Monday, February 28, 2011

Leaving MTC for Alaska

02/28/11
So this morning was the big day for Tyler to fly to Anchorage Alaska. He called from the airport to talk and everything was great. Then around 12:30pm he called collect from Seattle, WA to say he and Elder Shank couldn't fly to Alaska because of some mishap, he wasn't quite sure why but would call later and let me know where he ended up. He called back about 3:30pm and said they waited at the airport for 3 hours and then some missionaries came and got them and dropped them off at their apartment and left. They figure that a gold member wanted 2 seats on their flight so they took theirs and they were bumped. So they are spending the night in Seattle and flying out again, hopefully at 6am tomorrow.
02/21/11
So to start with I'm going to tell you briefly about all of the elders in my district. I am in a tripanionship with Elder Drake and Elder Johansen. Elder Drake is a recent convert to the church who got his mission call one day after his one year membership mark. (by the way the other Elders got their calls like in October. I was the only one who got mine late) He lives in Danville, Ohio. he has a really strong testimony and is able to relate to all of our "investigators" because he has only just converted to the church. Elder Johansen has just as strong of a testimony, he is a nice (redheaded) elder. He lives here in the Salt Lake valley. All three of us get along just fine and have a lot of fun. Out side of our tripanionship there are 3 other companionships, my favorite by far is Elders Bunch & Shank. Bunch is from Salt Lake valley as well and is probably one of the funniest people I know. He can never sit still or stop laughing/making others laugh. He has so many funny stories it is hard to stop laughing in class, at lunch, at the residence halls. I really like him for the good person he is. Elder Shank and Elder Bunch get along really well. There is also Elder Kvavle (Quiv-ly like quiver his grandparents are Norweigen but he grew up in Arizona) & Elder Grate. Elder Kvayle is our district leader. He is a really nice Elder that has a lot fun with the rest of us but is usually a really good example too. Elder Grate is from southern California. Valencia I think. He is really nice. Elders Hickman and Poole are a lot of fun too. Elder Hickman is from Blackfoot Idaho and Elder Poole is from San Jose California.

By the way my Tripanionship was made zone leaders so we are responsible for our district and 2 others. Its kinda fun being zone leaders but we hate our 4:15 Sunday meeting where go to tattle on people. We do our best but our zone gets blamed for everything because a month ago some elders pulled a lot pranks, and they were not here when we got here.

I love you all and miss you very much but I'm so excited to be going on my mission to Alaska.

At last!

So just a little forward to this letter. He sent our first letter to the wrong email address so we didn't hear from him for one and half weeks. So it was nice to get two emails and a letter the same day.

02/14/11
I miss getting to sleep in. I have been up early every day and you start to get realllly tired. I love all the stuff that we are learning in the classes but they are very long. We are in a pilot program that only 6 out of 50 branches are on. They put the emphasis on teaching the investigators needs using the spirit. We focus on helping the investigators feel the Holy Ghost's promptings and prayer to know if the church is true. We study the lessons and then we teach "investigators" all of our teachers do role playing as tho they are real investigators, they do a really good job I think. Well is's like 6:40am so I'm really tired. I'll start sending you some letters soon. I love you and hope to see you in about 727 days from now. Feb 11, 2013.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Gone in 60 seconds!

We left February 9, at 6:00 am for the Provo MTC. We went to the Carl Bloch art exhibit at BYU Provo first.

After viewing the amazing works of Carl Bloch we left for In & Out. Tyler requested to go there for his last meal!

We then headed to the Provo Temple Parking lot to take a family picture and say our goodbyes.
When we left Idaho it was 9 degrees it was 40 degrees in Provo and no snow.

So now when you go to the MTC to drop off your missionary, you pull up to the curb and there are 4 missionaries waiting to help. You are told in a letter to take pictures before you pull in to drop them off. Tyler got out of the car the missionaries helped grab all his luggage and before I could hug him one last time he was gone. The missionaries looked shocked because Tyler didn't hug us goodbye...so Michael told them he didn't clean his room so they could have him!