Elder Tyler Jones Week 6

I'm glad you guys are having a great time in Indiana. Wish grandma a happy birthday for me. Allison is going to love the etymology teacher. She's super nice and funny. When I got to the mission office dad's letter was waiting for me which was awesome to get.

So much happened this week and it was so great.

So Tuesday after my district had left I went with the zone leaders for a day. I had just slept on their couch. I had to be at reception by 3:00 AM on Wednesday and I was the only one leaving that day. I set my alarm for 2:30 so I could get their on time but I suppose they didn't trust people to get their by themselves if they were alone so I woke up at about 2:00 AM to a 50 or so year old Mexican man yelling "Buenos Dias Elder!" which was pretty funny. We left at about 3:00 for the airport. When we got there the man trying to figure out my flight was getting pretty frustrated because all of the delta flights had had a problem that messed with everyone's flights so My flight had changed slightly. But Everything was alright. In the Mexico Airport I met a man from Guatemala he had 4 kids who were 0, 2, 5, and 8. He wanted to get a picture with me to send to his kids. He also was helping me some with my Spanish. I met a man from Jerusalem in Los Angeles and we talked for a while. On my flight to San Jose the flight attendant talked to me because he had served a mission in St. Petersburg which was also cool.

I got to San Jose at about 12:30 and my mission president and his assistants were there to greet me. I pretty much had just stayed with them all day. Other people were supposed to come in the same day I came in but the Delta flight delayed everyone by a day who was coming from Utah. There was one other Elder that came in at 12:30 at night though. He was transferring here from Canada after a visa wait: Elder Ourkerk. So the Assistants and I went to pick him up. The delta issue affected him as well though and he was in an airport waiting 14 hours for his last flight. We got back to the airport and at this point I had apparently been awake for about 25 hours with the time change so Elder Ourkerk and I got to sleep in until about 7:00 while the Assistants went to get other missionaries in the morning. We had our introduction and orientation which was nice.

Friday we Got out companions. My Trainer is Elder Smith. He's super awesome as well. We're both new to the area that we're serving in right now so we've been going try to figure out who everyone is that we're supposed to be teaching. Apparently there is a lady: Juana who had been baptized but had not yet been confirmed so we've been trying to get in contact with her all week. She was never at her house when we went and she had never answered her phone but we're going to just keep on trying. We got to teach a lesson with another lady named Rosa who has committed to being baptized. We did a lot of street contacting this week as well which has been really great. We apparently don't do any tracting in this mission, only street contacting. We've gotten to set up a few appointments with people. One of them was Juan who was just sitting on his front porch rubbing his belly when we first met him but he agreed to let us come back and give a message to him and his family which is good. 

We went and did a bit of yard work for some members, in this process me and my companion took down the biggest thistle I've ever seen. This thistle was taller than either of us. It was cool seeing how big they could get. We also cut up some box springs and threw them out for them. They were from the English Ward but they were super nice. The husband was the kind of person that new a little bit about everything so he was really fun to talk to.

Going to the Spanish ward was fun. Rosa hadn't come which was disappointing but I was able to understand some of what was being said and I enjoyed it. Apparently they're in desperate need of piano players so I'm likely going to be playing piano in sacrament. We've got a little keyboard in our apartment that I've been practicing on and it's starting to come back to me.

Anyway, I'm out of time.

Love you guys,

Elder Jones

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 6

Dear Family,

We are thrilled to report that after Elder Jones arrived safely in his mission day before yesterday here in San Jose, California.  We picked him up at the airport and he was able to do get a little rest after his very early morning departure from Mexico City. He ate dinner at a member’s home, followed by an interview with me, and accompanied us to the airport to pick up another missionary.  The next day he was able to meet up with all of the other new missionaries coming in after their day-long flight delay, and they went out to do some missionary work right away.  Then we had dinner and a testimony meeting together  at the mission home. This morning, after orientation at the mission office, all of the missionaries met their new companions and went back to their areas.  Elder Jones will be serving with Elder Smith in the San Jose area.

You should expect to hear from your missionary on his next Preparation day, which will be Monday, August 15. Thank you for your prayers and support, and for sharing Elder Jones with us here in the wonderful California San Jose Mission.

Also, I encourage you to join the "California San Jose Mission Moms" Facebook page, where we often post pictures and missionary updates.

With love,

 

 

Glen D. Mella

President, California San Jose Mission

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

 

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 5

Sounds like you guys are having a good time. That´s crazy that Dan´s going into middle school. I remember how it took me forever how to figure out how to use my locker in middle school. It sounds like you have a really awesome job. That´s a sad situation but it´s cool that you get to help people like that. That´s awesome that the garden is going so well.

 I got my flight itinerary yesterday. I´m leaving next Wednesday. at about 3 in the morning. It´s kind of funny, My companion will leave Monday with the a few people in my district, then Tuesday the rest of my district will leave, then I leave Wednesday. So that´ll be exciting. I´m not sure what they´re going to have me do on Tuesday. They have a sheet that lists everyone that´s leaving this week. About half leave Monday, the other half Tuesday and then I´m the only one leaving Wednesday. But yeah. this time next week I´ll be on my way to San Jose. 

Been spending more time talking to native speakers this week. It´s been surprising that if they know that you´re not a native speaker they won´t talk super fast and so I´ve been generally able to hold a conversation with them in Spanish. So that´s been fun.

 It seems weird here seeing everyone we´ve known since we got here leave. Last week the district that we had a nearly identical schedule to left so it´s kind of strange having them gone. But I suppose that´s quenched by the excitement of us leaving so soon.

We finished our lessons with one of  our practice investigators and we have one left with the other, they´ve been going along a lot better, It´s a lot easier to teach lessons when you kind of understand Spanish. I feel like I am at the point where just talking Spanish all the time with people that really know Spanish is the main way that i´m going to get much better from here. I think I learn a lot whenever I talk with native speakers. 

I taught my roommates the "when you wake up in the morning and its a quarter to three, ya brush your teeth" song, So now Elder Pippert has been singing it all day.

I´ve been reading a lot In Mathew and Mosiah this week which I´ve really enjoyed reading. 

I guess not much changes at the MTC from week to week, but It feels like more things change from week to week since we´re just constantly learning new things. Anyway my daily schedule is pretty much:

5:30 I get up, shower, Get ready. 6:00 read scriptures until 6:50. Go to class, Get there about 7:00. Read scriptures until 7:30, go to breakfast, get back to class about 8:00, read scriptures until 9:00. Have language learning class until about 11:30, practice teaching until 12:30. Go to lunch, Go to Gymn, get back to class around 3:00 Have language learning class until about 5:00, practice teaching until 6:00. Go to dinner, Go to language learning in computer lab, at about 6:45. Go back to class around 8:00 practice teaching until about 8:20, Personal language study until 9:00, plan until 9:20. Get back to the house at 9:30, Then write in my journal, get ready for bed and read scriptures until 10:30. 

Huh, when I write that all out it seems repetitive but it´s really pretty fun and exciting every day. 

I´ve played a lot of ping pong this week during gym, I´m getting pretty alright at it. 

I´m getting my haircut today and weighing all my luggage to make sure its within the weight limits. I´ll probably also just read scriptures today.

Anyway, Love you guys,

Elder Jones

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 4

I haven´t gotten any snail mail from Dad yet, but I´ll keep looking. I did however get a package this week from Lisa Benjamin. Could you give them a big thank you for me. Sorry it´s so hot in Indiana, The weather is perfect here. Sounds like you guys are having fun. Was Allison able to run the cart down any hills or was it too muddy for that? I still remember the Children´s museum in Indianapolis. I really loved that museum. Glad Courtney and Hal are doing well in college.

I really enjoyed reading Jesus The Christ. I read it pretty much all day last week on my P-day and finished it. So that was super good. I really enjoyed it.  

Spanish is coming a long well. It´s getting easier to speak it more quickly. Our lessons are coming along well, it´s becoming a lot easier to be able to say what I want to say in Spanish. However, whenever native speakers talk together I still have almost no clue what they´re saying. So I´m going to just keep working on that. We´re getting better at speaking Spanish together all the time. So that´s helped a lot with fluidity.

It rained pretty hard this week, so the person whose umbrella we were using for our christmas tree took it back. So Christmas in July sort of ended this week. The district that shares a house with us has been getting pretty sick this week. Most of them are in bed right now. So I´ll just be trying to keep my distance for a bit.

We don´t have much to do today, Elder Creager wants to sleep for a bit so I´ll probably just read scriptures. 

We got another batch of missionaries yesterday which is always fun.

Elder Pippert and I every night give each other some problem to solve just for the fun of it. last night we determined that Elder Creager, based on the assumption that he averaged 2 glasses of orange juice per meal had drunken 5 and 1/21 gallons of orange juice while he has been here. So yeah, Elder Creager really likes orange juice. 

I´m finding ways to cut out more time for reading the scriptures. There are a fair number of breaks in the day but they´re usually short but if I read during those times It adds up to a lot.

During gym time I generally play volleyball or ping pong. There´s also a group of Latinos that play basketball together every day at the gym. They´re all in there 20´s and 30´s except this one guy that´s fairly short and seemingly in his 50´s and he seems to be the best one playing. So that´s always fun to watch. 

A lot of the same has been happening. But it´s good, glad to be here and I´m learning a lot. 

Anyway, I´ve been having a great time.

Love you guys,

Elder Jones

 

 Anyway, Some scriptures I liked this week, in case you´re interested:

Matthew 6:32-34

John 16:33

1 Nephi 10:22

Mark 10: 17-22

and I´m out of time. I hope those are right,  My scriptures are on my desk, I just have my notes with me.

 One side of my view on my way to class.

 

Here´s my view on my way to class every morning. Looks even cooler in the early morning or at night with the fog and city lights.

Letter to little bother, Dan.

Hi DaNL, Glád yóú´ré hávíñg fúñ in Iñdiaña. That´s a lot of seconds. Ill make sure to try to get a picture of myself with thumbs up this week. Hope you guys had fun at the museum, I love that museum, I still remember going there when I was younger as well. Hope you have an awesome summer.

Love,

Elder Jone

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 3

Sounds like you guys are having a lot of fun over there. Allison is going to have a great time at trek. She looks like a real pioneer.

This week was terrific. Pretty much everyone's sickness has subsided by now which is good. We got a new shipment of missionaries yesterday. There were a ton of them. We just saw a bunch of missionaries walking through the streets pulling luggage. We were helping some of them bring their luggage to their home and I was asking all of them where they were going. I have yet to find anyone here that is also going to San Jose. Everyone in my district is either going to Fort Lauderdale or New York. However If my approximations are correct in deciding how many Spanish speaking missions go to this MTC and how many missionaries are currently here and assuming that missionaries to missions are evenly distributed I should have to ask about 85 randomly selected people to find one going to San Jose. However those are some fairly hefty assumptions.... so I don´t know, Im going to keep looking. 

We aren´t going to the temple today. So we have a full preperation day today. Elder Creager wants to take a nap today so I think I´m gonna try to finish Jesus The Christ today. I´m about 400 pages in and there's a little over 300 pages left. It´s a really good book. I love the perspective and insight that he has on the life of the savior. 

We also switched Classrooms this week. We moved to the Brigham Young building which is just across the street. I really like the new building because in the hallway to our classroom there´s a bunch of beautiful paintings of Christ placed in chronological order. There´s also construction right outside the window of our classroom which one might think as a bad thing but there´s a construction worker that often works right outside our window that loves to sing songs in Spanish while he is working. I don´t think he knows we can hear him but that´s fun.

The CCM is starting to get packed. The auditorium can´t fit all of the missionaries so they´re starting to set up chairs right outside of the auditorium so people can listen to the devotionals. So we´ve been trying to get to devotionals 20 or so minutes early now. On Sunday they showed us a video called ´´the testaments¨ (side note, I don´t know how to use quotation marks or apostrophes on Spanish keyboards so I´ve just been using the accent key without a letter) But I really enjoyed the video. It was basically telling the story of the first 10 or so chapters of third Nephi while simultaneously telling the story of the life of Christ.

The Lessons are getting better. Spanish is becoming a bit more fluid and lessons can generally go alright. We did TRC this week which is where they have people that only speak Spanish volunteer to come in and we give them a lesson. We had 2 lessons. One was with a slightly older man and when he started talking I had absolutely no idea what he was saying. So i said ´´si´´ a lot. But we had another lessons with someone who seemed like they were in their mid twentys  and we could understand them pretty well.

District volleyball hasn´t been happening as much anymore but while Elder Creager plays basketball there´s another elder that plays ping pong with me right next to the basketball court. He´s really good at it but I think I´m slowly getting better. I also played Foosball with 3 other elders that only spoke Spanish and it was super fun because they were getting super excited over it, shouting whenever the ball went in the goal.

I can see why Hal thought taking Latin was helpful with learning Spanish. At the beginning it was slightly difficult because I was mixing up Spanish and Latin vocabulary but I think Latin grammar is way more intense than Spanish grammar so you really need to understand how grammar works and what it does. So when we learn it in Spanish it seems relatively simple. The only challenging part is that in Latin you could have like 10 mins to translate a line whereas with Spanish you´ve got to do it quick enough to speak it. 

I´ve found 3 elder Jones´s so far, so we´re good friends. There´s also an elder in my house that looks almost exactly like Mr. Bean. He ended up finding someone who´s last name actually was bean and borrowed his name tag for a minute so he could have a picture with the name tag of Elder Bean.

I´m running low on time but i´m glad you guys are having a good time in Indiana, hope all is well. Love you guys.

 Here´s a photo of my district at the temple. The Elder next to me is Elder Creager, On the left side, the elder on the far left and the one with a book in his hand are our room mates.

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 2

Sounds like you guys are having a blast. Make sure to tell Tina, "she´s a fat lard." That´s amazing that you guys can actually fit both cars in there. I would´ve never guessed that they both would have fit.

This week was stupendous. Elder Creager is from Utah. The Spanish is coming along pretty well. I´m starting to be able to talk fluidly with a few pauses and stutters here and there. We´ve tried talking to some natives and it was decently easy but I think they must talk like babies with us because whenever they talk with one another I have absolutely no clue what they´re saying.

The food here is really good. At breakfast they have this mango yogurt drink that is super good. So I usually just get one of those for breakfast. 

This week was fun. We had a mini plague go through our district. My companion got a lung infection, we had a couple elders go to the hospital and pretty much everyone had a sickness of some kind. I was pretty fortunate to only get a sore throat, congestion and coughing. We went into the clinic for my companion´s lung infection and I suppose I must have been coughing more than normal or have just looked sick because the doctor wanted to look at me. Ended up I was alright, I didn´t have strep or anything. He just gave me some liquid to gargle and some cough drops. However, that was singly the most nasty thing I´ve ever gargled, but it was alright. However, one good thing about it was that they have a ton of Ensigns in the waiting room of the clinic. I don´t know if the one I read was recent or not but it was about Christ and included a bunch of quotes from prophets about him.

This is one that I really liked and wrote down in my notebook. Its by Joseph Smith.

¨The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the apostles and prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that he died was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it¨.

I got to go to the temple last Wednesday. The Mexico city temple is so beautiful. they have the coolest paintings in there. We got headphones to listen in English as well. We also get to go to the temple today. And we might go next week and I don´t know the plan after that. So I´m super excited for that.

This week the elders that first tried to do their laundry ended up with white shirts that looked like they had tire marks on them. So I waited until that was figured out to do my laundry. They have little detergent pods at the store that are super squishy and fun. I got some of those and did a few loads of laundry, I´ve got my whites in the washer right now. 

We get about 100 pesos a week which is about the equivalent of a little over 5$ to spend at the store here. I´ve heard that they don´t make any profit off that store so things are super cheap. So far I´ve gotten a bunch of squishy detergent pods, a Spanish hymnal and they had a set of books including True to the faith, our heritage, our search for happiness and Jesus the Christ for about 175 pesos. I got those books last night and they´re super good so far. 

Sorry you guys are having hot weather in Indiana, Here it´s absolutely perfect. There is rain but it´s always slightly cool in the morning and only gets slightly warm in mid day. Although this week we were on our way to language learning and Elder Creager suggested that we go to the house to get an umbrella. While we were on our way it started pouring and hailing a little bit. We got to the house and got the umbrella but with how hard it was pouring the umbrella didn´t really do anything. So we got to class drenched in water. But it was alright, we dried off. 

The people in our house are doing Christmas in July for some reason. They put an umbrella in the middle of the front room, wrapped it in green paper and put a little foam star on top of it. So there are Spanish Christmas carols every night now which is pretty fun. 

We have 2 people that we practice teaching in Spanish to now as well. We can pretty much go without notes all the time at this point and the lessons are starting to go a lot better than they used to. I accidentally mixed up the word pecado and pescado in a lesson which was super funny since pecado means sin and pescado means fish.

We had over 200 missionaries arrive last night. There were under 50 that came the Tuesday that I arrived. The number of missionaries here is supposed to double by the end of the month. When we first arrived I remember hearing everyone talking in Spanish and not knowing what they´re saying and being worried about how I don´t know what anyone´s saying. So consequently Elder Creager and I have a lot of fun talking in Spanish as fast as we can with newly arriving missionaries.

Elder Creager and I are going to go get our hair cut in about 15 minutes. 

Thanks for writing,

Hope you guys have a great week!

 

 Oh I also realized I never wrote down my line of authority. I haven´t needed it yet but if you could ask someone to send it to me that would be great. Thanks!

Elder Tyler Maxwell Jones Week 1

Hey! Sounds like you guys had an awesome time on the fourth of July. On our Fourth of July everyone in our district and the district right next to us stood up and sang the national anthem to a American flag patterned scarf. So that was pretty fun. The natives thought we were kind of weird though. They also gave us American food on the Fourth of July: Root beer and hamburgers.

I´m going to try to be more creative in my adjective choice for describing my week than Hal and Courtney.

So this week was really Spanish. I had a great time. There were 7 missionaries on my flight from Atlanta to Mexico City. I actually knew one of them from when he was in my EFY group in normal: Elder Thomson. He had actually shown up late and was running to get on but I was surprised and happy to see him. He´ll be going Spanish speaking to the Provo, Utah Mission. I got through immigration okay but since there was a big group of missionaries and  was last ´m pretty sure the lady stopped caring once she got to me. Once we came out of immigration there were some people waiting for us to bring us to the CCM. They were so awesome they were trying to speak english with us because they knew that we didn´t know Spanish. They were so happy and they loved making jokes so that was awesome. 

Mexico City is so beautiful. When we were flying over it I was amazed at how huge it was. The city just extends on for seemingly ever across hills and valleys. They took us on a bus from the airport to the CCM. The city is so beautiful with all the houses being brightly colored and compact. Driving in Mexico city is awesome. I don´t think I´ve ever seen so many cars so close together moving so quickly. It was about a 45 minute drive. 

When we showed up at the CCM we went into the Thomas S. Monson building for our orientation. They reviewed our vaccine records and a few of us elders had to get another tetanus shot. But the nurse gave me a little fun size chocolate bar so that was good. There were 4 elders with me when we arrived and we´re all in the same house. We walked around trying to find everything our first day. A lot of people had told me that there was going to be a lot to do on the first day but I guess at this MTC they didn´t have anything for us to do our first day other than orientation and then at night a devotional. There was a maintenance man and one of the elders asked if it was okay to drink the tap water in the CCM. He told us " No, your estomach explode". 

The devotional was by the person who is in charge of all of the MTC´s worldwide. He showed us pictures of all of them and some of the things they were planning on doing. He told us that the CCM is the best MTC. The CCM is the biggest MTC in acres and we have fewer missionaries than Provo so that´s awesome. 

When we got back to the house all the elders that were arriving later in the day were there. My Companion is Elder Creager. He´s super awesome. We´re both really determined to learn Spanish. We study a lot and try to use Spanish with whoever we can. We´re rooming with Elder Widney and Elder Pippert. I´m really glad I got put with these elders as well. Behind our house beyond the CCM wall there´s what looks to be a 4 giant lego arms sticking up out of the ground and we were all theorizing on what it could be but Elder Widney said that it looks like a dead robot cat laying on its back so we´ve just taken to calling it "El Gato Robot".

My Spanish is coming along well. I´ve been trying to listen to the native speakers and i´ve been surprised that I was able to generally understand what they were talking about. "Generally understanding" meaning being able to pick up a few words and guess what they´re probably saying. I feel like I´ve learned more Spanish than I did in the 2 years in Spanish. The teachers speak slowly with us so I´ts easier to understand what they´re saying. 

They really do just drop you into speaking the language here. On our second day they had us teaching lessons with a pretend investigator entirely in Spanish. My first Lesson I brought in 4 pages of notes. I don´t think i would´ve been able to say much more than "¿Como esta?" or "¿Empmizamos con un oración?". If I didn´t have notes. I even had notes on how to pray in Spanish. Yesterday we gave our 5th lesson and I was able to go in with just my Spanish scriptures and a pamphlet to give him. That lesson wen´t well, I´m sure i made grammatical mistakes but it was okay, we were still able to get our message across. I was really excited after that lesson.

Adapting to missionary life is kinda weird. Thinking things like "I only have an hour a day to read my scriptures in English" is weird relative to life before going on a mission. I think a lot of missionaries here have seen "the other side of heaven" because a lot are trying to just learn Spanish by reading back and forth out of their English and Spanish scriptures during language study. I guess if that works for them, that´s good. They gave us 4 books that explain all the grammar and a list of all the most important vocabulary so I´ve just been using those. 

The view from the CCM is beautiful being surrounded with mountains and houses on the sides. It´s even more beautiful at night. The Weather has been amazing this week, We play volleyball every day in gym. Elder Creager and I haven´t been bitten by mosquitoes yet but others have, Elder Creager theorizes that it´s because we drink a glass of orange juice at every meal. I´m not so sure about that but whatever it is, its working. 

I´m out of time, talk to you guys in a week. Spanish keyboards have ñ.

love, tyler