Roommates and Blaze's death

10/20/09
This first letter is to Jeff the second to me (Rachael)
Hope you enjoy..

I thoroughly enjoyed the joke. After I received your message about Blaze, I had some trouble not crying. It made me really think of home, and I think brought my first bit of homesickness, hopefully the last.

Things are great here. I'll tell you about the other elders in my district. Elder Breedlove- super happy guy, that wants to be a freelance "navy seal trained" spy-like guy. I dunno, he is really funny though and is one of my roommates.

His companion is Elder Waite- played lacrosse for SVU, has a girlfriend he expects will not wait for him, no matter how much she says she will. I don't think he will be too disappointed when it happens, not because she isn't great, just because he knows it'll happen. hahaha. He is very realistic.

Elder Brown- this guy has some amazing experiences, super responsible, and my DL. His dad died three and a half years ago. He visited China for two weeks just before he got here. He has worked one of those "Deadliest Catch" boats, and has some pretty cool experiences about that. He made 15 grand in two months!

His companion is elder Weihing, said like "wine" he is a short guy that is pretty good at basketball, although he broke both wrists playing once. One wrist has metal plates, screws, the whole nine yards, pretty gnarly. He is a really nice guy.

There are two sisters in our district, but I don't know much about them though. Sister Dungan is from Hillsboro, is a teacher and has taught in Russia and Ethiopia. sister Hanson's dad is an archeologist, and she herself has led some digs, pretty fun stuff.

Dear elder is probably best, but both is better. if you have to pick one, definitely do dear elder, because I only get 30 minutes on the computer. Loved the picture.

Love
-Blake


Mom,

I remember that one time at DQ, , and I don't know if I'd trust it either. ( I wrote him about our FHE and how we had gone to Dairy Queen afterwards, but I was a little weary because the last time, when I took Blake and Mitch, the icecream was spoiled and tasted horrible)

Life is good here, I haven't gained any weight... I don't think. Today I got the chance to go to an endowment session with some "natives" from russia/ukraine that come here to help us learn. They don't have temples over there, so it was pretty cool because they received their endowments. There are I think nine of them, five sisters and four Elders.

That package with the date things is a really good idea, and it will be a good extra little boost to look forward to the next day. Here the days seem to fly by, it seems that just a few days ago, I was writing you my first letter, and BAM, I'm already on week two!

I hope Braden is having fun, you will have to keep me posted on how things are for him up there in the far north. hahaha.

I got my first taste of homesickness when I got the letter about Blaze dying. It made me realize how much I miss Thunder. There is nothing like the feeling you get from a dog here, and I definitely miss it. Anyways, I'm about out of time, I spent most of my time on dad's letter, so you'll have to read that one too, I forgot to CC that one.

Love- Blake