Letter #26

DEEEEEEEEEEAR FAMILY,

Contrary to what usually happens every week, this is not Elder Greg

Waite speaking. IT'S HIS COMPANION!!!!! (Elder Caleb C. Anderton)

HOW ARE YA?  I can't believe that Elder Waite went along with this

crazy idea!  I did have to do a little convincing, but I figured we

write our families every week for a whole 2 years, we may as well mix

it up a little! (I'm also assuming that this is allowed, legal, and

does not break any of the 10 or any other commandments and that

neither your son, nor myself will be subject to church disciplinary

action..... If anything does go wrong you can all blame me. It was my

idea!) ;)

Naw, I'm just kidding. :) Man this is fun! I've never done this

before! First of all can I just say that Elder Waite is AWESOME! He is

an amazing missionary! He's an extremely hard worker, probably the

most diligent language studier that I've met in my whole life, he is

full of love for everyone around him,  and we have SO much fun

together! He's now officially the companion I have been with the

longest (thus far anyway), and we both have come a long way since both

arriving in Hämeenlinna! I really didn't train him in our first 12

weeks together. He trained me, and it is still going on every day.

He's taught me so much about myself, about being a missionary and

about this Gospel.  We've formed a friendship that I plan to keep long

after our missions are over. (We've already got plans to watch a

couple movies together or go out on a double date or something like

that sometime in the future). We're stoked!

 I hope to someday meet all of you! Gosh he loves you guys!

(Especially you, Mom). ;)  He loves you so much. You all are such

great examples to him. By the way, He opened that book this week where

you all read different parts of the Christmas story and MAN IT WAS

AWESOME! That is one of the coolest Christmas presents I've ever seen!

He loved it so much! ( I'm sure you'll hear more about it from him

later). Thank you for being the awesome family you are!

Quick funny story!  So He's probably told you about how we make a

different pizza every week. Super fun tradition! The second week we

started putting cheese in the crust, then the next week we tried meat

AND cheese and found out that THAT was even better!!! So that's the

kind of pizza crust we've made pretty much every week since. Well

since Elder Waite got 4 bags of Cheetos for Christmas, and we wanted

to mix it up, we had all these wonderful visions of CHEETOS in the

crust of a pizza! We were picturing biting into some soft pizza crust

and then hitting the crunch of the cheesy delicious Cheetos and

thought it would be awesome. So we tried it! ....... I do not

recommend it to ANYONE who is in the mood for a good pizza.  The

Cheetos absorb almost all the moisture from the crust and get soggy,

then somewhere in the baking process they dry out, so the finished

product is somewhat the consistency of packing peanuts with a lot of

salt......... But man it was worth a try!  We're pretty sure we are

the only ones that have ever tried that! (Or maybe just the only ones

brave enough to admit that we tried it...) ;) Anyhow, awesome

experience. Still pretty good pizza.

There are so many MORE fun stories I could tell you about our

adventures that we've had, but I don't have to much time. I do want to

tell you of a few miracles we experienced this week:

We were blessed with TWO Baptismal dates this week!!! One is the a man

who was introduced to us by a member of the primary presidency of our

branch! We have taught him only a few times, and he still has many

questions, but he said that he has felt thus far that this church is

true and that he feels the spirit in sacrament meeting. Elder Waite

and I were both so stoked! We're excited to see him progress toward

baptism within the next few weeks! The second is the man from Brazil

who is studying here. He's been here for a couple of years and speaks

Finnish quite well, and he too agreed to a baptismal date! There is

nothing more joyful than watching God's children come to know Him

better. I'm so grateful to be able to share this time with Elder

Waite.

I love you! Once again thank you for all that you do and for sending

me this wonderful companion. He really is awesome. Remember to brush

your teeth and tip your waitresses, and always remember to pray. :)

Posotutely sincerely yours,

Vanhin Caleb C. Anderton. :)

(the following is from Greg:)

  

Meghan: Thank you sooo much for your packages. I got both of them and

I LOVE them. Thank you. And tell your mom and Mike thanks for writing

and sending that "White Family update" I LOVED IT!! Thank you!!!