Repentance

Hi everyone! Follow me on Instagram @kaickreyes. It'll be in Spanish, but you can keep up with what I'm doing (end of advertisement).

The last few weeks have flown by and I feel like there haven't been too many stand-out things that happened, but we've definitely been seeing miracles every day, big and small. A lot of them have just been in getting put in just the right place and the right time to help someone who needed it, or contacting someone and having them have prior experience with our message and wanting to know more. 

This week was good! I got to bear my testimony to some people we're teaching during fast and testimony meeting on Sunday.

Some people we're teaching:

Eduar and Delmi - They've been doing super great. They've come to church a few times and loved the "Come Follow Me" curriculum so far in Sunday School. Their kids love church and the other kids there.

Felipe - He's the one whose son's dog attacked Elder Winters. We went back over this week and the dog came down the stairs and tried to attack Elder Winters again. Luckily, this time he was prepared and fended the dog off with his back for a moment until it could be restrained. We're still both a little jumpy around dogs. 

Cristian - Despite strongly not believing in God the first time that we talked to him, he's come to church more than pretty much anyone else. He didn't come this week, but has been in touch with us and had some good conversations with the members last week about some doubts.

This week's email is titled repentance for a couple reasons. The first is because I've been terrible at emailing and I'm repenting of that. That means that I'm going to stop being terrible at emailing and do better in the future. 

Second: that's literally how easy repentance is. It's taking something that you can do better and changing it. It's better to prioritize the big things so that you can be a better person faster, but if we're doing that every day, we're getting closer to being perfect like Christ, and that's what this Gospel is about.

I had some thoughts about pride during my studies this week. I realized that pride isn't just believing oneself to be better than another, but is believing that we don't have any room to grow. It is believing that we are already as good as we need to be, and we don't need to improve at all. That's not to say that we're not already a good person, or doing good things, but just that if we believe that we've already fulfilled our potential then we're robbing ourselves of the improvement that we could have through learning and growing even more. Pride is believing that we either cannot or do not need to repent any longer. That can easily stop us in God's plan of becoming better and better until we can be like Him. It is also saying that we don't need the Atonement of Christ in our lives, because he atoned in order to enable usto repent and change. 

I've learned and grown so much throughout my life and my mission. If I had just said in elementary school that I didn't need anymore knowledge, or any more maturity, I'd be missing out on a lot of things that I have right now. 

I encourage all of us, whether it's something big or small, to pick something that we can improve on tomorrow and follow through. If we're doing that every day, then we're getting closer and closer to our Savior.

That's my testimony, and I share that in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

I'll do better next week, and hopefully have some better stories, but for this week, enjoy these pictures attached pictures of the Rainbow Unicorn Face Masks that Elder Winters and I did to unwind one night. And also the fairy lights he set up. We lifted too though to keep it macho. :)

¡Hasta pronto!

Big Dogs

Quick update this week! 

It honestly flew by, and

I don't even remember half of it. However, we've been having a great time. Elder Winters and I have been working hard trying to get our Gospel-oriented chatbot up for our Facebook page, searching for Spanish-speakers to teach around this area, and have also been tasked with finding a venue for (the chapel doesn't work) and starting an English class here in Morristown. 

It was great to be able to Skype the family today and talk to them about everything I'm doing. Everyone has been so supportive

Some of the people we're teaching:

Jose: Jose is the most animated person I've ever met. He speaks super enthusiastically always, and is super duper excited about everything especially about God. We could use some prayers for him for getting some more time to meet with us because he's been a little bit flaky despite loving everything we're teaching him and being good friends with us.

Eduar and Yohana: An amazing couple who hadn't been super interested before, but I finally met them this week and they were very attentive and told us that they wanted to come to church. They did, and they and their family really enjoyed it. 

Elgar: We thought Elgar blocked us, but we passed by and he was super excited to see us. His number had been changed because his sister owned the phone plan, but he immediate gave us a new one and wanted us to teach him more, which was great.

Felipe: Felipe keeps bringing up the things that we're about to teach him moments before we start doing it. He told us that he feels like he has a lot of studying to do. We had a great lesson with him yesterday.

Crazy Story:

During Felipe's lesson, we heard loud barking coming from the stairs and thundering steps coming down. Felipe's little poodle hid, and Felipe's son's Pit Bull came down the stairs and started charging us. He stopped for a moment, and suddenly jumped on Elder Winters and bit his arm before they could pull him off. Elder Winters is fine, he's just got little bit of a torn shirt and some bite marks on his arm (see pictures). In fact, the lesson went so well that as we were walking back to the car he turned to me and said "Well, that was almost too easy!" I then reminded him that he had just been bit by a large dog. He's a great sport.

Spiritual Thought: 

This week's spiritual thought comes from 2 Nephi 2:27. Basically we've been talking a lot about how everything is fairly black and white. We're responsible for ourselves and our own learning. We've been talking a lot to people about how it's great that they talk big talk, but they have to actually do what they're saying they're going to do to have it mean anything. I love how simple and clear the Gospel can be. 

I hope you're all well! I'll have a longer update next week after our Half Mission Conference for sure! 

MOTOWN

Hello everyone!

This last week has been crazy! It's been a lot of hard work and a lot of fun at the same time!

I didn't get a chance to write last week because I was packing basically the entire day. I said goodbye to Passaic and everyone there, and shipped out Tuesday morning to meet my new companion for this transfer. His name is Elder Winters. He's an absolute legend. I was a little anxious, because all I had been told was that he just got out of training, but he's absolutely gold. He's actually from right next door in Millcreek and went to my rival high school. He loves snowboarding, video games, and played rugby in high school. He's a hard worker and is great at being very straight forward with people who need it. 

It's been weird adjusting to being in Morristown. I have to actually interact with white people now. I also have to speak English on the street sometimes which is weird. We actually have a car now which is nice considering it was like -15 a couple of weeks ago with the 20 mph winds when we were walking around Passaic all day. 

Since we're the Facebook Elders, we're also in charge of all of the Mission's Facebook pages. We're in charge of the advertising that the Mission runs on Facebook, responding to people's questions and helping them get in touch with the missionaries in their area (in English and Spanish). I'm technically now authorized to make an Instagram account and use it to promote missionary work (let me know in your replies if you think I should do it), but I haven't set up an account yet. 

All of that responsibility, being senior companion, as well as working for our own area has been a bit of a stress, but we've found our stride pretty well. We taught some awesome people this week!

Elgar: 

Elgar recently moved here from Honduras and after our first meeting texted us the next day asking what the "planchas" (plates) were in the reading that he did. Then he came to Stake Conference this week. He's definitely prepared and has a great desire to learn.

Christian:

Christian is ironically an unfortunately named atheist. He wanted to why if Noah had an ark that there are fish that can't live in salt water, because the flood would've mixed all the waters on earth together. That one was honestly new, but we talked about getting answers directly from God and invited him to come to church. He did to our surprise, and stayed for an hour and a half even though he didn't understand anything because he didn't know there was translation to Spanish during Stake Conference.

Mike and Lorena: 

An awesome couple who moved here a couple of years ago from Colombia. They asked us why dinosaurs aren't mentioned anywhere in the Bible. We told them to pray on that one. They had a lot of interest in the Plan of Salvation and we taught them about the different parts and the answers to the questions of life that they had. They're super nice, and we're hoping we can meet with them a little more frequently.

Also, Danny finally got confirmed! He was running a little late last week and missed it, but now both he and Mayra are confirmed members :D 

The spiritual thought this week is about the Gift of the Holy Ghost! Something super important that tends to be less emphasized sometimes. The beginning of Acts 19 has an especially great emphasis on the Holy Ghost as a necessary part of baptism where Pablo gives it to a bunch of disciples!

That's the big updates for now! Now that I have a car, having time to email on Pday will be a little easier! 

Hope you're having a great week! Lots of love to all y'all!

Greenie Moves

This week was kind of insane.

This city can be so absurd sometimes, and I absolutely love it.

Here's a summary of my week:

1. Elder Hansen turned 19! He's so young!

2. One of the people who was interviewed to be baptized last week gave us a heart attack by disappearing.

3. My family had Jackie Chan over for dinner in Utah. 

4. We baptized two people yesterday!

Let's start from the beginning:

Elder Hansen turned 19!

¡Feliz Cumpleaños!

I'm terrible at baking, but managed to make a cake out of a box (with some assistance). He's a super solid guy, and an incredibly hard working missionary. Trying to keep up with him while biking up hills evokes memories that are a mix between Scouting experiences and rugby conditioning. I've learned a ton from him this transfer!

Being a missionary in terms of age is weird, because back home everyone treated me like I was super young (rightly so). Here however, you'd think I was absolutely ancient. With all the missionaries fresh out of high school, the people who I interact with are 18 or 19 and practically think that people over 20 are part of a different generation. 

Next:

One of the people who got interviewed for baptism last week, sent us a message saying that she overheard a malicious neighbor planning to push her down the stairs or plant drugs in her apartment to try to get rid of her (she's a sweet old lady who definitely does not do drugs).

 We tried to contact her to get clarification, but she never responded. We tried contacting her several times throughout the day, and couldn't reach her.

Then, the first counselor contacted us to ask if the baptisms were secure for Sunday, and we had to explain that one of them was confirmed, but that we weren't sure about the second. We had to explain that we were still trying to make sure she was okay and also not wrongfully arrested for drug possession. 

Fortunately, the next morning she called us and said everything was fine. She had left the city for a little while, but was back and excited to meet with us again. She was able to be baptized yesterday! More on that in a bit.

Meanwhile, at home, my family has been sending me updates because apparently Jackie Chan literally came to visit my family. I have no desire to leave the mission field anytime soon, but it was definitely hard to accept that my family sat down for dinner with a legend like Jackie Chan and I wasn't even there! People on the mission didn't believe me until I showed them the photo of him with my family. I'll attach that if you don't believe me.

Finally, to top off the week, I was able to personally baptize two people, and the first person that I had personally found and taught! This email is called "Greenie Moves" because we made several during the course of the baptism. Number one was forgetting to take any pictures, so apologies right off the bat for that one. Number two was that I forgot to bring a spare shirt to the baptism, so I just had to go without a shirt and tie (in my sweater) until we managed to get home two hours later. Expect some pictures next week, though! 

Danny and Mayra were the two people who were baptized yesterday and who will be confirmed next week. Despite being run by two fairly new missionaries, the Spirit was really strong during the meeting, and it was a beautiful moment for me to be able to personally help these amazing individuals out of the water and see how much they'd changed since we first met them. Alma talks about becoming "new creatures" by baptism, and it I have an even stronger personal witness of the power that repentance and baptism have to change the course of someone's life.

The story of finding and teaching Danny is really amazing, and I'll put it in my email next week along with the pictures so that you have a face to put it with.

Overall, this week was really amazing. I thought last night after it was all done that the craziness in Passaic had been used up. Of course, then last night we knocked into a deaf teenager's house, a house answered by a completely naked child who asked us, "What do you want," and a man who answered our "How are you?" with "Eating pineapple." and then ate pineapple through a 30 minute conversation about how he had tried all of the different churches in the world. 

I love New Jersey.

Spiritual thought this week is about prayer and faith. We've been teaching a lesson about how simple and powerful faith is. We know the sun will rise tomorrow even though we haven't seen it because it's happened a million times before. Through scripture study, we also know that God has made miracles happen millions of times before. We were reading Hebrews 11 and talking about how if Moses could part a sea, Daniel could tame a lion, David could slay Goliath, all using faith, that don't you think we could get help overcoming a financial problem? A difficult family situation? Even just feeling down for a day or misplacing something small?

The attached scripture from Mormon talks about the promise that with enough faith, Heavenly Father will answer any doubt that we have through prayer. I challenge all of us to think about something that we're struggling with and bring it before our Heavenly Father.

I testify that if we have enough faith, enough belief that we will receive an answer, that we will receive an answer.

Love,

Elder Reyes

Sweaters

I’ve been pretty bad at emailing the last little bit. Here's a quick update though:
The last few weeks have been really good! I realized that I haven't really talked about my situation or anything since after the new transfer.

The other Elders here in Passaic are Elder Harris who the Hispanics in our ward just refer to as "el grandote" (the big ol' guy). One said he looks like a young Trump. He's got a year on the mission and is awesome. He's from Las Vegas. He's currently training his companion, Elder Shields. Elder Shields is from a town of 2000 in Nebraska. Confession: upon hearing that initially, I thought he was potentially going to be a little odd. I had to repent a little bit because he's honestly super cool. We've got a lot of mutual interests, and he's learning really fast.

This email is called "sweaters" for two reasons:
1. One of the members here is amazing and bought us all really nice sweaters for Christmas/New Years. We wore them to Zone Conference together in his honor (see picture). We've been trying to coordinate to match up and represent Passaic whenever we have an event together.
2. We've been sweating a lot running from appointment to appointment. We have so many appointments right now that it's crazy. On Saturday we had one planned every hour from 10am to 7:30pm. 
Elder Hansen has been working on acquiring bikes to ride around. We're not a bicycle mission, but the vehicle coordinator said that if Elder Hansen wants to maintain them himself, that he's free to do so. One night we realized 5 minutes before an appointment that it was actually a 30 minute walk and had to basically sprint there as fast as possible. We checked afterwards and it's a 6 minute bike ride there, so he's probably on to something there.

On a more upbeat spiritual note, this week's scripture is from 2 Nephi 4:15. I'll attach it as a photo in both English and Spanish if anyone wants it in a prettier format for sharing. 

I turned 21 on the 2nd of this month, and instead of partying the worldly way, I was reading scriptures, teaching lessons, and eating awesome taquitos which I think is a pretty great way to spend a birthday. With one year older, there's a supposedly some requisite amount of wisdom that I've attained. If anything this year, I think one of my greatest increases in wisdom is my new understanding of how enjoyable the scriptures are. You don't have to take my word for it though. I really like Lehi's words about them in his final address to his family. Someone who's much more wise than me said it this way:

For my soul delighteth in the scriptures, and my heart pondereth them, and writeth them for the learning and the profit of my children.

I have a really strong testimony that the scriptures can bring us peace in our lives. We have people we're teaching who can't read, but they still feel something when looking at the words, and sometimes learn things from it without even understanding what they're "reading". 

If you've got a strong case of the Mondays, I'd encourage you to take a moment, find a peaceful spot, and read even just a little bit from the Bible or the Book of Mormon. I know it will bring a little boost to your day.
Have a great week everyone! Talk to you next week! 
Love,
Elder Kai Reyes

Signs

Merry Christmas everyone!

This week has been really great! The last couple of weeks, really, since I didn't send anything out last week. My bad. 
This week saw a baptism, a new transfer, and of course the rapid approach of Christmas! I still can't believe it's Christmas Eve!

This week I said goodbye to many missionary friends who left to be home right now as the greatest Christmas present that their families could ever ask for. Elder Berrett, Elder Ochoa, Sister Smith, and my beloved trainer Elder Sansom: shout out to you guys for an amazing beginning to this mission for me. I've already learned so much!

On Tuesday I welcomed my new companion Elder Hansen to Passaic. He's currently fasting from speaking English for 40 days in order to learn Spanish better. Day one was the day he arrived in Passaic. He's a great guy. He's constantly hustling, and brought a massive amount of food and cooking supplies so we can eat well when we're not making calls, talking to people on the street, and knocking doors (usually at the same time). He's from Bountiful Utah, and came straight out of high school despite having been accepted to MIT.

Todays email is called "Signs" for a couple of reasons. The baptism that we had last week was for a boy whose mother is deaf, and so we've been working through an interpreter in order to let her be involved in the lessons so she can help him continue to learn at home. He was confirmed yesterday, and we've had a great time getting to know him and his family and learning a little bit of ASL ourselves!

The other reason is for the spiritual thought. When we were teaching messages for Christmas, we would share this passage from Matthew: 

9 When they had heard the king, they departed; and, lo, the star, which they saw in the east, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.

10 When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

We talked about how prophets came from other lands to see the baby Jesus. We also talked about how the star in the sky was a sign of his birth and guided them. Then, we read from 3 Nephi 1: 

20 And it had come to pass, yea, all things, every whit, according to the words of the prophets.

21 And it came to pass also that a new star did appear, according to the word.

We explain that not only were there prophets in the Americas with the Nephites, they too saw the star in the sky as a sign of Christ's birth. It's amazing to me to think that even though they were on completely different sides of the world, that star was a sign of hope and joy for so many different people.

I encourage us all to look for the signs in our lives from our Heavenly Father this Christmas season. On my mission I've learned that he guides us almost everywhere we go as long as we let him. Big or small, these signs will help us achieve happiness and peace if we heed their messages.

For your entertainment, and to illustrate that sometimes following the signs of men is dangerous (as opposed to those from God), here are some funny signs that I've seen here in Passaic attached as photos. One of them is incorrect in two different languages, which is impressive.

Merry Christmas all! I look forward to talking to you again on the 31st.

-Elder Reyes

Light The World

Happy Holidays everyone! I apologize for not being more on top of things in terms of writing emails the last few weeks, but our preparation days have been packed! 

Funny Story/Spiritual Thought: 
Today's spiritual thought is accompanied by a funny story: We've been doing a lot of coding things in order to try to help out the mission, which includes a lot of website modifications with a browser add-on that we run so that we can hide some of the more distracting parts of Facebook for the missionaries who use Facebook to meet new people. That means that Elder Sansom has been teaching me a lot about how websites work and how to find the parts you need to be able to change them. The Church is having an amazing Light The World initiative where some ideas are provided on their website on how you can serve your community, your family, and build your faith. On the website is a button with a ticker that counts how many people are committed to helping #LightTheWorld! While on the website looking around, our natural programming curiosity took hold, and we found out that the button you click to commit is actually very easy to change. 

Usually you can only click it once because it locks up, but we found out that it was pretty easy to change the button to let you pledge again. Then we wrote a super short code that clicked the button, made the button clickable again, and then clicked the button again. We thought it was pretty cool that we were able to watch the ticker go up pretty quickly, because the code clicked the button once every 20 milliseconds. 

This was all fun and games until we some people showed up for the English class we teach. We ran out to go set up and help them and forgot to turn off the code that increased the ticker! When we got back from English class, we realized our mistake. 

The ticker, which was at 700,000ish people when we started was at 1.3 million when we returned! We accidentally accounted for 600,000 people pledging to the cause! The next morning, when we returned to the chapel, the ticker had been reset down to 700,000ish, the button was disabled for everyone in the world, and the computer we were using to do the code with was banned from Mormon.org! Luckily, we have since been unbanned and the ticker now works again. 

Where's the spiritual thought in this? Since I messed up the ticker for a while, I feel that it's only fair that I get some of the people on this email list to go on and commit to Light The World this Holiday season! So please, click the link below and pledge to do something good this Christmas!
CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE WEBSITE

It's got some great videos and resources to help make the season about Christ and serving others like him. It's got some really fun ideas that you can use to do some service to bring joy to people in your community, in your family, and throughout the world! 

The scripture for this season, and that we've focused on here in the mission is from 3 Nephi 12 where Christ is speaking to the Nephites. Verses 14-16 are I think a better version of Matthew 5:14-16: 

14 Verily, verily, I say unto you, I give unto you to be the light of this people. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.

15 Behold, do men light a candle and put it under a bushel? Nay, but on a candlestick, and it giveth light to all that are in the house;

16 Therefore let your light so shine before this people, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

I love how it says to let your light so shine before this people. Specifically those around us. by seeing the goodness that we show to them, they can see all the other good that is in the world that Heavenly Father has given us.

How I'm Doing: 

I'm doing good! I've had a really hacking cough for about three weeks, and just got put on antibiotics today, so I'm excited to finally be able to laugh or sing without breaking into coughing. I'm feeling really weird completing training and getting a new companion once Elder Sansom leaves to go home to his family next week. I'm definitely nervous to lead out this area with such little time under my belt, but I've seen a lot of miracles here, and I can't wait to keep going.

How the People We Teach Are Doing:

We've had some ups and downs this week! Two weeks ago, we had 4 people ask us to be baptized. All of them asked us. Another wanted to be baptized as well, but we haven't been able to officially set a date. 

Unfortunately, this week there were some definite roadblocks that happened. One of the families had their grandmother pass away in Mexico, so they left to go there. Another one of the people who wants to be baptized got a job with one of the members of the church but hasn't shown up to work besides one day this week, which we think is why he didn't come to church (because he was scared to see the member). The two super solid Colombians that we were teaching also juked church. We're continuing forward with faith and trusting that things will work out as long as we keep doing everything we can.

Love you all! Have an amazing Christmas!

-Elder Kai Reyes

Pictures:

1-2. This guy using a super cool custom car antenna

2-3. Passaic parking enforcement is not super feeling the Spirit of Christmas.

4. Some Lomo Saltado that I made myself! I  Peruvian food!

5. Mobbing with Elder Fletcher while Elder Sansom is on his Statue of Liberty trip (for missionaries who are leaving). (I had to explain what "mobbing" means to Elder Sansom. Not sure if he gets it yet haha)

6. We were craving Dominican food today and ended up running into some Dominicans who were baptized in the D.R.! They wanted us to come visit (with Elder Fletcher).

7. Worldwide Day of Service on the streets of Paterson.

First Time in NY

Happy Thanksgiving

Walking Your Microwave

Happy Monday!

I've been really bad at emailing the last couple of weeks because our P-days have been super busy, so hopefully I can make up for that today! I'm also going to try a new format to be a little bit more concise and remember more things that happened! Here's the new format:

1. Spiritual Thought

2. How I'm Doing

3. How the People I'm Teaching Are Doing

4. What I'm Learning

5. Funny Stories

So, without further ado:

Spiritual Thought:

This month we're doing a "Light the Mission" which is kind of a lead-up to the "Light the World" campaign that the Church does every Christmas. The purpose is to share what miracles we've seen during our mission to help build faith and see the ways that we're being helped as we go about our day. We did a conference call last week and everyone talked about the miracles they've seen. It was really cool to hear miracles that other people experienced in the mission as well as to be able to reflect on the ones that I'd seen personally.

This week we've had many little miracles that we've caught and probably many more that slipped by us, but I've been trying to be better at writing them down so I can remember them. As we get into the Thanksgiving season, I'd just like to invite everyone to start to do the same. At the end of the day, just writing down the miracles that happened has really helped me see more easily the pattern of the blessings I've received as consequence of our efforts. It gives a lot of great things to be thankful for, which is what November's all about!

2 Nephi 27:23:
23 For behold, I am God; and I am a God of miracles; and I will show unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever; and I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith.

How I'm doing:

I'm still doing great! It's been getting really cold out, so I'm starting to miss Utah's lack of humidity. 
People have also been really worried about my eating habits since my email about the pretzels. I would like to clarify that I have not been subsisting solely on pretzels for the last month, and have been eating a lot of different fruits and veggies and chicken. I am not sponsored by any pretzel company. 
I will definitely accept any recipes that people want to send, especially if they're quick and easy  because I'm trying to be more creative with a 30 minute lunch break and an hour long dinner break.

What I'm learning:

I've learned a lot in the last 3 weeks!

One thing that's been very cool to see is the difference in peoples lives once they start keeping commitments and they start actually reading and praying. We've had several different people we're teaching and less-active members who were really cold, and anxious, and hesitant to make appointments with us or spent most of the appointment talking about the bad things in their life suddenly do a 180 after they start reading daily and praying about it. We had one particularly crabby older gentleman who was a member who was bitter that it seemed people had forgotten him and was going through some really rough personal issues. We finally got him to commit to read daily for a week (after almost a month of meeting with him weekly), and he really lit up! He was jovial and giving us food and came to a ward party! 
Another thing I've learned is about the value of personal revelation. Elder Sansom is a really knowledgeable guy when it comes to doctrinal topics (and a lot of other topics), so I tend to ask a lot of questions. A lot of times, with more important matters, he'll have me just pray about it myself, which I initially thought was mostly just a way to differ questions. However, after receiving a lot of answers that specifically address everything I wanted to know with the question. I'm starting to just go directly to prayer.

I'm also learning a lot of practical things in terms of when to talk to people. I'm becoming a lot more proficient at understanding the different beliefs of other religions in our are, as well as learning about and connecting with the diverse cultures of the people here. What cities in Ecuador like Qui, which ones think it's disgusting; the different areas of Mexico and cities and their foods, etc. We just had a "Noche de Hispanidad" which was a super fun ward party where all the different countries brought food and performed traditional songs or dances. I'm learning the different "mottos" of the countries and their flags. It's a good time!

I'm also learning a lot of programming stuff!

How the people I'm teaching are doing:

Mayra: Something happened in her family, and she's taking a trip back to the Dominican Republic for a month! That was kind of a bummer because she came to church for the third time and has been super strong at keeping commitments. She called us when she got to the airport and she wants to go to church there in the DR while she's gone. Depending on where she ends up, I might end up sending my own brother a referral! 
Wander: Juked us on one appointment. We haven't been able to contact him since, but we've also been pretty bad about trying to stop by and see him. We're going to try to stop by one more time.

Marlon and Eliana: The two amazingly prepared Colombians who we were teaching! We talked to Eliana once last week, but I couldn't understand what she was saying through the phone and Elder Sansom was gone on exchange so we don't know what she said. We haven't been able to contact her, but we had a lesson with Marlon solo and he said she's good, but her toddler might have broken her phone. He's working more now which is hard, but also good because he was initially going to just stay for a month in the States, but he's working because he wants to stay longer!

We've picked up another couple part-member families and got an amazing text out of the blue from someone the missionaries before us were teaching but who we lost contact with asking if we could come back and teach her family! 

Funny Stories:

We were standing on this guy named Jamaal's porch, talking to him for a bit when this girl slipped out of his house and down the stairs past us. He seemed confused for a sec but we kept talking for about 5 minutes. He slowly became more and more distracted throughout the conversation and we asked him if everything was alright. He went inside and got his phone and told us something was going on with his girlfriend, and that he'd be back in a second and walked down the stairs and walked down the block to the end of the street looking around and then started coming back slowly and sending a lot of texts. We came down the stairs and asked if everything was okay and whether we could help him. He said now was not a great time and asked if we could come back another time. We realized that after his girlfriend slipped by us, she walked down the street to where his car was parked and stole it. Normally, people's excuses for not wanting to talk are pretty weak, but I've got to give it to Jamaal that having your car stolen by your girlfriend is a pretty good one. That's the first time I've had someone's car stolen while on a door approach. About an hour later we were walking back by, and Jamaal was there arguing with his girlfriend and trying to get his keys back. So I guess at least he got her to come back. Prayers for my guy Jamaal.

We were driving down the street with the other Passaic missionaries on our way to get groceries when Elder Sansom said,"I love Jersey in the morning. That guy is literally walking his microwave." He pointed out a man who was casually walking down the street, dragging a microwave along behind him by the end of it's power cord. I hope his microwave is healthy.

A couple of weeks ago, I was on exchange when we got a flat tire at like 8:00 on our way back to grab my stuff to switch back. We were out there struggling for a while because the car kept rolling and the jack kept tilting, and it was freezing cold. I was hoping for some good Samaritan to come along, when a man walked up. He looked at the car, then at us, then said, "Well dat blows. It's too cowld tah git a flat." Then he took a drag from his blunt and walked away without looking back. I love New Jersey.
I'm even more behind on individual email responses, so I apologize for that! I hope that in the next couple weeks with our normal Pdays I'll be able to reply more one-on-one! 
Much love,

Elder Kai Reyes

Part of the reason I didn’t write last week!

Pretzels, Programming, and Proselytizing

Le va?

This week has had some weird stuff happen it. We've been hustling a whole lot still every day which has made time go by pretty fast, and we also had a lot of lessons with less-active members and a couple of our more interested people we're teaching.

Monday:
We finally got into Wander's door! We had a pretty great lesson with him about the Book of Mormon, and it was hilarious because after talking about what it was, we showed him one of the illustrations from it (Christ ministering with the Nephites). He felt like it was familiar, and we pointed out that he had the same picture in his living room because he had stuck a pass-along card (little cards we hand out about Gospel topics) with the same picture in the corner of the frame of one of the other paintings in his living room! So we just pointed at it, and he was super confused and astonished. He went and picked it up and looked at the back and there was a picture of the Book of Mormon on it. He didn't remember ever receiving it and he had had it there in his living room for a long time. We have another appointment with him tonight.

I'm the pretzel master.

While buying groceries, I bought a family pack of 18 jumbo pretzels. Some of the other Elders (mostly Elder Barrett) were making fun of me because they just thought I was shopping hungry (which was true), but they underestimated how much I like soft pretzels because I ate six of them by the end of the day. I had 8 left by Tuesday, and then I started rationing them out throughout the week. It's become a pretty big inside joke because we had a call with the other Elders in Passaic in the evening and got to tell Elder Barrett that I had already eaten a third of the bag. When I ran out of pretzels, I started on the 4lb bag of hash browns that I had. I bought more pretzels today, but I need to be a little more creative with my cooking.

Tuesday:

We had a really interesting lesson with Mayra! It was my first time meeting her. She's a really sweet, shy older Dominican lady who seems to really love what we're teaching. Elder Sansom and Elder McClusky (we were on exchange last time) asked her to read the first chapter of the Book of Mormon and when we talked to her she said that she hadn't read very much of it because she has a hard time reading, but that she'd listened to the first eight chapters on tape. She came to church yesterday, stayed the whole time, and met a lot of the ward members which was awesome. That lesson was really interesting though because of two things:

1. She brought her friend Jose who said he wanted to hear the charlas (lessons), and he was into it at first but then half way through told us that he was an old man and had to sleep and stood up and left.

2. She wanted help with a legal issue, and spent a good amount of time describing it, and then told us that there wasn't really anything that we could do about it, but she went into great detail. We didn't really know how to help her, but she showed us a bunch of documents and pictures she had taken. I walked out of that lesson not really sure what had happened.

Wednesday:

Wednesday was fun! We had a lesson with a member named Lizbeth who's a really nice lady. She and Elder Barrett have a faux rivalry because he's only got two transfers left in his mission, but he only joined the Spanish program like 6 or 7 weeks ago. He was an English Elder before that, but was moved to the Spanish program after some people got shuffled around, so he barely knows any Spanish, which the members all think is hilarious. Lizbeth calls him "gringo" (pejorative for a non-native person, specifically white people) because he can't speak any Spanish, and he calls her "chacha" (which basically means maid) because she used to hang out at another member family's house (Martin and Guille) and they started teasingly calling her that. It's really funny to see that interaction at church when she says "See you gringo!" and he goes "Bye chacha!" She and Guille also have a competition to see who cooks the best, which is really hard when you're the missionary that is supposed to be the judge while each is urging you to tell the other that they cook the best.

Since that lesson she's been trying to get us to record a voice clip saying that she's the better cook by messaging us on Facebook. We sent her one that said "You cook really well!" but she wasn't satisfied with that.

I also taught my first English class! It was pretty hard to get into the mindset of teaching English to Spanish after learning and teaching Spanish to English for so long, but it was a lot of fun! It was also nice to see that most of Hispanos here were struggling as much with English as I was/am with Spanish.

Thursday:

We had our Coordination meeting with Hermano Munoz. He served us Mexican hot chocolate and toast afterwards which was super good. We finished weekly planning in a record amount of time: 2 hours and 40 minutes. The fastest yet.

Elder Sansom had to go to another area to do a baptismal interview, but we had two important lessons that night, so we did a small 3 hour exchange with the Assistants (Missionaries who are Assistants to the Mission President). We had a great lesson with a member named Mauro, and then another with the part member family of Jorge Miguel Castillo (mbr.), his wife Josefina (not), and her parents, Luisa and Hector (not). 
We helped the Facebook Elders with some spreadsheet stuff for their Instagram statistics, and while talking to them, I mentioned that I code and know spreadsheet stuff after they asked me about it. One of the Facebook Elders was super excited, and told me that he and Elder Sansom had talked a lot about that a few months ago when they didn't know who was going to take over for E. Sansom when he left. He said that E. Sansom didn't really know and didn't have an answer, but said he was going to pray a lot about it. He did, and didn't get an immediate answer so they were starting to get worried when all of a sudden I appeared as his trainee.

Friday:
We took some dedicated time to fix the spreadsheet for the Facebook Elders while I started to learn the code for the Facebook add-on. That took a while, but we added some new features for them in the spreadsheet, and I got an elementary walk through of what everything does and how it works. 
Afterwards, we put up a bunch of fliers for our free English class. We can't do it on Main street really, because there's a massive English class over there that takes down our fliers. They charge $50+ a class and ours is free, so it seems really scummy that they're so territorial, but we get plenty of people anyway. At one four way intersection a decent ways away from main, there was a guy on the other side diagonally who was handing out flyers for that other English class company. We were worried he was going to take our flyer down right after we put it up, so we just wrapped the flier like 3 times over with packing tape. He didn't really see us or pay attention to us, but our flyers keep disappearing, so we just wanted to be safe.

Saturday:

We had an exchange with the other Elders in Passaic. I went with Elder Harding on the other side of Main, while Elder Barrett went with Elder Sansom on our side. Elder Harding and Elder Barrett are super great guys. They're very different, and it's a hilarious Penn and Teller type thing, where Elder Harding is pretty reserved and circumspect but sharp and witty, and Elder Barrett is super hyper and outgoing but doesn't speak any Spanish. Elder Harding and I had a great lesson with one of the people that they're teaching, and went around street contacting and putting up fliers in their area. It was hilarious because down the street from their house was a bunch of people who had set up DJ equipment and loud speakers in front of a closed down house, and were blasting music from 10 am to when I left the area at 8 pm. I'll see if I can put some video attached or on my blog. When we walked past they were trying to get us to dance, but we didn't really have time to bust a move for some drunk people having an all day party, haha.

Sunday:

Yesterday was pretty cold. We were greeting people at the door of the chapel and that was pretty much the first thing out of their mouths every time. Like I mentioned before, Mayra came and enjoyed it, so that was good. Knocking doors after sundown in the cold was not quite as heartwarming, or hand-warming, or just warming in general, but we found a family who seemed very interested in our message, and we also got to teach a great lesson to a large 7th Day Adventist family, which was pretty interesting.

At the end of the night, I worked on doing some "wax on, wax off" style code training with Elder Sansom where I just helped write a little bit of code for the add-on that turns the Facebook top bar from blue to whatever you input as your "favorite color" in the add-on options. I'm starting to finally get it!

Today:

I bought more pretzels and hash browns (and some stuff to make trash hash). We did laundry, ate lunch, and I've been writing emails (I'm really behind on responding to emails and letters, so if I haven't replied yet, I promise I'm working on it) and working on blog stuff! (The email signup should work 100% now, so if anyone isn't getting emails who wants to be, please point them to kaireyes.com)

It really feels like the ball is starting to get rolling, and we're talking to so many great people that this week has just flown by. I can't believe I've already been out for two months! They say it just gets faster, and I almost can't believe that. Week 9/100 down. Wow. It feels like I left yesterday.

Can't wait to write another email next week and have it feel like tomorrow!

- Elder Kai Reyes

Pictures (In no particular order because Gmail hates me):
1. After a very intense doctrinal discussion, we went into General and Special Relativity because Elder Sansom is very good at math, and I was very curious about a lot of things. I included some of the notes he made to help me.

2. My English is really really degrading. I spent a good 2 minutes trying to figure out what "ploon-hay" meant in Spanish on this soda. Turns out it's just "plunge" in English.

3. A picture of Elder Harding taking a picture of Elder Barrett through Elder Sansom's phone when we left our phones out during English class and left the room for a sec to print things off.

4. I forgot to put the ones last week on of the tricked-out Honda Odyssey, so I included some there. I really love the spoiler.

5-6. More Honda. Please note the tricked out rims, the dropped front, and the hard-to-see custom front emblem that was a red chrome "w".

Plugged In

Hi everyone! This is going to be a pretty short post even though there's been a lot of stuff happening, because, well, we've been so busy that I haven't had time to write it all down as it happened, and we've had a lot to get done today as well!

I'm going to focus mostly on this last weekend, because that's when most of the exciting stuff started!

Thursday:

We had an amazing lesson with a less active member who was a referral. Elder Sansom referred to it as "textbook" and said that he's only had maybe 1 or 2 other ones that went that well. We switched off, citing scriptures and bearing testimony and the Spirit was really strong. Upon leaving that appointment, I was at such a Spiritual high that I was definitely starting to get why everyone says you never want to come home!

On our way back to the apartment, E. Sansom stopped and felt prompted to knock a door that we were next to. A man named "Wander" opened it up and talked to us a bit. He's got a really crazy schedule, and we've never actually gotten into his house, but we keep giving him challenges to read different parts of the Book of Mormon and he keeps achieving them and having more questions. We joked that if we had to teach every lesson via a 45 second door contact, I guess we'd be happy to do it. 

I also got certified to do online proselyting, which we do through Facebook as some of you may have seen on there. I can't really look at anyone's posts (part of the app that Elder Sansom made shows even your newsfeed all together so that you can focus), and I can't chat with anyone from home, but I can add friends. Our Facebook proselyting involves using the program that Elder Sansom made, which lets you search by area and by different criteria (for example, people from Puebla, Mexico, people from Santo Domingo, people who have listed "Spanish" as a language), then there's another button that will click every single "Add Friend" button on the results page for you. 

We go through, messaging pretty much everybody and try to steer the conversation towards the Gospel as quickly as possible, though we definitely get to know some really cool people! We've even run into some of them walking on the street and recognized them from chatting with them! It's apparently been just as effective or slightly more effective than knocking doors has been for finding people who are interested in our mission. That's good, because we got whitewashed into this area, meaning that both of us are new, and we didn't have anybody who the previous missionaries there were teaching, so we've had to start pretty much from scratch. We do have one couple who had been taught before who want to be baptized really bad, but we're still trying to help them get to church. 

Anyway, sitting in a McDonalds for the free wifi and talking to confused people on Facebook in Spanish has been a pretty funny means of trying to find people to teach.

Friday:

Friday was Zone Conference! It was really cool to be able to meet everyone in the zone. We had some really great talks, and took a group photo! I'll try and get it on this email, but if not I'll upload it to my blog later.

Saturday:

I went on my first exchange to Patterson! I was with one of our Zone Leaders, Elder Risenmay, who's a great guy and has been in Patterson long enough to know the tricks of getting around. That's good because Patterson is also the sketchiest place in our mission. People in our mission joke about wanting to go to Patterson to get a "Patterson-esque" story. It was recommended that I bring a wallet that didn't have anything in it... just in case.

It turned out to be really good though! We taught some personal English classes and met a lot of the people they're teaching there who are all really close to baptism! We met a member lady there who served a mission in Peru way back in the day, and she didn't have time to cook before we got there so she got us Burger King. We ate Whoppers and drank Inca Kola while she showed us mission pictures! It was a great time!

Sunday:

We finally met our ward! It was great, but it was a little sad to see that we only really have one active family from our area. We asked one of the other missionaries who'd been in Passaic for a while which families were our area and which were not, and he pointed out one family and then was stumped. We have a lot of inactive families and members, but trying to get the ward to focus on them (because our job is mostly finding new people) has been difficult at times. We still have great hope though!

Apologies for the short email after such a long one last time, but we've got an appointment soon with Wander. Hopefully things will settle a little in the coming week so that I can keep a better record of it and send it all out next week!

Much love,

Elder Kai Reyes

Pictures:

It's apparently common to see Elmo strapped to the front of trucks. This was my first time.

Also, an attempt at cooking for myself. Not bad?

Así Es

A lot has happened this week! This has felt like the longest week of my mission. Probably because I haven't had a P-Day since the 29th. But that also means I've got a lot of cool stuff to share!

I'll get right to the action:

Sunday (September 30):

Sunday was a really bittersweet day. It was my last day at the MTC, and it was also fast Sunday due to General Conference. We had an amazingly spiritual testimony meeting with our Branch, and we got to meet the Zone Leaders who are replacing us. I'm so excited for them to be able to experience the same amazing growth that Elder Moore and I did. I know they'll do a great job. We had our exit interviews with the Branch Presidency where they asked us the question that they ask every missionary who leaves the MTC: "Is the person who you are now the same person that walked in the gates of the MTC?" 

Of course not. I've learned so much about myself, about hardship, and about the things that really matter to me. 

We had our final Sunday night devotional, which due to some of our inside intel, we knew was supposed to be Elder Ballard speaking. We didn't know about Sister Ballard, and so even though we were disappointed when he canceled at the last minute, I'm very very glad that he was able to have that last time with her.

While it was nothing like losing a loved one, saying goodbye to our District was incredibly hard. We had to say goodbye to the Hermanas first, which was probably one of the hardest parts of the night. Throughout my time at the MTC, I felt as though I had gotten the privilege of getting to have four more amazing younger sisters for a few weeks, and knowing that I'd have to be gone by the time they woke up on Monday was really painful. I'm so proud of each one of them.

A few minutes after parting with the Hermanas and returning to our residence, I heard a knock on my door. Opening it up, I was surprised to find a bunch of the Elders from our zone waiting outside the door. Over the course of the next hour or so, almost every single one of the Elders in our zone stopped by to thank us and give us their contact information. I was really touched by their efforts to send us off. I challenged them to keep the zone a family and to make it an even better place for the new Elders coming in. One said "You and Elder Moore made this experience great for us. Of course we'll make the experience great for them." I had a really sudden allergy attack where my eyes started watering a lot. 

Monday (October 1):

We woke up at 4:15 am to leave. We said farewell to the other Elders from our district (who woke up early just to say goodbye, what champions). We took a bus from the MTC to Frontrunner, then Frontrunner to Trax, then Trax to the Airport. Our Frontrunner to Trax transfer was fun, because we had to pull like 30 bags off of the train in the 2 or 3 minutes that it was stopped for. After chatting with the family in the airport, we took a pretty smooth flight directly to Newark. Getting off the plane, the first thing I noticed was the humidity. It felt like I stepped into a sauna. We rendezvoused with a bunch of Spanish speaking Elders who got in from the Mexico MTC. They took us to the mission home where I ate like 3 plates of lasagna because it was such a great contrast to the MTC food. 
We went over some rules and went to bed.

Tuesday (October 2): 
This is where things got pretty crazy pretty fast.

We met our trainers and got assigned our areas. I'm with Elder Sansom, who is an absolute boss. I was told by probably 7 different people on our way out of the building that he's the smartest Elder in the mission and the best trainer and I honestly believe it. He's a pretty scholarly guy with a great sense of humor and an amazing testimony. One of the first things we talked about was that he had, and is coding some things to help the people in our mission find people to talk to on Facebook. I mentioned that I have some coding experience, and he was really excited. Apparently, he's leaving in December, and there isn't really anyone else to take over the projects and work out some of the bugs once he's gone, so he thinks I'm the answer to a lot of prayers on that front which was awesome. He's a great missionary and not really afraid to do the work necessary to get things done which I really respect.

We got assigned to our area, which is West Passaic Spanish. Our apartment is great, even though you can tell that no one's been there for a while. Passaic had been closed for a few transfers, and then had a trio of Elders trying to cover 3 different areas in it for a few transfers. We got doubled in (meaning E. Sansom had no experience with the area either, so we both went in blind), so it's been a little bit overwhelming to try to figure out what I'm doing when he's pretty open about the fact that he has no idea what's happening here. 
That said, he's really good at hustling, super spiritual, and speaks pretty great Spanish. He can listen to speeches and live translate them super accurately which is really cool. It's funny because people see the name Reyes and assume I'm the one who speaks Spanish, but I rely a lot on him to translate. Especially with Dominicans. He had us out the door almost immediately to try to knock some doors as soon as we got settled. 

Our area is almost entirely Hispanic. Walking down the street, it's probably an 80-90% chance that someone replies to us in Spanish. It's mostly Mexican and Dominican which is really fun, but it truly is a huge melting pot. We've met someone from almost every Hispanic country, and I'm starting to get really familiar with the different traits of each. For example, like I mentioned before, if I can't understand what they're saying, they're probably Dominican. A lot of the native members don't understand either though, which makes me feel a bit better. We've had Mexican, Peruvian, Ecuadorian etc. members complain that the Dominicans don't speak Spanish which was pretty funny to me.

We use a lot of technology in our mission, which is super nice. All our notes on everything is cloud based, which means that we can see all the notes from all the previous missionaries about how lessons went or how they met someone almost immediately going back for a few years. For our first day, we picked 5 names of people that hadn't been taught in over a year, prayed about them, and then crossed two names off. Then we compared notes. I had a really strong feeling about one of the names, so we went there first. It turned out to be really good, and we had 5 return appointments in just under an hour and a half! We're still following those up, but it was a pretty good confidence builder for me to feel like I could be useful even as a greenie.

We also went grocery shopping (because we hadn't gotten a Pday), and I realized that I have no idea what I'm doing or how to cook, so that's been a fun journey this week.

Wednesday (October 3 - Happy Birthday, Mom!): 
We went to District Council and met all of our District. That night, we moved a member into a 4th floor apartment with no elevator and a narrow stairwell. We had planned on being there for maybe an hour, and ended up being there for 4 and a half hours trying to push a refrigerator up 8 sets of stairs only to find out that it wouldn't fit through the apartment door. They were super nice though, and bought us pizza and Inca Kola after, which was awesome. They also gave us 4 referrals to some of their less-active family members which was great too. I'll see if I can get some videos of our struggle attached.

Thursday (October 4):

We went and checked out our chapel. It basically sums up my experience so far here in NJ: it's a great chapel, right between a strip club, an alternative medicine shop, and the Passiac County Probation office. 
I love this area, but it's definitely got it's quirks. There hasn't been a day here where I haven't heard 8-10 sirens. There's a lot of cockroaches and a lot of clubs whose doors you avoid looking in. One thing that's kind of sad is that people keep thinking that we're immigration officers. Sometimes people will look really uncomfortable when we talk to them, but as soon as they realize that we're not migra they become super friendly. 

Friday (October 5):

Today was super humbling. We spent a lot of time on a few appointments that weren't super effective, and people didn't really want to listen to us. The ones who did didn't live in our area, so we ended up sending all of the interested people to different missionaries which is always a bummer.

I learned that accepting food is very very important. One time, I was offered an apple as we sat and talked with one of the members, and I was kind of like "Oh, I'm good, I just ate breakfas--" and Sansom was like "--Oh yeah! We'll take them, thanks Sister!" When she wasn't paying attention he looked at me very seriously and said,"Always. accept. food." I thought that only referred to formal meals, but apparently it's everything and it's very offensive to not. 
I also saw Elder Sansom get pretty fiery on Friday, which was cool. We were talking on a porch with some drunk Mexican men, one of which was being pretty rude. E. Sansom tried to give him a card and explain who we were and he said (in Spanish) "Are you Catholic? No? Then (pointing at the street) there's the road, get out of here." E. Sansom was pretty unimpressed. The man asked again, "Are you Catholic?" and E. Sansom said "No, and neither is Jesus Christ." The man looked super taken aback, and I thought we were going to get stabbed, but E. Sansom just told them to have a nice night and started to roll out. What a boss. 

Saturday and Sunday:

General Conference was amazing! Most of the people on my mailing list already watched it, so I won't talk much about the messages, but it was a fun struggle to try to watch it at the ward building. Apparently, our ward council decided that they should only show the Sunday Morning session at the Chapel, so no one was there to help us set anything up. We ended up connecting someone's phone to a TV and watching a phone-sized stream of it on the TV with a bunch of snacks which was great. 

This post is already pretty long and dense, so I'll wrap it up here, but I'll try to attach some of the funny signs and things around town that we've seen. The title of this weeks email comes from Elder Sansom's catchphrase. Whenever we have something disappointing happen, or someone “jukes” our appointment, he'll just shrug and say "Así es" which means "That's how it is" or short for "Such is life" (Así es la vida). 
Hope everyone is doing really well!
Lots of love,

Elder Kai Reyes

The Trilingual Coke Guy

This is probably my last Saturday post, so enjoy! This week I got to get in my last goodbyes to the MTC, and I head out very early Monday morning to fly to Newark.

To all the people who have been asking me about how I'm doing with the food here: I've lost about 7 pounds since I got here. I can't tell if that's because I've been exercising more or eating less or both, but I'm honestly happy to have a little extra buffer for when I get to Jersey and start getting fed super rich Hispanic food by members almost every day.  

This week was a great capstone to my experience here at the MTC. Our zone is doing really well which Elder Moore and I are taking complete credit for. When our Branch President heard we'd only given 3 blessings this week he was pretty excited that everyone was doing so well. 

We unfortunately didn't get any new missionaries in our zone this week because we got the two last week, but that did allow us to focus more on that group which was good. Here's some fun stories from that group:

Story 1: 

I wasn't really thinking much about it, but I was drinking a can of Coke (decaffeinated of course, because that's the only kind available here) while I was doing the orientation for their group last week. Since we've got a fridge in our room (medical purposes), I've been stockpiling sodas and have been drinking a lot of them this last week. Well, apparently according to the new guys, almost every time they've seen me since, I've had a Coke in my hand. Consequently, they've started referring to me as "The Coke Guy" or "Coke" or just "Cola" which I think is hilarious. Every time I walk up to a large group of them I get "Hey! It's the Coke Guy! What's up Coke Guy?" or "Hey Cola!" Most have them have learned my actual name at this point, but it's always fun when they forget to just hear "Hey Coke Guy! Can you help us for a bit?"

Story 2:

One of my friends here at the MTC got me a Russian language book, and Anne sent me one of her old ones, so whenever I get frustrated with learning Spanish and need a break, I just whip out the Russian book and feel really glad that I'm not going to need to know that to survive in Jersey. I've learned a decent amount of beginner phrases in that time. While I was talking to a large group of the new guys, one asked "So where are you going? And what language are you speaking?" Another one said "Well, he's  in our zone so he must be speak Spanish, right?" Jokingly I said "I speak Russian" in Russian, and all of their jaws dropped. "Are you trilingual!?" I laughed and told them I'm not quite there but I'm working on it. Now all of them just assume I speak Russian, which I also find hilarious.

Story 3: 

We're not supposed to keep score during exercise time at the MTC, which is a rule that we've always kept except for one game of sand volleyball yesterday. A team of the new guys pretty handily beat another district, so Elder Moore and I grabbed some guys and went over to play them. They started off by beating us point after point until it was 10-0 in a game to 25. They were talking a lot of smack, and questioning whether we were actually Zone Leaders. Their tune changed when we started rallying back up. Eventually it was 22-17 with them in the lead. I got rotated back to the front line and started stuffing a few of their spikes so hard that some of the Elders from the other older districts were rushing the court and yelling "That's my Zone Leader!" We tied the game up, and then after going back and forth for a few rounds ended up winning 31-29. They were devastated, but we were good sports about it and let them know that if we were there for them if any of them needed blessings needed to talk. I think we've finally got their respect.

I really don't have much else to say this week except that I love my zone, but especially my district. Big shout out to all of them for being such a great surrogate family for me for the last six weeks. I'm excited that they're going to go be great missionaries, but I'll definitely miss them a bunch.

Spanish mistake of the week:

Meant to say: "hijos de los hombres" (children of men)

Actually said: "hijos de los hombros" (children of the shoulders)

Thanks for all the great packages, letters, and emails! Expect a really long email next week when I report on my first week in the field!

Much love,

Elder Kai Reyes

The Countdown Begins

The front of our shirts with our district motto: "Labor and struggle and do all you can!”

I'm taking off soon!

This coming week will be my last week here at the MTC, and this will be one of the last emails that I send from Utah. Thank you all for all of the great messages, packages, and spiritual thoughts that you've sent my way throughout the last month! It's officially been 31 days since I started my mission, and it's incredible to me that it's gone by this fast already.

We received our travel plans yesterday. Elder Moore and I will be on the same flight going nonstop from Salt Lake to Newark on October 1st. We check out of the MTC at 4:45 AM which is going to be a struggle, but we're honestly so excited I'm sure I won't sleep much anyway.

This week has been really bittersweet, and a lot more hectic as Zone Leaders than last week. On Monday, one of the Sisters in our zone disappeared. Her entire district, campus security, and everyone were looking for her for a few hours. Eventually they found out that she'd been really sick and had run off to a bathroom because she was super nauseous, but for the first part of the day everyone thought she'd just bailed from the MTC completely. We gave her a blessing that night which was great. We've given a lot of blessings this week. One on Monday, two on Tuesday, two on Thursday, and another last night, Friday. Six blessings in five days. I honestly can't wait to do more.

There was more excitement Tuesday with a devotional talk by Elder Neil L. Andersen and it was really cool to feel the atmosphere in the devotional hall while he was there. After his talk, he went around the room shaking hands and people started just spontaneously singing hymns until the whole room was doing it together which was pretty incredible. One of the Sisters in our district is apparently close friends with his family, so he took her and her companion out to dinner before the devotional with the rest of his family and then had her read all the quotes during his talk. Jealous.

Wednesday was pretty crazy. We had our last teaching practice (TRC) for the rest of our MTC stay. That night we got to welcome the new missionaries coming into our zone. We had 27 come in this week. That's more than double the normal amount of missionaries that we usually get, so trying to round everyone up and make sure everyone is taken care of was a bit more of a challenge. We're trying our best to get to know all of them, and I think by today we've really gotten closer to most of them, which makes it really rough to have to tell them that this is going to be our last week with them. We're also really close with our district. Wednesday Elder Batista's parents sent us customized t-shirts with a logo for our district that has our district motto on the front, and then some word or phrase on the back that have to do with something we did or our personality. I'll include a picture and an explanation of each at the end.

Thursday was a hardcore language day for me. I feel like things are really clicking in Spanish. I've still got a few things to work on grammar rules wise, but mostly I'm just focusing on expanding vocabulary now which is cool. One of the Elders I made friends with here gave me a Russian for Missionaries book before he left because he didn't want it, so now whenever I get frustrated with Spanish and need a break, I just try to learn Russian for a little bit which feels like banging my head against a wall over and over, and then Spanish becomes much easier. That night one of the Sisters in our district approached us and asked us for a blessing of healing prior to an operation that she's having on Monday, which will partially determine whether she'll be able to stay here at the MTC. Usually Elder Moore does the actually blessing part, but that night I felt really impressed to give it myself so I called an audible right before we were going to start. It worked out really well, and she and I were both in tears about half way through. 

Friday was the day when we all realized as a district that our journey together is coming to an end very soon. Like I mentioned before, we received our travel itinerary which really hammered home the fact that we'll all be going to very different places and won't see each other for another year and 10 or 11 months. We've all come to feel like we're our own little family just trying to take things day by day here. I realized that while it was really hard to leave Salt Lake and my real family and come down to the MTC, it felt more like a summer camp or something because I was never really that far away from home. However, now that I'm heading off to Jersey, I'm not only going to have to leave behind my real family, but also this second family that I've come to love so much, and really truly be away from home. I've really grown to love the MTC and my assignment here.

To sum this week up in sentence: I'm as sad to leave the MTC as I am excited to go out to the field; and I'm really excited to go out to the field.

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Funny Spanish error of the week, courtesy of Elder Miner:

What he meant to say: "La muerte espiritual" (Spiritual death)

What he tried to say: "El muerte espiritual"

What he actually said: "Almuerzo espiritual" (Spiritual lunch)

Our district's shirts. From back left to back right:

Elder Rollins: "Solo Espanol" - Elder Rollins has been great at trying to speak only Spanish during our day in order to train for the field. 

Elder Palmer: "Sack" - During one of our classes, Elder Palmer did a "getting to know someone" roleplay with our teacher as a demonstration. The idea was that our teacher would ask him questions about himself and demonstrate how to connect with people and develop interpersonal skills. When the teacher asked Elder Palmer what he had for breakfast, Elder Palmer replied with just "Sack." (Meaning the sack breakfasts and sack lunches you can get here.) There was a silent beat before everyone burst out laughing.

Elder Batista: "Super Bien" - Elder Batista's catchphrase pretty much since he got here has been "Super Bien" and he uses it in place of "Awesome" or "Cool" all the time. It's caught on in our district too.

Elder Miner: "Representantes" - Elder Miner, as our District Leader, likes to make sure that our district is always conducting ourselves properly by reminding ourselves that, as missionaries, we are representatives of Jesus Christ. Whenever we get too rambunctious or the conversation starts to go in the wrong direction, you can count on hearing "Elders, somos representantes," from Elder Miner.

Elder Moore: "You've Got Mail" - Elder Moore gets a lot of mail. Like, a lot. Whenever we check the mail there's usually one or two package slips for Elder Moore from someone from his town in Idaho Falls. 

Me: "Yit" - For the first couple weeks of class, the phrase "How do you say ___?" = "Cómo se dice ____" was on the board of our classroom. Around the beginning of the second week, I filled it in to say "How do you say 'yeet'?" = "Cómo se dice 'yít'?" which became a really popular term very quickly in our district afterwards.

Front left to front right:

Hermana Von Feldt: "Trabajar-ed" - Hermana Von Feldt has been pretty good at trying to integrate the Spanish she does know even when she doesn't know how to say a full sentence in Spanish which many times results in fun English-Spanish combinations like "We trabajar-ed really hard today!" (trabajar means "to work"). 

Hermana Memory: "Bad Memory" - Hermana Memory and Hermana Quick both wanted to clarify that their names shouldn't necessarily set expectations.

Hermana Jaramillo: "Un Jaramillo"- Hermana Jaramillo has the hardest name to pronounce for most people in our district. Like Hermana Von Feldt, she also likes to mix Spanish and English, usually by saying "un ____" like "Can I have un cookie?"

An amazing hair day I felt I had to capture.

Over the MTC Hill

Earlier this week we hit the point in the MTC where we realized that we're counting down the weeks until we leave as opposed to counting up the weeks that we've been here! My flight leaves to New Jersey exactly two weeks from Monday. We've got our last teaching practices this coming week, and then the week after that is pretty much just cementing our language skills into place. 

I'm excited to move forward, but I feel like I just started being able to relax and enjoy the teaching practices more. The guy we're teaching is a really great person, and we've been able to embrace our lack of Spanish and have some fun.

For example, on Tuesday, we were trying to teach about how Christ's Apostles were killed and his church was broken up. Elder Moore was trying to say:

"Después de Jesucristo, los apóstoles fueron matados."(After Christ, the apostles were killed.)

He accidentally said "Después de Jesucristo, los apóstoles fueron mutados." 

Which means "After Christ, the Apostles were mutated."

We all laughed a lot after Fernando explained what that meant.

The entire squad (Elder Palmer and Elder Rollins are hiding in the back.)

The rest of this last week has been pretty amazing too. We were able to go to the Temple last Saturday. It was crazy busy, but it was a great experience to start off the day. We're heading out in just a moment to go today.

In terms of day to day activities, there's not a whole lot new to report. Recently, the entire MTC campus (and I'm assuming most of Provo) has smelled like a campfire due to the huge amount of smoke rolling in from what I've been told is a massive wildfire in the Spanish Fork Area. Our prayers are with anyone who's been affected by the fire or has loved ones who have been.

Elder Miner, Elder Batista, Elder Moore and I at the temple! I think it was Elder Batista who didn't take another photo because he didn't realize my eyes were closed, he just thought they got like that when I smile because I'm part Asian, lol.

The bulk of this week's interest for me has been in our duties as our new duties as Zone Leaders. Our phone actually rings a lot more than I thought it would. It's pretty funny when it does because everyone is so used to having no phone calls here that a ringtone going off makes the whole room pause and look. 

We've had some ups and downs this week in terms of our zone. Tuesday was particularly hard because we had to let go of one of our newer missionaries. He's being sent home for a couple transfers, and wanted a blessing before he left. We weren't told why he was leaving but in the context of what everything his district was saying it sounds like there may have been a death in his family.

It was a really bittersweet moment to be able to be there helping give him his last blessing before he heads home until January. I'm a bit saddened that I won't be able to be there to watch him grow and get ready for the field, but I'm glad I got the chance to know him before he went back. 

It's really weird to think that it's only a few transfers until January. Today is 9/15. 3 months (about 2 transfers) will be 12/15. 

We also found out today that we'll be losing one of the members of our zone who's been here the longest. He's released on Monday for 4-6 weeks for medical purposes. We gave him a blessing last night and that was a great experience too, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't hard to let him go.

This week we got our first district of new missionaries. Elder Moore and I got to give them orientation and really get to know them. Then we toured them around the MTC and rallied the entire zone to come visit their room. It was awesome to see the joy in their faces as they watched all 60 of their new brothers welcome them into their new zone family. 

We've started trying to make the zone a more tight-knit unit. We're trying to eat together more, exercise together more, and talk to each other when we see each other more. It's had a really apparent effect on the mentality of the whole zone. 

In terms of exercise, I feel like I'm making progress. I've been running a lot more (which I hate), doing a lot more sit ups (which I hate), and feeling a lot more fit overall (which I don't hate). 

Thanks to whoever sent me cookies! You guys need to put a name on them so I can call you out in these emails!

We're heading out to the temple now, but I'll be back on in hopefully a couple hours in order to answer replies and other emails from throughout the week!

Apologies for the shorter emails as of late, everything is honestly so similar day-to-day that there's not a whole lot of new stuff.

Expect some more lengthy emails over the next few weeks as I transition into the field!

Much love,

Elder Kai Reyes

Yo quiero Taco Bell!

We got Taco Bell for dinner on Tuesday. I was a little excited.

In the Zone

In the interest of time (and because most of the days this week felt pretty similar), this post might be a bit shorter than usual. However, if you have specific questions or want me to elaborate more on anything feel free to reach out and I'll respond ASAP. I can respond to emails at anytime between 6:30AM and 6:00PM on Saturdays. 

Sunday:

Sunday was our first Fast Sunday at the MTC! For those of you who aren't familiar with fasting or Fast Sunday, it's when we don't eat for two meals and 24 hours in order to try to focus on Christ and then donate the money we would've spent on food (and some) to those in need in the Church. We do this the first Sunday of each month, and usually we try to pick a specific cause to dedicate our fast to. 

This week I felt inspired to fast for my companion, Elder Moore. I wasn't super sure why, but I did feel that he'd been having some frustrations with the language and really missed his family and his girlfriend. He'd been emailing his girlfriend every other night or so (which we found out is against the rules, more on that later) and I just felt like his experience here could be better overall, so I dedicated my fast to him. 

It turned out to be an amazingly spiritual day. A lot of the time, fasting can feel like a chore. I'm pretty sure getting grumpy when we're hungry is a hereditary trait in my family, and it's especially easy to be negative when you've woken up at 6:30, haven't eaten any breakfast, and know you won't be eating any lunch.  

However, Sunday was different. Elder Moore and I started the day by teaching a lesson on gratitude, which I think helped set the tone for our mindset for the rest of the day. We talked about the fact that instead of focusing on being frustrated on all of the rules here, we should focus on the fact that there's something to be grateful for in each day. We should also remember that it's not just our Mission President asking us to follow the rules, he's just asking us to do what God asks us to do. Hearing so many other Elders complain about things around the MTC reminded me of this verse from 1 Nephi 3:

5 And now, behold thy brothers murmur, saying it is a hard thing which I have required of them; but behold I have not required it of them, but it is a commandment of the Lord.

6 Therefore go, my son, and thou shalt be favored of the Lord, because thou hast not murmured.

Don't get me wrong, a lot of the MTC is hard, boring, or frustrating (we joked that it's the necessary sorrow needed to comprehend the joy of the rest of your mission); but I felt like I could imagine our Branch or Mission President saying that same thing: 

"Your brothers keep complaining that my rules are too hard, but they're not my rules."

We had an amazing Mission Conference and a great Sunday Devotional. The focus was on love, which I thought was a great topic. We sang an amazing arrangement of Praise to the Man which gave me chills.

Throughout the day, I kept having random feelings throughout the day to do certain little things, like to introduce myself to someone I didn't know (instead of going to dinner immediately) and finding out that they were a good friend of our family; or to move a certain way in the cafeteria (and feel like I was an idiot for doing so) only to narrowly avoid having everything knocked out of my hands because I did. It felt like baby steps, but also like I was starting to get the hang of listening when I was getting prompted to do something.

Elder Eggett, MTC Music Director

To top off the night, we watched the Restoration video, which left us in a really good mood to start our new week.

Monday:

Monday we started TRC's, which is when we teach someone interested in learning about our church or someone playing that role. We've been teaching a young Chilean guy named Fernando, who tends to fall asleep during lessons. It's been a little bit frustrating at times, especially because we don't get any feedback on how we're doing, so we're not sure how to improve, but it's definitely humbled me in terms of how fluent I feel in Spanish. I've been putting a lot more hustle in this week to learn Spanish instead of just resting on my laurels and coasting day to day. That's been really helpful in motivating me.

That afternoon we did a serious gym session and ended by doing burnouts (which is where you just keep lifting until your muscles completely fail) and I ended up unable to put my arms above my shoulders which makes it pretty easy to sleep.

Tuesday:

Today was pretty much the same day as yesterday. For some reason I was randomly really frustrated during the middle of the day, but cooled off pretty quickly and had a great time during our Tuesday night devotional. 

Wednesday:

We did our last TRC of the week. We also did a workshop on using technology which I really enjoyed. In Jersey we're allowed (and encouraged) to use Facebook and Instagram to find people who are interested in our message. It's pretty cool to be some of the first missionaries to be able to utilize these tools.

Thursday:

Thursday I really started to step it up in learning Spanish. On Wednesday I learned 5 new words (just the ones on DuoLingo) and today I've accumulated 76 different words that I've learned and studied today. Looking out for words and trying to speak the language as much as possible is a great way to keep myself motivated throughout the day.

Friday:

Friday was an interesting day. We had normal class, lunch, class, dinner, exercise and were getting ready for bed when our Zone Leaders (Districts are groups of 10 to 12 missionaries, Zones are 10 to 12 Districts) came into our room to give a blessing to Elder Rollins who just felt like he needed some comfort and guidance in teaching. The Zone Leaders are in charge of managing all the missionaries in the Zone, as well as making sure that they're all doing well physically, emotionally, and spiritually,  which includes giving blessings to anyone who feels like they need one. Apparently, they do it pretty frequently. Elder Anderson and Elder Palmer (not the one in our room) had us stand in on the circle while they gave the blessing. It was a really cool thing to be a part of. Anderson mentioned that it was the 4th blessing he'd given that night, and the 25th blessing he's given since being a Zone Leader which is amazing to me.

While we were writing about it in our journals about it, President Cook, our Mission President came into our room to chat. He's a super loving guy. He pulled Elder Moore and me out to talk to us in the staircase of our building where no one else was around. He asked us how we were doing with being obedient to the rules, and I realized that he'd found out about Moore emailing home when he shouldn't have been (he didn't know it was against the rules). 

He said "I heard there was a problem with emailing home. We just need you to be exactly obedient."

We were pretty sheepish but were happy that he was more love and less anger about it. He said that he had an obedience assignment for us, which we felt like was fair. 

We get those all the time from our teachers in class like "Make sure your companion can see the screen of your phone at all times." Or "Make sure you're using all of your planning time in the morning and not sleeping in." So we figured it wouldn't really be hard to add another one of those if it meant that we weren't going to get chewed out. 

He said, "Elder Anderson and Elder Palmer are leaving on Tuesday, and we'd like to call you as the new Zone Leaders."

Wait. What? 

"You're going to have to set the example for the next 3 weeks as the leaders of all these missionaries. We'll talk more on Sunday."

We're super excited. Elder Anderson was too. 

"I called it from WEEK ONE!" -Elder Anderson

Saturday:

We haven't told anyone in our District. Some of the guys who've been here for a while or who talked to Anderson know, but we've been keeping it on the down low and just told everyone that we got chastised by President. 

I guess we'll clear that up tomorrow.

Much love,

Elder Kai Reyes

FRIENDS

Happy weekend everyone!

It feels weird to be writing an email about my week when it feels like it's just been one very long day with vague breaks where I was allowed to pass out in a bed. I'm starting to get pretty accustomed to the repetitive schedule, and I can't decide whether that's a blessing because the time flies by or a curse because I'll be performing the same routine for the next five weeks ad nauseam. 

Quick disclaimer: We've been studying Spanish for so long every day that sometimes it feels like my English is starting to deteriorate. For example, it took me 5 minutes the other day to think of the word "choir" for a journal entry because I could only think of the Spanish word. My point is, if during any part of this email it seems like English is my second language, consider that a testament to my progress in Spanish.

Our whole class has made pretty great progress in Spanish. Elder Moore, who you may remember started from ground zero in Spanish (or potentially ground negative-one, as he's expressed that the German he learned is somehow the exact opposite of Spanish), has made a lot of visible progress. In addition to learning quite a bit of the required vocabulary, he's also progressed a couple steps toward really knowing the everyday phrases of the language. Earlier this week, he when he wanted to say a Spanish word like "¿Listo?" (Ready?), he used to just say random Spanish-sounding gibberish. Now, he's progressed to saying the incorrect word, but one in actual Spanish that sounds similar, like instead of "¿Listo?" he'll say "¿Le gusta?" (Do you like it?) or "¿Luego?" (Later?) which I believe means that he's one step away from saying actual Spanish words and having them be correct. I'm pretty proud of him, because Spanish has been a struggle for all of us. 

Here are a few of my favorite mistranslations from this week:

1. 

What was meant: ¡Súperfuerte!

What that means: "Super strong!"

What was said: "¡Súperfuente!"

What that means: "Super fountain!"

2.

What was meant: "Memorice estas frases."

What that means: "Memorize these phrases."

What was said: "Memorice estas fresas."

What that means: "Memorize these strawberries."

3.

What was meant: "¿Tiene cuentos sobre cuándo era un niño?"

What that means: "Do you have stories about when you were a kid?"

What was said: "¿Tiene historia con un bebé?"

What that means: "Do you have history with a baby?"

And of course the classic pitfalls:

Meant: "Tengo dieciocho años." (I am 18 years old).

Said: "Tengo dieciocho anos." (I have 18 anuses).

Meant: "Estoy avergonzada." (I'm embarrassed.)

Said: "Estoy embarazada." (I'm pregnant.)

As you can see, it's been a lot of struggling and failing in order to try and cram a new language into our brains. It's a tiring process and can be pretty frustrating at points--especially because both of the teachers we started with have been reassigned to new classes :( -- but we've got a couple things going for us: some amazing spiritual experiences this week, and a great District (class that does everything together for those who are less familiar with MTC terminology) of friends that support each other.

I know that I've got some friends on here who love me but want to bail before the spiritual stuff starts (That's fine, I'll get you one day) so I'll save that for last and start by introducing our District: 

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Our District

For convenience sake, I'll attach a picture of our District with one of our Spanish teachers as a visual aid.

Back row from left to right:

Elder Miner (Elder Batista's Companion): Our District Leader. He takes his job very seriously, but also likes to have fun. He played Division 1 soccer in high school and lets it show during exercise time when he's finessing people up and down the field. He's diabetic, and is really good natured about it. He spent an entire lunch period answering potentially awkward questions from the rest of us who don't really know anything about it. His condition apparently also means that he has the exact opposite goal from us when we work out. He needs body fat so that his insulin pump is more effective, so he's not supposed to lose weight or gain muscle which is unfortunate because he's really fit and likes to exercise. While Elder Moore, Batista, and I were lifting the other day, his task was to sit in the corner on his phone and eat chips, which wasn't his favorite. I'm not sure if that exercise time was harder for us or for him.  

Me (I hope you recognize me): I've named this post "Friends" for a couple reasons. The first is that I truly do feel like I've bonded with my fellow missionaries a whole lot over the course of the last week, especially Moore, Miner, and Batista. We've had some amazing conversations about our lives, our homes, our hopes, and our fears going forward. We've started doing as much as we can together instead of just seeing each other during class, and it's made a really big difference in how quickly the days go by. We're going to be friends for a long time, and they all want to go to the U when we get back. I'd be roommates with them in a heartbeat. 

However, the other reason I've named this email "Friends" is because earlier this week someone pointed out that apparently I sound exactly like the character Ross from the TV show Friends. Now, I've never actually seen Friends so I'm having a hard time trying to contest this claim, but apparently it's accurate enough that when someone mentioned it during class, the entire District agreed and then they spent like 15 minutes of class time talking about it, talking about Friends, and trying to get me to say certain key phrases of the character from the show like "Rachel!" and saying "Hi" in a really dejected voice. Since I don't know the character I'm not sure whether to be flattered or offended, but they've assured me that he's one of the best characters in the show even though that statement is always partially contested by someone in the room. Whatever. 

Elder Batista (Elder Miner's Companion): Elder Batista is what would happen if a giant American Teddy Bear with a proud Spanish heritage was connected to the internet and brought to life. He's very outgoing, sometimes to the dismay of those that he's talking to. For example, on Wednesday when the new recruits came in, he would pick one at random, go up to them, and give them a "full Spanish welcome" which included taking them by the shoulders and kissing the air next to each of their cheeks in an style reminiscent of a European aunt who hasn't seen you in too long. He also seems to have downloaded an entire internet's worth of memes, pop culture references, and impressions of popular videos; all of which he has at the ready in case they become contextually relevant, at which point he fully commits and belts them out loud and proud. He's probably the best in our class at Spanish, and he and I talk a lot during class because we're the only ones who can understand each other at this point. We've also had some great talks in English as we share a lot of interests in terms of games, movies, TV, etc. His current catchphrase is "Superbien!" (Super good!) which has caught on with our District pretty well. 

He and I, despite doing well at Spanish have both been having a harder time than our companions during workout times. This weird dynamic where Miner and Moore struggle at Spanish while we coach them, and then Batista and I struggle at workouts while they coach us has brought us together because we have to rely on each other to achieve what we're weak at.

Hermano Durant: The Spanish teacher that's been with us since we got here. He got reassigned and yesterday was his last day with us.  :(  

Elder Moore (My Companion): Elder Moore was very excited to get back into his element this week as he led us all through workout times. The man runs a 40m dash in 4.5 seconds (which is faster than some NFL players), and he's been leagues ahead of us when working out, but very helpful and supportive in getting us where we want to go. He's been holding my feet when I can't do pull-ups, helping me design my own workouts, and even getting me to push past my perceived limits by lying to me about how heavy the weights he's giving me are. Personality wise, he's uncannily similar to myself (sometimes I feel like I'm talking to myself), and multiple times a day we say what the other is thinking even if it's non-sequitur or weird. I feel like God gave me myself as a first companion so that if I have any criticism about the experience then I can try to change it about myself before my future companions would likely have the same critiques.

Elder Rollins (Elder Palmer's Companion), Elder Palmer (Elder Rollin's Companion)

Front row, from left to right:

Hermana Memory, Hermana Quick, Hermana Von Feldt, Hermana Jaramillo

Our week (this is where the spiritual stuff starts):

Sunday was amazing. Everyone told us that if we got to Sunday that we'd make it all the way and now I see why. Everything but Sacrament Meeting was in English which was a great opportunity to rest from our language labors and focus on the spiritual side of things. 

That night was especially awesome. We had a devotional talk from the MTC President and his wife about their family and the role that missionaries had in their lives. Both are converts and had several children go out as missionaries. 

The highlight for me was when they talked about their youngest son, who loved to do their genealogy and was planning on taking a trip to Italy to do so. Unfortunately, during a vacation to Hawaii a couple months before he was set to go, he contracted a rare tropical disease and passed away a few weeks later at age 23.

This was a hard time for their family. However, over the next few months, they had several experiences while doing family history in which they felt him there, or heard his voice, or asked for his help and in each of those instances found a line of family they hadn't known about before. 1,800 names the first time, 700 the second, and 1300 the third. It was truly amazing to hear of how that son still made his contribution even though he didn't make it to Italy.

After the devotional, we had the option to watch a recorded talk. The ones at the MTC are pretty cool because they don't show them anywhere else. The one that seems to be the favorite here is "Character of Christ" by Elder Bednar, and after watching it I understand why.

He talks about turning outwards to serve others when we're going through hard times instead of feeling sorry for ourselves and had some really powerful stories. He also did an impression of Cookie Monster which is something I never knew I wanted.

On Tuesday we also had the opportunity to perform our choir piece and hear talks from Elder and Sister Nielsen of the Quorum of the Seventy. It was focused on the fact that even if we only find one person who's ready to listen, it'll be a treasure for a lifetime.

The rest of the week has been a blur of studying, exercising, and being really sick of the food already.

While I'm still already anxious to get out to Jersey, I'm feeling much more motivated again today to take on this next week.

Thanks for keeping me in your thoughts and prayers, and I'll let you know next Saturday how it goes.

Much love,

Elder Kai Reyes

Other Pics:

1. Eld. Batista and I with the cat that hangs around the MTC

2. A great picture of Elder Moore

MTC Cat

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The Next Two Years

I'm very excited to be called to the New Jersey Morristown Mission speaking Spanish. The next two years will no doubt be a wild ride, and I plan on putting as much of my adventure as I can here for easy viewing.

I will still be sending out the traditional mission emails which will include a bit more detail and allow you to reply to me. You can sign up to receive my emails using the box below. I promise they won't be the kind you have to mute notifications for:

I ship out to the Provo MTC (Missionary Training Center) on Wednesday, August 22. I should be there for around six weeks before I fly out to Jersey. Updates will be around once a week.

Wish me luck!

Equally Yoked Together

Happy Saturday!

The last two and a half days have felt like a full week or more. Probably because I went from working 20 hours a week during the summer to near 15 hour days here at the Missionary Training Center. A LOT has happened to the point that I keep referring to things as having happened "yesterday" before being softly reminded that the event in question actually occurred a few hours earlier. 

Wednesday:

After being dropped off by my family in the afternoon, I was shuffled from station to station getting various papers and items. After a brief stop to my room to drop my bags off I was sent straight to class where I met my companion for the next six weeks, Elder Moore.

I wasn't really worried about who my companion would be until I got to the closed door of the classroom, at which point the fear of being stuck at the side of some antisocial nutjob or juvenile troublemaker for six weeks came to a peak. However, opening the door, I was super relieved to meet Elder Moore and couldn't be happier with my partner for the next few weeks.

During that class, each pair (there are 10 people in our District, 6 Elders and 4 Sisters) was given time to look at some of the murals around the new MTC building and think about the purpose of being a missionary. We all then shared our thoughts. After Elder Moore and I shared our thought on our turn, one of the louder Elders said with a nervous laugh:

"Are we sure these guys aren't secretly Returned Missionaries?"

That was a pretty nice confidence boost for both of us.

Elder Moore is an 18 y/o from Idaho. He's a great guy; very understanding and mature. He too played rugby in high school, as well as football, track, and basketball. We're both planning on exercising a lot to keep the MTC food weight off and have been doing push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, etc. in the morning and before bed.

One of the first videos they played at the welcome meeting was called "Equally Yoked Together" which was about Oxen using teamwork to pull heavy sleds at competitions, and had the moral that both missionaries in the companionship should be team players and work together. However, Elder Moore and I, in accordance with our fitness goal, took the title to also mean that we should both try to get as yoked as possible during our stay here. While we've only had one dedicated exercise period so far, I'm pretty optimistic.

It was a long day of class and teaching "investigators," the latter of which was an amazing experience and I really poured my heart out. That combined with the stress of leaving home and family left us pretty fragile emotionally. Consequently, Elder Moore an I made a pact that while we were reading the letters that friends and family had given us for the end of our first day, we wouldn't judge each other while the other bawled their eyes out. 

When the time came though, we were both stunned. We went through each letter slowly and methodically and kept looking over to make sure the other was okay. Neither of us shed a single tear. Instead, as we found out after, we both wrote down in our journals that we were just so happy. Our hearts were so full. That feeling kept us in good spirits and helped us through the night.

Thursday:

We were told by several people on Wednesday that the second day was the hardest day of the MTC for them. We were pretty exhausted from the day before and still adjusting to the schedule (bed at 10:30 and up at 6:30 for my friends who don't know). I've also had a cold since Wed. which has made my brain feel pretty muddled.

We started our first day of Spanish classes. I'd like to take a moment and thank all of my Spanish teachers in school. I've been asked by multiple people who have been here for 3, 4, even 5 weeks if I'm at their level or even ahead of them in class which has made me feel pretty confident in the language. 

Poor Elder Moore, on the other hand, took two years of German in school and never touched Spanish until Thursday. He had a rough time during class and was feeling pretty discouraged throughout the day. I've been trying to just be there when he needs help and answer questions, but the language is the most frustrating part for him which was hard because...

Friday:

We had 10 HOURS of language study. 2 four hour classes and 2 one hour self-study sessions. I had assumed through all these classes that we'd start like a traditional Spanish class with the alphabet and sounding things out and all that. While we did at first on Thursday, it became clear on Friday that this was not the case. Instead, they just started giving us phrases and words pertaining to a specific topic and then just let us learn from osmosis. I didn't know most of the words as they were pertaining to giving prayers, and scripture is currently extremely hard for me to try to understand in Spanish. I'm starting to get the hang of at least praying now, but even with my background in Spanish the class is a lot of hard work.

Luckily, we had our first exercise time on Friday where we could get out of our shirts and ties and play some sand volleyball out across the street from the MTC. Being able to run around freely and mess around in the sand was really refreshing. Elder Moore and I make a pretty good volleyball team too which is nice. We ended the day happily tired.

Overall, the first few days were pretty rough, and the MTC is definitely a weird place. It feels like a mix of EFY, seminary, and Spanish class but all dialed up to 11. The food is pretty hit or miss with mostly misses, but since I've been using so much energy during these days I've been pretty hungry by the time we get to each meal which seems to make the food taste better. Both Elder Moore and I have been pretty impatient to get out to Jersey at times, but at this point we've been more able to slow down and enjoy the experience. Being this walled off from the outside world has been both relaxing and unsettling, and I've definitely appreciated all the emails I've gotten throughout the week.

I'll try to keep future blog posts shorter and more to the point, but I guess it seems like the best way to express how I'm feeling at the moment is to just throw a bunch of new information at you and see how you feel haha.

Love and miss you all. Week 0.5/104 complete.

-Elder Kai Reyes

Pics: 

I haven't taken a lot because I wasn't sure on the rules but here's a few.

1. Elder Moore and I.

2. The View from our classroom onto campus.

3 & 4: Our classroom, which I'm including to make the people who had to use the old buildings mad.

Elder Moore and I.

The View from our classroom onto campus.