Just a little info about emailing...

we would like to tell you that Collin does love getting emails from you all, but that would be cool if you could please keep it short, because he only has one hour total on the computer each week, and when he gets as many emails as he does that isn't very much time, and he's said that he feels bad when he can't get to all of them. it would be a big help if there is some thing that you could say in a letter to send it there, but by all means, keep sending him emails! just maybe shorter ones :) we keep 94 cent stamps at our house, so if you need one, we'll be happy to share!! 

peace out

Big screen TV in a grass hut? DO READ.

We finally got an email from Collin from new caledonia! Here it is. It's pretty great :)

Hey so I'm in New Caledonia right now.. Cool, eh? It's 10:35 AM and I'm in a very small city named La Foa on exchanges with an Elder named Huuti. He's Tahitian. So my P-Day is on Monday, but there is nowhere that has internet on Mondays so we end P-day an hour earlier and do Email on Tuesdays. And due to weird circumstances I didn't get to do email on Tuesday, so Here I am on Wednesday Morning doing email.

General info: My companion is Elder Tekurio who is from Tahiti, but lived in Florida for 23 years.. So he's American. Pretty much. He's really cool and we get along great. The French is really hard, and I currently don't understand a word anyone says, but everyone understands me. Weird, but whatever. We have taught some great lessons and yesterday with Elder Huuti we went to a Tribe.. With a real Chef (Chief), Kaz (grass huts) and everything! But the bizarre part is one of the families we taught had a big screen tv and a really nice laptop inside their shack. I really don't know what that's all about. Everything here is... weird. Half the stuff is really really third worldish, and then people also have REALLY western everything! Everyone speaks french, and here and there we run across someone who speaks a little English, but everyone seems weirdly obsessed with americans. So they love me. Even though I don't say anything. Ha ha. One of the member families we taught a family home evening lesson with and the fed us were like talking to me in english and they gave me this skirt thing (i'm not sure what it's called here) like a lava lava and they were like obsessed with me. Elder Tekurio said that was the most excited he'd ever seen them. Elder Tekurio is completely fluent in English and French, cuz he lived in America for so long, but also lived in Tahiti for a while, and he only speaks french to people.. So if you ask them, he understands English but doesn't speak any. It's funny.

We don't have any pictures yet, but we hope that soon we'll get one of his little man skirt.  :D

Elder Winget traveled through time!!!

Collin has arrived safely in Fiji, and will be going to New Caledonia on Wednesday morning. Since his flight went out from L.A. at almost midnight, and Fiji/New Caledonia is a day ahead of us timewise, Collin skipped July 6th entirely  and arrived in Fiji 10 hours later on July 7th! Whoa... that's weird to think about. Collin's cousin, Matt, and his wife Deneal, have been living in Fiji while Matt works at the U.S. Embassy there.  They couldn't pass up a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet for a little while at the mission home before Collin leaves for New Caledonia. Lucky for us, they took pictures and video, and emailed them to us! Yay! I hope this link to the video works, but if not, be patient with us and we will figure something out.  BTW, the password to view, if you need it, is "collin"

http://www.vimeo.com/1298591

Alas, it seems that you can't click on this link after all, BUT if you highlight that vimeo address and copy and paste it into the address bar, it works. I will try to put it in the links section maybe tomorrow, and that should be better. Man, modern technology makes it so much easier for a mom to have a missionary half-way around the world  :)

How to write to Collin

Here's the official word from the Fiji Suva mission office on how to write to Collin:

Dear friends and family of a New Caledonia missionary,

  Our missionaries are thrilled to recieve letters and packages from home. Such signs of love mean a lot to every missionary.  However, please be aware that when you send mail and packages to the mission office in Suva, Fiji, it costs the mission large sums of money and a much longer delivery time to forward your letter or package on to New Caledonia.

  Therefore, please note the following address to which you should send your packages and letters to have them delivered more quickly, and at no extra cost to the mission:

FOR LETTERS:

Elder Collin Winget

Bureau de la Mission

B P 15154

Cedex

98804 Noumea Cedex

NEW CALEDONIA

FOR PACKAGES:

Bureau de la Mission

B P 15154

98804 Noumea

NEW CALEDONIA

ATTN: Elder Collin Winget

Please make sure for packages you have the missionary's name AFTER the address.  The value limit is $2oo.  All receipts must accompany the items. Remove CD's from packaging.  Only send 2 or 3 similar items such as shirts, pants, socks, ties.  They are suspicious of items for resale.  Do not send jerky or medications, they will be destroyed.

Sincerely,

Sister Robbins

Mission secretary

Fiji Suva mission

So, Channing and I were wondering... what have they got against jerky anyway? We were imagining all the possible reasons we could think of for destroying jerky, and Channing illustrated our crazy thought processes.

(not sure if this is clickable, so if it's not, you can just copy and paste it.) 

BTW, it will cost 94 cents to send a letter to New Caledonia, and it should take approx. 6 days.

http://fc03.deviantart.com/fs30/i/2008/170/d/a/jerky__Jerky__JERKY_by_cakeface.jpg

4th of July surprise!

Our family had a great 4th! It's always great since it's Cameron's birthday that day, but it was extra special this year because we got a phone call from Collin telling us his visa came in and he is headed to Fiji TODAY!! Today is the 5th, BTW. I will put his new address in New Caledonia in the next post. He should be there within the next couple of days!! Yay! Collin said he left some stuff, including a memory card from his camera, with his companion in Georgia, and he will be sending it over to us soon. As soon as it comes in I will post pictures Collin took while in Georgia.  July 4th is one of those kind of days where we miss Collin a lot, due to the fact that he and his cousins and Dad get together and blow stuff up and generally have as much fun as they legally can with the fireworks. I made 2 Elder Winget cardboard cut-outs that I stuck in family photos just for fun and to make it seem ALMOST like he was with us... (I'll put some more up on our Picassa album thingy so you can see what other weird stuff we were up to with our fake Elder Collin :) )

  Collin will get to call us one last time from the L.A. airport tonight, and then he's off for a 10 hour flight to Fiji! The weird thing is, he will arrive there on July 7th. Fiji is 1 day ahead of us, so with the earth turning and Collin flying over several time zones that means... oh well, that makes my brain hurt! You figure it out if you want and explain it to me! It's funny that he gets to Fiji on the 7th, because that was his original departure date before he was told to leave the MTC  2 weeks early, and then go over to Georgia and all. So basically, he is where he's supposed to be, and everything just works out :).

It has come to our attention...

we've noticed that a million billion people are reading this blog, but we only get a couple of comments on each post, and a few none at all. I'm SURE that you all want to post, but you just don't have a blog, so it's not letting you. so i changed the settings so everyone can post, so hopefully this makes people more willing to post or whatever. KTHNX THAT'S ALL

heart/Channing.

*EDIT* if you want to post but don't have a blog, click the "NameID" bubble, and you can just type in your name. then it will say stuff like  [yourname] said: "WOW. this blog is amazing. i think i'll go give channing a large sum of money." like that. HAPPY POSTING.