August 29^th 2011

That was a pretty cool picture of the kids with Dad's mission president. It’s too bad about the football team. Braden’s shoulder pads are huge ha but he looks good. Did he pick 82 for a reason or did they just give it to him? Porter is getting pretty tall too man it’s crazy. Oh well this week was good. This week we saw a lot of people and stuff. We added a few new investigators. Since Elder Manukailea is going home next transfer we are working real hard. He wants to baptize 8 people in one month so we won't rest till that happens. President Lewis asked me what I thought I needed to become a better missionary and I told him that I just need to work harder and give everything to the Lord and that is why he put me with Elder Manu, cuz I sure am learning that right now. We had a great week. This week I went on an exchange with Elder Saumanutafa. He is from Samoa and is learning English. We had a lot of fun and worked real hard. He was beat by the end of the day ha. This weekend we had an awesome baptism for Marci Maxey, a 14 year old girl who has been coming to church since 6th grade and has a super strong testimony. There were more people at her baptism then at any one I have had. President Lewis came and he spoke a little and it was good. Afterwards they had the leadership session of stake conference and President Lewis was speaking there as well and asked me and Elder Manukailea to help him out and do a couple of role plays for everybody. They went pretty good. Our stake president gave an amazing talk on Justification and Sanctification. It was great. I printed off Elder Christoffersons talk on the same subject that night and it was amazing as well. You should check it out. Then yesterday we had stake conference as well. It was really good. They had 4 people speak who had their mission calls, it was nice. The two stake patriarchs spoke and did a really good job. One just got called. He was the old high councilor over missionary work and we worked with him a lot so that was cool that he got the calling. The stake we are in is pretty cool. They have 40 missionaries out which is a lot for Sacramento. He gave a talk on missionary work and then going to the temple more frequently. This Wednesday is the 5th anniversary of the Sacramento temple dedication so they are pretty excited about that. Elder Manukailea got sick last night so today he has stayed in with another missionary. He will be better by tonight. I think he just got dehydrated. So that is our week in a nut shell. I hope everyone is having a good time in the 110+ heat! It’s nice here and only in the 90's. So yeah. Love ya

Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

August 22^nd 2011

So Sis. Adams might have told you I would get my package on Saturday but that didn't happen. The office elders thought I was elder Manu and it was his package that was there but it did come today so the Assistants to the President came down and brought it to me so I didn't have to wait two more days. It sure was nice to just puff my inhaler and instead of do a 15 min. breathing treatment and then have it run out in 4 hrs. The cool thing is I feel like that since I went two weeks without it my lungs started to get a little stronger so now I feel like I can breathe amazingly. Now i can get back on track with the weight loss. I gained some of the weight back so now i can run again. This week was pretty good as well. It was a little off because of exchanges and interviews with President Lewis but it was good. Tuesday I was on exchanges with elder Forrester. I lived with him a little while ago in Florin so it was fun to catch up and have fun. I got to do an interview that night for a little Tongan boy. It was fun. Wednesday we had a super busy day. We had district meeting in the morning and that was good. After lunch our recent convert came out with us to teach people. He did really good. He is a little off in his head because he shot himself in the head so he is a little slow but the spirit made up for it in the lessons. We are teaching this black lady named Sylvia. She is real nice and stuff but even though she claims she isn't concerned about blacks in the church she sure does bring it up a lot and she keeps saying she is going come to church and doesn't want us to check up on her on Sunday morning and she never comes. We taught her on Wednesday. We went on exchanges with the assistants to the president or aps. It was fun. I went with elder Bellingham who was my zone leader a little while ago. We had great interviews with President Lewis on Friday. Elder Manukailea and I did a training while some others were getting interviewed and then President and Sister Lewis gave us some training. Saturday we went around and saw all the people we were trying to get to church. Sunday we had church. A Native American guy named Martin came. He seemed to really enjoy it and wants to come again next week. I had to teach the lesson in Gospel Principles. I volunteered last week to do it but they called me on Saturday night and told me I had to teach the Gospel Doctrine class as well so I taught everyone that isn't in youth. It started out slow but after a bit people actually started participating and it went pretty good. We had a blitz on Sunday night. I went with a Spanish elder from another zone named Elder Grover. He was a pretty cool elder. So that is it. Things are going great and it’s a lot of fun. We stay really busy which is good cuz then you don't have time to think about home and other things. So that is good. The lady that got baptized was found tracting. Elder Weirich and Elder Forrester taught her. The 70 came to interview someone else but heard about it and wanted to go to the baptism. The lady had dinner with the missionaries and President Lewis to talk about and they said it might now happen because of legal things and the fact that the church can get what it wants when they want it. Idk. This is all second hand info so it might not be super accurate. Brother Yardley’s wife seems like a catch. I couldn't imagine taking a family on the road and then even consider taking my little brothers and sisters. Just kidding but really. What a saint bonnie is. Well I hope things are going good. Love you.

Love Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

August 15^th 2011

Well this letter will be pretty short. I don't have too much time today. At all. So to start off, if you could get that inhaler to me as soon as possible that would be great. When I said it was out on Monday it was and we were on bikes this weekend so I almost died... But I survived. I am doing ok with the weight loss. It’s hard out here but I am now at a weight loss of 13 lbs. I am really trying to lose weight but I need food to live and we don't eat till dinner most days and by then I’m starving so I just eat a ton. This week was really good though. Because of time I will just tell you of a few high lights. I went on exchanges with Elder Maio from Hawaii and his mini missionaries, a kid whose bishop wants him to be a three week mission for the experience, Brother Olesen. It was a lot of fun. Brother Olesen reminded me a lot of Ethan Smith who I write on occasion. On Thursday I got a ride from Robert, the blind guy, and his new wife all the way up to Jackson to see Dusty get baptized!!! The family is almost complete. They want to wait 3 more years till Jr is 12 to get him baptized and they’re saving money till then to fly elder Bowman out to baptize him. I promised I’d be there so hopefully my wife likes traveling, assuming I’ll be married by then. It was good though and fun catching up with my girl’s Eve and Olga. I'll put some pictures on this email so you can see them. This weekend we found out that a girl we have been working with dad said she could baptized and we got permission from the mission and stake president to baptize her in our ward. Her dad lives in Antelope which is in another mission. Her mom lives in our ward both are not members. Her dad has full custody but he lets her stay with her mom on the weekends. So that was cool. On Sunday some guy came up to me and gave me a phone number for a lady who was looking for me. It is Christiaans Aunt Natasha. I will be calling her soon. She wants to take us out to lunch or dinner. So that was exciting. By next week I have a goal of losing 7 more lbs. so hold me accountable to that. Well have fun this week everyone. Love ya

Love,
Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

(For those of you who don’t remember Dusty is the wife of Rudy that lived in the hills, in Jackson that Tyler helped with converting them. Rudy the dad had belonged to gangs and made a huge change in his life. Two of the daughters were baptized and one son has been as well. So that is so exciting to hear about. Tyler fell in love with this family. Also one of Tyler’s best friends, Christiaan Schmid that live in our ward is his aunt Natasha. So that is pretty awesome as well.)

August 8^th 2011

So to start out, Dad is right. It is Jar-deen. with a long e sound even though some of the members in the mission think otherwise. Man it was a crazy day with all the seatbelts and what not. That is super sad for the Schmids. One thing after another man. They need to get a break. It hasn't rained here for a good month now and boy do I love it. It only gets into the high 90's and occasionally 100 but it drops down the next day. So it is real nice out here. Everyone always asks what the weathers like in AZ I just tell them it’s constantly 110 or more and they say I’m lucky to be here. It’s funny I haven’t even noticed the heat the past couple of weeks and it has been warm. This week was pretty good. Monday evening we visited some people. It went well. Tuesday morning we had our leadership meeting. Then we went and tracted for a while. We realized we needed to find more people to teach because everyone’s getting baptized. So we tracted a lot this week. As well as walked everywhere. We had a lot of appointments on Tues. but most of them fell through. We had dinner with the Marcados at this Asian food place. It was super good. Wednesday we had district meeting then we went with our recent convert Ian to go see some people. He was pumped to be with us. We spent the whole time with this old lady that got baptized a month ago, trying to get her bike from her daughter’s house so I could fix it. The mission has taught me a lot about fixing bikes so that’s a good thing. We tracted a lot on Wednesday as well. We found a lot of people too. It was great! We did service in the evening for Ian’s mom who got baptized like a month ago as well. We were lining up some bricks in her front yard that she had put down but they were crooked. I think we did more damage than help ha. Then she fed us. Ian and his mom argue a lot so it was interesting. Ian’s dad is not a member so we're trying to work on him but he never talks and is not interested so we will see what we can do with that. Then the rest of the evening we saw people in the richer area. North Sac reminds me a lot of home. Like the way the streets and everything are set up. It’s weird. Thursday we went and got a member to come out with us. His name is Semi and he is Tongan. He should be getting his mission call this week. So he came out with us from 12 till 9. I don't think he was expecting to be with us all day but it was fun and I think he enjoyed it. We taught a few people and it was good. We taught a 15 year old girl who thinks she is Mormon already but she isn't baptized. She addresses herself as a Mormon so it’s great. She has been coming to church for a long time. The only problem is her dad lives in Antelope which is a different mission and he has most of the custody over her. She only stays with her mom on occasion. Her mom lives in our area. But we taught her and it was good. Her dad says she has to wait till she’s 18 to be baptized and her mom won't answer her when she asks. But we had a good lesson watching special witnesses of Christ. Its out dated with like 5 of the people on it dead but it’s still good. I can't remember who we had for dinner that night. On Friday we had weekly planning. We walked like all day and it was good. A lot of the people we want to baptize flaked on us this week. It’s annoying but we'll figure it out. We had to get our oil changed and our tires rotated at two different places on Friday. That took like 2 hours including the travel time. We had dinner with the Warros. He is something foreign cuz he has an accent and she is polish. They have a son in Tennessee on a mission right now. Dinner was good. She made some good salad and pasta and got pizza. We went and saw a few more people that night then finished it off with making baptismal programs for our baptism on Saturday. Saturday morning we walked all morning. For like 2 and a half hrs. straight. It was crazy. We got a call from some missionaries in our zone and it was a crazy phone call. So they had a baptism for a lady named Sheri that I interviewed like a week ago. She is from turkey and is a princess. She is one of the last remaining blood lines to the Ottoman Empire. Well she came in contact with the church loves it and wanted to get baptized. It also turns out she has over 140,000 acres of land in Damascus and wants to just give it to the church in return of them building a hospital on it. It’s crazy! So she got baptized on Saturday at eleven. Well guess who decides to pop in? Elder Clayton from the presidency of the Seventy! We were out seeing people but he wanted us to take him to the airport. We couldn't make it in time so a member had to take him. What a bummer. He would have been in our car! It was cool though. We had Valerie Brown's baptism on Saturday as well. It went well even though no one came except those with a part in the program. After her baptism we went down to Lodi to see a baptism Elder Manukailea knew. It was good. On the way home our ride took us to dinner at this amazing Thai restaurant. It was soo good. Sunday went good. We had trouble getting people to church but we finally got someone. It was ok. The rest of the day was just ok. But the week was good overall. So being a zone leader is fun. We do a lot of organization work and stuff but our biggest thing is to work as hard as we can to baptize so we can lead by example. Our zone is doing really good and leads the mission in most things. We will probably get the second most baptisms in the mission this month but we are a lot more consistent than the other zones. We range from 9 to 11 a month when they usually get 1 to 4 one month then 10 another so we pride ourselves on that. So I am trying to learn everything I can from my companion so I can keep it going when he leaves. He is a very hard worker. We get along real good but he just never tells me what he’s thinking and what’s going on so I am usually just sitting there trying figure things out but we do get along good. So that’s it. I hope your week goes well this week with a little less drama. Man I will be out 15 months this week. That is crazy fast. Oh and I did get your package. Thanks so much. I loved Jackie’s letter. Man she is looking great. Hopefully I can do the same in the next 9 months. I loved the pictures as well. Keep em commin!

Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett

Oh yeah mom, I just ran out of my inhaler... so I need a new one. And you don't have to get surgery when you tear a tendon, I tore two and partially tore one in my wrist when I broke it and they said they just reattach. But sometimes you need to. That’s it.

August 1^st 2011

Well it sounds like things are just moving along at home nicely. Boy is it sure different being a Zone Leader. I have been so busy this week it’s been crazy. The crazier thing is I'm not as tired as I should be. We wake up at 6 every morning to run on the treadmills. I ran a mile for the first time in a while on Saturday. I was surprised because my asthma did great. I am just way out of shape. But I have lost like 5 lbs. since Wednesday. We skip a lot of meals. My companion Elder Manukailea is a very very hard worker. It’s great. He baptizes a lot as well. In fact I came into the area with two baptisms this past weekend. It was great. He is from Long Beach Cali. He is Tongan and went to a Tongan ward growing up. He is real cool. He reminds me a lot of Elder Faka'i, who I heard was going to school in Utah. He also reminds me a lot of Hudson. But he is a lot more outgoing than Elder Faka'i and more bold with people. A lot of people in the mission are actually scared of him because he doesn't have a problem putting them in their place. It’s weird being a Zone leader though. There are a few missionaries in our zone that have been out longer than me so it’s weird to be up their talking to them a lot. I won't go into huge detail about this week. We basically taught the two people who got baptized on Saturday. One was named Ian Thrasher and he shot himself in the head a year ago after getting totally wasted drunk after hearing his brother died in Iraq. He lived but is messed up from it. He does good though. The other guy’s name is Robert Pellerin. He is blind and got married at seven on Saturday and baptized at seven thirty. It was amazing to see. So I probably won't be talking a whole lot about food in my emails anymore. We skip a lot of meals because we are so busy all the time. It takes a lot of effort to baptize and we want to do a lot of that. We have two more people set up for this month and a few others who are close, we just need to get in contact with them. So this week we gave talks in sacrament meeting. We were the only speakers so we both gave about 12 min talks. I thought we did pretty good. I used the joke at the beginning about asking my companion and the bishop for jokes to tell and now having two jokes I can't tell in sacrament meeting. I think people liked it. My talk was on member missionary work. I quoted the general authorities a lot and I think I got my point across. Elder Manu talked about missionary work and the atonement. It was pretty good. He compared missionary work to a sauna. You don't just walk into a sauna and say man it’s hot in here. That’s expected. So it is with missionary work. It’s going to be hard. Expect it. I thought he did great. I'll attach the copy of my talk with this email because I wrote it on this computer. So I am in North Sacramento. It’s in the Natomas and Del Paso Heights areas of city. Natomas is very nice and rich and Del Paso Heights is very Ghetto. So we got the best of both worlds. The ward is really cool and the people are super nice. There are also a lot of pretty girls in this ward. It’s the largest ward I've served in as well. The area is large and well as members who come to church. The closest to our home ward since I’ve been out. Our area used to be a bike area but since we’re zone leaders we get a car. It’s a large bike area too though. We didn't get fed by the members very much at all this week. We mostly just ate Ramen at home. It’s pretty good. We live with another set of missionaries. They speak Hmong which is another Asian language. They are pretty cool as well. So yeah that’s pretty much all we did this week. I hope I can continue to lose weight and learn what it is I am exactly supposed to do as a zone leader because right now I have no idea what I am doing. I just follow Elder Manu around and do what he tells me to do. He is an amazing missionary. He has turned a lot of zones into high baptizing zones and President Lewis told him he wants him to transfer everything he knows to me so I can continue that on in the mission. Elder Manu goes home in October so his time is limited. But me I’ve still got over 9 months which if you think about it is not that long at all. I have been able to remember my dreams a lot more though. Oh yeah. last Tuesday we went to Texas Roadhouse, a member took us there, and I got a 22 oz. steak and it was amazing! I ate the whole thing and was still hungry even with the salad and two rolls I had before. Our waitress was gorgeous. I told her she was very nice and deserved something good in life and gave her a Jesus Card with Mormon.org on the back. I was nervous to do so but I figured if I am going to find a wife within the next year and half I better learn how to be outgoing with those kind of things. The members got a kick out of it ha. So that is what’s going on. Oh yeah to answer a couple of your questions mom, Elder Moss did stay in Elk Grove. I did not go back for Malachi's baptism though he did get baptized, we were just too busy up here. The mission is pretty big, I think. From the mission office which is at the top of the mission down to the lowest area of the mission which is Tracy it would probably take around 2 hrs. to drive it maybe 2 and a half hrs. I'm not sure. You could probably look it up on the internet. We have Fair Oaks at the top, Eldorado hills to the side and it goes all the way down to Manteca and Tracy. It’s pretty big I guess, but I don't have anything to compare it to. Oh yeah this week we also had a mission leaders council. It was fun being in the zone leader portion of it. They put a lot of trust in us as zone leaders and we have a lot of responsibility. Well that’s it. Love you.

Love, Elder Tyler Pete Arnett