THE WALK OF SHAME

Monday, October 28, 2013, Garrett Eichers wrote:

Sorry I was going to email you but we are going to grab lunch downtown at a 5 guys nearby! I will write you later today! I love and miss you! Talk to you soon!

Much later, Garrett writes:

This week has had a lot of ups and downs. So on Saturday we came to the church to do our facebook stuff and there were a bunch of cars here so we didn't know if we could use the computers or not so I only locked up my frame of my bike and I was planning on going back out and fixing it after we were sure we could use the computers.  But we were on the computers for like 15 minutes and an English elder came in and was like, "uh, Elder Eichers do you know your front tire is missing" so I run out there and I am just so sad and when I got out there it was gone. I had to walk pretty far to get to the bike store and it was just the walk of shame, walking a bike with no front wheel.  I got everything worked out now it just cost a lot of money to buy a new tire.  I was so frustrated because I have been working so hard and then this just happened.  

But when we got home we got a call saying that there was a primary party for our ward and there was an investigator there who lived in our area! So that made things much better and so we went over there and we spent a lot of time with all of the kids in our ward and plus O's little girls were there who always make my day! Everything just seemed so much better after that and with all the love of the people here, it is impossible to stay sad!

Yesterday was a great Sunday! We went to church and everything and then visited a member who seemed so happy to see us! They said they were just leaving and they were sorry they couldn't go to church but they really want to come next week! It was great just because he had a good attitude and showed like he was starting to feel comfortable with us even though we didn't teach them! Then we went to the family As' house and we were there for a while and it was what Sundays should be like! We just ate and talked and shared a message with them, they are doing great at sharing the gospel with all of their friends!  I loved spending time with them!  But before we got to the appointment, I have a little cord to lock up my bike and I wrap it up around the frame of my bike and it came undone and got in my tire and I fell on my bike! It was my first crash and it was so sad but so funny!   But anyways after A we went to O and L and their whole family was there (L's parents too) and it was perfect! We taught them and they gave us more food, I was already full but we are missionaries so I ate that food too and was happy about it!  So the whole week ended up being great even though there were some really rough patches!

But I am staying here with Elder Gomez and I am really happy about it! There is only one Elder changing out of our zone. But I love you guys and have a great week!

OCTOBER 21, 2013

Your guys’ week sounds like so much fun! Sam and Steph you are so lucky you guys got to go out and visit them [Hanna and Ben Barton]! Did you guys go to the beach and everything? And Annie, thanks for the CD and the package it was so nice of you to send! We love listening to the music and everything! I will send you a letter this week! And mom and dad I love you guys and it sounds like you’re in heaven up at the cabin and going to silver fork lodge!  

But this week was a struggle with the numbers but we learned a lot towards the end of the week so this week should be great! I keep on growing and my testimony is strengthening as I am going on!  Socorro is progressing.  We didn't see that cute family all together this week, but they are all great! I will try to take a picture with them this week and send it home so you can see them!

One cool thing is that our mission got announced to be the 9th mission in the world to use facebook! We are updating our things starting tomorrow so I have to hide like all my pictures because we are only supposed to have pictures of us in proselyting clothes. I am not going to delete the old ones just hide them. So I just need to update my page a little and then it will be ready! We hope to teach a lot on there! The rules are though that we can't accept friend requests from people at home but you are all already my friends so that is good and with permission from the pres we can talk to people back home who are less active and nonmembers and help set up appointments with the missionaries with them! It is a big temptation but the lord trusts us!

But we are having a halloween party today with our zone and the english zone in our area so that will be fun! Love you guys.

I love you and I am sorry this is short, but everything is fine! Love you and miss you!   And stay healthy!!  The picture below is our heart pancake that we made.  

COLUMBUS DAY

They moved our pday to today because they thought that it would be a good idea to be out on the holiday so that we could talk to people when they were with their family. Hahahaha I was expecting that I was going to get a call from president saying your mom called me and told me you didn't write her yesterday, will you tell her to wait just a little and be patient tomorrow, but I am glad I didn't get that call!

On p-day - this is what the streets all look like in our neighborhood.

At Church on Fast Sunday -- wearing my Fast Sunday tie matching Brad's tie. 

But to answer your questions, yes I am in Logan Square. Our church building is the Logan Square building! Our ward is the Chicago 3 ward but the english ward in our building is the Logan Square somethingth ward. But we haven't ridden the bus or metro yet because it is still warm enough to ride our bikes. When it gets really cold or starts to snow we get bus passes so that should be in a few weeks. It is starting to get pretty cold here though, not freezing yet but in the afternoons if we don't have jackets we get freezing so I am just starting to bring my black rain jacket with me everywhere now. But yeah I see the mission president, we saw him at a zone conference and we had interviews with him a little while ago but it isn't like I see him everyday. We do send letters to him every week though and he
reads and basically studies every single one. We eat at members houses about every other day but it depends on the week. Like this week we ate with one member and had some snacks with another, but the week before we had like 5 dinner appointments so it just depends. Yesterday we also had a member buy us McDonalds which was so nice! But no I haven't had to speak yet and I think I will most likely be here with Elder Gomez this next transfer but I am not 100% sure! Hahahaha no I don't need you to send me protein! But if you could send me some good vitamins to take that would be very helpful!

Things are going great this week! I thought that this would never be my home but it is starting to feel like it, just in a different way then the home in Salt Lake.  I am comfortable here and I love it here. I think I was expecting to feel like oh for this to be home it will feel exactly how the house did in Salt Lake, it definitely doesn't feel like that but it is home for me now! 

A cool experience was a few weeks ago on a day when I just wanted to sit down and just relax for 15 minutes before this appointment with a member, my companion said lets go walk and see if we can find anyone to talk to.  We ended up finding this woman named Socorro. She was just so happy to see us and we talked to her and got her information.  We had been trying to go back to her house, but we could just never reach her because she wasn't home.  This week we have found her twice(Twice other than the initial contact)! We happened to find her when she was returning from her walk, like it was honestly the perfect timing that we would be able to find her(both times we found her at that time) But the first time we taught her, second time talking in total, we just gave her a restoration pamphlet and a Bookof Mormon and just getting to know her more. The next time we saw her, third in total, we were teaching her about the restoration and it was so easy because she had already read the pamphlet and loved it! We told her to pray about it after we were done teaching the lesson and she was just like, oh I already know it is true. This was such a miracle! I love teaching her and she always brightens my day! We always teach her on days when I am super tired and everything and after the lesson I always am energetic and love the work! When she smiles I can't help but smile, I just love her so much! 

Last pday we went downtown and we went to Navy Pier and everything! It was so sweet and the city is amazing! We also went to a pizza place called Giordanos, it is one of the famous pizza places with like 5 inch deep pizzas and it was amazing, best pizza ever! But I have been trying so many different restaurants here and they are all so delicious! I will send pictures of everything in a second! 

Love you so much and miss you all! Have a great week and keep staying healthy!

 Deep dish (5 inch) pizzas at Giordanos.

It is one of the famous pizza places -  best pizza ever!!

Navy Pier on P-day

OCTOBER 7, 2013

Everything is going great! I got all of the packages and the one with the letters of all the other missionaries! I loved hearing about them and I was happy because I actually had time to read the stuff unlike emails!

But this week was great! I actually watched every session of conference, I was surprised! I even watched the very last one in Spanish, that doesn't mean I understood it but I watched it.  Dad, I have thought about you so much and during Priesthood.  I thought of how lucky I was to go with you all of these years! I hope you went with grandpa or Sam or something to keep you company! But think only 3 more conferences and then I will be home! But conference is one of the best memories I have with you, you are an amazing dad to do that and spend so much time with me! I love you and miss you a ton!

But this week was just a pretty normal week, nothing crazy happened to me! But there is a new family who we have been teaching who I absolutely love! The husband is a less active and the wife is an investigator and they have two little girls who are 7 and 5 and then a really young little kid! The 5 year old girl may be the cutest little girl I have ever seen though! I absolutely love her! Her mom is super receptive to the two lessons we have taught her and they are such a strong family! I love talking to them and I also love all of the members here! We are working super hard though and I am now starting to see how happy we can make people with the gospel! I am enjoying it here!

I don't know if I will have time to send pictures but I will try! I took some just of our house and stuff! But my actual address is 3727 Eddy. I don't know the zip code and everything so just keep sending the mail to the office but this way you can look it up on google maps!

I am going downtown for pday today though so I am super excited for that! I love you all and miss you!

Hahaha I forgot to write that my companion has had 2 flat tires this week so we have spent a lot of time doing that kind of stuff! My bike works though just great! Love you

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

I think Chicago is the best mission on Earth ;) 

Mom, I am always so grateful to people that feed us and we try to be helpful!

Hahahaha.  I have a few funny stories about the language. The other day a 5 year old was talking to me in Spanish and I could not understand him! I felt so embarrassed and my companion thought it was so funny, but all I could do was laugh at it!  Another story was that some man was trying to sit by me in church and he asked if I was mad he was sitting by me but I thought he said could I sit here! I was just like si si si and my companion was like no he is not mad!  Luckily he fixed that one up! I just have to laugh at how bad I am right now at the language but it will get better! It is hard though because everyone speaks English here but the people we teach and contact so I am not fully engulfed in the language.

This week was pretty tough though, we didn't have as much success as I would have liked.  But my companion and I are working hard and we know that things will get better if we keep having faith and working hard.  I am adjusting to this lifestyle now and I am getting much more comfortable here.  It is so funny though; so many people talk to us on the streets when we are stopped at red lights or just walking.  Barely any want to hear the gospel but they will all give us their opinion. Lots of people swear at us and just say weird random stuff and then others will be like I really respect you but your church was not for me, I love the missionaries.  We get the whole spectrum of people here.  There have been many small little miracles that I see everyday!  I love and miss you guys and lean on your faith in times of trouble. The Book of Mormon and prayer have given me so much comfort while I have been here. I love you all!

These are two pictures, one with my companion with our welcome home sign on our door.  We live above a family so it’s like their attic.  We have an entrance to their house that they can go through too, we just don’t have to go through their place.  

The second picture is our family line:  my trainer Elder Gomez or my dad, and his trainer Elder Torsak or my grandpa.

FIRST P-DAY IN CHICAGO

Garrett's letter doesn't tell us where his location is, but through our ways (tracking debit card) we believe he is in the Logan Square area, a bit northwest of Chicago.  My nephew served in that area about 13 years ago and emailed one of the members to look for him.  She said she met Elder Eichers that day at Church!!  Small world!!  She said they were in the best Ward in the mission and the members would take care of him. 

Hola!! 

I sent you guys a letter and I sent it on Saturday so it should get there soon! But things are so much better here than in the MTC! It is definitely much harder and a lot more work but I like it a lot more than the MTC!

My flight was smooth though. I got checked in real quickly, I got all my bags and everything was great! The flight was absolutely empty though, it was a huge plane and there were only like 50 people on it! We all got in our own rows and people were lying down just because there was so much space! We got off the plane and our mission president was right there waiting for us with his wife and some of the other missionaries.  I was like perfect they will just take us back to the mission home and we will just have a super easy day, but I was wrong. The mission president was like okay everyone put your stuff down you are going with the president's assistants to go out and contact on the train. I was like are you serious? (Not literally just in my mind). But they gave us a sack lunch and we went out and went straight to work and that was so scary but I am glad because we could do it more in English. It is weird though coming back from where everything was in Spanish to everything back in English!  After that, they walked us through the City, and the City is absolutely amazing.  We went back to the mission home. For dinner we had deep dish pizza, pasta, and salad.  But the group of missionaries that came in with us was 10 elders and 4 sisters. That is only from Mexico though and then from Provo there were 2 elders and 20 sisters. Kristi’s friend ended up getting here, just really late that night.   All of the elders slept in the members' houses and the sisters slept in the mission home. We ended up sleeping at a member’s house on Monday. They were so nice and took great care of us! We were so grateful for them! I stayed in there with my MTC companion and Elder Arcenio Garcia, so things worked great! They cooked us breakfast and then we were off to the church to get our assignments.

But my companion is Elder Gomez! He was born in Vera Cruz, Mexico and lived there for 13 years and then moved to Orem Utah.  He is so kind and he is so funny, I absolutely love him! He has only been here for 6 weeks but he is fluent so he knows how to do everything.  He hasn't finished his training yet so we work on mine together and hopefully we stay together for the next transfer so we can learn that next one together! I love him though and we are getting along great!

Our area is working out great though! It is hard because it is so small because it just got cut.  But we are working hard on everything! We live out of our area so we have to bike to our area everyday!  Our apartment is small and quaint, it is really basic but it gets the job done. We live over a bishop from another ward. But I will send you more pictures of it next week! All of the streets here look the same to me though so a lot of the times I feel lost. I am getting more comfortable with everything and where it is now but if I didn't have my companion I would get so lost. The area is really safe for us missionaries though! It definitely isn't Utah but I feel safe all the time! I don't think I would have my family live in this area but it works for now!

The first half of Wednesday was probably the worst day of my life, but later in the day it was great.  We woke up and studied and worked out and then we went to buy a bike but the store was closed so we called a zone leader so I am using his bike until Saturday.  We walked our bike back to our apartment.  We walked like 12 miles before 4 o'clock.  I was so tired and all I wanted to do was sleep.  We were going to maybe eat at a member's house so we started riding there and it was pouring rain.  I was soaking wet because it was raining harder than I have every really seen it rain before.  My bike chain keeps falling off so I was so frustrated   So after fixing the chain we rode back home.  I honestly just wanted to sit in there and go to bed early.  Then my companion says we should try and go back out and I am thinking that is the worst idea but I just do it because I know he knows more than me.  We said a prayer and then headed back out to work.  After that prayer everything gets much better.  The bike chain doesn't fall off anymore and we teach a lesson and get 3 new potential investigators so the day ended up being pretty funny.  I came home absolutely drenched that night. 

We are still working to get used to things but things are going much better now than the first few days! I loved the packages though and everything! It was so nice of you to send it to me! Today is my first pday though. We have done most of our laundry.We have a washing machine and dryer in our apartment in the basement that belongs to the family that lives below us so we get to use that!  We also got groceries and everything! I found some things that I really want you to send me though like those Crystal Lite packets and just other snacks! 

I love you so much and I miss you all! They said for you guys to send all mail and stuff to the mission home though where the address is:  

800 Waukegan Rd Ste 203

Glenview  IL 60025

Can you send that out on my facebook or something so people write me??

I love you and miss you guys!

CHICAGO!

"Hey this is Elder Eichers! I am doing fine and I just got my companion! If you are going to send me anything send it to the mission office which is the 800 Waukegan address! I love you and my p day is Monday!"

President Woodbury, me, my first companion, Sister Woodbury