Email from James - August 17, 2010

Brangus Mano Šeimas,

       Zone conference was very fun! President dance is just the man. I love having him as my Mission President and Sister Dance is so wonderful. She's such a mom with all her worries over us. President Dance was talking about Capt. Moroni and the title of liberty. He was saying he wanted to be like him and tear off his shirt and right the words of liberty on it. So as he is telling us this. He took of his jacket. started taking off his tie. by this point everyone was like uuuuuuuuhhhhhhh, lol. Then BLAMO he rips of his shirt and buttons go everywhere. Thet funny part is he had another white shirt and tie on. ahahaha. Then he wrote love, determination, etc. on it. it was so so funny. lol

       Zone conferences though are just with the missionaries in your country. It's not all three countries. That would be crazy. So I see all the missionaries all the time. But now it won't be as much cause now zone conferences are going to be quarterly.

       I'm so jealous about the fishing trip you got to go on. We didn't get to go on one before I left. We will have to go when I come back. I really want to see where this secret spot is. I see people fishing here and it makes me miss fishing. I want to see if they will let us go ice fishing lol. haha i laughed so hard about your beard thing and parker calling you a pirate. :D I can totally picture him doing that. I have had to start shaving everyday. It's such a joy. lol. I used to think shaving was cool now it's a pain lol. 

      That's so cool about the new families. I can't wait to meet them. I will embrace them as the Lithuanians do here. lol inside joke with myself. lol. That's funny how you tell them i'm adopted lol. Maybe I will be way different looking when I come back so they will believe it.

     OOO the ashton's are going to Switz. That's way cool. I became friends with an elder in the MTC who was going there. We get a lot of swiss chocolate here :D lol tell them to come say hi up here in Lietuva. It's cooler here. :D Ya if you all came out to Europe it would crazy to think you were so close and I couldn't see you. Unless you came to Lietuva cause I would expect you to come to church lol.

     I'm glad to hear the letter got to mom. Her letter still hasn't come yet. Before this transfer is over I will be sending out some tapes and what not. There's is only two more weeks til this transfer is over. Where has the time gone? Elder Porter and I are way good friends. He is from Lehi. He goes home after this transfer :D He is so so excited! Elder Hatch goes home a week from tomorrow. It's crazy!

     I love the work though. lol I meant to say 1/4th not 1/3rd. My math, english, communication skills are leaving. Elder Porter laughs cause some days we just talk like retards cause with learning Lithuanian, it kills communication skills. Gramar here is so so different so you have to fix your brain so when you switch back, things come out funny when you talk. But i have to go now. We are  going up to the famous castle, trikai. :D I'm so excited. Oh btw, I'm legal now. we took care of my visas and living permits yesterday so i'm all taken care of. We are picking up my living permit tomorrow :D So you don't have to worry about that. :D I love you all so much. I love hearing from you and knowing what's going on at home.

           Su meile.,
                  Vyresnysis Sanfordas

Email from James - August 9, 2010

Labas Mano šeimas!

       So i'm about halfway through my second transfer! It's crazy how time flies! Elder Porter and I try ever harder to work in our area and to find people to teach.We weren't able to meet with our investigator this past weekend because he got sick but we will be meeting with him this tuesday after english class and that is where we will be giving him a baptismal commitment! We are very excited! Other than that we keep trying to work hard and find people. This past week was a bit of a slower week for us. I have been everywhere over Kaunas so it's hard to find places to harvest. But this week we are going to go out to some farther places that I havn't done. I'm very excited! 

     Two nights ago, this huge thunderstorm came through at about 3 in the morning. It was crazy. Elder Porter slept through it all but it woke me up. It was so loud. One of our windows in another room was open so I went in there to shut the window and there was a big pool of water all over the floor. It was crazy. The lightning and thunder was out of control. It was so loud! The lightning was so constant and bright that the light sensitive street lights went out so all of kaunas would be completely dark except when the lightning would flash. It was so cool. I watched it for about a half hour. I tried taking pics of it but my camera couldn't catch it. The next day, sunday, everyone was calling it the " hurricane ". A lot of the trees all over town were knocked over and it's a huge mess. They are still cleaning it up. Everyone tells us that they have never seen a storm like that in all their years of living in Lietuva. I'm thinking someone doesn't want us here muahahah. And so the war between good and evil goes on.
 
     Other than that nothing much new has happend. Elder Porter got all of his travel info and what not so he is getting very excited that his mission is almost over. It's so cool to see how excited his family is for him to come home and to see that my mission will actually ending is a haunting thought. Then I realized that at the begginng of October, I will have been out on my mission for 6 months! That's half a year already over! A third of the way done! It blew my mind. I felt the clock of my mission ending was getting closer. Elder Porter was like wow that time is approaching. I started yelling nope nope nope nope i'm not listening. I want to have this language mastered and more work to be done before that day comes. So I still have lots of time til home to reach that goal! My language comes more and more. Elder Porter and I spoke in only Lithuanian for a day and that was... fun and interesting. He had a good laugh out of my bad grammar but I had fun and it helped a lot.

        The branch always ask how my family is doing every week. This really nice lady named Ala always says that she prays for love and comfort from God to you because of the sacrifice you have made with me leaving. Her son is Algirdas who is 17 and she says she can imagine how hard that would be to let your son go off so far away. She is so sweet. 

        I love you all so much and I am very excited to get the letters. I have been getting letters from my friends so I haven been really enjoying that! :D Btw next monday we will be in Vilnius for our zone conference so I won't be able to email til tuesday so don't worry if you don't get an email on monday :D Love you all. Stay safe. And always remember Christ!

         Su meilė,
               Vyresnysis Sanfordas

Email from James - August 2, 2010

Alo mano šeima!

    Ya they call apartments Domes here. My vocabulary is going to be hillarious when I get home cause we call things as they are called here. Elder Hatch's companion is just a normal elder. Elder Porter and Elder Hatch leave after this transfer so if I end up staying in Kaunas, since I will have been in Kaunas the longest out of all the other elders, I will be made the new District Leader so technically I need the training if I end up staying here. All the district leaders and zone leaders are up in Riga this week getting training cause the first presidency came out with some new added stuff for the preach my gospel. It's funny cause elder hatch went cause he techinically is the district leader but he leaves in the end of August.  But it's crazy, we have zone conferences every transfer but president dance is changing it to meeting quaterly! That's going to be a big change. So make sure people know to send stuff to my Kaunas address not to Riga cause I won't get it for a while. Unless it's a package then send it to Riga. A side note, if you send stuff in a package, i guess you have to write on the package what is inside of it. Like you have to be specific what is inside of it. Just for future reference to know.

      Ya it gets so hot here, if we wore our jackets, we would pass out. It gets way way hot so we can wear our short sleave shirts. Some days that feels like that is too thick. lol. It's crazy how it can get so hot in the summer then get so cold in the winter. I love it here though. We have been meeting with a 23 year old guy named Vytaulus. He is so so cool. He has been really excepting the gospel. Evertime we see him, the first thing he says is, " I read again." It's so wonderful. We are going to give him a baptismal commitment this week so please pray that that will go well. 


     So oh my gosh, Rumšiškas was so so fun! All of the branches from Lithuanian meet at this cool barn that had a stage out in the country. Each branch did a skit. They were so funny. They had cool music and lots of dancing in their skits. One of the skits had a fake world cup with lithuanian vs. america. After we ate food and played some games like frisbee and soccer. The kids were having so much fun chasing me with the soccer ball. I love little kids here. Then they brouhgt out huge speakers and started playing country songs like the boot scoot boogy. Oh man, all of us missionaries were having a blast teaching them how to dance to it. Then they played Michael Jackson and they did like a branch dance cirlce and I totally busted out my M.J. moves. I promise mom I did just his normal dancing, not the riskay ones. ahha. Sister Dance videod taped me on her phone of me doing it. She kept telling me to do it and all the youth were like, " he dances just like Michael Jackson." ahahahaha. Oh that day went by way too fast. All the youth said they are crossing their firngers that I will be transfered to Klaipeda this next transfer cause they want me to serve there. lol. Algirdas, my 17 year old friend from Kaunas told them I will be in Kaunas my whole mission lol. I just really love the branch members here. There's is always a different feel around them then all the other people in Lithuanian. They have such a fire and a glow about them that I love.

        I'm very glad to hear that work is going well dad. It will be cool to see your cool oficial office. When I tell people about your job, they think it is so cool. They always say they want to see more pics of the family and of the house and everything. So take lots of pics or random things and then they will love it. 

       Today was such a beautiful day so a member from the branch, agne, and Elder porter, well he didn't feel like playing but felt like reading this book ( weird I know) lol, played tennis for 3 hours today. Oh man I can't tell you how much I love tennis every monday. My serves and top spins have been getting so so good. lol I'm glad you got a good laugh out of my tan line. We, as missionaries, love showing off our major tan lines to eachother. They are pretty bad.

       I'm loving the work and all of the crazy things that happen everyday. Stories will never end when I get home and get to tell you all about them. My language has been increasing every more and I love it. Elder Porter is impressed about how much I know and I haven't been through a whole two transfers. I love speaking to people, even though somtimes they say the don't understand. But hey, like Bro. snow and bro. wallace said, " it's better to mess up a few times then to not try at all." speaking of Bro. snow, he came and visited Kaunas this past weekend with his wife! they came to rumšiškas and to church on sunday. Oh it was so good to see him. He is someone very important to me and a person who I will never forget. It was soo good to talk with him for a while. He gave me huge hugs and told me to enjoy the work and not worry about the language. He has helped me so much in ways I can't even explain.

         But ya so I need to go cause we are helping with the youth family night tonight. I love you all and I can't wait to get your letters!

         Love,
            Vyresnysis Sanfordas

Email from James - July 26, 2010

Tranfer II week I, 

  So I'm still in Kaunas and my address is still the same. However, we changed domes. We live right on Laisves Aleja. My companion's name is Elder Porter. Oh my gosh, him and I get along so so well. He's great. This is his last transfer. The Apartment we are staying in is way old. There was over 25 spiders that we had to kill. They were huge, it was awesome. There is no a.c. so we put the fan right up against our beds and let it cool us. It has still been hot as ever. My arms have a very nice tan lol. But a horrible, I hate to say it, FARMERS TAN!!!! I didn't think the day would ever come. lol.
  We have no less actives to teach so we just talk to people all day and go harvesting all day. Yesterday, we took an adventure walk to go harvesting. We usually just harvest on sundays cause everyone is out on the beaches or the kaimas on the weekends. Elder Porter doesn't know his way around Kaunas so he follows me. But we went out to this cool foresty area that I had spotted a few weeks ago. It was cool because we got to get out of the city for a little. It had poured a ton yesterday so it got way humid and the roads were all foggy looking. It was fun. We followed a road into this small village. It was so cool. totally looked like a WWII scene. We knocked on lots of doors but no one would let us in. I had fun though lol.
   All of the branches in Lithuania is having a Roumšiškas this saturday. They do it once a year. It's where we all get together and act out parts of the book of mormon and play games and what not. It's apparently the biggest thing here lol. I'm way way excited. Elder Porter can't stop talking about it so it must be huge.
  My lithuanian has been increasing more and more. It makes me somewhat in a way happy when I can understand what people say about us lol. I have been able to have conversations with people and what not. It has been lots of fun. I hcan't wait til I get fluent. But it will come in time and I got loads of time. lol. But I work very hard at it.
   So very sad sad news. My really good friend and my MTC branch president just died. I got an email about it and it broke my heart. He was like a second father to me and I didn't imagine that would happen to him. His poor wife is so so sweet to us and cried when we had to leave. It's so sad. Please pray for her. Her name is Sister Payne.
  But today is a fairly nice day. We are going to play some sweet clay tennis after we eat at Can Can pizza at the huge Akropolis mall. I love playing tennis here. Elder Hatch, he is serving in upper Kaunas, said to Elder Porter, you do realize we are a sportsy district and your with hercules. lol Elder Porter always jokes about how he's the side kick and i'm the super hero cause i'm very sportsy. I'm well known for running and never stopping in Lithuania. Even all of the branch knows i'm a huge sports person. lol.
  That's so cool you, dad, got to talk to John Stockton. I told Elder Porter and he was shocked. Everyone knows about your job and the call me the rich boy lol. I just laugh and say whatev. lol. But they think your job is the coolest. Which it is! I love hearing about home and all the crazy stories. lol I can just picture parker being all crazy and what not. That's so cool about tanner's farewell. I don't know who his girl is though. Maybe if i say her, I may remember. Lithuanian messes with your brain to much. I have issues putting english sentences together sometimes because sentence structure here is funny. I can't wait till brandon gets to head out again. I also i'm excited to see pics of the office. Pics of home just are so so cool and make me happy to see.
   I love you all so so much and love hearing from you. I can't wait to get the pics!!!
         Su mylė.
            Vyresnysis Sanfordas

Email from James - July 19, 2010

I lived through my first transfer!!!!!!!!!!!!!

          haha jk. All is great in Kaunas. It has been freaking hot. It has getting up to 36 plus humidity. I'm just loving coming home feeling like I have ran through a thick mist machine. lol It rained really hard last night and it made me happy but now it's way hot again. Sister K, the sister missionaries, Elder Hatch, and I went and played tennis today. They all left after about an hour but Elder Hatch and I kept playing for 2 more hours. It was awesome. They were clay courts so I was loving it. :D Now I got a nice tan on my arms and my legs lol.
       Before I forget, on the blog, you can just say send packages to the mission home but letters send to whatever address I say I'm at. I read it and It was kinda confusing and sounded very complicated on how and when to send letters. I haven't gotten any mail except from you so I would rather have them send their letters then not at all. I'm pretty posititve I will be staying in Kaunas. We don't get our transfer call til tomorrow. But they can send letters in normal letter things but all that info, doesn't really apply here. If I transfer and letters come, the elders just bring it to zone conference. It happens all the time. Plust it takes a while sometimes to get here so I would rather have peole send a letter. It's kinda sad opening the mail box everyday and nothing is there. lol.
        But ya this transfer is Elder Hatch's last transfer. I can tell he is gettting really excited to get home. He has been teaching me some cool russian phrases lol. So I'm beginning my Russian learning. lol. My language is still improving. lol We went on splits on thursday and I went with Elder Wicker. We had such a grand ol time. He has only been out for 2 transfers. We taught someone and the guy we taught thankfully understood we didn't speak a lot of Lithuanian. But I talk to people on my own a lot and am able to teach more too. I have placed a few book of mormons.
       I love the huge story from the YM camps. I do miss camping. I also greatly miss gatorade and powerade. All the time I want one so badly cause those quench my thirst and they are o so good. All they have here is water, sprite, pepsi, coca-cola, and million brands of alcohol and vodka. So not much to drink. haha. I miss variety in drinks at gas stations. But ya i love the stories. That knee part didn't sound too fun. ouch. Don't become crippled before i come home. We still got to play more tennis.
       But nothing too exciting has happened. We went harvesting in a way cool dome and it was so cool on the inside. It was a huge hallway on each floor with doors lining on either side. It was pich black except for a creepy old light bulb hanging at the end of the hallway. It was awesome. I was like, " oh ya, we are in the crazies place." Elder hatch said, " your catching on" haha. We met the nicest people. lol. Well we still met crazy people. But we got 4 numbers. It was awesome. lol I talked to a teenage girl who was only in a towel and was way flirty. haha......akward.... he he anyways. But ya so I learned to never judge a building. I also learned if a building looks creepy, try it, pray they are nice people, if there aren't nice people, your going to have a fun time. lol I will explain that when my mission is over. haha. Oh the stories I have. I love it here!!!!!! My life was so boring and simple and so not as exciting and crazy as it is now. I don't know how I will be able to live with myself after this crazy time and with all the crazy... adventures. lol. I'm sure I will find a way though.
        Lol i'm in a weird mood. The heat causes a problem to my head. But yes all is well here. I''m safe, for now, hahah jk. The heat sometimes feels like the only threat to me. The sun taunts me everyday.
        tonight we are teaching FHE. That will be fun. I'm excited cause we play ultimate frisbee after. ya more running!
          I can't wait to hear more from home and to get more pics. I showed the pics to our english class and they all said that mom was very pretty. I told them I would tell my mom. :D Lithuanians love seeing pics of America. So send tons, like family, church members, our house, what not. Plus I want to see them. Take a pic of my room and what not too. I miss seeing that.lol
           Ok now i'm done emailing, I get so distracted lol.
            Love,
                  Vyresnysis Sanfordas

Email from James - July 5, 2010

Alo from Kaunas!!!!!!!!

 

        Everything has been going pretty well here. No one like to talk to us but we keep trying. Crazy things with Drunks and Russians still happen. But eh, That's Lietuva. It's become quite the norm. for me.

         I still haven't placed my book of mormon yet. We keep searching though. My language is still coming. I try to say more and more but it's a very hard language. I talked to a cool guy from France. I told him how dad served there. I told him I used to take french in school but now it's almost gone. He said ya Lithuania is way way harder than french. He tried to learn it. lol. I have been learning Russian, but they are things I would never say. haha.

         We have been meeting with a guy who meet with some elders before us. He wanted to read the book of mormon before being baptized. So we got a txt from him at midnight. We txted him the next morning and made an apointment. He is way way nice to us. He agreed to come to church but when sunday came he didn't show. He later txted us at 10 PM and said he needed to talk to us and that he felt way bad about not coming. He said he had drunk some alcohol and felt way ashamed. He sounded really desperate. We told him we couldn't leave. After some time we agreed to meet him outside our apt. We talked to him and I could tell it really helped him alot. He said we are the only ones who are there for him and support him and want him to be better. I have faith we can really help him to get baptized.

          Other than that nothing too exciting has happend. We are celebrating the 4th of july today. The senior couple and the Kaunas district is having a bbq. Sister Murrel, the senior sister, is making root beer. YUM!!! They don't sell it here. I tried making some but I bought mineral carbonated water so it turned out way salty lol. Elder Hatch and I had a good laugh about that.

        I got mom's letter last week! Thanks for the pics. It made me so happy. My tapes should be coming soon. it takes longer to send stuff out. When you send stuff it comes a lot quicker. About 9 days. It has been raining alot. I love it though. It's way cool in the morning cause it's way foggy. My legs have gotten stronger cause we walk so much. We went through a way pretty forest that had some houses we had never seen before way outside of Kaunas. I felt like we had stepped into a whole new world. It was awesome to get out of the city. No one listened to us but we had fun.

         I caught a glimps of the world cup again. Germany playing Argentina. Algirdas, my good friend who is 17, tells me all about the World Cup.

        But all is well here. Still doing the same work and trying every harder to find more poeple who will listen to us. This is a holliday weekend here so everyone is gone. but it feels the same when we go harvesting with or without people. lol.

        Ya i'm in a Branch here. We have about 40- 50 people come each week. It's sad. There is 300 memebers but only that many come. It's really sad. It's alot different hrere with church but I love it. The kids love to play with me. We always goof around outside after church.

       That's so cool about the office dad. If i was there I so would have helped out. I can't wait to see what it's going to be like when I get back.

        I love you all and I love hearing from you. I hope my package thing gets there soon. It has some cool stuff in it about Kaunas and the money system. The money here is really easy to figure out.

         I love you all and I can't wait to hear from you again. I think about you lots and always pray for you.

              Su myliu

                 Vyresnysis Sanfordas

Email from James - June 28, 2010

Alo!!!!!!!!!!

     Today i'm in Vilnius for a day. Elder hatch had to go up to Riga, Latvia for a mission zone thing so I spent last night at one of the Elders places in vilnius. It's a way cool city. Alot more, richier, then Kaunas. lol. But Kaunas is still better. :D We barely went and got hair cuts so I have short hair again. yay! The lady spends a lot of time cutting our hair so it was way well done. Vilnius is very pretty though. Lots of cool streets ( gatvai ) with cobblestone. Elder Hatch and I will be heading back to Kaunas tomorrow.

      So ya they do have pizza here. We are actually going to a large pizza chain called Can Can Pizza for lunch. The pizza here is very thin and they usually put vegies and stuff on it. But they have really good salami pizza that i always get. It's so much more better than pepperoni. We get the large size for our selves individually and they look at us weird, cause that's alot of food to them. lol. The sodas here are way small. You get a small of bottle of sprite or fanta and you don't get refills. Last monday we went to a cool Lithuanian restaurant and I had my first try of a Sepalinai. They are so so good. they take potatoes and fry them then rap it around a ball of meat. It's so good.

       My talk went very well yesterday. Everyone said I speak Lithuanian very well for an american lol. They were way nice to me. I love the branch. These two little girls are so cute. They always run up to us and ask us random questions about America and just silly stuff. They taught us how to play a card game after church. The only aaronic priesthood holder in the Branch is a 17 year old kid named Algirdas. Him and I have become really good friends. I like him a lot.

       I placed my first book of mormon on the 23rd. Before the day started, I said today's going to be a lucky day because 23 is my favorite number. lol. This kid we talked to spoke english so that helped a lot. His name was Edvinas. We asked if we could talk for a while, he said yes. So we found a bench to sit at on Laisves. On the way to the bench, Elder Hatch looked at me and said, " you got this". I taught him the first lesson and shared the first vision and bore my testimony. He was really interested. I asked if he would like to learn more and he said, " with a story like that, how could I not want to learn more." I was so so happy. Someone finally wanted to learn more from us. Then after we went to a member's Kaimas, village hut thing. Every weekend, most Lithuanians go thier Kaimas' out in the villages. They usually have a garden and stuff out there. But we went up there and his cat just had kittens. Oh my gosh they were so so cute. They were way little. I took a couple of pics of them. I didn't want to go lol. I put on  in my pocket as we taught a lesson. It just sat there with it's big eyes and looked around. lol.

        Saturday was not such a fun day. It started off fun. One of our investigators, and he is my good friend, named Vytautas, he is way way catholic so he won't come to church. He is almost done reading the book of mormon and he remebers everything. We aren't giving up on him. He cracks a lot of jokes. He's hillarious. Anyway so us 3 went and played basket ball. It was way fun. We played with these other two guys who were there. I think the mission improved my bball skills. lol.

          After we ate lunch. Our favorite meal to make is chicken quesidillas. The cheese here is so so good so we make them way cheesy. So after lunch we went down to Laisves to teach Edvinas again. We were both so excited! We for sure thought he was going to get baptized. lol. So he came and he had two of his friends, a guy and a girl, with him. They were all really nice. So then it went downhill as Edvinas began talking about how he doesn't need religion cause he wants to do more enjoyable things and that God and Jesus are just in life to give people hope. We kept trying to teach him and help him realize the truth but we could only do so much. So we both bore our testimonies. After he said, " I don't need the book. You can give it so someone else. It will help them more." It broke my heart. I really had hoped he would have read it and wanted to learn more.

         After we went to Sance which is the scary part of Kaunas, to teach a guy who was less active. He was really cool and we had fun teaching him. We were waiting at a bus stop. The Edvinas thing was still making me sad. These two teenagers rode up and said in poor english, " It's danger to be here now. Drunks" We told them we knew and we are just waiting for a bus. One of them pointed at my tag and asked if i was from Lietuva. I said no i'm from america. He said do you speak lithuanian. I said no I was learning. He then called me a liar because my tag was in Lithuanian. He then got up in my face and started saying mean things to my face in Lithuanian in a very rude way. He rode off. The bus ride home I was not in a good mood. I wasn't mad, just really sad. This was drunk guy carrying a bottle of vodka got on the bus. The policija really don't care about anything here. lol. But they got on and were cat calling to this really pretty, nice looking 16 year old girl. I can't stand to see girls be treated badly. I could tell Elder Hatch was getting upset too. She got off thankfully, they didn't follow. Then the guy was trying to rip off the chair on the bus. He was out of control. I am sick of alcohol. It brings good men down. Thankfullly he didn't bother us cause I have learned quickly to not look people in the eyes when I can tell they are drunk.

        It breaks my heart to see good people live in such a dark place. I have really come to see how important this gospel is and how grateful I am to live in America. I have only been here a month and I have been humbled so much. I was so so spoiled living and having what I had. I feel so bad for these people. Whenever life gets hard, when I'm back home, I am never complaining. I'm so glad the Lord sent me here.

        I love the pics of Parker. :D they make me so happy. I unfortunately can't print them off. I love how he prays I will make friends and have fun. I am having fun and making lots of friends lol. :D Oh btw. If you send back tapes. Send some for me to record on. I have been looking for tapes but I haven't been able to find any.

      It's so cool to see movies and stuff at the stores in Lithuanian lol. The Avatar movie is all over. I forgot how you say it but it looks way cool in Lithuanian.

        I love you all so so much. I hope I get to take you here some day! :D

             P.S. Don't send stuff pouch mail. It won't get here any faster and I won't get it till a zone conference. Just tell peole to send stuff to my new address :D

          Love,        Vyresnysis Sanfordas