Monday, December 19, 2011

December 19, 2011

This computer is so terrible it hurts me to use it,

On other notes, I am really going to miss Kay, I liked him a lot.

I am getting transferred again, I got red dotted due to the small accident I was in, which I should not have been red dotted for, the damage makes it look much more severe than it was and it was my first accident ever, I'm going to see what I can do to have it removed. Since my companion can't drive and he speaks Samoan fluently and there are not driving Samoans, I am getting transferred, the whole ward keeps telling me I need to tell president he cant do it. It makes me sad because I probably will not come back a third time but no one thought I would come back a second so we will see. the worst part is that it is right before Christmas.

I am going to the Huffman area, it is, if looking at a map south of Dimond and east of Seward, the mission home, Brayton chapel and temple are in my new boundaries, I will be serving with Elder Merril, I will be his second companion, or "greenie Braker" I will also be the senior companion.

I have some really good news, last week we had 2 baptisms, fulfilling the wards goal for baptisms. I have served in Dimond Ward 2 separate times, and for 6 weeks each, in those I totaled 11 of the 13 baptisms this ward has ever had, it makes me sad to leave.

Also I finally got a copy of the Jeffrey R. Holland's fireside talk that happened up here in Anchorage back in November, I made a copy for everyone in the mission and I am uploading it to the sky drive today, I hope you can listen to it, it is really good and about an hour long.

I am not excited to go back to palangi wards that much, there are things I like and dislike about both but overall the best place in the entire mission to be is Dimond Ward, you can ask almost any missionary who knows much about that and they will tell you, but the Lord has other plans for me, right now.

This is the link to Elder Hollands fireside: https://skydrive.live.com/redir.aspx?cid=fdb757153a3444cd&resid=FDB757153A3444CD!1713&parid=FDB757153A3444CD!107&authkey=!AEKzTObxDp0d1K0 )

Monday, December 12, 2011

Monday, December 12, 2011

No I have not gotten the package yet. We have a baptism that will be done on either the 24th or 25th - Christmas the ward is very exited because it also will fulfill the wards baptism goal for the year, this ward is less than a year old.

Elder Collins is a little bigger waste size than me but other wise pretty close, the only things i can think of I want for Christmas is ties with pandas on them, other cool ties, and or money, simply because it is hard to move things much bigger than ties around, or i can buy something funny up here so you don't have to ship it, I am not sure other than that.

(Do you get homesick?) No not really, I miss things about being home like computers games, people, and animals but not really home sick. (notice he put computer games before people)

(Kay Miller isn't doing very well) Thats sad to know I will really miss him, I really like him.

*** The next part of Tyler's blog is from a past companions (Elder Winterrose)letter to his family. I thought it was funny!
I visited the Dimond Ward and my old companion Elder Williams is serving there. We got to teach a primary class of like 12 kids ages 8-7 and a few random youngins. It was funny, and totally random. We talked about doing unto others. They didn't have sharing time so we had to teach them the whole hour. ONE hour without candy.... cause it was fast Sunday. We taught the lesson for as long as their little attention spans could handle it for and then we did a bunch of little magic tricks. TRICKS are awesome for children. Elder Williams even did the one where he licks his eye ball. The kids were so excited/grossed out! It was way funny. You literally have to have something planned for every minute of class though. One slip and you loose control of the group and have to reset, review and restart. It was a blast though.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Monday, December 5, 2011

The last couple days here it has been about 27F and raining, up here that means instantaneous black ice, they call it freezing rain, we were told not to leave our apartment at all for several days, though it is warmer it is still quite a pain, up in my last area it was much colder, it gets a lot more snow too. And they have the freezing rain, church was canceled in 2 stakes yesterday Eagle River and Wasilla due to the freezing rain.

Elder Collins is from Western Samoa he grew up there and left for his mission from there, he is Samoan, he has been out one transfer (6 weeks) less than I have, his family is very active in the church, don't know a whole lot more than that. Can't think of a whole lot you could help with we get a long very well other than the language difficulties, because he does not speak English very well.
But we get along great together.

Work is definitely going slow simply because our investigators are busy, we have had 2 people recently come up and ask what they need to do to be baptized, they are both around 16 and 17 they did not come together but near the same time, one of them the parents don't want him to be baptized and the other we have been trying to meet at his house but he has not given us his address just phone, and he asked for things he could read in the BoM he has the app on his phone with bible and BoM so we gave him some to read while we get in contact with him, Moroni 10:3-5 and 3 Nephi ch 11

The puzzles help but I don't think they make this one in Samoan and when I use it they speak English well enough i can do it that way.

Learning a language in mission is really hard, its difficult because in order to really do it I kind of need to be submersed into it, but they all speak English for the most part and with all the other elders I have to speak English so it's hard to learn the language luckily my companion is doing his best to help me but a lot of times he cant understand what I am saying in English, its frustrating some times, but other than the language things are going well.

.....and yes when I found out that right after I left there is a truck and plow and snow mobiles, ;( i would love to ride them when I get back home, that sounds like a lot of fun to me, that is quite the hobby up here for a lot of people.

I love you very much.