Monday, September 27, 2010

September 27th 2010

Elder Tyler Arnett was sick through the night with he thinks food poisoning. So sorry there is no letter this week. He says he should be up and going in a couple of days. So next week we look forward to an email.

Monday, September 20, 2010

September 20th 2010

September 20th 2010 to Ty’s blog

Man what a week. So I’ll answer the questions first this time so I don't forget. I haven't been to the temple yet. We are allowed to go every three months which is every other transfer but since I was in Stockton before it would have been too hard to find a member going up to the temple which is like two hours away. So yes we can go but no I have not gone. And also no I did not baptize the Jordan’s. The Mom, who is a member, had her dad baptize them. It was still really cool though to be there and see it and know that I helped get em there.

So this week was kind of crazy. On Monday we played a lot of basketball after emailing. We played speed and I was in the final two like three games in a row which is a miracle because I suck at basketball. And I was dying. Like everyone was laughing because I looked so dead. I haven't ran that much since football. It felt kind of nice. Me and my companion go running sometimes. Who would have thought I’d actually go running. So I was pretty tired that night. But Tuesday was a great day. Actually I would go as far to say it was a terrific day! We had interviews with President Jardine and then training from him and his wife. We learned so much from him on how to help us work more with the members to find people to teach and both he and his wife are amazing teachers. I love having interviews with him as well. I can feel his love so much as we’re talking. He told me he has high expectations for me and that he is going to stretch me to reach them. So that was real nice to hear and kind of ignited a fire in me again and has me pumped for Jesus! So the rest of Tuesday we were on a spiritual high and the day was wonderful. We had splits with some guys in the ward and we went and visited a less active family and the guy told us he wanted to turn his life around because he needs something better for him and his kids. So that was wonderful. Then we switched up for exchanges on Tuesday night and I left to go with Elder Tune (toonay) who is actually from Kiribati. Which is where elder Taritai is from and where Hudson and Jackson are from. So I went to his apartment and guess what I found there... a Ukulele! He had it without permission. So that’s against the rules but I still played it. It’s not my apartment. And it was amazing to get to play all night long. I played a little bit on Wednesday as well. He couldn't understand how a fat white kid from Arizona could be so good at it. So Wednesday was a weird day. So at home I couldn't sleep with my fan on because I would get sick. Dad taught me that one. So when I slept in their apartment Tuesday night they had the fan on which blew right on my face so when I woke up I kind of felt groggy and as the day went on it kind of got worse and I felt real stuffed up. So I just went through the day as if I wasn't sick and it wasn't too bad. It was fun being with Elder Tune. He knows like Hudson’s whole family. It was cool to talk to him about it. I want to go to Kiribati so bad some day. So I had my companion and a couple of other missionaries give me a blessing because I didn't want to be sick. Then on Thursday morning I was even more sick so I called the Lady who is on a mission here over our medical stuff and she had me get some medicine from Walgreens. The only kind they had there with all the drugs she wanted was a night time kind so I was super tired all day Thursday and pretty much dead to the world. But we still worked hard and we taught a black guy whose name is Leon. His wife died about four months ago from cancer and he was recently visiting Utah and saw the temple and was intrigued so he had us come by. I think we will see promising things from him as we follow spiriting in teaching him. Then Friday I was still a little under the weather so I kept taking the medicine. My asthma hadn't really gotten bad yet so I was fine on the bike. So we had a good day seeing a lot of people. We taught a couple of less actives and got a return with a guy who seemed real interested. It was a good day. Then on Saturday I had to call the medicine lady back and she told me to get a different kind of medicine cuz it had moved to my chest and then told me to take it easy which are words a missionary never wants to hear. And so I went and got the medicine. I didn't really take it easy. I just came home every four hours to take more medicine and a breathing treatment because by then my asthma was all jacked up. Which reminds me. MOM I need more medicine for the breathing machine and a new inhaler. So that was a dent in the day. But we got these really cool wood pens from this guy in our ward. They are made from Bethlehem olive tree wood. It was cool. Their normally like forty bucks but he gave them to us for free! One of the many joys of being a disciple of Jesus Christ. On Saturday I broke another spoke... so we had a member take us over and get it fixed and the guy charged me 26 bucks! to fix in five min. It was ridiculous but we got free pens. Then we went to a ward party/bbq. The bishop wanted us to play football with him and some young men so we did, which was probably a bad idea with my sickness. It was fun though and the ward really likes us more now and sees us as normal cool guys and they trust us a lot more now. It’s great. So naturally we had church on Sunday. It was good of course. I love church. Five hours of it is pretty hard though. Especially when you get hungry and don't have any food. So that was a good day. This morning I got a hair cut from this guy in our stake. It is a wonderful hair cut I’ll take pictures. He gave me some great gel too that actually works for my hair so that’s exciting. The medical lady called me this morning again. My asthma hasn't calmed down as much as she would like so she’s having me go to a clinic to get it checked out so maybe wait till next week to send me medicine cuz they might have me get some other stuff. I don't know. Don't freak out though. My asthma isn't that bad. It’s nothing more than I’ve experienced with football and stuff so I’m really fine. I just want it to go away so this clinic may help. So yeah. My mission president called me and told me to go cuz it could help me so maybe they will give me some miracle medicine that only people in California can get. Who knows. I have a few minutes left so I’ll tell you what I learned this week. I learned that I need to work harder. I need to work my butt off. I've figured out that it’s ok to work so hard that at the end of the day you fall into bed and pass out and wake up just as tired as before but since we are the Lord's messengers he is going to bless us. He is going to lift us up when we’re down and tired. It’s all possible. God wouldn't ask too much of us. He wants us to succeed. So I learned to give it my all. Don't be selfish and don't hold back. So this is the first day of the rest of my mission. I'm going to make the most of it! I love you all. I hope you all have a tremendous week. Until next time.

Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

P.S. I love you Mom and Dad. You are psychos but so am I. That’s why we get along so great!

Monday, September 13, 2010

September 13th 2010

September 13th 2010

I sure do like reading your emails each week Mom. They are entertaining and it feels nice to have a little idea of what’s going on back at home. So yeah my bike is doing pretty good now. I just need to lose weight so my fat butt stops breaking it. And so here is the story why my zone leader has a ukulele. So when he came out he brought his families old expensive ukulele with him and the first night out in the field the assistants to the president told him he couldn't have it so they took it from him and put it in a closet in the office. Well a couple of months later he got called as an office elder and he went to the closet to play his uke and what do ya know. It”s broken... so he was super bummed and there was a Hawaiian family in his ward and he told them the story and they all felt real bad for him so they bought him a new real nice one and gave it to him. So he talked to our mission president and he said to just keep it with him cuz he had no way of making sure it was safe so he has very special permission to have it with him. We are allowed to have instruments but you have to be able to play them in sacrament meeting and have special permission and be super super good. All three of those I do not qualify for so oh well. I think I’ll be ok. So this week was super super crazy! On Monday night till Tuesday night we went on exchanges with the zone leaders and I went to their area and it was fun. They cover the YSA ward so it was kind of fun talking to people my age. We taught a girl who is going to be baptized real soon and there was two other member girls there and then some Jewish girl. All of them just graduated in May and are starting their freshman years of college so they are all within a year of me so that was kind of weird. I was nervous at first to be honest. I know it is hard to believe but by the end I had them all wanting me to come back. That parts easy to believe I'm sure. So I got back with my companion who I still love! We still get along real real good. I'm probably annoying sometimes but we have fun. And then we had another interzone exchange and I got to be with an Elder that had only been out for one day and he is in Asian work so he was super super new and didn't know what was going on so it was fun to get a glimpse of what it will be like if I get to train. So all day Wednesday I got to do everything. We had a great lesson with one of our investigators named Erich. It was super spiritual. It was the second time we taught the restoration because we thought he needed extra clarification and afterwards he told me "ok brother elder you don't need to convince me anymore. I believe it. Start giving me the meat. I want more". So that was awesome because I was pretty much by myself other than the Bishop which was super awesome because he was bearing real powerful testimony that strengthened my testimony because he was a convert. So that was great. He said he will feed us next time. It was funny he gave us a call and left a message and told us to "give him a jingle and we'll mingle". It was hilarious. Then on Friday morning to Saturday morning we went on exchanges with someone in our district so it was a crazy week. I went with Elder Anderson and this kid who went with him on a mini mission named elder butler. It was a lot of fun. Elder Anderson is super good at singing. Then on Saturday morning we participated in a stake wide priest activity where we each got a priest and took them out tracting. It was a lot of fun. The kid I had was really good at it. At the meeting where we got the priests to take out, our Mission president came up to me and put his arm around me and told me that the Jordan's who I had been teaching before were getting Baptized! Also another guy I taught, Jack, had a date for the twenty fifth. It was awesome. He told me that those baptisms were because I had prepared them to be in that position so that made me feel real good. I already knew the Jordan's were getting baptized so I arranged for a ride down to Stockton. I went down there at about 2 and got there just in time for the 3 o’clock baptism. It was amazing. The ten year old daughter was real excited I came down to see it. She gave me a hug. It was funny cuz we’re not allowed to hug girls so everyone laughed. The Mom, who is a member, told me I need to stay in contact with them forever because I changed their family’s lives so that was nice. I'm going to write them a letter to make sure they are working towards the temple. It was a very joyous experience. So that was way awesome. So they are my first three baptisms. And a family too so that was awesome. I was so happy. So that was a great week. It was kind of all over the place because of the exchanges but I got to know my fellow missionaries a lot better and our zone has a lot better unity now. The baptism was an amazing experience. I almost even cried when I talked to the mom. So yeah that was my week. It was fun. Missionary work is amazing and I really feel like I’m sliding into the Missionary lifestyle well now. I hope everything is going well at home. I wish I could help out Jackie and Dad but I can't. I'll keep ya'll in my prayers.

Love Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

Monday, September 6, 2010

September 6th, 2010

September 6th, 2010

If they were on the six yard line i'm sure it wasn't coach joseph calling the play. It that situation, if they were in the Rambo formation it would have been the quarter back calling the plays. They lost to Mtn. Ridge. They suck. Anyways. So this week has been a very interesting week. They said it was going to cool down but it has stayed high 90's to 100's all week. Now i know that is better than Arizona but i'm riding a bike all day long so its not too nice. But i do love my new area. It is so much nicer than Stockton and the members do so much more missionary work up here. Its really nice that when more than half of the people your teaching came from people that the members found. So its great. This week was super weird though. I honestly can't remember what day I did things. Time goes by so fast that it all jumbles up together. And there is never enough time to do everything so its very weird in my head. Something i have decided is that i have been exposed to more second hand smoke out here than in any other time in my life. Every one smokes and we have to talk to everyone ergo, i talk to a lot of people smoking. So this week my bike sucked! On tuesday i was riding it and whenever i would stop pedaling the chain would bunch up and get all tangled then it started getting super hard to ride. So naturally i took it into the bike shop to get it fixed. I thought about just calling CTR bikes and having them send me a new one but i decided to just take it in. The guy was like i'll take a look at it have it ready to ride in 2 hours so we went out with a member then came back and the guy asked me how i was even riding it. I guess the bearings and stuff all locked up and he said it was almost impossible to pedal. So he put a used part in it and now it rides like a champ. So you would think that getting new bearing thing in my wheel would make pedaling super easy after not being able to all but now... my legs were dead from working my bike so hard that it was just as hard to pedal but is now easier. So like two days later we were riding our bikes and i was like "hey watch my wheely" so i popped a wheely and when i came down my freaking bike broke in half! just kidding. But a spoke on the back wheel broke so i had to take it to the bike shop and ask him to put a new one on cuz after one brakes they all need readjusting so its all ridiculous. So i took it in and he said he would squeeze me in and have it done in about an hour. So we came back and it was fixed so now i hope that my bike takes a break from dying for a little while. Elder Logan my zone leader is playing his ukulele right now and he is super good. So its nice to listen to that. This week we went to a members house for dinner and it was cool. We walked in and they had two Ukes just sitting on their piano so i naturally pick one up and start playing and it was way out of tune so i tuned it and their Dad walks in and says do you play and i was like "why yes i do" so he asked me to tune both of them then relates to me the sad story of his wife buying two Ukuleles and no one in their family even knows how to play. they didn't even know what the notes were supposed to be to tune it so i tuned em both and played them for a bit. It was super nice to play. I'm going to suggest that the new mission president i get lets us have instrument. So i might need it sent out at like the year mark. We'll see. So that was great. So this i believe will make my father proud. This week in one of our wards we got a new bishop so everyone was speculating who it was going to be. So like father like son i decided to jump on in it. I made my pick only knowing the ward for like a week and a half and i told like 20 people my guess and when the stake president announced it everyone looked at me because i was totally right! So i thought that would make Dad proud. So this week was weird and i don't know if there is anything else to report on. So yeah. I will have a lot to talk about next week so yeah. I hope you all have a fantastic week. I hope things are awesome. Me and my companion get along super good. We are way better friends than i was with any of my companions which is funny because we have like nothing in common. I miss all my friends. I miss Taylor Swift. I miss Krazy Sub. Tuna on wheat, extra onions oil and vinegar and mustard, with pepperchinis. I will eat one the day i get home. I miss my family a bunch.

Love Elder Tyler Pete Arnett