MTC Week 5

Dear Fam and Friends,

Things are going well here. Although I have to say the MTC is basically one big plague. I'm surprised they make you get immunizations because if you can survive the MTC you're probably immune to everything!! Thank you all very much for the Trader Joe's food. Especially the mangos Grandma!! Sorry I have not been able to hand write many letters, I never knew the MTC could be so busy. We are supposed to get flight plans today, I am so excited!

Summary of the Week:

-Tongan got a lot harder, we started doing skype calls to Tonga to teach lessons and I barely understand a word.

-Elder Robinson sprained his ankle and it's huge. 

-I know how to pray but accidentally said please waste the food instead of bless it in front of our whole zone.

Biggest highlight was probably Sister Reid, she was teaching a lesson and has been a little sick, she coughed and blew snot all over her investigator!! I didn't see it but our teacher told us about it!

I am feeling good. I have been sick and my ear wouldn't pop for about three days. I went to the Doctor again and he just gave me some decongestant and it immediately (30 minutes) popped. I have never played so much basketball in my life, and it seems like we do a thousand push ups before bed. Today we got temple breakfast and it tasted great compared to the cafeteria food. Please never feed me a wrap. I have had about 60 here. No kidding. 

Love you all, thanks for the letters and pictures!!

-Elder Lundskog

MTC Week 4

Family, how's life?

MTC is busy as usual. To give you an idea of my schedule: 

5:30-Up/Run 

6:30-Shower

7:00-Breakfast

7:30-Class

12:00-Gym/Lunch

1:15-Class

5:30-Dinner

6:00-Class

9:30-Personal Study

10:30-Bed

Anyway, all this sitting around is not at all what I thought missionary service would be like. Frequently we fall asleep in our 11 hours of class time a day so we have found new games to play to learn vocab words. For example: Whoever gets the word first gets to flick their companion with a towel. That ended when we got so good we began to draw blood. Next we tried whoever wins gets to shoot a marker into a water bottle from across the class. Originally that was super hard, now however we got so good it has no competition. Now we just write them on flashcards and try to guess. This new no adrenaline way of learning vocab has a very strong effect on Elder Robinson, who frequently we will find snoring in the back of class.

I'm very excited to get to Tonga, the MTC is good, but the lack of any adventure or physical activity has me going crazy. I've started doing pushups to failure in class when I get tired. When I first started I'd get to about 40 and stop. Yesterday I made it to 135. Should give an idea of how tired you can get.

This last week one Elder in our district just kinda gave up. No one could get him to do anything. He laid on his bed for about 3 hours. The branch president asked me to go in alone and talk to him and not come back till I brought him to the classroom. At first this was very frustrating. He pretended to be asleep for about 45 minutes while I kinda sat in there and talked. Then I pulled on my motivational speeking skills and finally got him to get up. The other day i was working out and doing pull ups. I was wearing my gloves and Elder Howard(6 foot 8 inches, 340 pounds) thought I was wearing boxing gloves. He came up and started jumping all about and then said open fist only. Before I could ask what he meant he got me in the right cheek. I think he meant it to be a joke, but I'm pretty sure his arm weighs more than half my body. Just kidding, but close. I feel fine but was very startled. Supposedly fights between companions are quite frequent in Tonga, and are to be taken in a brotherly way. This news was acctually quite terrifying, which has me running faster in the mornings haha.

We all miss Elder Nonu and are anxious to get to Tonga. Thanks for the pictures Hanz, Emma, and Izi! Love you all!

-Elder Lunskog

MTC Week 3

Dear Family,

This week has gone well, but like everywhere has its set backs. Technically I only have one companion, but I really have 4. My entire district. We got some sad news on Wednesday. Elder Nonu would be going to Tonga this Sunday for unknown reasons. He feels like a true brother to me and I will be sad to see him go. Then we got a letter from his Mom that his Aunt was dying and had been taking mission discussions for a while. She wanted to be baptized by Nonu, and had been waiting. She went into a deadly liver failure Wednesday and is expected not to live more than another week. Nonu will be there right in time. Total travel time for his trip will be 73 hours.

Food-Not too bad, I really have figured out how to go healthy at the MTC. Yesterday while running Nonu and I saw a whole bunch of elders walking with suitcases to head off to their missions. We asked them which room they were in and went and "raided" the food they left behind. We also got a mini fridge. Nonu carried the fridge down the 4 flights of stairs at their dorm and carried it back up our 4 flights so we could refrigerate stuff.

Arm- Not too bad. Definitely healing. Anxious to be able to use it like I used to.

Language- is going a lot better. We did our first lesson yesterday without notes.

Challenges- I love it here. The bonds are very tight that you form with the Polynesian people. They know how to love and care for their friends and brothers. I do have a sore throat right now but I think that I lucked out because most of my entire dorm is sick and a lot worse than I am.

The Idaho State 5A wrestling champ came on Wednesday. He is on our same floor. Him and his room are going to Texas and are the only ones in our dorm that are not going to islands. We set Elder Nonu up to wrestle him. The wrestling champ said "I'll do it, it won't last long." We didn't even see the Idaho kid the entire match. It was hilarious.

I play the violin this Sunday in church, it will just be one of the MTC ones. Soon as you can find me a violin it will be great!!

I love you all, time flies here and is really just a matter of attitude! Let me know if anyone wants any junk food. We have all gone off sugar! We have so much food though!

Ofa Atu, Elder Lundskog

MTC Week 2

Family, I'll give you the basic update. I was really worried I was going to get a companion and district that would be very hard to get along with and not social. Now I wonder if they ever do not shut their mouths! MTC is good, don't know if I mentioned but my entire Dorm (all four floors) is islanders. The islands are: Kiribati, Tonga, Samoa and the Marshal Islands. And a couple New Zealanders. Tonga is the smallest island. The ratio of palangis (whites) to pacific islanders is 1-10. I am the smallest here by far. Majority of them do not workout, but one wakes up and runs and works out with me every morning. His name is Elder Nonu. Pushups are to easy for him so he does decline pushups with me on his back and can amazingly do 30 reps. If he's feeling really good he does my companion. I didn't believe it till I saw it done. Frequently we get attacked in a joking way by the Samoans. They all brought squirt guns and water balloons. 22 is the person limit in the elevator, but we only had 15 in it and somehow it broke. Only stuck for about 45 minutes before everyone realized we weren't in class.

Dad-you talked about the novelty of the MTC has likely worn off. It has, but even the MTC here is a very different place because of the people. They are the most selfless people I have ever seen. One elder only brought one pare of shoes because that's all he could afford and they wore out. So one of the islanders gave him his nice pair and now he wears his old ones. If you could please send a size 11 shoe that fits a little wide I'm sure it would be appreciated. Take the money out of my savings to pay for it. Another example of selflessness: One elder was sick and couldn't go to class. One of the islanders offered to stay with him. He never complained or asked for a switch for the 6 hours we were gone. In which he missed lunch and dinner. Our dorm is the only one without vending machines. Why? Because in all Pacific Island cultures everything is shared and I guess the last group of Tongans picked the vending machine up and shook all the stuff to the bottom. So we asked the sisters to use our card and buy a vending machine mini pizza for the elder that stayed with the sick elder.

Mom-I finally found the diet section of the MTC and it actually has really good food. You'll be happy to know I also started my thank you cards. But that takes a while. Are you still calling Lys every night like you promised? Hope so! I also will never think our home is to loud again. By no means send any junk food. We have 6 costco sized boxes full of it. No kidding. Why? Because two nights ago a huge group left for the field at 1 am. Everyone puts all their food outside the door. Me and elder Nonu were the first ones up so we got it all! Seriously close to 60 pounds of candy no joke. You'll see when I send home Pictures. I sent a letter home to the PO box two days ago. Hope you get it.

Emma+Hanz+Izi+Leif- Love you all. Thanks for the pictures! Send more!

I love letters. dearelder.com would be great if you want to send more. I have time from 10:30-11:00 to read them because it's supposed to be lights out but the Samoans on the other side have a huge tag war around that time and you can't sleep till they quiet down.

I love you all,

Elder Lundskog

MTC Week 1

Well everyone, Jacob has made it safely to the MTC.  He had his first P-Day on Friday, and sent us home a few emails.  He seems to be enjoying the experience and his companions.  He will be departing the MTC for Tonga on October 4th, which seems much closer than I thought it would be.
This is what he had to say about his companions, his roommates, and the language:
The language is coming along. It is easier than I expected but still extremely hard. I live in the same room with the entire Tonga mission for the next little while. There's five of us. I'm currently 122 pounds. The other four in my room are all above 270 and less than 300...so imagine how I look! My companion is Elder Gardener. He's cool. He's white and from vernal! He likes to hunt and fish and played football.
He didn't seem to have much time for a long email this week, so there isn't much to share about his experience so far, but we should be receiving another email from him tomorrow and I'll do my best to keep this blog updated!