Sam's 19th birthday was last Friday.  We sent him a package at the MTC containing a birthday cake, some little treats, and a few other things he had requested.  Our dog, Cubby, and our two cats sent him a birthday card in which they included some tufts of their hair as tokens of their affections.  Sam despises hair.  Also, Sam got some bad information about the date of Father's Day.  He makes reference to these things in the letter he sent us Monday, June 9, 2014:

Hi All,

First of all, I like the sports updates and they don't distract me. Let me know if both of those guys end up signing with the teams that drafted them. Popovich is a great coach. How old is this coach? Can you send me a picture of him? Sounds like a smart guy though, which is good. And I trust Dennis Lindsey. Good for joe and Petey.

Yeah, looks like I whiffed on the father's day. That's the last time I trust that elder. I got all of the stuff. Thanks for it. It was a pretty big box! The shoes are a little big, but will work really well. I'm wearing them right now. Good call on the apple juice. I wore the new gray tie to the temple this morning. The socks and the church shirts were on point this time so thank you very much for those. I kind of did a combination of chuckling good-naturedly and gagging when I opened the letter. That may be one that I have to throw away.

I didn't tell anyone it was my birthday on my birthday, but I had told some people when my birthday was a few weeks ago and they remembered. So they kind of spread the word and everybody ended up knowing, unfortunately. They sang to me at dinner.

We have 4 teachers now, and I really like 3 of them.

The food is ok. They have a different name for every meal, but we all know that it's really all made of the same ingredients. I'm sleeping better recently. I was waking up probably 6-10 times a night, but it's been better the past few nights. The thing about the language is that there is no conjugation of verbs past/present/future, just a word that tells which it is. That's really nice. But the rough thing is that every word is different from what it sounds like in english. In spanish it seems like so many of the words sound like their English counterparts, but in this everything is different. When I have to talk in Cambodian, my mind first takes the English then translates it into Spanish. From Spanish, it then goes to Cambodian. Like on Saturday at our TRC I was talking to this returned missionary and was telling him something, BECAUSE, and I just wasn't thinking and I said porque instead of the Cambodian "piipruah." It was kind of funny because it was totally accidental.

We got to host last wednesday, and that was fun. It's hard to have to take the kids from their families though. It's like I was telling some of the guys in here that it reminds me of that quote from the Dark Knight where someone says "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." That's us now, we've lived long enough that we've become the villain and now we have to take crying children from their mothers and look their mothers straight in the face and tell them that everything is going to be all right when we know that everything is not going to be all right. I'm just kidding, but it is nice to get out of class for that. We had a pre-hosting pump up in the bathroom and treated it like a locker room pump up. "What are we gonna do?!" "LIE!!!"

Yesterday it just hit me that I really want to watch the TV series North America. Not that you can do anything about that, but I was just thinking how much I like that series.

You'd really like Brother Eggett, mom. We're singing "Joseph Smith's First Prayer" for the Tuesday devotional, and there's high likelihood that we'll get an apostle to come for that devotional. They're training new mission presidents here in a few weeks and they've said that at different times all of the 12 will be on campus, but we probably won't get to see them. But they're doing a "special choir" for something and they handed out stuff during choir yesterday. They'll practice everyday for about a week and, like they said, it becomes priority number one. I was conflicted on whether or not to do it because I didn't want to get behind in the language. But I filled out one of the little brief papers that asked what part you sing, experience, rate yourself on sight reading/memorizing/voice quality. I didn't lie or anything, but not a lot of elders volunteered so they called my name. They only want the choir to be about 35 people or so, and of the papers they reviewed they took 40 (10 SATB each), so they'll probably cut a few people. But I might be in it. I was kind of nervous about it, but I figured in a lot of years when I look back I would have more memories from that than I would from sitting in class a few hours more. And I knew Heidi would want me to do it. So we'll see how it goes, if it even goes.

Zierenberg got made the new DL yesterday. That means I have the worst calling in the district. I'm like the wife. I have to go to things (which is bad in itself), but I don't participate in meetings or anything. I just sit outside and wait. He'll do a good job though.

Have I told you about the push ups? I joined in with some guys at the start of this week who do push ups every night. They've been doing them for a while and I jumped in with them. We do 70 push ups right now and move up 5 push ups every 4 days. I've only gotten to like 62-64 and then I lose it and have to wait a minute before finishing the last 7 or so. I'll probably catch up with them in about a week though.

I think that's about it. If I haven't said something you wanted me to, email me and I'll get it next week. Thanks, I love and miss you guys.

<3 Cubby