(Walker is toward the back, in the white shirt, haha-- and red tie... Thanks to Sara for sending this)
0 Comments
Hello Madré!
Yes, I did get BOTH of your e-mails last week. It gave me a pretty good laugh. I'm glad that all is well at home though. That's great that Wilder is stepping up to the plate and and taking some initiative! I'm happy for him J I'm so happy that you got my letter! I didn't want to tell you I was mailing it, but I caved. Haha, glad that you liked it. I thought about you a lot this week, especially yesterday on your birthday! I even wrote “¡Feliz cumpleanos Madré!” in my planner, and I sketched the Madrid Temple in my notes section. Tell Shane to send me a letter or e-mail me! It'd be nice to hear from him, I want to hear from Wilder too… But I am going to send him a letter today of a poem President Sitterud told to me the other day, I could just send it to him over email but it'd be cooler if I hand wrote it out and sent it to him in the mail. The pony express is fun… Hand written letters are golden. I'm glad that you understand that. About the money, that $50-something US dollars was a €40 withdrawal I made. That's the best way to use personal funds, by withdrawing it instead of running the card, that's what I've heard anyway. And that $16 one was for the metro ticket I bought, I'll be sure to get more photos of the metro for you, we're probably taking the metro today if we decide to go anywhere, we have to go to the mall to get more stamps for more letters. The past couple of weeks I've been doing my endowment sessions in the temple in Spanish, I understand everything that is going on, the gift of tongues is real! My Spanish is coming along, not quite as good as I would have hoped but it's a work in progress, just need to be patient with myself and it'll all be well! I learn more and more each and every day, I find myself saying words I didn't even know that I knew. Pretty cool, in the words of Andy Jones, “Just have to believe in the magic”. That picture you sent me of Isaias Fuentes and his wife was beautiful! I'm so happy for him! What a good guy, I look up to him in many ways! In the photos I sent you… The BWIN red and white logo is the Sponsor for the REALMADRID fútbol team here, we were in the press room when that photo was taken, the blonde elder was Elder Skousen, he's in my district, he's from Mesa Arizona. Good guy. And in the metro, the 3 elders with me were my companion, Elder Lloyd, Elder Bob Dansie (he knows Alyssa Smith, Mary´s sister) and probably Elder Skousen again, I can't remember. Still hate fish, we had swordfish twice this week… That's all I have to say about that. Congrats to Evan Marshall on his baptism… That's wonderful. Tell Brice to send me a letter and that he hasn't received anything from me yet because I don't have his address! Gotta get running pretty soon here. But to answer your question, a mission is split up into zones, and those zones are split up into districts. I love you Mom, tell the family I love them as well and tell everyone to send me letters!! J I love you so so much. The mission is great, this is such a wonderful opportunity to show The Lord how much I love him! Much love, your son… Elder Walker Jack Koeven (handwritten letter, sent 4-9-2013, received 4-12-2013) Mom, Happy Birthday! Hope that everything at home is going well, I know that all will be better in the long run because Wyatt and I are in the field! You know that I was quite homesick, I prayed a ton, I feel that you and the rest of the family are being watched over and that we ALL will be blessed for our sacrifice. As President Monson said in General Conference, "A mission is a family affair." It truly is... :) Not sure if you know the purpose of a missionary, but I feel that I should write it down for you, I'll write it in Spanish first, then in English: Su Objetivo Inivitar a las personas a venir a Cristo al ayudarlas a que reciban el Evangelio restaurado mediante la fe en Jesu Cristo y Su Expiación, el arrepentimiento, el bautismo, la recepción del don del Espíritu Santo y el perseveriar hasta el fin. Your Purpose Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, repentance baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Had a really cool experience in El Parque Retiro yesterday. We go out into Madrid every weekend to proselyte (you know this because of what Dr. Cope sent you), we either go to Calle de Goya (Street of Goya, they do all directions here by the name of the street, no numbers or grid systems like Utah, it's pretty difficult actually!) or we go to Retiro Parque (it's like Red Butte Garden but 5 times the size of Liberty Park, it's beautiful). Anyway, my temporary companion was Elder Malan, he's from the Draper area of Utah and boy is he an eccentric guy (hope I spelled that correctly!), he's a great guy though. So we were walking around the park and he kept just going up to people and say "¿Cómo estás?" which means, "How are you?"-- That's a rough approach, seriously If someone in a suit and tie with a name tag and a book just came up to you and asked How are you? out of the blue, without expecting it, it'd be tough to try and want to hold a meaningful conversation with them. So people kept getting away from us as quickly as they could. I had a tough time telling Elder Malan that, too. So I just dealt with it by taking the lead on the approaches. I saw a man who was walking very slowly, he was actually looking at a squirrel that was climbing a tree, so I told Elder Malan to look at the squirrel and that we were going to let this man come to us. So we did, and it worked! He got close enough, then I said, Hello Brother, how are you doing? (¿Hola hermano, como esta usted?) By the way"usted" is a formal way of speaking here in Spain, they ask the missionaries to speak this way). This man said, "Oh sorry, I don't speak Spanish." Then I said, "Oh good! Neither do I!" haha! We then began to talk (about literally everything), he's from Istanbul, Turkey, but that he didn't practice any religion. He did believe in God and Jesus Christ, though he had never heard about the LDS church, so we explained what we believed in, after we explained what the Holy Ghost was, we bore testimony of Faith and the Spirit (which was definitely present!). We then asked him how he felt, he said "peaceful, calm.. I FEEL LIKE EVERY HUMAN SHOULD FEEL THIS WAY!!" I could hardly believe it Mom! Hearing him say that was a tender mercy from our Heavenly Father. The Holy Ghost definitely witnessed to me that the church is true, and that serving a mission is the best possible thing for my life! Think about the purpose of a missionary, then think about what that man said... THAT is exactly why I'm on a mission, I can already feel myself growing. It's an amazing feeling to be a missionary. You probably weren't expecting this letter at all. I know you weren't because I'm not going to tell you that it's on the way! Surprise, surprise! I really hope you have a good birthday this year, I wanted to tell you once again how much I love you! I'm sending you an SD card with some of the things we've done out in the mission, too. If you have any questions about any of the photos , just shoot me some of the questions in your next email Also, the little strip of paper with the pink back and the magnetic stripe is a metro ticket I used up this past week. "10 viages" means 10 trips, the metro is the underground subway, which I'm sure you already know. Alright, well I'm going to finish this up now and get it in the Correos mail box in the morning. I can't wait to hear from you again. Thanks for all of the love and support you send my way--it means a lot to me and it keeps me going! Once again, Happy Birthday, this is as much as I can do, have Wilder bake a cake and have Shane take you out to dinner for me. I love you more than I can adequately express in words! xoxo Your son, Elder Walker J. Koeven P.S. You can put anything on the blog or Facebook that you want! :) (email 1)
I GOT YOUR PACKAGE!! :) I received it last Friday. Thank you so much :) You're the greatest, I'll send a bigger, more detailed e-mail in a little bit... (email 2) ¡Hola Madré! Just wanted to say that I love you and I miss you! Things are getting a lot easier for me here at the MTC. President Sitterud (MTC President) writes letters to to all of the missionaries here in the MTC once a week. In his letter to me this week he thanked me for my wonderful example to the other missionaries and that he can see the desire to serve in my eyes when we talk, thought you'd might like to hear that! Also, this week all of the leadership positions were changed and I was called to be the District Leader in my district. How's the blog coming along? I wish I could look at it, but I'm all about that COMPLETELY OBEDIENT way of life these days, if I'm not obedient to the smallest of rules, how can any of my leaders have faith in me to be obedient to the biggest of rules? That's how I'm looking at in anyway. It's a good attitude. I got a short e-mail from Wyatt this week, I sent him a short one last week. He hasn't changed, haha he talked about stuff that wasn't even relevant to the e-mail that I sent him! All is well though, he's a busy man! Birthday week for you! Keep an eye on the mailbox ;) I've got a surprise for you... I wasn't going to tell you about it but I don't know when it will get there and I wanted you to know that I didn't forget about your birthday! I've gotta get running pretty soon here. I'm staying around the MTC today so I may be able to hop back on in a few hours to send more stuff to you. Hope to hear from you soon. I love you Mom! Elder Walker J. Koeven By the way... There is a senior couple here at the MTC who are keeping a blog on their time in Spain, there may be a few photos of me on there from time to time. I haven't seen it, but it's worth a try. Their blog is: http://thesullivansinspain.blogspot.com/ Mwwwwuahh! I love you! tell more people to send me letters por favor! (email 3) Haha! I'm online again but I probably have missed you by now. I LOL'd when I saw your message you sent me a few hours ago. We left the MTC and went to La Gavia, it's a mall here in Madrid that's pretty big. It was pretty cool, I got a few ties for €5. I'm trying to watch my funds, don't want to be unprepared for any unwarranted expenses that come my way. I bought a waterproof jacket for p-days though, there have been a couple of days when I've needed it so I went ahead and bought one even though I didn't want to spend the money. It was on sale for €20 at H&M so I bit the bullet and did it. Sorry. I haven't exactly figured out how to check the balance of my MACU account from here yet, so please, each week would it be possible for you to send me how much is in that account? That'd help me so much. Word is that the best way to use funds here in to just pull money out of the ATM (Caja Madrid). Pretty please :) Maybe you're still on, check your iPhone soon, I'll be on for the next little bit! If you don't get this while I'm still online, just know that I love you! :) Hola Madré!
Sorry I missed a couple of your questions last week, everything was so crazy last week because it was the first time the missionaries here at the MTC had the opportunity to email home so they were pretty strict on the whole 30 min time limit and I was just all over the place, today's a lot better so I will be sure to answer all you ask. No I did not forget anything important... I have everything, the only thing I wish I would have brought more of was a ton of candy... The only candy I've had here in Spain was a chocolate bar (ironic I know) but it was GLORIOUS to eat. The food here at the MTC has been pretty rough, I've seen more fish in the last two weeks that I've ever seen in my life, that's how it feels anyway. And I'm pretty sure that they don't even know how to prepare fish... The skin is still on it, I got a plate full of fish two nights ago and I could have sworn that it was fresh out of the water. Bones were still in it and it was super scaly. Tough situation. I conquered it though, but throwing it into the garbage can. I've also had to blessed opportunity to eat Squid and Octopus twice this week, which wasn't good at all. Sometime I wish they would just let me eat shrimp or something (note the ridiculous amount of sarcasm)... Last night we had a hamburger.... which wasn't really hamburger, more like a spam burger, but I was hungry so I blew it up with ketchup (which isn't really ketchup) and lettuce. It was decent. We're going to the mall later today and word on the street is that there's a Burger King there.... I'm thinking a Whopper Jr. no onion add cheese :) Probably two of them. To answer Aunt Julie's question, YES! Anyone can email me, but I'd much prefer people send me snail mail because I won't have enough time to reply to all of the emails! I can reply to all of the letters I get through the real mail. So tell everyone to send me letters through the mail services por favor. Spanish is coming along well, I've still got a lot of work to do but I'm confident that I will be ready for the mission field 3 weeks from now.... CAN'T WAIT!! I'm accidentally saying all of my prayers in Spanish, then I end up saying an extra prayer in English because I don't know how to adequately explain my thoughts and feelings in Spanish yet, we'll get there though :) I'm glad that all is going well at home, I can imagine your panic when Anne bought all of those games, just glad it wasn't me. Good that Wilder is still working at that stick, it will come.... Check the tire on it, the front right may be balding out, just a heads up, I forgot to check before I took off. I haven't talked to Wyatt in a while so I will be sure to send him an email today before I log off, I miss him a lot! I miss everyone so much! That's cool that Dr. Cope sent you that too, I haven't had the chance to read what you sent me but I kind got a glimpse of it. Elder Easton and I found out last week that he and I had the same Doctor, we rejoiced and hugged and laughed.... Haha! We went to Puerta del Sol last week. It´s the place I have all of the pictures of on facebook... It was AMAZING!!! My cover photo, the one with the Rolex store, I almost got an identical picture of it while we were on the bus driving by. I got loads of pictures, I'll be sure to mail the SD card to you as soon as I'm out of the MTC. I've got to get going now.... Oh by the way, I haven't received any package from you yet, that's dependent on whether you sent it to the Mission Home or the MTC.... ;) Oh well the mail is pretty reliable so I will get it either way. I love you SO SO SO SO much and I miss you more than words can explain. Your missionary, Elder Walker Jack Koeven xoxoxoxoxox (posted on Facebook by our family doctor and scout dude extraordinaire, David Cope): Cindy, This is an excerpt from a letter sent today from one of my most cool Scouts - Elder Cameron Easton. I think he was comps with Walker??
David Cope So my explanation for last Thursday, they didn’t give us a Pday. It was super lame. Anyways! How has everyone been doing¿ I miss you all so much! It has been a great week though! Honestly, so my new Companero is Elder Smith, he is a pretty cool dude, he is from Centerville. I actually played football against him. He played at Viewmont. He reminds me daily that he beat men our senior year. I thought all my losses would be forgotten…. Oh well. But we get along so good. We are by far the closest Companionship in the whole mission. I have truly been baptized by Spanish. I have learned so much already. It is crazy. The teachers we have all speak Spanish, even our religion teachers. It is so weird. We pretty much have to learn Spanish, or don’t learn at all. Super crazy. But it is all for the better. So on Saturday, we were assigned different companeros and took the Metro to the Park, we spent one and a half hours just talking to people trying to speak Spanish. So crazy. Keep in mind we only had 1 Spanish lesson the whole week. I was Companions with Elder Koeven. He was a great Comp. No one had a lot of success, I think one group had 5 BOM placed and only 2 references. Oh wait, I forgot, me and my Companion tore it up!!!!!! We placed 9 Books of Mormon and got 4 references. By far the most successful companionship. . I don’t even know how I was able to speak Spanish so well. But we were blessed with a lot of success. I was so pumped though, we met at this fountain and were about to go back to the MTC but I felt that we should go talk to another few people, so while everyone else waited and talked about their success, or lack of success, me and Elder Koeven talked to this couple and placed 2 more books of Mormon. Then right as we were about to leave I saw this dude looking at us while riding his bike, so I booked it and ran over to him, and gave him a book of mormon and got a reference, he was really interested and wanted to know more. I am so happy to be out here. My Companion got beat up by a Russian Olympian. It was crazy. His name is Elder Zhidkof (Zhidtcoff). He doesn’t Speak much English and I guess he got the wrong idea when Elder said he wanted to wrestle. He thought he wanted to MMA fight. So Funny. He is a cool dude though. So sorry for the wait Mom, it's been pretty crazy here at the CCM (MTC in Spanish). But P-Days will be on Thursdays, we didn't get one last week because everyone was still all jet-lagged!
This is quite possibly one of the hardest things I've ever done in my entire life. It truly is called missionary work for a reason, it takes a lot of work. I know that the Lord will bless me immensely for it as well. The Spanish is hard, all of my teachers speak a little bit of English so they talk mostly in Spanish, it gets really really frustrating at times but I know it is only for my benefit. My companion is Elder Lloyd, he's from Roy, Utah. He's a pretty good guy, he brushes his teeth a little more than necessary though, that's alright though, things could be a lot worse I suppose. The CCM here is only 3 floors of a 7 floor high rise building here in Madrid. It's cool though, the biggest difference between this CCM and the Provo MTC (besides the size and considerably lesser amount of missionaries in it) is that we have the opportunity to leave the property on P-Days, we have a grocery store across the street that we can go to on P-Days. There isn't much point in that though since they feed us really well here. The food they feed us is a little on the weird sometimes, last night we have ham that looked like crab meat... You get my drift haha :) BEFORE I keep on informing you I just want to say that I can only email once a week (obviously) so please tell everyone you know to send me letters because we get mail every single day and it would be SSOOOOOOO incredibly nice to hear from everyone. It's always nice to know that someone's thinking about you too :) So please, alert the media and tell them to send me letters! You have my address! I got pretty homesick last week, but I've rebounded and adjusted pretty well from it, just need to put my faith in the Lord and know that this will benefit my life so much, this is good for me :) PICTURES.... I can take pictures on P-Day and I'm taking plenty of them, I sat next to Tyler on the plane ride and I had a window seat, it was perfect :) I will send you pictures on the first P-Day I have out in the field, it will be alright :) 9 minutes left! Everyone can email me, but there is absolutely no way I have the time to email everyone back in the 30 minutes I have on the computer so once again, tell them to write me. I'd really like to stay in touch with Andy Jones throughout my mission. I just want to tell you Mom that I love you so much... When times are tough there has been no one that I've wanted to talk to more than you, I miss you so much already. Thanks for all you have and do for me, it's nice to always have the support. And no matter how bad of a week I have I know that I can always count on an email from you each and every week, I'm so grateful for that. Things are tough, but things are great at the same time. We will all be blessed :) Packages take like 10 days to get here, letters have taken anywhere from 5 to 7. Again, I love you Mom. Thanks for raising me the way you have, I'm writing in my journal every single day and I'm loving it. I'm happy that you are my eternal Mother. I LOVE YOU MORE THAN WORDS CAN EXPRESS. Talk to you soon, send many letters!! Tell others to do so as well :) Sincerely, Elder Walker Jack Koeven. PS.... Madrid Temple is remarkable!! Hello Mom!
I made it to Madrid safely, it has been a pretty crazy day to say the least. Tyler and I sat next to each other on the flight and I had the window seat just over the right wing, couldn't have asked for a better situation! After leaving you at the airport we flew to Paris, the Charles de Gaulle airport is so weird though, really unorganized in my opinion, but that may have been because everything was in French. Anyway, we got there... Then we missed our flight! We flew in around 11:15 and they started boarding for our flight to Madrid at noon. The flight leaves at 12:30, keep that in mind. But they made us go through another security check even though we never left the airport at all... But that messed us up and we got out of security at 12:10 but they had already stopped boarding. Pretty frustrating, so all of us missionaries missed our flight so we had to go to the client services desk and catch the next flight, luckily they had room on a flight that left just before 2. So we got into Madrid around 4! It was a pretty cool feeling flying in, it truly felt like home... Even when I was in France I just really wanted to get here, France gave me an uneasy feeling but that was most likely just because everything was so chaotic. But anyway, when we were about to land I just had this feeling that it was like home, that this could be the place I could embrace and find comfort at! It's gorgeous, I'm taking lots of photos. It was raining when we got here. We were picked up by MTC employees from the airport and they immediately took us to go and get the rest of our dollars switched into euros. $50 only turned out to be like €34,25 haha but that's alright. We got to the MTC and I met the MTC President AND my Mission President for the Spain Madrid Mission, both are very good guys :) We had a Spanish evaluation which I think I did ok on, that's just to see what classes they are going to put me in, all was dependent on how well my Spanish was coming along. The MTC Presidente interviewed each of the Elders, just to get to know us and why we decided to serve a mission. He's a really great guy and he seemed to like me a lot as well :) The computer I'm typing on has a 30-minute timer and I still have 13:54 left so I'm going to load you up :) I can already tell that this is going to be a whole lot harder than I had even anticipated, I'm in SPAIN! But I'm up for the challenge and I know that no matter where I am that the church is true and Heavenly Father is still who he is and that he's not going to leave me alone. Just need to keep him involved in everything that I do and everything will be just fine and I will be a productive missionary. The MTC President told me that we go to the temple every Thursday while we're here, and on Saturdays all of the elders go out to the giant park (similar to central park in NYC) and we go proselyte. It's going to be a great! I'm not exactly sure when my P-Day is either, so I'll be sure to let you know when that time comes around. Well it's time for me to go now... I love you Mom! Tell the family and everyone that everything is going well so far. xoxo Elder Koeven |
RIGHT NOW, WALKER IS IN:Alcalá de Henares Archives
June 2014
Categories
All
|