Elder Dallin Seguine: Bonus email!

Dallin used a little bit of his time to email in the morning and couldn't get his camera to upload pictures. Then his little district of 4 went and helped with a service project at the temple. They came back and got ready for evening class, but there was no teacher. Since there are only 4 of them, and it was still technically p-day, they were told they could go and have extra email time with their families during evening class! I happened to get home from work and sit down to check email at about 9:00 - one minute after he sent an email saying, "Is anyone online? I have extra time to email today!" We got to email back and forth for almost 2 hours! It was as good as getting to talk to him. Another missionary helped him figure out the problem with his camera and we finally got pictures too! What a bonus blessing! It was so great to have time to ask questions and really get a feel for how he is doing - which is great!

I'll summarize a few things he told us and then post some pictures.

*He got the package with all the cards from his sisters and the Hammonds - he says thank you so much!
*About New Year's Eve in his Zone of Islanders: "I did get that care package, we ate it on New Year's Eve while we played apples to apples. We also had an elder who had a whole bunch of tiny Martinelli's sparkling cider bottles, like individual sized, and we drank those...Intense New Year's Eve. At midnight, since our zone is like all Polynesian, they broke out of the residence and did the haka dance thing out in the courtyard and were super loud while fireworks were going off and such. It was cool for sure." He said that while he wasn't going to join them in breaking any rules, no one seems to want to tell the big Polynesians to stop when they are doing an intense tribal/war cry dance... not even security. They were just hoping they would go back to bed when they were done. They did :)
*He spent time talking to the girls about school and sports.
*He sent some fun pictures. His favorite is the one where he is touching the flag. He said, "An Elder in our zone is from Kiribati, and he told us the red of the flag is "the blood of his ancestors" so, that was super creepy and we joke about it all the time. We always touch the flag and say blood of my ancestors haha."
*We talked about how much he is enjoying being able to focus on learning to teach in a new language and how hard it is for the MTC to find and keep teachers in his language. He is already hoping to be able to teach when he gets back :)

Mostly we just got to chat and laugh and enjoy having him for a while. It was a huge blessing to all of us. I'm sure that won't happen again, but I enjoyed every minute while I could. Here are a bunch of pictures.