Two Peas in a Pod.

Today you get my letter first and then Kyle's response:

Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost, 1923

I thought you might want to read the original.  President Monson LOVES good literature and has memorized many, many poems and quotes, and scriptures.  Robert Frost actually wrote the words you attributed to President Monson.  Robert Frost is my favorite poet.  Here is my very, very favorite poem and the one I chose to include in our family scrap-booking pages this year.  It is called the Road Less Traveled.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference

...Robert Frost

That is my all-time favorite and the one that helps me to remember that when I travel roads less taken, within the gospel parameters, by the world particularly, it will make all the difference.

So.....I loved the quote that came to your mind from the President of SVU.  Yes, you are right!!  The experiences we have are what make us into who we are and who we need to be.  Without the pain and loneliness, we cannot truly appreciate the joy and love of friendship and companionship.  And then, because we have experienced the opposite, we revel and bask in the warmth of those who really complete us and help us to reach for the divine potential within us and push us to be better than who we are.  I know that is why I love your father so much.  He will not allow me to be less than I am and his perception of where I am or where he thinks I should be drives me to improve.  It is still a painful process sometimes, because it is growth and challenge, but I am more than 100 times better a person today than I was when we were married.  And I can pretty much handle others disappointment in me, but if I receive it from your father....oooh ouch!!  That hurts!!  Then I try to fix it.

I hope you are enjoying your new companion.  I'm sure you have sat up nights laughing and laughing (hopefully not, you've been working too hard instead.)  Also, I was wrong, Sam comes home in FEBRUARY!!!!  No joke!!

What cool holidays does Brazil celebrate??  KK, love you buddy!!

And here is my birthday song for you!!---Happy, happy birthday Kylee dear, happy days will come to you all year.  If I had one wish than it would be, That we could be together for your 20th birthday!!  We hope you have a fabulous day!!  happy 20th Kyle!! 

Love you, love you!
Mom

I don't know if you knew this or not, but Robert Frost is My favorite poet and the road less traveled has been my favorite poem since I read it sophomore year of high school in English class! =) I LOVE THAT POEM!!!! =) Yeas my new companion is awesome! we have been having a lot of fun this week and I have worked harder this week than I have any other week, because I've been the one planning since I know the area and where we need to go. and He's technically senior, but this is his first transfer as senior so he's still a little bit slow on somethings and I've done more than he has in some areas so I'm enjoying it because we work as equals, but I've been more the senior because I know the people and area, which I have really enjoyed setting my own pace and working and not following. I know it's important to know how to follow, but it's awful following =P

 

I have two main questions to ask. When I was little there were two movies that I watched a lot. One was about an otter and a little girl and it was really sad...=( but really funny too. Then the other was a Christmas movie about a little stuffed bear it was a cartoon and the only scene I can remember is a delivery truck driving away and the narrator saying, "One stop away from where lost socks end up," or something like that =P What two movies are these? Do you know? So far the only holidays that I know are Christmas and carnival....lol um...We had two more baptisms this week and it's my birthday and I really don't know what else to say. lol I sunburned my head when I cut my hair too short and now it's disgustingly flaky and my comp and I saw one of the most deadly snakes in the world this week for which there is no cure. But it looked like a worm, but its a good thing we didn't pick it up like we wanted to. lol It's called the blind snake or something like that.  Idk in English but I have to go before my time runs out take it easy and have a good one!

love you all bye =)

Elder Lund

More Growth and Development

This week has been good, it went by kinda slow. I have many time found myself is situations where I feel all alone, where my comps don't talk to me all day where no one on the streets want to talk to us, where none of my friends are near by and I walk through the day waiting for the hour I can go home and have someone to talk to in my dreams where I'm back with friends and family and constatnly have someone by my side. I never went anywhere without friends, and everywhere I've gone I've always looked for new ones and so I have really struggled when I feel left on my own without anyone who wants to be standing by my side. I know the Lord is always by my side, but walking alone by faith isn't the same as laughing with a friend or a brother. I was praying one night very sad and upset at how alone I had been. And the words of a letter I had recieved from the president of SVU came to mind.  He had quoted President Hinkley when he said, "the road of a leader is a long and lonely road to travel, it is hard and difficult. But if the leader doesn't travel it he will never become the leader he needs to be, the imovable rock that his follwers will need and look to." Everything has a point and a purpose and everything is set in preparation for what is yet to come. I don't usually like to talk about what is happening because it is hard and difficult and walking it is hard enough without talking about it too. I'd rather smile and laugh--find jokes to tell and songs to sing.  You do that the best you can and work with all your might, but if you don't laugh when the road hits it's end all you're going to have is a miserable memory.  If you can find something to laugh about then in the end you'll have a story to tell. So I tell my stories and keep the rock to myself. No one want to hear about those anyways. lol

I forgot to tell you last week to thank Sister Ross for me, and tell Sister Craig that her christmas and seminary class will most likely be comming later than hoped for. I wasn't transfered this week but my comp was and now I'm with Elder Anderson, who is an American and I was with him a lot of divisions back in Rio Preto.  So I'm excited!  I really like the kid. I really don't have anything eles to say today.  This week wasn't full of many stories. lol Take it easy everyone  have a good one and enjoy the road you're on. You'll all hopefully be hearing from me around Christmas time, and I'll see you all before you know it. =) Just keep moving forward it's all you can do. I have miles to go Before I sleep and Promises to keep ~ President Monson

Peace Out EVryone

Elder Lund

ps I'll be sending you the number for the Christmas call soon. I can't call you guys so you'll have to figure out some way to handle that =)

Bibiddy Bobbidy Booped..

Then we got Bibiddy Bobbidy Booped by the magic man. ssssssssssssssssssssoooooooo yeah.....um...I can't tell you much about this week because I can't.  One day you'll all find out, but not today =) We didn't have a baptism this week. I didn't even know the training was world wide and came from Salt Lake, and no we probably can't watch it, there's just no time...=P

Please tell Sister Craig that I just got her letter that she sent at the begining of October, with your letter and Jacob's letter too. I just got those this week and Please tell Sister Craig that I'm working of something really speciall for her class.

The only other thing I really have to say is that I certainly hope that you're not baptizing a lot of people.  If you are, you might need to go ans speak with Bishop Edmonds....and I'm really surprised Dad didn't say anything...lol

Quesions, how much time do James and Sam have on their missions? I don't remember when they left....My comp really wants a hat, and wanted me to ask you if you could buy him one and send it down here, he said he'd pay me back, but after I thought about it, That doesn't really get the money back to you at all and the postage is probably a lot too, but I told him I'd ask. um....

Pretty much I haven't laughed this hard since I was with Elder Bernards, And you will all love me, and this week was really up and down but it'll all be good and once again I have a short letter. sorry everyone, but you'll all understand soon. =)

Peace Out and Take it easy

Elder Lund

Still strugglin'...

This week was.....yeah I don't want to talk about it. My comp isn't talking to me cause he's mad at me, and he's mad at me because I didn't understand a rule and then I had broken it before and he didn't say anything so I thought I understood the rule, but then when I broke it again, he got mad at me and now he isn't talking to me. We had three baptisms this week. I can't even tell you who they are...well I kinda can, but I've only visited them twice, but apparently my comp and his previous companion taught them a lot, but I dont think one of them wanted to be baptized so it was difficult for me.  And pretty much life is just a whole lot of....nothing dad wants me writing to everyone....so...yeah...I really don't have anything else to say about our work.

 

We get to go buy food today! That will be nice.  I have a sweet idea for Christmas that I'm going to try and pull off. My Birthday is in a month. Happy thoughts. lol

 

Johnathan really isn't comming home for Christmas?  Well that's a whole lot of nothing dad wants me to write everyone....

 

So I really miss everyone too! =P And your pictures are in Ribeirão Preito right now so I'll get those when someone brings them to Franca. I have been writing a lot of cool things like poems and stories. And Elder Nelson and I have been debating a lot about comics. Pretty much we're at the conclusion that they need to redo the X-men series keeping Origins.  Batman was Epically amazzing, Ironman kicked trash, but we disagree about Spiderman.  We both liked the first one, but he thought that the third one had too many villans and I hated the emo crap they had in it. The second one I don't remember too well but he liked it and I remember not liking all of it, but I don't remember why....We talked mostly about X-men. Pretty much they needed to do character development better.  They need to remake the first one and make Sabertooth look like Wolverine and how he does in Origins, and as far as the others go they need to include the main characters that they excluded in the movies, namely Gambit, The Beast, Rouge needs a bigger part and they can't kill Sabertooth in the first movie, and only Wolverine has to be the one to kill Sabertooth, not Cyclopse.

 

You know what I really like---Mountains. And serving a mission is a lot like climbing a mountain. There are a lot of times when you just want to quit and go home. And life is hard and miserable.  But you keep climibing up because you know that once you get to the top, the sight and sense of accomplishment will make every cut and scratch, every fall and sharp rock worth every mile of it. So you drudge on one step at a time trying not to fall and trying to hold on.  Doing your best and climbing to hopefully accomplish something and the whole way up trying to sing a song or find something to laugh at to make the climb more enjoyable. But once you reach the top, you'll understand why you did it and you'll know it was all worth it and you'd do it all again, all just to get to the top.

I didn't tell you all my epiphany last week on elders! I must tell you all this! So I was thinking as I was sitting on the toilet, why is it that Elders go strait home and get married so quickly and the answer came.  Kyle, have you ever know a time in your life when you were happier being as miserable as you are now? No I don't believe I do. When you go home are you going to be misserable? No life will be good. In otherwords, when Elders come home, life is too perfect!  And over the course of the last two years they have come to associate misery with happiness. When they are miserably serving their missions they're happily passing the time away. So in thier minds they need problems to be happy. So they come home and when everything is just too perfect they turn to women so they can have problems again and when they find someone who creates a lot of problems then they marry her so that their problems can last and they can be miserably happy for the rest of their lives! =) Well that's the story of my life for this week and now I'm going to go fishing! Take it easy everyone.  Enjoy life and remember to have a good time!  Love you all! =) Peace out!
Elder Lund

The Story of my Life:

So the story of my life can be described as such, I regularly have these epically amazzing awsome incredible ideas occur in my brain that I can't resist. These epically amazzing ideas are followed by smaller stupid ideas to help make the great epic ideas more epic! These small stupid ideas are encourage by groups of friends who are edged on by the prospect of seeing soemthing really funny. Then these small stupid funny ideas are followed by consequences... Many people have and will look at me and ask, "didn't you learn anything from the first few stupid ideas that you had and the consequences they brought you?" My response, "Why yes, I learned that a week after the consequences they make for great stories. And I have a lot of great stories! =)

 

So that bomb thing sounds just like...awesome....lol Yeah I like Joe! =) So pretty much everytime anyone here in Brazil says try, the missionaries respond, "The Devil, tries!"

"Do, or Do Not! There is no try!"

 

And no Brazil doesn't celebrate halloween, or anything like it, but I believe that previous missionaries have converted the Franca members because they are going to do something tomorrow kind like it, but I'm pretty sure they're gonna give away candy...not ask for it...very anti-American! lol

 

So you tell me about Darren and the first thing that came to my mind was my taller brother running down a corridor and running into a wall, and then I thought hey, maybe it looked a little like Napolian Dynomite and before I even finished reading what you had written I started laughing really loud and it was really funny! lol I want a picture of that! lol I bet it looks really funny too! I love you D, but I just cant see how it's not funny.  If anyone else had done it you and I both would be laughing especailly if it had been me!! lol

 

Okay if you send me paperwork I'll work on it.

 

Work here is going slowly, we really don't have any progressing investigators which I'm not used to.  So I'm trying to figure out how to turn what have become social calls back into lessons and scripture study, but it's going slowly =P and since I spent so much time debating with my father, I really don't have time to write anything else becaue I have to go email President. Sorry. Hope you enjoy the letter and my many sarcasticly rude remarks that flew to personal emails today, because I sure DID! =)  Love you all

Até Mais

Elder Lund