Memorial Day

Dear Family,

It's been a good week! Sorry about all the craziness last week, we had another super busy P-day and in all the chaos of laundry and everything I didn't email you. I thought i did but I guess not.

Memorial day at the MTC is weird. Most everything is closed, so I can't get a haircut or pick up my dry cleaning today:/ The Temple is also closed, so I've got a ton of free time, which was way weird. Weird P-days are weird. This also is gonna make getting ready to leave a bit more complicated, but it wont be any trouble. I miss visiting the cemetery with everyone for memorial day, It's feels odd not to, but I'm a missionary, so odd is the norm here:)

We do have Mexican food every once in a while here. Saturday, I actually made a Quesadilla from the wrap bar, everyone thought I was a genius, it was great! It was also delicious. My favorite ice cream here is the same as before, mintnchip all da way! One time they had mintnchip brownie flavor! that was the beeeesssst!!!! 

In other news, we got our travel plans this last week! We'll be leaving the MTC at 3 in the morning on Monday (June 3rd), so we're pretty much running away:) we're landing in San Francisco at like 7:30 am and we are gonna be there for about 6 hours (till 12:50) so I think I'll call you in San Fran! I thought it's pretty cool, my last place in the U.S. is where Dad served his mission. That's pretty sweet. This feels kinda redundant, I already wrote this in my letter. Oh well. The flight to Hong Kong is gonna take about 16-18 hours, it's gonna be awesome! We've been doing the math and I think I'm gonna go for over 30 hours without sleeping!!! Woo!! (not sarcasm, I'm genuinely excited to go for it!) That and just going is getting me super hyper to go! :)

If you're a bit curious as to how much Cantonese I've learned in the MTC, I've just learned how to say "What are you doing?" just this week and our Hong Kong native teacher says that we sound a bit like old women. That's after we've learned our entire basic grammar book. Jk, it's not half as bad as it sounds but we've all got a long way to go.

Everyone is super excited and a bit nervous at the same time. I'm just excited! Leaving the MTC is a bit like high school, except everyone is a bit more mature and there's no swearing. What I mean is I feel like I'm graduating all over again. It's great! It has gone by so fast!

This week we all watched Sister Monson's funeral together. Did you all watch it? It was really good, but it was sad to see President Monson so sad.

The weather has been so nice, I'm glad my last little bit of Utah for a couple years was good weather. I hope the garden and everything is going alright.

Hey mom, laundry is going well, I've taught some people how to clean their collars, I thought that you'd be proud:)

This will be my last P-day here and also my last day to Email you in the U.S. I think. I'll be sending some stuff home soon to make room for all the Cantonese learning books we'll be taking with us so we'll see how that goes. 

 It sounds like life is about the same at home. Happy Memorial Day!! I'll talk to y'all soon while I'm at the airport:)!!

Love ya bunches,

 Elder Osborne:)

MTC Buddies

Leih ho, family!

 We had a great week this week, I feel like I've made some excellent progress with learning the Gospel and the language. I've still got a long way to go with both, but I'm doing great. I'm gonna miss Memorial day with the family, hopefully it's not rainy then.

I can't believe Cody is on the Ravens!!!!! That's so cool!!! Give me the details! What position is he playing? Tell me where Zach is going as soon as you know!! The rain has been really nice here, I love it:) I'm glad things are pretty good at home.

Anyway, I'll tell you about some of my buds here in the MTC. There's Elder Beal (the super ginger in a lot of my photos) He's from Layton and he's our District leader. He's also hilarious and has this great old lady voice that everyone loves. It can't even be described is how funny it is. There's Elder Loderup, Our zone leader, he is a super blonde guy. He's from Texas but his family is Norwegian, so he pretty much speaks Norwegian too. He's super buff but he's got a huge nerdy past like me so we have fun dropping references no one else in our zone has any idea about:). There's Elder Durham, He's a nerd like me, he knows pretty much every bizarro thing I'm into which nobody else knows about, so we get along really well. He's super smart and knows quite a bit of Japanese  but is forgetting it cause Cantonese is super awesome so it requires pretty much every cavity your brain has to learn it. That's about it for him. There's his Companion, Elder Mikesell, who is also hilarious, we end up saying just stupid things to each other and laughing like crazy. Right now what really gets us is pretending to be air traffic control guys saying stuff like: "ninerniner" Random stuff about clear runways and for some unknown reason "number six!" sorry none of this makes sense, you'd just have to be there:) Some of these guys needs books written about them they're so awesome:) 

 

There's one story I need to tell you guys now, you won't believe it. Our Zone leader, Elder Loderup, who is also in our district had a crazy night last couple nights ago. At about 1:30 in the morning the dorm light comes on and there elder Loderup is at the door about to get ready for the day, except he was completely naked except for the fact that he was wearing his bedsheets as a toga! Best weird wake up call ever. He wasn't sleep walking or anything, he was going to take a shower and said he looked at his towel and thought it was dumb to even have a towel, so why not bed sheets. It was hilarious!

Oh, Elder Russel M. Nelson talked for devo on Tuesday.  It was way cool! And I get to host this Wednesday! Yay! That's about it for this email, I'll email you s'morr soon! I love you all!!

Love, 

Elder Osborne

Happy Mothers Day

Dear family,

 

 Happy Mother's day Mom!!!! I'll send you a Mother's day letter today with more. Thanks so much for the new CD player, it works very well! I haven't tried my debit card yet, we have cards that give us a little money every week. I'll try it out soon though. Thanks Dad for the letter, I really liked it, it's good to hear from you and everyone else:)

 Lou, I'm not surprised about your snake-murder, you're pretty good about letting things know that you don't like them;) 

How are you doing, Jug? Anyone can feel free to dear elder me or just write or email me through the week:) Honey, I'll respond to your email soon:)

This week I think I figured out where my Osborne anger-passion is buried. It comes out when I feel particularly passionate about missionary work. Feels like I got a mini-Elder Holland in my head somewhere.

Mom I hope you're still doing well in as Relief society President, it sound's like Sister LeDuc's funeral went well, keep up the good work and good funeral potatoes! (to those who like them). Tell Jodi thanks for the Dear Elder and the cookies for me, that was great, especially when she's already got Trevor out in Paraguay.

I think that's about it for this email, thanks for doing all you and supporting me so much!

Love,

Elder Osborne

This is where we do laundry and emails! This is also most of us Cantos!

Another week at the MTC

Leih ho, family!  

It was a great week this week! Thanks so much for the package! It sounds like things are a little more exciting than usual at home. I hope Scott and Deloy get better soon.

Time has flown on my side as well, especially on Pdays. We elders have a great time on Pdays:) We mostly just goof off a bit, eat food, guy stuff. A lot of elders trade ties, but I keep mine cause I'm kind of attached to all of mine. Not a lot of new stuff has really happened here besides just progressing with the gospel and Cantonese real well. I'm gonna push it even harder this week, I'm gonna try some new learning tricks and such. It's amazing how the Spirit helps with the lesson and language too. Also thanks for all the work on the blog, you're awesome! Apparently i wont be an usher till like the last two weeks of the MTC. The food is overall really good. Except for the vegetables. They're kinda bad. I have not seen Emily Dotson yet, but I'll keep an eye out.

I asked him how to say: My name is Sister Osborne. I am a missionary for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Because this week in seminary is missionary week and we get points if we can say that in another language! Oh hai Pong ji moy. Oh hai chyungaosi Yeso Geiduk Hauqueih sinke Gaawuih. 

That is how you kinda say that in Cantonese without tones. 

Oh, and one more thing, I'm gonna say sorry in advance for this. My CD player broke somehow. For some weird reason it just petered out and won't work anymore. So could you send me another one please? I'll send back the broken one soon so you can take it back if you want. I'm so sorry! CD players are the only thing the bookstore doesn't have, and I really need it for sounds and tones stuff. I feel so bad! 

 Well, that's about it for this week email-wise. I'll send y'all a letter soon with more details. I love all of you so much! 

Love,

Elder Osborne

All the pictures I've got this week are of me and Elder Peterson. We're besties:) He's nerdy like me and we hang out a bit every night:)

Oreos for Lunch

Dear Family, Things here are still really good. This weeks gone by so fast, it's insane. I finally chose my plaque scripture: it's Alma 37: 6-7, I think. It's about weak things being made strong with the Lord and I love it.  Laundry is going pretty well, The worst thing that's happened is that I accidentally left one pair of black socks in my whites, but all it did was make one of my cheap white t shirts a tiny bit off white in a spot so I guess I'm just blessed:) They've got that cleaner stuff for my collars so I'm good for that. Actually, they've got just about everything a missionary needs at the book store, I was really impressed. As far as I know the Loderups are all from Oslo, but I'll ask him again. Btw, Chris Gustafson is in the MTC now, and we live in the same building, which is pretty cool. He's going to Norway in case you didn't already know. Cantonese is still coming. It's weird, one day, you feel like you couldn't learn a thing, then the next day comes and you got it! It's a bit like a roller coaster in that way. The key is to just have faith and a positive attitude:) I got the super huge oreo package, everyone was super happy to get that much food:)  Elder Dorman (He's the one on top of Elder Beal and my comp in the bunk bed planking picture) keeps eating all my food! He ate half the Nilla wafers! It was funny and sad at the same time. He keeps trying to diet like a girl and then binges at some time later in the day. It's happened so often, but it just keeps getting funnier! Everyone seems to be gaining weight but me. They feed us really well here:) That's about it for this email, just one more thing. If you would still like to send me cookies, I think pumpkin chocolate chip is sounding good right now;) Love you all so much, oh oih leihdeui (i love y'all) Elder Osborne These pics are of every elder going to Hong Kong, and one of our old Zone leaders, Elder Call. He left for the Philippines about a week ago. The guy next to me is my bestie, Elder Peterson. This is me and Elder Beal on our last temple walk. More of me and Beal + My lunch for today. I'm trying to drink as much milk as I can before HK:) love me some milk:) and oreos:) and cookies in general:)

The Empty Sea

Dear family,

  The time seems to by flying by right now in the empty sea! The language is coming along slowly but surely (which means really fast for normal people, but normal speed for super awesome missionaries like us).

One cool thing that happened this last Tuesday was one of our devotionals. Elder Richard G. Scott came! He was amazing! I'll write you the details in a bit:)

Some more new stuff is that a bunch of missionaries in our zone left for the Philippines today. They were amazing and I'm going to miss them all a lot. With that came new zone leaders. They are Elders Loderup and Hartwig from my district. Our new district leader is Elder Beal (he's the super ginger in most of the photos I sent). That's about all  the news I'll email for now.

 So how's the home front? Everybody good? Let me know soon! 

 Also, Thanks so much for the package! The CD player is awesome and will be a huge help with Cantonese. Thanks for the letters and cookies especially. I missed your delicious cookies of goodness so much, Mom! Thank you so much!

Again, Thank you all so much for everything!

Love,

Elder Osborne

First pictures!!!

Hi everybody! Things here are going great! Sounds like things at home are pretty normal, except for dad with the water works. I'm having a great wet p-day. We went to the temple this morning and it was snowing the best huge fluffy snow! We also saw 3 or 4 deer run about 30 yards in front of us on the way! The MTC is really a great place once you get used to the workload and rules and stuff. I'm surprised how easy the spirit makes learning stuff. 

Oh by the way I know Elder Black! he's in my zone! every thing is going great and I wrote you some more that will get to you in a bit. 

Thank you so much for all you do! 

 Love ya,

                    Elder osborne

P.S. Hope fully you got the pics, I'll point out the people next week, Im short on time

First day in the MTC

Dear family,
My first day in the MTC was really great! My companion, Elder Young seems like a great guy so far. The rest of my dorm mates (6 of us) seem amazing as well.

The food here is excellent, we had chicken cordon bleu. The chocolate milk and ice cream are also amazing.

Honestly, the Spirit here is so strong and I'm so glad that I'm here!

This is my first day so there's not much to say so far. I'll try to do better next time.

                                                                            Love,
                                                                                 Elder Osborne

P.S. I love you guys!
P.P.S. I'm so sorry that this is taking longer than expected, I haven't had hardly any free time to actually send letters. :( I'll do better on writing you guys I promise!

First email!!!!!!!!!

Hi everybody! How are you? The mtc is amazing! The people are so great here:) The food is much better than I thought it would be. The orange juice rumors are true for the most part. some crazy elders tried it and some have yet to feel the full effect. Most totally get the runs though.

   The language is tough but I'm sure I'll get it quick:) My companion is really great, his name is Elder Young. He's a great help with the gospel and the lingo and all that. In fact, my whole district is brilliant! I'll tell you guys more about them later. Conference in the MTC was great! There's no distractions so I learned a lot:) The spirit is so strong here I can hardly take it all in.

    Anyway how is the family? Thanks so much for the shower sandals and care package. I got a cheap pair from the bookstore but I accidentally got size 13! It was hilarious! In fact when we're not totally into the spirit or studying cantonese, we're laughing our heads off:)

    Well that's it for now, I love you and miss you all.

                                                                       Love Elder Osborne

And he's off!

April 2, 2013

Setting apart

  April 3, 2013

Saying goodbye to Grandma Cow

Provo Temple

Bronson ran into his friend Laura who entered the MTC the same day!


The MTC