Dear Home,
Owing to the VERY SHORT one hour time limit on missionaries for reading and writing Emails, I have begun to consider asking those who would like to send me Emails to send me letters instead. It's more expensive, and it'll take more time to get to me, but I can read a letter anytime- durring mornings, lunches, dinners, evenings- any day of the week, but I can only read Emails durring one hour on one day of the week, and that is also the only time I have for /writing/ Emails, including my weekly blog post, which is always shorter than I want it to be because I never have as much time as I would like.
If we do decide that I should spend all of my Email time writing Emails rather than reading them, I'll still want Mom to Email me each week (Yes, I'm picking favorites. She's my MOM, for crying out loud. She's still allowed to Email me). But anyway, I'd like you all to discuss it amongst yourselves and post comments with your opinions. I'll make my decision next week when I hear what you all have to say about it.
In the meantime, I'll use what time I have left to write about my week.
On Monday, we joined a Branch Service Project of picking up trash along the Perimeter Road of the city. It was lots of fun, especially the part where Elder Jons and I were running beside a pick-up truck, tossing bags of garbage in the back as we went. Running is fun for me. ^^
On tuesday, we spent basically the whole day helping people out. In the morning, we helped Brother Angell with some odd jobs, and then he and his wife fed us some fish. Now, personally, fish isn't my absolute favorite kind of food, but I currently live about a half-block away from a lake, so I'd better get used to it.
In the afternoon, we were supposed to teach a lady, but she was sick, so we ended up helping her neighbor with some gardening instead. That was fun, too, and she was really impressed with our willingness to help out.
In the evening, we met up with a man that we had met while tracting. Turns out, missionaries had helped him renovate his house earlier, so he was happy to have us help him plant lots of flowers in his flower pots and beds. I enjoyed that, too. I got dirt under my fingernails, but I was able to make some flowerpots look pretty. When we were done, he gave us money to go to Subway. I didn't order a tunafish sandwich like I usually do. He recommended beef.
On Thursday, Elder Jons and I drove down to Saskatoon for Zone Conference, and, as is usual for missionaries going to Zone Conference, the first thing on our minds when we got there was mail. I, having celebrated my birthday a short time ago, was blessed with two packages, one from my Mom, and one from my sister, Miriam (Sariah's package had arrived at our appartment a week or two earlier). I am so blessed to have so many loving, generous family members! I got four new CDs (EFY: Especially for Missionaries; Jim Brickman: Faith, and Hope; and Rob Costlow's latest CD), LOTS of candy, things to hold sheets on my bed, and lots of wonderful mission-related things. ^^ Thank you all so much!
Over the past few days, a missionary couple from Winnipeg came to visit our part of the mission. As part of their tour, they went to look at the Limestone Crevices, and offered to let us tag along. Of course, we accepted. The crevices are AMAZING!!! Of ALL of the things I've seen on my mission, the one that I most want to bring my family to see are the limestone crevices. If there are pictures that you can look at online, do that, but those won't do them justice by a longshot. You have to come and see them.
Ummm... That's about it. I wanted to talk to you all about Unleashing the Dormant Spirit, a 7 page talk from Elder F. Enzio Busche which I HIGHLY recommend reading, but I don't have time.
Love, your slightly-more-satisfied missionary, Elder Andrew Robarts
PS, Transfer calls are on July 7, for those who wanted to know.
PPS, Ryan, I got your letter. What's your address or Email address so I can reply?
4 comments:
I don't mind mailing letters, but I doubt I could continue sending one each week. That would get pricey... then again, it's not even for another whole year. So, yeah, I could do that. :)
Andrew, if you don't have time to read all of your e-mails, are you able to print them out and read them later?
I just checked! Ha ha! Isn't the internet great?
Wow, they're charging you a dollar an hour to use the internet? I guess we're lucky over here. It's free at our libraries.
At your library, it costs $0.25 to print one page from the computer. So if your emails aren't too long, you could copy & paste more than one into a Word document. Then you can change the font, font size & the margins of the page to make it fit better (most printers can print to 0.25" of the edge of the page. Use print preview before you print, just to make sure!
Just an idea. :)
But I will send the letter I was writing by mail.
A letter or postcard to Canada is only $0.75 so if you sent a letter a week, it's only $3 a month.
And it's less than he's paying to read our e-mails, so no complaining! ;)
I think, but am not absolutely sure, that in Flin Flon, they are using a computer at the church. If it is like our history center, I don't think he can print. But, using the computer should be free. The limitation is simply the rules and of course that P-day is just too short.
75cents a week (thank you for being so supportive!) is a little pricey, but most of us can manage that for a missionary. (I sound like one of those feed the children campaigns - for just over 10cents a day...) Not just any missionary - OUR missionary. If that is a fiscal challenge, write every other week.
In my house it's $1.50 a week. Ben and I each try to write every week. If we try to coordinate, the letter doesn't get mailed. Besides, we both write fat enough letters we probably often should be paying more than 75 cents already.
I think short emails are ok at least every now and then. Andew needs to realize that he doesn't need to respond to each of us individually.
I think that copy and paste, font adjusting, etc would get to be time consuming and time is the biggest problem. I know every time I get on the computer to do a quick little job, it takes a lot longer than I expect.
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