Letter October 28, 2011

Yeah Elder Rodeback told me that his mom met you! Thats awesome. He isn't my companion but him and his companion are in my same bedroom. He is a cool dude..erm...i mean elder. Thats cool that the mission president's wife has a blog. Whenever I think of missions I think that they are totally against technology but i'm glad to see some progressiveness. The no caffeine thing is pretty valiant of you. Thats nuts. I hope your headaches go away soon. I'm fortunate enough to never have a headache when i stop drinking caffeine. They sell caffeine free mtn dew and dr pepper here at the mtc and it suffices my need for mtn dew but it just isn't the same. When you send the next package with the big coat, some more mtn dew would be awesome. :) I loved the last time.

 

I'm glad Marly likes getting letters. I kinda felt wierd about her getting all those letters at the same time but esta bien. I don't think Elder Call or Elder Dockstader are going to write her back though. They say that they felt wierd about it and i was like whatever. But if she only writes two back make sure she writes Rushton and Weight. Those guys are the coolest. And Rushton lives really close to Logandale, Nevada. So she could probs see him again.

 

Derek is talking! haha thats so cool. Its only been a month! I wonder if he knows more english than I know spanish. haha probably not, I can understand a lof of spanish. I wish I could just speak it better.

 

I will write to Grams and brandon! Thanks for the addresses. Could you find out if Brandon took my ukulele to wherever he went? if he didn't could you get it and send it to me? I miss it. And on PDays I have so much time to play it.

 

Anyways, my week has been pretty bland. Everyday is the same here, which is a good and a bad thing. The spirit is strong everyday. We are almost done learning all the grammar principles in our book which is crazy but really cool. We go over them so fast that it will be nice to have a couple weeks just to review what I missed or have forgotten.

 

I've been teaching lessons to "investigators" in spanish since day 3 and I really look forward to teaching. The other day me and my comp taught la ley de castidad to our investigator miguel who already has a baptismal date. He said that he is living with his girlfriend and he doesn't know if he could live the law of chastity. So I told him that if he prays about it he'll get an answer and he'll know that living chastity will greatly bless his life. So the next day we went to check up on him and he said that he wasn't going to move out of his girlfriends house. we got all bummed real quick. but then he said HE IS GOING TO PLAN A WEDDING! Me and elder dockstader practically jumped for joy! It was awesome. Our investigators are just our teachers acting like a real person that they taught while on their missions. Its fun.

October 21

Hahaha i'm so happy to be here! And I can't stop using the nacho libre quotes. They just flow out of me when i'm trying to speak spanish and I can't think of the word to use. Thats cool that you are being the cool mom, where was that a couple months ago? (5) Just kidding, you're a cool mom.

 

Thats cool about the race! That sounds super sick. I miss running so much. One of my teachers is trying to walk on to the BYU track team as an 800 runner. Thats nuts. You gotta be so fast to do that. And I think i've decided that after my year at MCC after the mish I might want to come to BYU and then teach spanish at the MTC. That would be the coolest job ever. I've got the coolest teachers in the world. I will try to walk on at BYU as a steepler. Not many teams have a guy that speacializes in the steeple so that could work for my advantage.

 

I don't have a lot of time today, sorry. But tell people to write me dear elders and I can write them back a hand written letter that night. Love you!

 

Vance.

 

PS: did you like the pics i sent? I'll send more soon.

This is just like my boy

This is so like my little boy, sending us letters like this in the mail.  I suppose this is one aspect of his personality that I hope sticks around as the boy turns into a man on his mission.  I'm even more glad there was another letter in there that started Dear Mother and went on for two pages...
If you can't read it (I took the picture with my phone while hanging on the fridge), it says

  

SHARE THE GOSPEL WITH YOUR FRIENDS
 ¡Es muy importante!  I'm concerned about their salvation...and stuff.  -Nacho Libre

Love, Vance 

October 14 Pictures!!

We also get a real letter in the mail today, the third one we have gotten, he writes individual stuff to those that have written him.  But, in this envelope, there were also pictures.  Enjoy. I included the captions that he had written on the back.  His companion is Dockstader, who is from Florence, AZ, small world.

Top L-R Bradley, Call, Rodeback, Dockstader
Bottom: Gillins, Sherwood, Lund, Johnson
The senior comps are standing, we switch at 4.5 weeks

The Elders in my Residence Room, we aren't supposed
to call them dorms.

All the members of District 35A Most going to Paraguay, 4 of them
going to Salta, Argentina.  The Hermanas from L-R are:
Willnaver, Jones, Applegate
My companion is the one on the far right.

My desk
Note from mom:  I'm surprised it looks so clean.

October 14, 2011

(FYI, I don't know why it highlights it in white sometimes, it is really frustrating me because I can't seem to get rid of it.  Bear with me until I figure it out.)


Got this one at 5:55am:

But, just so you know my PDay is Friday and I'll either be writing you between 6 and 7 or between 3 and 4. Those are the times we can do laundry. And, about the sweaters, I have two that I wear to gym and stuff but I can't wear them with my shirt and tie. So yeah. But I am looking forward to the package with some church sweaters. And any word on missionshoe.org? Anyways, on to the email.

Ok, so I thought I had this great Idea to write my whole email in a journal entry on LDS.org and then copy and paste it into the email to save email time. These computers are so restricted, copying and pasting doesn't even work. So gay. So heres the thing, i wrote a super long email and can't send it to you. But you can go online and read my study journal. the username is vancejohnson and the password is wrestler0. Sorry about that, but just copy and paste that schedule onto my blog or whatever. its pretty accurate and in depth.

Have a good weeek!

Then got this one at 6:24:

JK I figured it out! :) Have a good day.

Hello family. Thank you for all the letters that you've sent, i appreciate the dear elders and the hand written ones. Either one is cool with me! :) In one of mom's letters she said that everyone wanted to know what I do everyday. Like from when I get up to when I go to sleep. Its a pretty monotonous schedule but If you really want to know, I will tell you. Although I'm like the fastest typist ever, I didn't think I could type all of this out in the 30 minutes I have on the computer and still get to my other emails so I found a "online study journal" on LDS.org and i'm typing it all out in there right now so that when I open up my email I can just copy and paste it in there and then still have like 29 minutes left of email! I'm so smart. Ok anyways, on to the schedule.

6:20: Wake up, run to the showers because if you aren't one of the first ones to shower you don't have any hot water. Sometimes we don't shower right now because we have gym but i'll give you my wednesday schedule because its my favorite.

7:00: Personal study in shirt and tie in our classroom. We aren't allowed to do anything in our dorm rooms except sleep. All our time

is spent in our classroom which is about the size of my bedroom at home with 11 people in it. I have a tiny desk in which I'm supposed to be studying my spanish preach my gospel along side my english one while looking up scriptures in my english book of mormon then reading it in spanish. Its hard to have 4 books open on a tiny desk.

8:00: Breakfast. The breakfast is usually eggs and some kind of meat. Just cafeteria eggs, not good ones.

8:30: Companionship study. Same thing as personal, but with your companion. During comp study we usually plan our lesson for our progessing investigator. 

9:45: Class time. This is when we have our teacher come in. Its either Bro. Talataina or Bro. Thomas. They both are returned missionaries who came back to the MTC to teach because they love missionary work. They are both super cool guys. I really like Bro. Thomas because he ran at BYU Hawaii before his mission and is trying to get on the BYU provo team right now. Him and I talk about running a lot. It makes me miss running, but I love it. 

12:45: Lunch time. Meh. We check the mail after lunch and that is when we get our hand written letters. I look forward to lunch mostly for this reason only. 

1:40: Language study. This is where the district sits in our classroom and we study spanish. No teacher, just the spirit and a textbook. Its really tough to stay on task during this time because the guidelines of what you are supposed to be studying is super loose. Lately I just practice my verb conjugations.

2:45: TALL. Tall stands for technology assisted language learning and its just spanish practice on the computer. its pretty cool. I like it, but as i'm progressing in my spanish its getting harder and harder. The cool thing about it is, we have to wear headphones because the person on the program will say words and you have to repeat them back through the microphone attached to the headphones. But when i'm doing a part of the program that doesn't involve listening to the person talk, i listen to music on lds.org. If you go to lds.org, click menu, then click youth you can listen to a bunch of seminary and efy type music. My favorite song right now is called "Seeking Whats Good" I highly recommend you look it up.

4:05: Gym time! Gym in the afternoon is the bomb diggity! I love it so much because in the afternoon the excercise field is open and we get to play soccer! I never thought I would look forward to running around in the outdoors so much. But after being in a class for 14 hours a day, its awesome to get an hour outside. I met an elder who likes to run so we go on companionship exchanges and I run with him around the field. 2 laps make a mile and the other day we did a fartlek! Too bad he is going to Argentina in like 4 days. 

5:45: Dinner. Dinner is usually the best meal of the day. They are really good here at the mtc with not having the same meal twice. I think since i've been here i've only had the same meal more than once, twice. And it was a turkey bacon avocado sandwich, which i love. Not as good as quiznos, but acceptable. 

6:30: Class time again. 3 more hours of class time whith the teacher that didn't teach this morning. Same stuff. Guided language study, doctrine of christ, progressing investigator and coaching missionary study. All good stuff.

9:30: Go back to our dorms and unwind. We usally write in our journal, do some abs, talk to other missionaries in our zone and just chill. At 10:15 everyone goes back to their own rooms.

10:30: lights out. Tough day. Tomorrow, we do it all again.

That is my daily schedule, its rough at times but it seems to fly by. Here in the mtc they say that the days feel like weeks but the weeks feel like days and its so true. They also say the MTC is like prison except for in prison you get visitors. So yeah. 

October 7, 2011

So, Since I emailed you last, lots of stuff has happened.

Conference in the MTC was a awesome. I don't think I ever learned as much in one session of conference.

Three days after entering the MTC me and my companion had to teach an "investigator" his first lesson ever, in spanish! Talk about a humbling experience. But on our third lesson with this investigator, who is really just a teacher here at the mtc, we committed him to baptism! That is the point that I really felt like a missionary. Even though I didn't totally know what he was saying all the time or what I was saying all the time the spirit was there and it was cool.

Me and my comp are doing really well, and haven't gotten in a fight or anything yet so thats good. At first, I didn't notice a lot of things about the idiosyncrasies about the elders in my district but they are all starting to come out now. its kind of annoying but these are things i'm going to have to learn to deal with. One elder laughs really obnoxiously and I can't help but mimic it and then everyone laughs even harder. Its really funny actually. I don't think i've ever laughed as hard as I do here in the ccm. (mtc in spanish) I love my district and i love my comp.

I'm really loving the dearelders that I am getting, keep them coming.  Anyone can write me on there and I love it!

If you are reading this and you are wondering why i'm not using any spanish, you have to write me a personal letter and i'll spanish it up for you. :) anyways, have a good day everyone and I love you all. 

First Letter Home

I left the new baptism pants in the dryer but I have dad's old ones with me that will work with my white belt. Marly told me she figured out my voicemail password, it is ****. I sent home a real letter. It is way better to get mail than to get emails but I appreciate both. I really like the dear elder things. Lots of people get those everyday. and they print out the dear elders twice a day here so i could get mail twice a day potentially. I realized that i'm definitely going to need those shoes from missionshoe.org. so if you could order those and send them to me that would be great. I need a size 10 in the "tracting deluxe" shoe. plus i need insoles as well. Thank you!!!

 

The mtc is great! my spanish is coming along well and as i'm typing this I can't help but think about how to say it en espanol. And with the lack of vocabulary and the abundance in spanish accents, the nacho libre quotes can't help but be said. I don't know how long it is going to take until we all hate that movie but for now it is a good source of comic relief. Pretty much my daily schedule includes a couple hours of personal study, which i'm enjoying alot btw. An hour or so of companionship study and the rest is personal language study and classroom instruction. My teacher is hermano talataina. (pronounce all the vowels like this "tal-ahh-tah-eena") He is really cool. He refuses to speak english to us most of the time though. It is tough but i am understanding most of what he is saying.

 

My companion is named Elder Dockstader and he is from Florence, AZ! We lived like 20 minutes away from each other but never met. We even know some of the same people. He knows the chapmans from coolidge and Jake Tanner and Max McMillan. he is super cool and we get along really well. Other than that, nothing really is happening around here. Its kinda crazy to not know what is going on at home but Its also kinda nice not having to worry about anything but studying the gospel and spanish. Its fun.

 

Anyways, I love you all!

 

Elder Vance Johnson

PS: Tell people to write me letters. :)