Farsi is coming along great, and He has people to teach!!!!

Well like last week I will just put in Dallin's email. It sounds like things are going well so far, please continue to keep Elder Page in your prayers.

Hey Family,
Well, the first week here in Irvine has been a good one and it has been quite different
from my previous 3 months in Placentia. For one we have almost 20 investigators which is
a huge switch from the humble 4(?) that we had in placentia. And we are on bikes which I
kind of actually enjoy. It hasn't been too hot here since we are pretty close to the
coast and i kind of appreciate the extra excersize.
Elder Cunningham is a great missionary and a really hard worker so I think that we are
going to do fine together over the many coming months that we will spend working
together.
Three days a week we teach a free english class at the church for anyone that wants to
come and a few of our students are persian so that gives us an oppurtunity to use the
little Farsi that we have learned. Speaking of Farsi, since the language is so difficult
to learn we try to study as much as we can every day which usually ends up being
somewhere around 3-4 hours depending on how many other appointments we have to go to. Our
studies right now basically consist of listening to these CD's that Andrew Ainsworth got
for us that teach us basic conversation and also we study the alphabet alot and practice
recognizing letters in words. (Andrew Ainsworth is the man that is helping us learn
Farsi--the funny thing is that he is an American who has only been studying it for maybe
3 months so he's not even that far ahead of us and by no means fluent but he is a great
guy and is helping us alot). Anyways, about the alphabet...it is completely seperate from
our alphabet of course and it consists of 32 letters with about 4 different ways to
rights each one depending on if it is standing alone or whether it falls at the
begginning, middle, or end of the word so you could say there are over 100 letter! Farsi
is written from right to left and is basically like cursive where all the letters run
together in one flowing movement and the biggest catch of them all is that they don't
even include the vowels in the words when writing unless there is a long "a" as
is the word father, then the letter "alef" is used. Anyways, so it is all kind
of complicated but I will send you some stuff that we have in Farsi script so that you
can see it for yourself. But amazingly enough we have already gotten to the point where
if we try we can sound out words pretty accurately about 75% of the time which isn't too
bad and we can even right our names. Not bad, huh!? Anyways, we still have a LONG ways to
go we're trying to make it a fun experience. Well, I will talk to you next week. I love
you guys. Please keep us in your prayers, even though i know that you do. :)
Elder Page

Youth Conference Dance 2008

YC Dance
Zach with mom and dad at the dance (chaperoning)
Zach & Matt line dancing with Emma.

Youth Conference 2008

YC 2008
Abby with her friends Aubrey, Celeste, Hailey
Matt with Thurl Bailey.
Our Stake Youth.
Thurl Bailey with abby and her friends.
Zach doing his signature handshake with Thurl Bailey.

Youth Conference 2008

The kids just had their Youth Conference. It was great. Matthew was on the youth committee that planned it, I must say it was fabulous. Everyone had a great time. Thurl Bailey spoke at the friday evening fireside. He has a great conversion story. Matt had the priviledge of introducing him that evening. The kids could not get over how tall he is and the size of his hands, BIG! Friday was full of seminars that were really good, and there was the big dance. Conference was ended with a testimony meeting, there are alot of strong youth in our stake. It was a great weekend. Now it's off to EFY.

ELDER PAGE IS SWITCHING GEARS

I can't believe the news we received Sunday about Dallin, how exciting it is to be apart of such a great work. He is very excited and scared, but knows that the Lord is incharge and will help him to learn quickly. Here is his email for this week as he shares his experience first hand. Everyone have a great week and please keeep Elder Page in your prayers.

Hey Family,

Well, I'm glad that you guys were able to hear the big news yesterday. I am still kind of
unsure about most of the details but I will tell you everything that I know. First of
all, this all started this past Tuesday at Zone Conference when President Harmsen asked
if he could talk to me. All he told me when we talked was that he was he wanted to call
an elder to a new position in the mission and that it would be really challenging,
life-changing, and that it required good people skills and good language skills. After we
talked about me and my personality and school before the mission and stuff like that he
told me that he was going to talk to 2 other elders and pray about his decision and then
he would get back to me. So this past week I was kind of side-tracked wondering what the
new calling would be and if he would ask me. I just prayed for President every night that
he would be guided by the spirit and that if he asked me that I would be prepared to do
whatever he asked of me. And then on Friday night he called and asked me to come to the
mission home at 7:30 the next morning for an interview. So of course I couldn't sleep
friday night. And on Saturday morning when he asked me if I would be a Persian-speaking
elder I almost fell over. Never in a thousand years would I have guessed that I would be
asked to learn Pharsee. Anyways, he told me to go home and decide what I wanted to do and
then to call him back that evening. So I prayed about it and I just felt like this is
what I need to be doing right now. And so I told him I wanted to do it and so as of today
the CA Anaheim Mission has a Persian Program making it the 8th language in this mission.
It is going to be pretty different b/c I will be in the Irvine 5th ward for the rest of
my mission, I will be with my new companion Elder Cunningham for the next 14 months until
he goes home and then I will have one more companion for the rest of my mission until I
go home who I will help teach the persian language to. You see the problem is that there
is no Persian program at the MTC so until there are enough persian baptisms we are pretty
much on our own when it comes to learning the language. From what I know there is program
called Daily Dose that the missionaries do to help teach people different languages and
so we will use that to teach each other Persian and English and I think that there is also
a member here who speaks Pharsee who will be helping us pretty closely but other than
that I'm not really too sure what we're going to do. President might have already might
have told you when he called but he said that there are only 4 missionaries in the world
that have been called to speak Pharsee--me and elder cunningham and 2 elders in toronto,
canada so all this is extremely new as you probably already realize. Anyways, I am really
excited and even more scared. It is kind of hard to have to shift gears from Spanish to
Persian, especially since I am just starting to feel pretty good about spanish but I know
that this is where i need to be and so it'll all work out. I want to try and keep my
spanish up if possible but we'll see how that goes. Well, I've got a little more packing
to do before transfers at 3:00 so I better get going but know that I love you and that
you are always in my prayers. If you have any questions about all this just let me know.
I'll be getting more information probably in the next week so hopefully I'll be able to
tell you a little more later but that is pretty much all I know for now. Until, next
week, take care. I love you.

Elder Page

p.s. something pretty cool that I just remembered...Elder Song is going to be my new
District Leader down in Irvine and he'll be living in the same apartment as me so that
should be really awesome.

Elder Page Is doing Great!

Dallin is doing great. I love hearing from him every week and feeling of his love for the work he is doing. He was excited to hear about the Celtics, Go Celtics. He said that it was one of the things he missed most was sitting and watching a game or just doing something with us, just spending time together as a family. His companion was at Disneyland today, he heads home next week. He also has 2 others that live in his apartment who head home in a month. Hope that has not been tough on him. I have not gotten that impression. He appreciates all the mail, thanks everyone for your support to him. Till next week...

Elder Page has blisters!!!

His blisters are not from too much tracting, they are from playing soccer. Today for p-day his zone palyed another zone in soccer. He was in heaven. That was the first time he has gotten to play on a big field in 6-7 months. He said it was so much fun! So that's why he has the blisters.
It was a pretty low-key week for teaching. They did alot of tracting which can be tough day after day. They still are working with Jennifer and also a couple Jim and Kathy. They seem real interested in the Book of Mormon and the idea of a modern day prophet, which is great because that can be the hardest part to grasp for some people.
Elder Page is doing great. He says the work is tough but "loves being a missionary. It's a wonderful blessing to be here serving in Placentia CA."
Thanks for all of the letters and support!

Abby's Awards Night & Ashley & Matteson's Wedding

We had a very busy weekend. Friday evening was Award's night @ Abigail's school. Abby is a great student she recieved top 5 in her class. Her hard worked payed off. Afterwards there was a dance (Abby's first). She and her friends had a great time even though it was extremely hot. Congratulations Abby, we love you!
It was Ashley and Matteson's wedding, finally. It was the hottest day of the year to have an outdoor wedding, but it was beautiful and lots of fun visiting with family. We wish Ashley and Matteson many years of happiness.

Elder Page sends his love

Not too much news this week. He said he had a good week. He is still teaching Jennifer. His companion only has 3 more weeks till he goes home. He really likes him, too bad they are together for such a short time. He loved his package and getting notes from everyone. He said it is nice to know that when we all get together we are still thinking of him :)