First E-mail!

Dearest family, friends, coaches, and church leaders:

I'm proud to be emailing you today from the MTC and hope that you are all doing very well. I appreciated the letter that you send me dad and want to let you know that it really boosted me for the rest of the day. If you all can famind the time, I'd love to hear from you and how you are doing. I heard that dad told you girld (sisters) to write me and I expect exactly that!! C.G., I know that the Homecoming dance is tonight and I want to remind you who you are, which is a daughter of God and He loves you and wants you to have a good night but he also wants you to obey his commandments including obeying your mother and father!! Be home on time for them please. I've realized the past few days how precious sleep really is and they need as much as possible, so help them out and save dad's hair from receding worse than it already is.

For those of you that don't trust USPS and want to email me, don't expect replies back via email because I'm only aloud one generic email a week to send to my parents. Although I can only email to mom and dad, I can read emails from anybody so when you send me an email, please enter your mailing address at the bottom so that I can reply to you. My P-days will be Thursday by the way in case you were wondering so that will be when I can write my letters and email from now on. Thanks for the song by the way dad.

Enough book-keeping business though. The MTC is amazing just as you described it dad! There really is a spirit here that is only rivalled by that spirit that exists inside the sacred doors of the temple. We have the opportunity, as you all do, to say a lot of prayers each and every day including district, companion, investigator, mealtime, and personal prayers. My teachers are very good too; they are Brothers Lewis, Painter, G'amez and Sister Dixon (who is our "investigator right now). They are wonderful and I learn new things about myself every single lesson. My companions (yes, I am in a trio) are great! Elder Olsen, from Las Vegas, just spent a year at BYU and his family just barely moved to Park City so he is having a little bit of confusion with that; he is about an inch taller than me and played tight end in high school. Elder Marker is from Green Bay Wisconsin (avid Packer fan) and is a bit lost because of this but there is hope still because he is a cross country runner and mom would absolutely love him even if his looks remind me of Andrew Unker. No, he is a great Elder and will serve a great mission in Chiclaillo Peru. By the way, Elder Olsen in going to Oaxaca, Mexico and was called just two nights ago to be our District leader so I'm companion to the district leader. This doesn't come with too many more responsibilities but enough to make life even more interesting, including: helping him collect the mail for the district, combining the goals of the missionaries, their companionships, and creating goals for the district. We have a lot of things that we need to accomplish and memorize while here; D&C 4, the articles of faith in spanish and english, my purpose as a missionary (also in both languages), the first vision (both languages), and the names of the missionaries in our zone (which is quite a few).

My Branch President's name is President Dennis. He's a very kind man and I can feel his love just by hearing him talk. His wife is a real fireball though. She's great and I can tell she loves missionaries but she was the first person in my mission to really let me have it. Yes, I have been lectured. My jacket wasn't buttoned up and she wasn't too happy about it but I will pay closer attention from now on.

I'll send more details later on my schedual, etc but for now I'd like to leave you all with the lesson that struck me strongest this week. We are all children of of Heavenly Father who loves us and wants us to be happy and if we stop worrying about ourselves and serve others around us, God will bless us greatly. We can do anything with God. But we can do nothing without him. I testify of the truthfulness of that statement and want you all to know that I love you, I hope you are doing well, and I pray for you every day. Please pray for me as I do the Lord's work the next two years.

Love,

Elder Palmer

p.s. my address is:

MTC mailbox #356

Mex-Mex

2005 N 900 E

Provo, Utah 84604-1793