no, i am not fat!

Letter 5-18-09

big boned.

well, this week we are doing a barbeque with the zone and i am running around getting things ready.

congrats little lady, on all that mushy stuff. :) i feel kind of like i do when you are talking to somebody and they say that someone they know died. :) i mean, that whole, "gee, i don’t know what to say really...stinks huh!" only that here it is like, "oh, gee, well way to go. hope you don’t lose the ring or anything! that would really stink!" :-)

just kidding. [the proposal] sounded a little like that part in the 'other side of heaven': swing, pond, a bunch of people watching as though it were a movie or something. :) i don’t really like saying mushy words, but it sounded kind of 'sweet'. funny about that word: if you say that something is flippin’ sweet, no one makes fun of you, but if you say that someone is sweet or "ahhhh, wasn’t that sweet!" people call you fruity. not worth it sometimes, but for alyce i said it once. heck, while i am at, why not go all the way- tell nathan that i think that HE is sweet. (say it in the fruity way. :) )

this week, the zone baptized... 0. my great family is dodging baptism right now and didn’t go to church on sunday. the other lady that was supposed to be baptized this week told us yesterday that she doesn’t want to yet. we are going there tomorrow. damage control. today we met with the zone to try and get everyone excited again and we started a new strategy. if it works, i will tell you about it next week.

well i got to roll.

love elder helland

MOM- not many letters left to write home, so sorry if they are short. love you and way to go winning all that money and awards and stuff. i always knew that you were great!

dad- hang in there big guy. whatever you do - DONT LET THEM BRAINWASH YOU with all the wedding mushy girl stuff. i am coming to the rescue, in a few weeks, and i need you to still be the big burly macho man that i remember. :)

alyce- since you are the center of attention right now, i think i wrote more about you than anything else. but really, nathan will be ticked if you lose that ring. :) don’t play with it in you mouth, bc if you swallow it... there will be unpleasant consequences.

love again


This is a picture of him today - to show us how the diet is working - ha-ha!

FYI - In case you didn't know - Alyce is engaged to be married on August 1, 2009 to Nathan Robinson. We're very excited!

Message to Alyce from last week:

PARABÉNS! (that is like congrats in my language). what kind of a ring is it? (any decoder ring is NOT engagement material, although handy for reading the backs of cereal boxes.) i won’t say much more, but my comp, who has been teasing me about this since you started dating nathan says that you are going to steal my thunder. i'll get home and everyone will say hi, and then they will go back to talking to you about getting married and the wedding shower and stuff. :) cool by me, just so you know.

Here is a picture of the two of them in March at Magic Mountain. We'll take some better pics...soon! :-)

Six weeks to sexy…

Letter 5-11-09

that’s the name of the diet that elder christensen and i have copyrighted. the theory is that it isn’t so much about what you eat but about HOW MUCH you eat and what exercises you do in the morning. for example: everyday (except pday) i have to eat the dang rice and black beans. BUT, part of MY diet plan is that i am going to only eat some rice and drink a lot of water. that way you are full without getting any nutritional value, one of the keys to success. :-) I guess this diet is going to be a big high school fad, kind of like other diets that got big in the past like bulimia and anorexia. The good news is that i will come home thinner. The other important part is the exercises. Push ups. LOTS of the push ups. Then the arms get bigger and the chest muscles stick out more than the stomach. Sounds like a great idea, huh? I am looking for volunteers that way i can measure results. As for me, i will probably come home fat. :-)

Not much to say today...
The only news is that last night president called me after the our phone call and said,“elder helland, how do you want to end your mission?- as a zone leader or a trainer?” i said zone leader. He said ok and then a lot of other things about people in the zone. I got nervous, but it was cool. Form what i can tell from last night is that i will probably finish the mission here as a zone leader. Still... president is famous for changing his mind at the last minute.

Today i will go and enjoy the last pday with the zone, a lot of them will be transferred.

Well, it was nice to talk with you guys too.

Love elder helland

Alyce: Do me a favor and find some people for me to date too while you are at it. :-) Don’t tell them about the diet plan. Good luck with finals.

MOM- truthfully, phone calls are “trunky”- I mean, heck, we ended it saying- see you soon! But if it felt funny, you had to see my poor comp. The kid is getting home sick. Or mission sick...

DAD- last transfer i ripped my pants one day helping a family that we were teaching move in. It was a big one - right on the butt seam. I just finished the move and went home and changed it. That family still makes fun of me.

Trails and Trials

Letter from 5-5-09

HAPPY BITHDAY MAMÃEZINHA
This week was a good one. Lots of cool blessing and trials.
Sorry I didn’t write yesterday. We had interviews in the zone and p-day got moved to today.
This week me and my companion were in that same old thing always running around looking for people to teach. We knocked a lot of doors with little luck. On Tuesday we were all tired again and we realized that we had very few investigators that were any good (meaning interested and progressing). As we deliberated about what to do a crazy idea came to our mind: get on a bus going to a neighborhood far away from where we were at and where we haven’t ever worked. At first it was just a funny idea, but then we made it real. We had like 10 addresses there to go after so we decided that it was a dumb idea but that we would go for it. We walked to the bus stop to wait for the bus, when we got to the bus stop there was another bus there going to a neighborhood equally far only we only had 5 addresses there. Since we were just being crazy, we decided to get on the bus and go anyway. We went out there and worked the rest of the day looking for people to teach, again without luck. At the end of the day we found a family of four. They were awesome. They loved the message and were excited to go to church on Sunday. They went and liked it. We went there yesterday and they gave us food. If was great. Since we are working out there a lot now, we have since found several other people to teach- way out in the boonies.

Ok, about mothers day:
Our number here is 24 9984 0998
I don’t know what time you have church. Mine is in the morning- 9 to 12.
You can call me at 5 our time. MY time. I don’t know what the conversion is, but we have got a few people using the phone on this day so I hope it goes well. If anything goes wrong, I will call you with another number on that day. Deal? Just 40 minutes of fun though, ok?

MOM- parabens e feliz anniversario. Way to go you oldie!! 29 is a lot!
No I am not sick.
Thanks for your sweet email.
I got MY bday package this week and it was great. We ate it all already (the other missionaries in the house and the zone do not permit that food is shared for more that a day.). the shirt was sweet. Sister bezerra wanted it, but I didn’t give it to her. :-)

DAD- GOOD luck running in the morning. my comp tries to get me to go running with him but I am too tired to go. Tell gpa and gma they are in my prayers.

ALYCE - have a blast with finals. i guess that I am coming up on a sort of “finals” too. I am pretty nervous. Love ya and know that I am happy for you and doing fine.

Love elder helland
PS On Sunday ask me about a cool story that happened at interviews. It was great.