15 pounds later

yes, i have gained 15 pounds.

no, i will not share it with any of you. its mine.

this week has been freaking insane. romance, adventure, thrill, suspense, and heartbreak. all in one week!!!! it's been a wild ride, so hold on tight as i try to paint the wonderful picture that is week 5 at the MTC.

so a new group of Thai missionaries came in last week and the group is full of real thirsty sisters. all week I've been fighting them off as they try to get at least a small piece of this manly piece of meat. one by one they have tried and failed as my newly found missionary instincts allow me to be more awkward and lady-repelling than ever. also the 15 extra pounds helps for that.

all the Cantonese missionaries left for Hong Kong this morning and my favorite Swede, Oqvist, left me too. it's alright because he said i can marry his sister when i get home. I've never seen a pic of her but i know she's hot because she's Swedish. everybody loves Swedish girls, right? or is that Swedish fish..... idk. same thing.

this week Elder Slavens and I have been having competitions of who can super glue the weirdest part of their body to another part of their body. fingers to everything, toes to toes, and even earlobes. the winner as of right now is Elder Slavens by super-gluing one of his nostrils shut. i have to beat him now, so if you have any suggestions let me know.

speaking of Elder Slavens, he's our new zone leader.... lol. we are going to have the weirdest zone of all time. i love it. last night for his inauguration we took 15 tattoos and put them all over his back. every leader needs tattoos right????? i think so.

WE ESCAPED THE MTC!!!!!!!!!

for 2 glorious hours my companions and i got to ride off into the sunset through BYU campus and straight to the dentist's office because Elder Maurer had a dry socket or something. I'm thankful that he's such a baby because without his 7 year old girl-like pain tolerance we wouldn't have gotten out at all. the real world is magical and everything I've hoped and dreamed of. I'm so excited to be there one day.

MY MTC SCHEDULE FOR THOSE WHO CARE

AND THOSE WHO DON'T ALIKE ~~

6:30---wake up..... lol jk

6:31---wake up.

7:00---go get eggs for breakfst

7:05---contemplate eating the eggs bc u r so hungry then remind urself about the deviled egg party that night.

7:35---go to gym. get beaten at basketball by sisters.

8:55-11:55--- don't understand anything at all. try to learn some squiggles.

11:55--- lunch. never get any mail.

12:40-4:30-- try to fake like i know how to speak Cambodian and teach people about Jesus.

4:30--- dinner. never get any mail.

5:15---personal (nap) study time

6:15---companionship (nap)study time

7:15---language (nap) study time

8:15--- actual nap time (i actually don't know what this time is for)

9:30--- run back to the dorm while yelling FREEDOM

9:55--- egg party

10:30---lights out.

that's pretty much it. throw in a couple devotionals every few days and cleaning duty once a week and that's pretty much our schedule. i get a lot of sleep.

PLEASE DON'T FORGET MY BIRTHDAY ON WEDNESDAY OR WE'RE NOT FRIENDS ANYMORE.

I love you all.

SPIRITUAL SHPEEL: Heavenly Father doesn't usually give you any answers if you don't have a question. this week i learned how important it is to have a question in mind as you study the scriptures and pray. i learned that whenever I study it's best if I write a question down that I am wondering about. it can be anything. if I have a question then my studying has a purpose. i find that i get so many more answers from the scriptures when i am actively looking for them. my favorite scripture of this week is Alma 40:11-14. way cool.

anyway, g2g.

elder Lambert is the new DL and he's ruling with an iron fist.

i love you all. pray for me.

love,

Elder Osborne.

my crocs are swaggier than urs

THE TALE OF THE BEST BDAY EVR

this week contained the best birthday ever. it was for the one and only Elder Ros. before this last week he rarely received any emails and his mom doesn't like technology so she never writes him. and then this week his companion and a couple more of us mentioned him in their own emails and every single day this week he got at least 10 letters and 2 packages for his birthday.

it was amazing. he was grinning all week. his birthday on Friday was pretty much all anyone talked about all week. it was super special for him. we created a surprise birthday party and the whole zone of like 40 missionaries surprised him and we all partied hard. it was so cool. he loved all of it.

the night of his birthday before he went to bed i saw him just standing next to his bed smiling and he threw his hands in the air and shook his head. i think it was the best day of his life. it was one of the best days of mine too.

this week was awesome and also super hard!!!!!!! in the famous words of Tom Haverford, "Hmmmmm. Nope, I've actually never done anything hard............. WHAT A COOL LIFE!"  that's how i feel right now.

on Monday i got a freakin' dope package from mi madre and it had some sexy crocs and super glue and pocket protectors and butt cream (for all those sticky situations that missionaries get into) thanks mom!

so i decided to wear my really awesome bright pink pocket protector to class. all the sisters were all over me because i was so swagged out. my teacher, however, did not appreciate it as much and decided to go over dress and grooming standards for like half an hour with the whole class. i finally realized that i was the target of the sub-tweet of the lesson when he walked out of the class and stopped to give only me a hug and tell me that he loves me, and nobody else. i was actually kinda flattered. he's kinda taking me under his wing. super nice of him!!!! 

the life of a yoyo is a short one indeed. mine only lasted 5 days before the string gave out. RIP in pieces yoyo 2014-2014. you will be missed.

this week was the week of the deviled eggs. on Tuesday we all decided to not get real breakfast food and instead only get 8 eggs a piece and mustard and mayo.

it was the best idea ever. because that night we all gathered in the halls with our eggs and had a deviled egg party!!!! it was sooooooo good. and bad at the same time. it was the best and worst idea ever. because you can imagine how it smelled that night in room 215 of the Provo MTC. let me just tell you it was wayyyyyyy dank. but so worth it. i think it will be a weekly thing.

Elder Slavens (aka elder dark money) brought a bunch of men's facial packets for our whole district. the kind that you put on and then you let them dry and then peel them off and you come out a new man. so one night we all gathered in the bathroom and put on the blue goop and then ran around the halls of the building trying to get it to dry all the while screaming our heads off because it burned like nothing else. we all looked like we should be in the blue man group. it was the most refreshing thing ever. i highly recommend it.

the life in the MTC is a wild one indeed.

NOW TIME FOR A CRAZY PART OF THE WEEK THO!!!! Two nights ago we were walking back to the res from our classroom later than usual because Elder Maurer had to visit the Bontup Tuk. We were walking past the construction site when we saw an elder sneaking out!!!! Of course we chased him, and tackled him down right before he got out of the boundaries! So we took him to the MTC president and he told us to go dump him in the pit at the construction site. "He fell in it, the pit.....we put him in it, the pit..." SO DOPE. isn't that crazy?! it's like almost too crazy to believe!!!! that's because this was all fake and written by Elder Lambert. lol suckas.

anyway.... i love you all. i love this mission. i love the MTC. i love my companions. i love my district. i love Jesus.

keep me in your prayers!

spiritual shpeel: this week for me was all about learning why i need to be obedient. the MTC had been going super awesome and i thought i was the king of the world.(like always) and then for like 2 days everything got really hard and the language wasn't coming and i got super frustrated. and then 2 nights ago i heard 2 talks on obedience. and it was exactly what i needed like always! i realized that the reason things weren't going perfectly like they had been is because i was getting complacent and not being super focused on obedience. so now i know how much obedience can really impact your life. sometimes i think a rule is stupid and doesn't do anything, but it is there for a reason. God doesn't give us commandments because he can. it's always there for a reason. 

i know this spiritual thought is more exclusive to missionaries but my teacher taught me how to apply this IRL. he said you pick a commandment that Heavenly Father has given that you're not super good at and think about how following this commandment will make you more Christlike. then just think about that every time you feel like breaking the rule. it gives some meaning to a seemingly meaningless caviot. 

be obedient.

i love you all.

Love, elder osborne

KEY TERMS DEFINED

(sorry to all the old people who read my letters)

BDAY-- birthday

Tom Haverford  --  Aziz Ansari on Parks and Rec

freakin'   --  super

dope  --  cool

sexy  --  don't ask

swagged out  --  the act of swagging

sub-tweet   --  subliminally targeted message (usually made by 14 year old girls e.g. wow ur such a loser why would you do that --> without an @)

RIP in pieces  --  rest in peace in pieces.

dank-- humid and moist, comparable to the garden of eden

bontup tuk  --  wizz palace

wizz palace  --  bathroom

bathroom  --  where elder osborne usually dwells after dinner

tho  --  though

IRL --  in real life

caviot  --  caveat

#relatable

My companion knows how famous i am and how much everyone i meet adores me so he wanted me to promote him in one of my letters. i told him it would cost the steep price of 1 dank pbj sandwich from his breakfast tomorrow morning and he agreed. he is an aspiring poet so please just humor him for me if you would be so kind. his fan mail address is lambertj@myldsmail.net if you want to spam him. here is one of his works:

There is one show I truly love

Sent to us from high above

Every episode I did see

My love, my life: community

anyway..... HELLO EVERYBODY AND CUMRIABSUA!!! (that means hello in cambodian, i finally learned a word)

this week has been a week that will go down in history!!!! as one of the most identical weeks to last week!!!!!

it was literally exactly the same. but that means it was equally as awesome!!!!!!!!

i love the mtc!! i love my life!! i love getting more emails than my companions!!! so keep it up!! thx!!

this week we got 2 new "investigators" and we're teaching them about Jesus and stuff. it's really cool how much we have learned already. now i can pretty much take a basic idea of anything i want to say and say it in cambodian! I'm so excited to be able to talk to real cambodians. we also had this new thing where people who speak fluent cambodian come in and we get to talk to them/teach them and it was super fun. i saw my homie Daniel McKinley!! 

my companions stink just as bad as ever! good thing my mom overnighted me some sneaker fresheners because i know it was for my companions and NOT A SUBTLE JAB AT MY PERSONAL HYGIENE!!!!!!!! wow thx mom gosh...(okay fine, i admit i smell pretty bad. i did brush my teeth 2 days this week so i got that going for me)

also i am officially in the lead on the cinnamon roll contest!!!!! I'm so proud of you mom! i knew you could do it! i forgot that we had those Great Harvest boxes laying around the house!!!! I'm so glad you could hand make your cinnamon rolls and then put them perfectly in those boxes and ship them to me, how kind of you! elder maurer's mom still has yet to send any rolls to him. apparently they're the best in the world but I'm pretty sure his mom doesn't love him enough to send any. lol.

the highlight of my life this week has been Elder Ros. he is amazing! he's this little cute plump cambodian kid from New York. he has the greatest laugh of anyone ever, aside from the man Ron Swanson himself, and he laughs at everything. he has the strongest testimony I've ever seen and he's working so hard to get the language down. he is now known as my spiritual guru. last night his companion told him he was getting a little bit scruffy and elder ros confessed that he had never actually shaved before! so our whole district had an impromptu shave session/lesson in honor of Elder Ros' inaugural shave.

i gave him a couple of cheap razors that i had lying around and we all taught him how to shave. you should have seen the huge grin on his face all night (yes, i was watching him while we slept). it was just a really cute moment and a great bonding experience for our district. i love elder ros.

some of our friends in our hall moved out this week and it's tradition to leave stuff outside your door for anyone to take when you leave so I GOT A YOYO!!!!!! I'm going to teach some little Cambodian kid to yoyo and bestow upon him the blessing of the most useless toy known to man. it will be a wondrous occasion. i can't wait.

my favorite quote from a district member that will not be named this week is "wait, isn't the book of mormon the new testament????" i lol'd so hard. so if any of you have doubts on whether or not you could handle going on a mission, if you know what the new testament is then you can do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i believe!!!

just to let you all know, my mom edits my emails like i was a nazi soldier in WW2. so if my letter seems more mature than normal, know that I'm still sam. (and on that note, my diarrhea count for this week is 2!!! anyone who tells you the mtc food doesn't murder you is probably your bishop!!!)

i love all of you! thanks for keeping me in your prayers. i can really feel it. keep it up! i give permission for anyone to share my emails with any friends you want. all you have to do is have your friend send me an email telling me I'm cute and I'll pay shipping and handling. you're welcome.

semi-spiritual shpeel (applies to stuff outside the church): yesterday i heard 2 talks that i think might change my life. they were talking about different things but had the exact same message. the first was by Kelly Nills and he was asking the question of how to be happy. he talked about how you can be the happiest if you don't think about your own happiness. he gave an example of when he was using a sander to sand some wood in his shop class and he was focusing on sanding the middle and making that really smooth. his teacher then came up to him and said that if he focuses first on the sides of the wood the middle would take care of itself because of the width of the sander and stuff. if we focus on others first and try to help them, our own happiness will come naturally. 

the next talk was by Elder Bednar and it was a little more churchy about the character of Christ (look up the talk, it's so good. it was given at the MTC a couple years ago). it was asking the question of how we can be more Christlike and be more converted. his answer was the same as in the first talk. forget yourself and help others. even in his darkest hours Christ was helping others. he never thought about himself. Bednar told a story of a lady whose daughter and two friends were in a car crash in the middle of the night. she was on the phone with both Elder Bednar and the EMT at the same time. the EMT reported that one of the girls had died and it was the lady's daughter. the other two were in critical condition but alive. the very first thing the lady said when she found out her ONLY child had died was to ask Elder Bednar to call the other two moms to let them know that their daughters were OK. her selflessness was a true sign of conversion. 

i want to be able to help others and be selfless.

I'm so glad I'll have the chance to do that in cambodia.

I love you all.

love, elder sam

STICK-IT-TO-THE-MAN-EOSIS!

HELLLLLLLLLOOOOOO EVERYBODY!!!!!!!

I LOVE YOU GUYS SO MUCH!! i miss you all! thanks for all your emails and stuff. it really warms my jimmies to hear from you all. thank you for your prayers! i can feel them all the time! keep praying for me to learn how to speak thru my nose, cambodians are so talented!!!

i killed my first full week at the mtc and it was all i ever hoped and dreamed of! so much fun! much cambodian! wow! we talk about Jesus all day every day and i love it! i think my stick-it-to-the-man-eosis is finally in remission. one of our branch presidency members kinda chewed us all out in our district meeting and i only said 3 rude comments about the size of his ears in my head!!!! your prayers are softening my heart! but forreal tho i think i'm turning into a missionary or something, no matter how hard i'm fighting it. its kinda cool, but i kinda miss my hiphop jams and my rock and roll lifestyle yaknow!?

AND NOW ITS TIME FOR A RAPID FIRE Q&A SESSION COURTESY OF MY NOSY MOM!!!!!!    (bare with me if you don't care at all)

Q1. can i check my email daily???

A. YES!!! we have computers in every classroom!

Q2. is that against the rules except for on P-day???

A. YES!! wow you ask such good questions mom!!!

Q3. can i write email everyday??

A. (see questions 1 and 2)

Q4. can you print emails???

A. YES!!! i print them out in the morning and then read them and then reply in the afternoon and then i tape the good ones to my wall. so for nobody has written one worthy of my wall except colby johnson and myself.

Q5. please explain dear elder to a 60 year old

A. not going to happen

A. jk, you just make an account and then its same day delivery to the mtc and whoever gets the most that day gets crowned champion of the dinner table. so far Sister Sheffield is the 6 day reigning champion and its killing me......

Q6. can you write a hand written letter???

A. yes but only in cambodian script. 

Q7. do you eat food?

A. Yes i eat food. lots of food. 3 times a day.

Q8. do you want some crocs??!?!?!?!

A. YES MY LIFE WOULD BE COMPLETE! SEND ME SOME CROCS!

Q9. exercise???

A. correct! 1 hour a day! i'm the knockout champion. jk i suck so bad

Q10. do you ever rest??

A. never!!!!

Q11. temple??

A. YA! every pday! its so cool!

AND THAT'S ALL THE TIME WE HAVE FOR THIS SEGMENT FOLKS!! THIS Q&A HAS BEEN BROUGHT TO YOU BY: SARAH MCLACHLAN AND HER DYING DOGS!!! THANKS SARAH!!

anyway.... life is good here. my companions are literally the best! they're so funny and we laugh so hard every second of every day. i love them, were going to be bffls.  They talk about lord of the rings every day, but other than that I love them forreal. i'm kinda jealous of elder maurer tho because he has frosted hair and the swaggiest suit ever. elder lambert is like our father figure. me and maurer are his little whippersnappers running around and climbing on his back. he makes the best dad jokes too. lol. to my real dad: step it up! elder lambert just grounded me for saying all that...lol

we got a new teacher this week! he was pretending to be our investigator last week but it turns out he was actually our teacher tho whole time!!! wow what a surprise!! (its not like he was my cambodian tutor for 2 months at byu!!!)  hes awesome! so energetic and it makes everything awesome. when we were teaching him in cambodian we actually got him to commit to baptism so that was pretty cool! we're getting pretty good. we can almost teach the first lesson already!!! so crazy!

LIST OF THINGS FOR MY MOM TO SEND ME VIA AMAZON PRIME!!!!:

3 POCKET PROTECTORS

1 BOTTLE GEL SUPERGLUE (don't ask)

1 THING OF CINNAMON ROLLS (my companions and i are having a competition of who's mom makes the best cinnamon rolls. make me proud mom(read: buy them from costco))

i'm really trying hard to make the most out of this super cool experience! 

okay i think that's all i have to say this week!!!!!!! love you all!!! write me!

SPIRITUAL SHPEEL: i love this church. i love this gospel. we had a discussion in class about the difference between church doctrine and church policy. i really love every bit of church doctrine. i know sometimes church policy can rustle some peoples' jimmies and mine too on some occasions. i think it just takes a lot of faith to look past those things and accept the gospel for what it really is, which is a message of happiness. i'm excited to share that with people because i know its true and i know it can bless every single person that allows it to. amen.

love, elder sam