Monday, May 9, 2011

(This letter from Tyler is fairly short.....
he called yesterday for Mother's Day!)

It's fine that you did not chat more, in case you had not noticed I never really spent much time on the phone, I never really know what to say to people. I don't know the official rules for how long, just around an hour or so, next time my companion (whoever it is) and I will do a better job at finding some one with Skype, as we are allowed to do that.

I really enjoy just teaching about Christ, I don't know if you have read it but one of the books we have is Jesus The Christ, by Talmage, people seem to respond to that pretty well.

Because I am the junior companion Elder Grawrock decides what we do on p-day, we usually go play sports for about 3 or 4 hours with a bunch of missionaries in our zone, there is not a whole lot to do here on p-days anyways. We are allowed to go to zoos, and museums and that kind of stuff, we can go hiking. I'm sad we can't go swimming, even though it is cold, or snow machining, ATV's and shooting guns and stuff with members.
left Elder Grawrock ,right Elder Loveland he was incharge of our vehichles in the mission.

I'll try to send some cool pictures.

So I spent $50 dollars on clothing, can I use some money for food?

Monday, May 2, 2011

So the package got here but was kinda a gooy moldy mess....the strawberries looked so good and yet so bad, even in the state they were in they still looked better than the strawberries in stores here (the less moldy ones and less bruised ones anyways), due to the mold I did not try any. I think it would be best to hold off on trying that kind of stuff till I am in Juneau or Anchorage somewhere easier to get it to, also they were in a soft box like the kind they make cereal boxes that is real thin. The other package also arrived Monday, thank you very much for the candy and letters. The prescription medication seems to be working my nose has been pretty clear.

We have 2 investigators on date for June 18th, Page 16 and Luke 15, they are siblings in a non-member family that have taken it upon themselves to investigate the church and to seek after what is right, this is really surprising to everyone for teens of their age to be doing that themselves. We are pretty excited about that especially because they put themselves on date to get their parents more involved in learning about the church.

I have had a pretty good week so far. I went on an exchange with the zone leaders and we did a little bit of tracting, we caused a puppy to pee all over the place at the first house (it was very excited) then 6 pugs at the next house would not let the man hear us, we said we'd try back, then a lady talked about some very bad experiences with her older brother claiming to be a Mormon and that the Book of Mormon was the only scripture allowed in the house, threw out the bibles, and said the Mormon church told him it was ok to drink lots of alcohol and to beat your wife and family, we tried to explain that none of those things have ever been accepted in our church and we made it clear that there are many off shoots, but she said she is still so traumatized from him that she could not let us in. That was my first tracting experience. My next one later that day went better we found 2 less actives and 2 who were open to us coming by and all 4 gave us phone numbers, names and better times to come by, one said that her door was always open to us. We don't tract where I am, I am in the Wasilla Zone but my area is just north of there we cover from Houston to above Talkeetna.
The red X is where our house is, the circle is where our church is and the outline shows our entire area at least up and down, it might be wider or narrower it is about the same distance as going from Rexburg to American Falls.

We drive a 2011 Chevy Colorado truck, the senior campions usually get the designated driver, I am the "co-driver" I sit there. There are quite a few trucks in our mission. Without a truck even getting to our house becomes very hard during the winter here, without a truck we could not visit many of our investigators or members. There is one ward that covers all of Willow, Big Lake, and Houston that has around 300 active I believe, that is our ward. Talkeetna Branch has about 30 active LDS members.

Also did you hear the big news??? Osama Bin Laden was killed yesterday in a shoot out with navy seals. I am really happy that at least the search for him is finally done. We were at a members house, the older couple we visited earlier, they got a telephone call, then we got one from a member and they turned on the news about it. Apparently there is quite a bit of excitement everywhere about that. It is funny because it was told to a New York baseball team during their game, in the 9th inning with it tied 1-1 9-11 weird.

I love you and thanks for the package.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Q: Did you get your strawberries and package?
Tyler: Hey I have not gotten any box, I'm not sure exactly how it works here, no one has mail boxes apparently, they get a box somewhere that everything is dropped off to and the Jones pick them up and give them to us. idk what will happen. No strawberries either. : (
Q: What did you do for Easter?
Tyler: We ate at a members house. They used gold silverware (at least it looked like gold) and they had the whole family over, then we went to an older couples house and helped them with their computer and they gave us some Easter treats with our name on them, they treat the missionaries like their kids.
Q: Who is your new companion?
Tyler: So my new companion is Elder Grawrock, we get along just fine but we have pretty much nothing in common. He is from Aloah Oregon, and thinks Oregon is better than California in every way, we don't let that get past joking arguments. He really likes to work out, we get up at like 5 some mornings and work out and other mornings we get up at 6 to go to seminary in the Jones house because he teaches seminar. I have not been getting to sleep lately, I just sit there and think but I am trying a new thing to get to sleep and it seems to help so far.
Q: Do you like to exercise or do you do it because your companion makes you?
Tyler: The second one. When I say exercise I am talking about an hour plus work out at a members "gym" where I hurt after we are done, it is not lose weight stay in shape exercise it is get big muscle exercises. We have a treadmill at our place and not exercising is not an option. I'm already awake so I do the exercises with a lot less weight than he does.
Q: Where do you live?
Tyler: We live in a cabin separate from the Jones house, about 50 feet from the house. We use the whole cabin, it is just a kitchen with a loft above that we sleep in with a bathroom and shower on lower floor.On Thursday I met a Danish photographer artist something or other. We were waiting for interviews at the church with Pres. & Sis. Dance and a man came in and asked me if he could speak with our pastor. I told him that I can try to help him get in contact with the Bishop. He explained that he was doing a story or something like that on the Wasilla area and found that the area is very religious and is going around to the different churches and talking with the church leaders and doing sketches of them, to show the variety in the area or something like that. His name was Rasmus, this is a picture of him. I told him that my dad served in Denmark in the 80's? and he said that Denmark has changed quite a bit since then, he said he remembers seeing Americans dressed like us around Denmark and that a friend of his apparently followed some of them around and became good friends of the missionaries.

April 18, 2011

How is everything at home? Things are going well here. My last companion Elder Winterrose said he thinks I am the only Elder in our mission who has had 6 baptisms in his first area. I am having a lot of fun teaching people what I know about the Gospel.

President Dance declared a NO caffeine while on our mission rule that other Elders are struggling with. I'm glad I never drink any. It has not been very cold here, for the most part, it just feels like Rexburg. It has snowed pretty good at least once per week this last 3 weeks. The weather in general sounds the same.

I'm glad to hear about Kolby's call, it is cool to hear about all the people coming home and leaving. Thanks for mentioning Kay I was actually going to ask you today about him.
This is a picture of the chapel and foyer in the Willow Ward in Wasilla it is like a log cabin and its pretty nice. My companion says most of them in the bush here are like that.


This is Elder Ofly he was my district leader. He just went home on April 13th.

Being Transferred tomorrow!

April 11, 2011

I am being transferred tomorrow to Wasilla just north of Anchorage about an hour. I will have a new companion. I will be busy packing most of today. I'm excited but, I also kind of wanted to stay. Transfer happen every 6 weeks.

My weekend has been good the investigator we had was baptized and confirmed.

Monday, April 4, 2011

No baptism this week however we have one Friday night.

Conference was very good we watched it at the Stake Center from 8am-10am and 12-2pm, everything is 2 hours earlier. I really liked the talk about how the gospel comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. I thought that was a pretty funny ...all of the talks were really good though. We watched it in English, but it was also in Samoan, Tongan and Spanish. Having to learn language in the missionfield and not having much time to do so yet would mean I would not understand anything unless they said full, hungry, fine, awesome, hello, goodbye and a few other things in Samoan. I'm still working on pronunciation and things limiting my time to practice. We are working hard but lots of things that happen to fall on this month have limited it.

No fishing license yet, to much ice in between us an the fish, that will start in early summer and late spring.

Our recent convert from last week watched all of the conference and the 2 hours of shows in between them as well and really enjoyed it. Her non-member husband watched it as well and seemed to enjoy it. She was very surprised by the fact he stayed for all of it. During our lessons he always got up and left after about half an hour. (not disruptively, he just left).

I was wondering.... what is the possibility that we could mail some fresh salmon down to Pablo and he could overnight me a flat of strawberries or something like that. I really want some fresh strawberries and our members have lots of salmon and I think it sounds like a fair trade. Could you investigate. Also my members wife is in love with Pablo's seasoning she wants to find out if she can order a bunch of it. Yes that's right she wants to pay for it because she could not find it in the stores here. She went on the website and sent a letter inquiring about it.

I love you very much!

March 28, 2010

My first baptism!

All 5 people were baptized and confirmed this Saturday and Sunday as planned. On Sunday we put another investigator on date. I got to baptize one of the 5, my companion baptized one, a previous elder who helped them baptized one, a brother baptized his sister and one baptized his cousin. I got to do a confirmation as well.

Elder Justin White, Raihana H., Elder Britton Winterrose, Bethany P., Lucy H., Sister Sarai T., Shelena H., Elder Tyler Williams, Barcelona P., Brother Jason S., Brother Ben P.

Elder Winterrose baptized Lucy, Elder White baptized Raihana, Elder Williams baptized Shelena, Jason baptized Lona, and Ben baptized Bethany.

This is the chapel we attend.
This is where we live.

This picture shows where our house is compared to our area. Our house is the red x our area is that whole red square. there are other wards in that but our Samoan ward covers that whole area. (Samoan) people only. I was just taking a second look at the area map I sent you the top right side up there is covered by us as well. With the areas like Russion Jack and Mountain View.

This picture the red square is where our chapel is the blue dot is where our house is. Our house is on the north side of the street.

We can go on hikes and visit places if we don't leave our zone on p-days. Sometimes we hang out with the other missionaries at the church.

Other than that nothing interesting has really happened. I heard Chris had to help you with my computer and that it is now the one upstairs. That is a good idea seeing how dad did not need a computer that nice at his office. Mine will do anything you really could possibly need at home. I'm worried about when Chris moves out because no one will be there to help with the computers.

Well I love you all, bye.