Preach My Gospel is for EVERYONE

Hey Hey Hey Hows it Goin!

Well things in the good ole MTC are going along swimmingly. Some definite highlights are that I have found all the friends that have come in this week! I saw Jeremy Thursday morning. He called out my name while I was in the breakfast line, pretty awesome! I have seen him a few times since. Hayden I found on Sunday, we were both at the leftover line and happened to be across from each other and like looked up at the same time and proceeded to lose our minds! Last but defs not least Josh Low; I saw as he was going around with his bags on his first day and have seen him every day since because his classroom is just 2 doors down from ours. If that wasn’t enough in the residency he is not only on the same floor but he is you guessed it only 2 doors down! Crazy!

Some other exciting news is that as of tomorrow we are officially Phii Thais as we receive a shipment of a whopping 14 new Noong Thais!! We are all sooo stoked! There is only one sister (Sis Carter happens to know her and had toured France with her!) and they will be split up into 2 districts after the 1st week. It has been kinda weird being the only Thais here so we are honestly way excited!

So great to hear about home; glad things are going well. Tell Teddy and Nanny they are in my prayers each night (which by the way are said in Thai). Thank you for all the pics, they are great to see! I bet Ben is stoked about the PS2! Make sure he doesn't spend his whole summer on it! jk And Kenny, you are just the sweetest. Jeana I like you being my favourite girl as well. Chrissy it sounds like you are in JB heaven! Hopefully you can get some tickets! Mikaela I'm so excited for the grad festivities it sounds like it will be a riot I can’t wait to hear all about it!

We have made some impressive progress in Thai this week we can understand a lot and it is dawning on us that we can actually speak and communicate in this language! We have had a few lessons where we could actually communicate exactly what we wanted to say and I have had a couple times where I just started speaking and then when I was done go whoa I can’t believe I just said that I didn’t even have to translate it in my head! Such a miracle! And, such a miracle that we are making such progress so quickly. I am also learning soo many things that I really want to implement when I get home but I figure why wait. First off PMG is for everyone we were told on Sunday by one of the authors that chapter 8 is one of the greatest planning tools ever created! So my family, use it. Plan out each day, have a weekly and daily planning session and hold companionship inventories, establish some key indicators for yourselves! Our branch presidency and other leaders here do it in their personal lives and they are amazing men and women of faith who accomplish great things! Also we have had engraven in our mind to "Teach so that others do!" I don’t care what your teaching Sunday school, home or visiting teaching, primary, FHE, or a missionary lesson; teach so that others do!

Alright, I will step off my soapbox now, but I hope that you will DO some of these things.

I have a few requests: Could you send me Callin and Meagans address and the Wettsteins as well? Also a song request defs get Consider the Lilies and If You Could Hie to Kolob on my ipod. They are so awesome, we have had a couple musical numbers play them and they were gorgeous!

Well I am all out of time so until next week; I love you all and am so so grateful for your love!

Love,

Elder Daniel Cahoon

 

P.S. A visitor brought a little girl into the cafeteria on Sunday and it reminded me soo much of Olivia so cute!

Week 5: Goodbye Phii Thai's

Ladies and Gentlemen! Children of all ages! It is time once again for the weekly email!

Can I first of all just say Mikaela your hair looks gorgeous girl! Work that updo! haha Looks like everyone had a great weekend lots of fun and Canada is lookin pretty green! Alright so Thai update: I can read! and more importantly understand! (mostly) it is awesome I started with 2 Nephi 2:25 and I read the name Adam like 5 times saying it different ways before I figured out what I was saying. It was hilarious. But, when I figured it out it was like a light bulb, Ding! We read in thai for all our spiritual thoughts. It is crazy hard. It takes so much concentration and you only recognize like 1 word in 7. You’re like exhausted from the effort but it is the coolest thing ever! Also this week we became each others’ investigators for teaching so we had to pick a convert that we know their story well and kinda pretend to be them. I really wasn’t sure how to do that but I decided to take Nanny’s story because I had heard it a few times! It is really interesting trying to be an investigator! So I have a request could you ask Nanny to write me and tell me more about her conversion story? I would really like to know the details of not so much when and where but how and what. For example, what was she interested in? What were some of her concerns? What doctrines really stood out to her? What confused her? etc. I really would love to learn of those things and it will help those that are teaching me and how I teach others!

 So I have got a great story! Yesterday our Phii Thais left. They endured to the end and were stoked on life to be leaving! We are defs going to miss them. They were so funny and such good examples and just great to be around and we really bonded in the 6 weeks! Sunday night they passed down a bunch of stuff that they weren’t going to bring and some items that have passed down from Phii Thai to Phii Thai for several generations! It was sweet I got one of those really nice mini basketball hoops like what Preston has with the metal breakaway rim and everything and a ball of course and the Belt of Zone Leadership. So, totally awesome, right? Then the next day (Yesterday) they take a few pictures with us and then say they will come say goodbye later. Well, they didn't! Just the sisters in the district came to say goodbye and we were like, How Rude! But, we figured they were just way too excited and somehow forgot! Well they didn't! At the end of our long day we go back to our room open the door and .....  They let themselves in through devious methods and left quite the surprise! There was a wall of boxes and a note that said "Welcome to your castle. Love the Phii Thais" and they had spread all sorts of like food and random stuff that is who knows how old and done silly string and caution tape they really went all out! It was so awesome I did a video tour of the wreckage (which took hours to clean up) Honestly, best day ever, it was like Christmas! Except like half the stuff was from Easter or older and some have been passed down for months, it was crazy! and then like 15 mins later our branch president comes up to our floor so we detoured him away from the blast zone! hehe

I do have some bad news to share I spoke with several people now and you cannot upload pictures to send in the MTC. It just doesn’t work. So, you will have to wait for pictures for 6 more weeks but then you will receive an outpouring of them for your patience! Unless you can think of any way to get them to you!

You asked about being a zone leader basically I am a problem solving tour guide! I get to do the orientations for the new district in our zone. So far I’ve done one every week and this week we get a district with 2 Canadians! No idea whom they are but nonetheless I am stoked! Also I have to solve any problems the DL's can’t fix and sometimes have to pass them on to Pres Robinson. We currently have 5 districts but we have one coming and one going every week! There is just Thai, which right now only consists of us, and then the rest are English stateside. But we are getting 14 new Thais (2 districts) next week and then we will be the Phii Thais! Crazy!

Which bring me to the Thai word of the week, Crazy. It’s kinda tough to say but a lot of fun! I will try to do it phonetically because Romanized Thai is really confusing so: pobop-obo all one word! Crazy!

Well, sadly my time draws to a close and I must tell you all goodbye! Ben that’s sooo awesome that you got a bumblebee transformer! And mum I laughed out loud when I heard you found those clothes. I would love to have them if you could send them with g+g! Oh, by the way, last Tuesday devotional was L Tom Perry. So awesome, he talked about the priesthood, since it was May 15, so cool! 3 apostles in like 5 weeks! Mikaela I am soo exited for you and for grad it is going to be a blast, just get out there and live it up! Olivia- is just the cutest thing ever Teddy- that ankle looks brutal, heal up quick k? Kenny- I love you sooooo much. Jeana- thank you for liking my tie and suit. I hope you have a ton of fun every day and learn lots! Tina- mane n tail Really? That’s hilarious! Thank you soo much Mum I love you a ton the updates are fantastic and I am really working on using those notebooks and such and I think you would be proud of my journaling thus far! and Dad- thanks for the advice, spot on, but don’t worry too much this is soo much fun I have just decided to hit everything with such a positive attitude and hand the rest to the Lord!

You’re all loved and thought about often!

Elder Cahoon

P.S. How are the Clippers doing?

We are truly led by prophets and apostles who lead by revelation.

Hey Everybody!!!

Well another great week! First off please don’t shorten your emails I love the long ones and I still have plenty of time to write! Hey Dad, thanks for the updates on NBA I do really love them although no one in my district even watches bball so I can’t share my joy! Thank you so much for all the pictures. Olivia is soo cute and that picture of the Passey shirts is awesome! However, what on earth happened to that ankle! I’ve never seen something so bad and whose is it? I need details! Sorrry I forgot to mention in my last email that there are no Mothers day calls from the MTC, mostly because they have like 20 phones for 2000 missionaries! So this is me wishing the mothers in my family a happy Mother’s day. Especially you Mum I LOVE you soo very much. You’re a saint and I wish I had helped you more and really been more caring and obedient.

Alright, so I am playing not a lot of basketball in gym we have some really good volleyball players among the thais and so I have mostly been playing that but I still ball every now and then. Yesterday we had phii thai vs nung thai volleyball that we just barely lost best of 3 to 25! Tomorrow we’re facing them again, this time in softball and we did kickball last week. It’s soo crazy we saw our 2nd English district leave today and even worse our phii thais leave in a week and then the week after that we become phii thais! As a zone leader I get to do the orientation for new districts in the zone and I did the first one on Wednesday. It was a blast and one of the new elders is from good ole AF, Elder Kyle Andersen, and his comp Elder Flygare is from Alpine and also knows a bunch of the same people! It was pretty sweet! and I get to do it again tomorrow night!

In exciting things this week Elder Flygare is a diabetic and had a really strong reaction to both low blood sugar and stress after gym on Sat night. It was kinda freaky he was on the floor convulsing and moaning and he is a big tough guy so like one second he wasn’t letting anybody know something was wrong and the next thing he was on the ground. We got medics in there quick and everything turned out alright and he is feeling way better. Another miracle in there was that Elder Andersen had done EMT training and knew all the things to do; incredible, we are truly put with our companions for a reason!

We had D Todd Christofferson come to our devotional last Tuesday. It is so incredible to be taught at the feet of an apostle. You can feel the spirit before they enter the room and then when they do it strikes you with such force. We are truly led by prophets and apostles who lead by revelation.

Also this week a sewer pipe in our building burst and it smelled soo horrible! I also started working out twice a day in my room and I’m already noticing a difference, more energy and tone! So that’s pretty much the highlights!

The 3rd week is where some in our district got really stressed; like our workload pretty much doubled and they were stressing.  Even I had a moment of weakness but I’m having too much fun to stay that way for long!

I would love to hear about when and where people are getting their mission calls like Riley and Brendan etc. Also here is my request list, please make sure gma and gpa Pilkington have my address as well as Wettesteins, Gilberts and Abrams. I am desperate for music but we aren’t allowed to use our ipods in the MTC so please make sure to fill it to the brim with every awesome upbeat song you can think of. I also have really taken a liking to abide with me (not tis eventide just abide with me) also plenty of talks please and thank you I love you all so much and I’m soo grateful to have such wonderful family and friends!

Enjoy life and serve someone today!

Elder Cahoon

chan luug phrapuupenjaw (I am a Child of God)

Hey Everybody!

 Well it is week 3 and I can’t believe it’s gone by so fast! Yet at the same time I feel like it was only yesterday I got dropped off!

Alright, so for the important stuff; I got the bottom bunk and it is ideal! Seriously bottom bunk is the way to go! I’m also right by the door and we are all the way up on the 4th floor of 3M which is ideally situated close to all the amenities the MTC has to offer! I guess you still didn’t get my first letter which contained most of this info! The showers are nice regular showers. No Tree of Life! The food is pretty good but I am defs gaining weight and it just cleans ya out real good. I can’t wait for real food in Thailand!

Sundays are a lot of meetings since I’m a zone leader.  We have time on the computers to watch talks and fill out quizzes and learning assessments. We have a regular priesthood meeting followed by sacrament meeting. After that we have a district meeting with a lesson by one of the companionships, kinda like Sunday School but better. Then at night we have an MTC fireside where someone from the missionary department comes and talks with us, but tonight is when we get General Authorities at the devotional, I’m Stoked!!

Sounds like Chrissy really has a saweet carpool and too bad about Mikaela missing tryouts but grad camping is going to be a blast! For a scripture for Ben I think you should memorize Mosiah 2:17 cause everything we do should be focused on service! On a side note Hello Tinka! I enjoyed your letter! It sounds like everything is going awesome back home.  Keep having fun and being happy! We are supposed to have joy!

Alright, a little about me, well, as a companionship we have started what we dubbed Project ARK. (Act of Random Kindness Evan Almighty, you know) We are doing something nice for someone every day. We gave the sisters a heart attack on their desks and wrote little notes on the hearts, and we buy candy for our roommates and wrote out a card and then left them on their desks in the residence to find later, and we are having a lot of fun with just serving and being creative! This week our teachers have taken away everything but our notes for when we teach and we are using thai script hymnbooks. They have taken away our crutches but now we can grow stronger! I also gave a blessing of comfort and counsel yesterday it floored me cause I didn’t know what I was doing but I said a silent prayer and started and the words just came. It was incredible; such a humbling experience, first off to be asked but then for the Spirit to give me the words in the very moment that it was needed. It has strengthened my testimony soo much of the Holy Ghost and the power of the Priesthood. This is God’s work and he will help me!

Big shout out to Callin and Meagan for the package it made my whole week! The cookies were very well enjoyed and those ties are gorgeous, thank you soo much! Thank you all for your letters and your support I really wish I could write back to all of them but I am constantly short on time! Mum can you please ensure that Grandpa and Mary have my address, also our friends in AF and could you send Elder Woods address my way? It was awesome to get his update, keep them coming! On my iPod please put a ton of talks from like everybody the insideout primary songs and tons of EFY stuff. Thank you; just fill it to the brim! Well its really frustrating but I have found no way to upload pics but I’m going to keep searching cause there are some great ones! I just love all of you soo much and I love hearing all your stories!

 Love Elder Cahoon!

PS If you want to learn a thai phrase here is I am a child of God "chan luug phrapuupenjaw"

PPS Uncle Devin those thai words are money. Keep em coming!

MTC Schedule and District news

Hey Everyone!

First off sorry for the last email it had lots of info but was totally scatterbrained! Well I am a lot more settled so this update should be much better! In the news:  I found the blueberry muffin top cereal and it was awesome, Elder Ellsworth and I figured out how to use our nametags as kazoos which was way too much fun not really catching on yet though! and oh ya by the way they made me the new Zone Leader replacing one of our Phii Thais Elder Bartling they said that they were really impressed with my enthusiasm and positive attitude! I LOVE getting all the letters I’m getting more than even the guys who are from Utah, there really is nothing better for a missionary than mail! I loved hearing your funny stories and horse riding and kaelas baking! Is Mikaela doing field hockey? Alright so you want to hear my schedule:

6:30 get up shower and shave

7:20 breakfast

7:50 Personal study

9:00 gym 1 hour sometimes we have it at 7:30pm

10:30 more studying or a workshop

12:00 lunch

1:00 language study

2:00 we learn grammar and missionary fundamentals and teach our progressing investigators (Our teachers)

5:00 dinner

6:00 Class

9:00 daily planning

10:15 quiet time

10:30 lights out

The language is really coming just 2 weeks and I can pray, testify, and do the baptismal commitment in Thai I’ve got them memorized so I can do it without looking at the papers I’ve got a decent vocab too the Phii Thais say that we are way better than they were! Ellsworth and I memorize 7 words a day to add to our vocab. On our last Tuesday devotional Russell M Nelson came and spoke it was soo amazing and we were front and center on the 6th row! We always, as a district, go early to get really good seats! On Sunday after the fireside we watched a recording of Elder Bednars Christmas MTC devotional and it was incredible, like change your life, all about the character of Christ and true conversion WOW! We have also seen our soon to be mission pres and his wife. They are super young and even though they’re not supposed to talk to us they came over and said hi and we greet them in Thai every time we see them. I just love them so much already! Our district is soo great I look at other districts and realize we hit the lotto they are all hard workers funny have strong faith know the scriptures and are just great people and they all have big families! In our room there is me and my comp and then E Slaughter from Utah he is our DL, great guy. His comp E Trabing from Wyoming I LOVE him he is always smiling and kind he’s a little naive but that just adds to how sweet he is and he is way into agriculture and FFA/4H whatever he’s done it! Then in the other room E Terry and E Chelson Terry is kinda like Jeremy but quiet but he comes up with really funny Thai slang that we all use and Chelson is just a character he is soo funny and freakin smart and super passionate about like everything! Our sisters are Sis Carter who is from Boston has like 7 boyfriends she’s writing and is trying to convince us to write her sis who is 18. She is already fluent in French and is picking up Thai sooo fast its actually ridiculous! Her comp is Sis Hassan who is kinda like Bethany just cause she’s white but suuper dark! She has 11 siblings and is quiet but really strong in the gospel! So that’s us, we’re pretty awesome and we get along great from day one!

I couldn’t figure out how to do pictures on these computers so next time SORRY! But I would love if you could send pics from home and of family and just lots of pics to put in my album! Huge thank you to the Erasmus for the package I Love you guys soo much! Well I have ended up using the coat but Ellsworth has used my coat as much as I have! haha I LOVE all you guys soo much and I love the letters I LOVE being a missionary it is so amazing and soo much fun I haven’t had a bad day yet! I have laughed soo much every day and learned soo much and feeling the spirit all the time! Love you all keep growing and trying new things and just be happy it’s the best way to go!

Elder Cahoon