Kameron's seventh email! :) January 24th 2012

42 days in the MTC!!

Dear Family and others:

Sounds like the house is going through a change. Is the leaking pipe a reason for the INSANE water bill? Is that why the dishwasher wasn't working? That could've gotten more serious had you not decided to do that so that's good.... Eating out is probably better than food here most times haha.. Food is decent at times and other times it's crazy. All I hear from my teachers is that Thailand has the best food in the world.. Soooo I'm excited for that hahaha.. I'm past halfway. The new thai district (Nungthays of mine) comes in tomorrow! 16 of them! Soo excited for that.. Can't wait to scare them with all the Thai that I know haha I'm stoked. I'm glad you enjoyed the pictures.. We are all enjoying ourselves out here and find random ways to relieve stress. I'm excited about the watch. Please do send it I'd love it it is super awesome. The BOM is sooo awesome. I am in Alma 35 now about 300 pages in and I cannot put it down. It's soo awesome. The thai language is going great! I love the MTC I love the devotionals from GA every tuesday and I love everything about this place so far.. Everyone gets along so well and is so happy it's great. So either this tuesday or next I've heard the 1st presidency is coming but we never know so it could just be a rumor.. Trust me you will hear about it if they do. New kitchen sounds exciting! Thanks for the addresses I need to write them today hopefully.. Sounds like the family is doing good. Cannot wait to get a picture of Aniesha with her braces haha.. I'll probably send a package home sometime before I leave with extra stuff I know that I won't neeed...I love you all and I miss you all.. Hope everything goes well with the house. You all are in my prayers every morning and night. I love being a missionary and I love being a zone leader it is so much fun. I'll write again next week. Keep me updated on things...

Love

Elder Federico

Kameron's sixth email! :) January 17th 2012

35 days in the MTC!

Hey mom, family, and others:

So, MTC is great! Elder Russell M Nelson came and spoke last Tuesday at the devotional! It was very very deep and scriptual and spiritual.. Definitely a different kind of awesome. So two of my Phiithays stayed back. Sister Skalla has kidney stones and is having a real rough time. I explained more in the letter I'll send. Elder Kofford is in high spirits but knows he will be with us for about 2 weeks or so. It is weird not to have Phiithays here anymore though. This week we get three international missionaries out of a 10 person district that comes in tomorrow. One is from Tonga, one if from Japan, and one if from Canada.. I'm excited to meet them. So being a zone leader has its challenges because sometimes missionaries like to goof up and mess up a little and then me and Elder Wright have to try to chastise them a little but only because we truly love them. Generally, though, we have been able to do that and the missionary completely understands and appreciates what we do. Thanks I love everything you do for me and the support that I receive from everyone. The Thai language is coming along fast and well and the temperature is starting to get cold here now so that's fun... Temple was awesome today! I'll write again next week! Thanks for everything! I love you all.

Elder Federico

Kameron's fifth email! January 10th 2012

28 days in the MTC!

Mom, Family, and others who read: Being a Zone Leader has its perks and its downside haha.. Well I'll exlpain it a little. Our Branch is branch 29 in the MTC(or zone 29). We have 4-6 districts generally in our branch.. 2 are thai and 2 are english generally from what I'm understanding. There is about 30 missionaries.. 8 of which are sisters right now. We have two districts leave next week though, One thai and one goes to DC actually haha.. So we probably will get one district next week. Well as ZL, Me and other ZL greet the new missionaries wednesday night and go over rules and stuff... Then thursday night we teach them a ton about MTC and things like that... Fun to hear their testimonies and get to know them and see them grow as much as the rest of us grow. Bad thing, is that me and Elder Wright(ZL) miss about 1 hr of class wednesday and thursday to do that so we miss some language study and stuff but I know it's what I should be doing and I learn quicker being a ZL i think. Going to the temple has been a blessing each week. I took my patriarchal blessing to the temple today and read it in the celestial room.. It was really special.. Thank you mom for everything that you send. I received the package and the dear elders you have sent. As well as Dear Elders from sis beeson and tara and stuff. Thank you sister sheeley for the cool coin.. My roomates loved it as much as I did! The Thai language is sweet! I am learning more and more each week how to read. It's like reading english, you start to recognize words and things so it comes quicker with practice. That is a really crazy Buddhist story.. Doesn't surprise me though, I've heard many things about the Buddhist religion since I've been here so that's exciting. Everything has been going great. I really love it here at the MTC it's truly a special place. I got to give Elder Kofford(Phiithay: which is the Thai district that leaves next week so they came beginning of november).. ANyways, I got to give Elder Kofford a blessing of comfort and guidance last thursday before his surgery. It was really special, he had a cist he had to get removed and such. That night was crazy as well because and artery of his wouldn't stop bleeding so I had to go try and keep elders in their dorms while the paramedics took him to the hospital. He will probably end up staying here for a couple extra weeks with our district but he is doing much better now. Other than that.. Things are great.. I love everyone and loved the package. Thank you mom.  Thanks mom I love you lots and love the support I've been receiving from everyone!

Love

Elder Federico

Kameron's fourth email! :) January 3th 2012

21 days in the MTC!

Mom/Family/Whoever elese:

MTC is great. The Provo MTC opened up again finally today from cleaning! I went and did a session at 7:10 in the AM it was GREAT to start the day off with a temple experience. The person I did was born in Virginia so I thought that was pretty cool!  I haven't met anyone from our part of Virginia or from Mesquite.. There was someone from Bunkeville but I forgot his name and I didn't recognize it either. I get gym time 5 days a week(every day cept sunday and pday) so I get some excersize in... Oh and my classroom is up a flight a stairs and my residence is the fourth floor (top) so yeah haha plenty of excersize.. We get a good amount of food (unlimited) but it isn't the best.. Sometimes it is really good but other times its just mediocre. What do you expect when they have to feed 2000+ missionaries haha. When the GA comes we transform the gym into a different setting with loads of chairs and we all hear him at the same time. Just like when Elder Bednar came on christmas for sacrament.. 2000+ people it was crazy! You host the new missionaries only the week before you leave. There was a district that came in the same day as us.. They went on the plane into the field today! That's how fast it has gone.. Im in week 4/12 on the schedule so it's crazy!

 Pdays consist of going to the temple, then time for emails, time for personal study. Lunch Breakfast Dinner. Time to do laundry. Letter writing time, bookstore/nap time, There is tons to do. Then since my PDAY is tuesday I get to hear from a GA every pday so that's great. Well I better get going. I love everyone. Keep me updated on how everything is going. Well I miss you all.

One more thing, I was called to be a Zone Leader on sunday. So I am one of two Zone leaders for our branch. Wednesdays and Thursdays if we get new missionaries in the branch I get to meet them and show them around. So, I'm excited to do that this week. We get 5 elders 4 sisters I believe so that'll be great. Love you all.

Love

Elder Federico

Kameron's third email! :) December 27th 2011

14 days in the MTC!

I'm doing fine in the MTC, you get homesick every now and then and only having 30 minutes to email is ridiculous but I'm working with it right now. Hopefully tonight another apostle will be here for the devotional, it's always  a GA for the devotional on tuesdays. I have two teachers, however, my second teacher was our first investigator so that was kinda cool. I've learned so much Thai. I can already teach a 30-40 minute lesson with my comp. in just Thai with only a small dictionary in my hands.. We didn't even use it yesterday when we taught. Sounds like christmas went well for you all. I had a good christmas, Jenny sent me a box of goodies with a picture from Brooklyn and some money and a calling card with 140 minutes on it. The MTC has gone really well!  I have taken nearly 75 pictures already so I'm doing a pretty good job at taking pictures.. Both my teachers served their mission in Thailand within the last two years as well so they have lots of pointers and culture tips that they give us all the time. They also are great at teaching the language to us. The MTC is truly a special place, it's important they send missionaries here before going out into the field. I'm glad I get 12 weeks here because the language is hard at times. It has tones so if you use the wrong tone like up or down or updown or down up, you may say something like I "evil" the gospel is true instead of I "believe" the gospel is true.. It truly is ridiculous how the tone can change the word. And the grammer structure for most sentences is really weird, but I'm picking up on it. On Christmas, for breakfast we didn't have much because its sunday but lunch we got some sorta turkey roll and potatoes thing, it was pretty good.. Then a hoagie in a sack lunch with a bag of chips for dinner.. So nothing to brag about, but we did watch Mr Kruegers Christmas on christmas night and the fireside was given by Stephen B. Allen who was an executive producer of the movie and got to tell us a few things about the movie and Jimmy Stewart(the actor) before we watched the movie. It was a great fireside as well. Well I better get going. I love you all and hope you have a happy new year. Love you and miss you all...

Love

Elder Federico

Kameron's second email! :) December 25th 2011

12 days in the MTC!

Hello mother and family:

Today we had sacrament with the whole MTC together! 2120 people in all! I miss you all very much but sacrament today was very awesome. Elder David A. Bednar from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke today in sacrament. His talk was about an hour long as well.. He talked about a statement by Elder Maxwell awhile back about Christ being able to do the Atonement because of his character.. It was a great talk and the spirit was strong. When we were taking the sacrament, all 2000+ missionaries were so quiet. I know this will probably be a short email but I don't have very long. The MTC really is a special place. I'm learning the Thai language really really well. Everyone in my district is sooo great, it is really awesome. Today I should also get some freetime to write a letter. I hope to send some pictures home possibly soon so you can see how the mission is going so far. It is crazy to think that I am entering week 3 in the MTC only 9 left after the third one is over.  This weekend has been very spiritual, however, last night we got to watch a Christmas Carol, it was a great relief and a relaxiing experience for the MTC. I love you all very much. Let me know what's going on in the outside world.

Love

Elder Federico

Kameron's first email! :) December 20th 2011

Elder Federico's first email.  7 days in the MTC!

Hello Mom, Walter, and Family:

My experience here at the MTC has been quite the experience so far. We had six people in my district 5 elders and 1 sister. Elder Oakeson and Elder Adams were my companions until Elder Miller left on sick leave... he seemed pretty homesick but idk. So now it's just me and Elder Adams. And Elder Wright moved in with us to be comps with Elder Oakeson. The sister is Sister Chan from Hong Kong. She knows English, Cantanese, and Mandarin and is learning Thai now. Our teacher, Brother Jenkins is a great guy. He served in Thailand the past two years. I've learned a lot in Thai already. I learned how to pray, to bear my testimony, and to teach an investigator a lot of things about the church and what we believe in. All the elders in my district are from Utah :( boring haha. The food here at the MTC is alright most the time, but cereal is always something I can fall on every meal. Sad to hear my broncos lost to the patriots... I hope it was at least a close game. Tuesdays are great because I have Pday and then I get to listen to a general authority later tonight. I do miss football and a couple of other things from home, but it is really fun here at the MTC. I'm very excited to go serve the people of Thailand.. I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories of how crazy they are when I get home. On the 27th of february I will be going to fly out and i'm guessing it'll be an evening flight so yeah. Rumor has it the 1st presidency will be here on the 31st of January because of the 50th aniversary, but I'm not sure. The Provo Temple is closed right now, but will open up in about 2 weeks. We do get to go on temple walks from 4-5 PM every sunday though. it is nice to get out. I miss you all and Love everyone.

Elder Kameron Jay Federico