning. 

As we go to check out of the hotel after 2 full nights, one of the Elders comes over to us and tells us that the hotel had been charging us to use their phone. The elder had gotten a bill for one dollar and eighty three cents, which seemed pretty reasonable for the one 7 minute call he'd made, but unfortunatly the hotel wasn't exactly undefeated in the math department cause my bill (after the hotel generously applied a "half off" coupon) was one hundred and seventeen dollars. For 4 ish calls, all made by my companion to Travel Service or his mom. Because we were trying to get the church to tell us what to do. (We asked them what we should be doing/studying, but they were unhelpful, and told us to focus on travel. TO this day I'm not sure what they meant. Probably to spend the day in the hotel playing cornhole and coup?) I didn't have the worst of it though because I'm not a girl. One of the sisters spent a whole morning on the phone with parents who were scared to death, and her phone bill came to like $800 something. Again, after the half off coupon. 

Because of our lack of phones all 30 of us missionaries who were supposed to be on the NZ flight kind of just wandered around the hotel all day like lost sheep, hoping Jesus would come gather us, and so moments arose throuout the journey where we were in need of a leader. Unfortunately the Elders who kept taking charge were the really extroverted, somewhat scary, socially awkward ones. They kept asking people for their phones, but doing it in a really energetic scary way, and so the people would flinch away and pretend they didn't have a local number. One lady eventually handed her phone over but only after nervously asking "what are you gonna do with my phone. I assured her it would be safe, but she immediately spotted the loophole there and didn't let us hold the phone. (She expected us to just grab it and run away cackling like little gremlins, which I don't blame her for assuming considering how little we'd all slept lately.) On the bright side a bald guy found us at the hotel and took pity on our poor, thin, white-shirted frames, and offered to text all our parents and let them know we were okay. Which sounded like a good idea at the time except that he created a group chat with alllllllllll the parents when he sent the picture. Needless to say, chaos ensewed.

Okay it's time to admit, I don't have spell check here, so you can either just let my typos slide or you can get allllllllll the way off my email list. Those are your choices. I don't have time for your verbal quibbles. I refuse to use big words any less frequently just because I don't know how to spell them. Quit your pedantry, dear recipients. 

My favorite part of the week though, by far, was the Air New Zealand flight video. Usually these flight videos are full of scary ladies with too-big smiles telling you waaaaay too excitedly about what will happen in the "unlikely event" of a change in cabin pressure, but the ANZ flight video was something entirely different. It had a WHOLE STORYLINE about a kid who turns his treehouse into an airplane and then makes friends with a bunch of fuzzy monsters that have New Zealand accents. It's the most wholesome little movie, with a twist ending I won't spoil for you.

My second favorite part of the week was the kid who sat behind us on the airplane. He had the cutest little accent, and was overjoyed the whole time about angry birds. (For those of you who live in NZ and have never played this game before, it's a game where "You slingshot the birds and they knock over the towers. Then you get points." Most of the flight he just excitedly informed his mother of how many points he had gotten. I thought it was really generous of Air New Zealand to give us access to angry birds games on the flight, but that was the only good thing about air new zealand. 

My third favorite part of the week was the pull apart earphones they gave us on the flight. I always peel them apart a little and then I'm like "I shouldn't..." and then I just keep peeling until the cords are completely separated. And then I feel a little mischievous. 

SPIRITUAL LESSONS THAT COULD HYPOTHETICALLY BE LEARNED FROM MOANA BUT ONLY IF YOU WENT SO FAR AS TO WATCH MOANA: 

We all have a destiny beyond the place we were born. We can stay comfortable on our little islands, but God wants more for us. He wants us to sail beyond our comfort zone, and beat the lava demons of life.

...Yeah.

You may have realized this by now, but my emails are going to be long, because they are one of the few things in this dreary world that still bring joy to my heart. Please read them anyway. If you do not, NOT ONLY will I be sad, I'll also loose a contest with my only cousin who thinks her email list is better than mine. That said, I know some of you did not ask to be here. But alas, you ARE here, and that is because I feel like I have freewill, and with that freewill I feel like I added you anyway. YOU do not have free will and thus must just read these emails despite you not having asked for them. (Also some of you are left over from my canada emails, and to you I say WELCOME.) 

Everything people say about the BYU MTC food is probably false, but it is certianly true about the NZ MTC food. The eggs they gave us this morning were at least 40% water, which is a strange state for eggs to be in. The bacon was mostly raw, it taste like they took it out of the freezer, opened the ovan, and let the heat gently waft over the bacon before serving it to us. At this rate, I am not going to get big. ALTHOUGH my Comp, Elder Mark Lewis, is super cool and also super buff like unto the Big Sur, and so he's been my spotter at the local dungeon-gym so I stay locked in on my incline dumbell bench press. (You'll breathe a sigh of relief to hear I haven't been hitting legs. Just chest. And I've done north of 750 pushups over the mish so far.) 

We don't have time for any Q&A action or for all the fun sections that my emails will usually contain, but please don't quit my list forever just cause this first email was long. Email me if you can, because all my teachers hate me so I could use a little love from home. And don't worry, I'll keep you all posted on every event I feel is worthy of your time and attention.

DISCLAIMER: This email has not been edited or drafted multiple times. You should be glad you're even getting ONE email this week, considering that I got this phone-brick yesterday and got access to this email like 20 minutes before I started writing this. You can just count your lucky stars you're even here. I know there's more to stay and more stories to tell but my general rule is to stop writing an email when it starts feeling like homework so I'll be back next week with another scattered update.

-Reluctantly yours,

Malachi.

P.S. 

The fractured days in the title refer to the part of the week where I flew to New Zealand and Saturday stopped existing. I left on friday, arrived on sunday. If you're confused, don't worry. My journal is too.