Last E-Mail from the MTC, still setting records for his running, and FINALLY the Phone Call!!!

Wow, today has finally come! Cody said that he would be able to email us as usual this morning since they weren't leaving the MTC until 4:30 PM. So here is some of that email......

Kumusta pamilya ko!! So this is my last email from the MTC! I leave in about 2 and a half hours for the airport. And i think i'm done packing. I hope i am haha joke lang.

So first i want to clear something up. When i talked about the horses, i wasn't saying i missed them more than you all. I was just trying to show that i'm not homesick. I do love all of you more than the horses. You are easier to take care of ;).

So this was a good last week at the MTC. They have records in the gym for different things, like free throws and threes and long jump and the mile and that. So this week i went for the mile record because it was only 5:23. I'm not in very good shape but i figured i could do that. I did it in 5:20. So i just barely broke the record. But the records are only for that year, so it wasn't like it was an extremely hard record to beat. But that is my worldy story this week for you all.

Mom, i can only call from one place. I'm sorry. Don't worry about me though. Numerous prophets have said that the safest place you can be is on your mission. So i promise i will be fine. I am planning on calling from Salt Lake. So plan on that. But if we end up not having enough time there i'll call from San Fracisco. I can get a calling card here for way cheap and use that to call you with. Tell Kirsten she can come over if she wants.

For email, everybody can email me. But i can only email family back. And with that i'll probably generally just do one big email for everybody because of time. And for letters, i've heard here that if you want to just send regular letters to me through the Mission Home address, instead of pouch, that works just as good. Either way i only get them twice every transfer (6 weeks). So i get mail about every 3 weeks. So whichever way you want to send them to me is fine......

So there you go. I don't know what else to tell you. If you have any questions or anything else you want to know, just ask me when i call you in a few hours. I love you all! God be with you till we meet again.

Elder Cody Brough

So then with much anticipation we waited until evening for when he could call from the airport. My calculations were that since they were leaving the MTC around 4:30 pm, needing to drive to SLC and then get checked in at the airport, that the soonest he could call would be 5:30 pm or so. So I gave him a window of 5:30 to 7:15 pm. Their flight was to leave for San Fransisco at 7:47 pm, and they would be boarding at some point. :)

Lyndi, JR and the kids came over as did Heather and we had dinner while we were waiting for "the call". Everyone sitting around talking doing their thing, Emily and Heather in the den on the computer looking up info on their cruise in the spring. Finally at about 6:45 the phone rings and everyone jumps, Gabe's little eyes get big as he looks at me and I say something about FINALLY it's him. HAHAHA not to be though, it is Heather & Roys cell phone and since Roy was not here with Heather we assumed it was Roy. HAHAHA that dang Heather and Emily in the den had called the house phone thinking it would be FUNNY to see/hear us all jump! Little snots, I told Heather she was grounded, I don't care if she is married and has been for almost 10 years!

Everyone settled back in waiting for the phone to ring again, I'm getting alittle nervous as time is running out. A little before 7 pm Kirsten and Sara McKen come to wait out the time with us for the call. FINALLY at about 7 pm the phone rings and its from a pay phone, YEAH no one else would call from a pay phone! We put him on speaker and about this time Heidi calls Heather on her cell phone so she happened to get in on the conversation some too. He sounded so good, he didn't really know what to say and mostly small talk and his sisters all vying for the "favorite" sister spot. Kirsten gets the phone and says something to him about HER being the favorite. It was really funny! We had him bear his testimony in Tagalog and it was awesome! I love love love the language, it is so cool sounding. Emily recorded part of it but we didn't think about it soon enough, darn it. It is time now for him to say good bye and board his plane as it's close to 7:35 pm.

His last words to us were"Enjoy your toilet paper for the next two yrs since I won't have any!" UGH did he have to remind me that they don't use toilet paper in the Philippines. HAHA, he seemed to get a good laugh out of it anyway.

The flight was to leave at 7:47 pm for San Fransisco but Ken was tracking it and it didn't leave for about an hour or more after that. We know nothing about that at this point, but hopefully Cody will fill us in on it. It was a long long flight and ultimately didn't get to Olongapo until evening Wed. Jan. 27th, having skipped Jan. 25th all together. It was great talking to you buddy!