Elder Nathan William Allen: Traveling to Singapore

Since Nathan got to Singapore on his usual letter-writing day, I'll give this week's update. I expect we won't get an email from him (except the short one I got in the middle of last night that he is there safe) until Monday.

He left the MTC two days ago. A neighbor of one of his flying companions saw them at the SLC airport, texted us their picture (the first one below) and fed them Cafe Rio as their last meal in the US for 2 years. So nice!

To wrap up his MTC experience, he estimates he's run between 3000-4000 laps around the .10 mile indoor track and is the self-proclaimed MTC track king. He thinks he was part of one of the biggest surges into and out of the MTC. At choir at least three times they said this was the largest choir they've ever had. He was there 9 weeks and heard 4 general authorities speak.

Since his name starts with an A, he was the travel leader for the 10 missionaries in their group which comprised of his district of 8 Chinese speakers, 3 Malay speakers and a lone sister. He said it was weird to ride the train through Lehi. He's excited to get to Singapore but doesn't feel ready with the language. He said they were advised to be "perky" and even bring a fresh tie to change into when they met their mission president. I guess you'd need that advice after traveling so long and so far. I don't know about the perky part but he does have a different tie on in the pictures at the Singapore airport. All in all, it took 3 planes, 4 airports and 31 hours to get there. Singapore is 14 hours ahead so I hope he's catching some good z's right now in his first night there.

It was great to talk to Nathan from Salt Lake and LA. We each got to talk to him. Jason's first words to Nathan summed up how we all feel: "I really miss you but I'm actually glad you’re on a mission 'cause I know it’s a good thing to do.”

Thank you all for being interested in and supportive of Nathan. You can write him anytime at nathan.allen@myldsmail.net and I'll keep the emails coming until you tell me to stop. I also keep his letters on this blog.