October 4, 2010 - Transferred!

Dear Family,

Hey how is everybody doing? I have quite the story for you this week so it might take quite a bit of my email to tell you about it haha. First of all I'm not in Riga anymore I'm Vilnius, Lithuania... Yay. But the story that I want to tell involves how I got to this place all of a sudden haha. So last Friday in the early afternoon, I was sitting in the kitchen eating some lunch and reading the Book of Mormon in Russian when all of a sudden we get a phone call. My companion talked on the phone for a while, and I didn't really pay attention because I was really busy trying to understand the Book of Mormon in Russian ha. But when he got off the phone, he just ran over to me and gave me a huge hug, which was weird because we never hug each other, so I knew something fishy was going on. And he broke the news to me that I was going on an emergency transfer to Vilnius and I was leaving the next day. At first I didn't believe him cause it was kind of weird and he kept laughing, but it was true and now I'm here. I don't know the exact reason why they had the transfer, because real transfers are happening in like a week and a half from now. But yeah I love Vilnius I've only been here for a few days now but it's very pretty and the smell of smoke isn't constantly lingering in the air like in Riga, like honestly even like all the 10 year old kids smoke in Riga. But yeah I took some way good pictures of Riga, and now I have a few really good ones of Vilnius also. I would send them to you but in Vilnius we email in the American Embassy and no electronics are allowed here. So I'll try to find a way to print them out and send them to you in a letter or something. My new companion here is really cool, his name is Elder Mock. He's from Texas and he's been on a mission for about a year now, and he's been in Vilnius all of that time. Well the work is going really good right now, it's a bit slower here than it was in Riga but things are still going way good. Yesterday we had church because we don't get conference here until this upcoming weekend because we are waiting for the translations. Yay I get to watch general conference in Russian. But that's way cool that you got to go together to General Conference, we should do that when I get back too because it would be a ton of fun. Oh my gosh I'm way happy right now that USU beat BYU, because my companion went to BYU before he left so now I can rub it right in his face haha, I guess that's probably not a very Christlike thing to do, but I think a situation like this allows some exceptions. But yeah I'm still having a ton of fun out here on the mission, I'm excited to see what Vilnius is like, and I'm way happy to be a part of this work, because it's TRUE. But yeah I just want to share a quick little thing that I remembered about one of my studies one time. It's 1 Nephi 11:17 it says something along the lines of I don't know the reasons for all the things that God does, but I know that he loves his children. And I love this scripture because it's true we don't know all the reasons for the things the Lord asks us to do, but he loves us and he wants the best for us. So we can take comfort in the fact that even though sometimes life is hard and things don't go the way we want them, if we're doing the things that the lord asks of us we will be so much happier than we could any other way. Because the Lord wants the best for us.
Sorry I know that you just got a long email from me, but could I ask you a huge favor? could you send me a few cds me and my companion don't really have anything haha. I would like some Adrea Bocceli and some Paul Cardall, but it would be highly appreciated :). You can just send them to the mission home still because I don't know how long I'll be here in Vilnius and so I'll be able to pick them up when I'm in Riga for interviews or something :). Thanks for all that you do for me, and all the support you're giving me out here on a mission. I hope you have a great week.

-Elder Pack