Happy Halloween Elder Varvel!

I knew the Holidays would be hard without Sawyer. So it begins....Halloween was so boring without him! He had a boring time too. The missionaries had to be in by 6:00 that night. So him and Elder Walker just played some games that night. We did send him a fun Halloween package though :)! 

Happy Halloween Elder Varvel

Memories from Abilene, TX

We received Sawyer's SD card with all of his pictures and videos from the first area of his mission. He loved his time in Abilene. He met some wonderful people, and made some great memories. He said that leaving was really hard, and it felt like leaving home all over again. We're grateful for all the people there that took such great care of him.

Elder Harris, Elder Dalley, Elder Chapman, Elder May, Elder Simonson, Elder Martin, Elder Varvel, Elder Evans, Sister Davidson, Sister Kramer, Sister Archibald.

Sawyer's first companions were the zone leaders, Elder Martin & Elder Chapman.

A tour of his first apartment. Be prepared to get dizzy :)!

One of the first things that Sawyer experienced in Abilene was a storm! He said that when it rains, there is nothing quite like it. The rain comes down so hard, that within minutes the streets turn into rivers. They drove through the streets with water up to the door of their car.

An Abilene rain storm!

On one of their P-days, the missionaries got to go to Prime Time. It's like Fat Cats or Blastoff. They bowled, played games, and he won at laser tag!

Prime Time

 The Bundy family loved the missionaries, and always took good care of them! Sawyer loved them, and will miss them greatly. 

Dinner at the Bundy's!

Hanging out at the Bundy's house.

The Bundys had an old military truck. 

The Bundy's dog was making the donkeys mad. I cracked up at this video just listening to how entertained the missionaries were.

Elder Varvel is working on his domestic skills! Cookies!

Here is Sawyer's cool insta-freeze magic trick :)!

Elder May, Elder Hancock, Sister Archibald, Elder Chapman, Elder Pasquale, Sister Kramer, Elder Thorpe, Elder Martin, Elder Dalley, Elder Varvel

This is a video of what they do when they are bored during planning meetings.

Sawyer and Brother Murrow. He was their ward clerk.

This is a video of the missionaries trying ghost peppers. A ghost pepper is the world's hottest chili pepper, and is 400 times hotter than Tabasco sauce. Most of the missionaries started going numb, but Sawyer must have got a lot of seeds, because he got pale and broke out in a sweat. Good times in the mission field!

Sawyer saying goodbye to the Bundys.

Jessie and Chelsea

The Cannons- He was their ward mission leader.

Sawyer with the Hedin Family.

The Elders with Lovenia. She is a recent convert who loved the missionaries.  She owns Chicken Express and would let the missionaries eat for free. Sawyer said her husband makes the best food ever, and she makes the best dessert!

 One of Sawyer's hardest goodbyes was with Chado and Bobooshka! :(

Sawyer and Bobooshka 

Chado, Babooshka, and Sawyer

Sawyer really grew to love Chado, and he will miss him a lot. I hope we can all go to Texas someday and meet all these people.

Elder Varvel & Elder Pasquale 

Elder Varvel & Elder Hancock

Elder Watson and Elder Varvel. I miss his goofy faces!

Elder Varvel, Elder Chapman, Sister Kramer, and Sister Archibald.

Saying goodbye to Elder King. 

Elder King and Elder Varvel.

Elder Moffitt and Elder Varvel 

Elder May and Elder Dalley both came out to Texas with Sawyer.

He says this is his last moments with his parents :)! He learned a lot from these guys, and I'm sure he'll miss them a ton.

Sawyer loved his time in Abilene. He will miss it a lot, but he is excited to start a new phase of his mission is Muleshoe , TX. I hope he can meet just as many great people there, and have just as many wonderful experiences. 

Turn Around! Turn Around!

When Sawyer was getting ready to leave on his mission, he got some advice from President Fuller. One of the things he told him was that he didn't need to let his family know everything...especially the bad stuff that would make us worry. That's probably why he 'forgot' to mention a little driving incident that happened in Abilene. Dani let it slip while she was visiting, so I asked him about it. Here it is in his own words:

Elder Chapman got cut off and ended up driving the wrong way on the freeway and it was super funny! We didn't even realize it until we saw headlights in the distance coming at us super fast. I started shouting TURN AROUND, TURN AROUND!

They are nuts! How do you not know you are driving the wrong way on the freeway! I'm glad he thought it was funny though :)!

On a less stressful note, Sawyer loved General Conference! This is what he said about it:

We had investigators come to conference this past week! Oh my gosh, it was so perfect! We told them to pray and come to conference with a question, and that their questions would be answered. They were answered perfectly! It was so awesome to see the prophets and apostles touch lives. I tried that approach too, just to see if it would work, and the same thing happened to me! Those men are called of God absolutely without a doubt!

Happy 100 Days!

Sawyer reached his 100 days of missionary service! We sent him a fun package to celebrate! We wrote a list of the 100 things we love and miss about him. Some of them were pretty funny :)! Our package was all orange stuff, and we said 'Orange you glad you made it 100 days!'

Here's the first half of our 100 things we love and miss about him.

Here's the finished product!

Orange you glad you made it 100 days?

Happy 100 days Elder Varvel!

MTC Flashback!

A while after Elder Varvel had been in the mission field, he sent me his SD card with the rest of his pictures and videos from the MTC. He loved his time there! He had a great companion, a great district, and great teachers. 

This is Elder Varvel's district with Hermana Gibbons. She was his first teacher in the MTC, and they had her the whole time they were there.

This is Hermano Torres. He was their second teacher. He had to leave half way through their time at the MTC. He left to teach at the MTC in Mexico.

The district with Hermano Torres.

This is the district with Hermano Clarke. He replaced Hermano Torres once he left. 

Elder Varvel with Hermano Albaugh. He wasn't their actual teacher, but Sawyer said he might as well have been, because he helped them out with everything.

He claims he's doing a wall backflip, but we know better than that :)!

Sawyer found Curtis in the MTC! 

This is Sawyer's district with the sisters in his zone, the night they left.

Singing the night they left.

There are goblins in the MTC bathrooms!

Abilene, Texas

Elder Varvel is in the mission field! His first area is Abilene. That is on the Eastern side of his mission, so it's pretty and green. His whole mission is in the Bible belt of the US, but Abilene is the Bible belt buckle. There are more different churches in this city than in any other city in the world! Sawyer said, "Everyone is very nice! The people here really do have southern hospitality!"

His new companions are Elder Martin and Elder Chapman. He said they are great! They are the Abilene zone leaders. He says  there are a few things that come from being with the zone leaders:

1. You get excellent training.

2. You stay really busy.

3. He's currently in an English area. His companions have meetings a lot, and when they do he goes with the Spanish Elders, so he still gets to practice his Spanish.

He attends the Spanish Branch along with the ward he is assigned to.  He said, "The members here are awesome! Everyone knows the missionaries and everyone is super involved with the church! And they make FANTASTIC food! The Spanish Branch is a small, tight knit group, and I just love them! They have a pot luck after church every Sunday.....be jealous, because THEY CAN COOK!"

He seems to be having a great time! I'm happy to know that he's being trained well, fed well, and taken care of :)! I sent him a letter with a gazillion questions. I'll have more info when I get his response back from that one.

Thank You!

Elder Varvel received his package of 43 letters (plus lots more from people who sent them on their own) right before he left the MTC. It took us a while to hear from him once he got to Texas. We finally got a letter, and he expressed how fun it was to get that package! His whole district was in awe when he dumped 43 letters out of the envelope! He wrote us a message to give to everyone who wrote:

Hey everybody! Thank you SO much to all of you who sent me letters! I haven't been able to answer them all because of my schedule, and there weren't addresses on a lot of them. But keep writing to me and I will be sure to write back as soon as I can! I really appreciated hearing from everyone! Whether it was because you all miss and love me, or because my Mom had dessert, either way it still felt really good :)! You all are in my thoughts and my prayers! I miss and love y'all and will see you in LESS than 2 years! Wooo! The church is so true!

Thanks again everyone! Elder Varvel's current address is:

Elder Sawyer Varvel

Texas Lubbock Mission

6310 114th St.

Lubbock, TX

79424-6024