February 13, 2017

Week 51

Hey Mom :) Thanks for the year mark wishes, haha. It's so weird! Dad reminded me that spring training starts this week and I have been in the Bakirkoy area  since the playoffs started last season. That seems like it was a month ago. We went to Germany about 7 months ago! What the!!! I don't understand how time can go so fast! The Rasmussen's (almost) whole family came to Turkey to pick them up. The sons wanted to take pictures with us and send them to our moms! I'm glad you got those and that they made you happy! For my Book of Mormon studies this week, I got past chapter 10. I kind of dissected Lehi's vision and tried to compare it to today. It's crazy how applicable the Book of Mormon is to us today and how mindful God is of everyone! Like the 116 pages, like you said. God knew it would happen and provided a way for us to still have some of it. I remember learning that in seminary senior year. That was one of the only things I remember from that year. I'll definitely be on the lookout for the package. I'll probably send home some souvenirs in the next few weeks that I have bought. I love you Mom.  Thanks so much for everything.  Have a great week, I'll send a group email this week. Thank you for what you said in your p.s. thingy. I'm just happy to know that.

Group Email

1...Year...Down--inanilmaz ya

Hey Everyone! This past week was pretty good. Last week while shopping, Yasi Nahle and I were debating about buying an ayran because of our budget, when an older guy comes up and starts talking to us in really slow broken English, "fellas I hear English." He continued to talk to us for a couple of minutes, going back and forth from English to Turkish. We were wondering what the heck was going on because what kind of person in our neighborhood knows English? He gave us his number and we met up on Wednesday to help him brush up on his English. As we were talking with him, another guy came up to us and said also in English that he lived in New York for thirteen years. He said "Let me help you guys, you need it." Gotta love the brutally honest Turks! So, we started chatting with him and we told him what we're doing here. He was super surprised but was all for it. He didn't want to meet with us, but he supported us. It was just crazy to see how in our middle of nowhere neighborhood we found those kind of people and someone who knew about Mormons. I also went on an exchange again with the elder from Argentina. I've never met someone with so much diligence and a positive attitude, especially having to learn English and Turkish at the same time with almost no help. He has come super far from 6 months ago. This upcoming week is pretty busy. Tomorrow all the other elders come to Istanbul and we're going to be doing a ton of exchanges up until Saturday. Friday we have Yasli Nelson, of the Seventy and head of the entire volunteer department of the church coming here to have a fireside with all of the members! Yasli Katcher, who came last October, will also be here as well! Saturday we are having zone conference and will receive a ton of instruction from both of them. It will be super cool.  Yesterday our friend who joined the church blessed the sacrament for the first time! He also got a calling--sacrament coordinator!  So proud of that guy!  Well that's about it,  Love you all a ton!  Yasli Muncy