Hey, Mom, Dand and the Gang!
Thanks for another great email! It's great having family that supports me. I don't know if I've told you this or not, but Elder Van Nevel's Mom is really against him being on a mission. She writes him short emails each week that usually just say basically that he should come home.. That would be really hard. I'm glad I have so much support from so many people!
Ok first of all, I think you will like my pics this time. The first one is a picture of a girl, Melissa, from the ward up in Aalborg. She was my favorite kid ever! She is the one that drew that picture for me of me and her holding hands. And she is just a cutie. I already miss her! And then the rest of the pictures are of mine and Christensen's adventures in a yellow field. These yellow fields are all over Denmark, and they are all fully in bloom right now and its so beautiful! Well, I'm in my new area now. Esbjerg. I think it is going to be a really good area for missionary work. I don''t know much about it yet, cuz I've only been here for a day, but they have so many progressing investigators here, and a lot of people who are so close to baptism! There is even one girl with a baptismal date! So I'm excited to get to know these investigators as well as I knew them in Aalborg, and help them keep progressing and learning more about the gospel. It was way hard leaving Aalborg and I miss it a ton. We had to pack and write down notes about all of our investigators and everything that the new missionaries should know. That took forever! Umm, so sunday was our last day in Aalborg. We went to church and said goodbye to everyone, which was way hard :(. Especially to say bye to the young adults that we worked with so much. Like Vince and the others. Thats cool though that you have been sending messages to each other and getting to know each other a bit. Vince has been a good friend and has really helped me to get started on my mission. Well, we left right after church. We drove all the way down to Copenhagen, which is like a 5 hour drive, and on the way there we stopped for a few minutes at Himmelbjerg (Heaven Mountain) It's the highest point in Denmark, but it's not even high at all. It's just like a hill... Lame. Anyway, we got to Copenhagen, and the next day was zones conference. It was exciting! We had a member of the 70 there, Elder Teixeira. He spoke to us and it was way good and encouraging. Oh and here is something exciting, I got called on to give a talk! And I didn't even have anything prepared! And I had to give an 8 minute talk in front of the entire mission and a General Authority! So while someone else was giving a talk right before me, I hurried and put something together in like 3 minutes, and it actually turned out pretty good. :)
After zones conference some of us went to the hard rock cafe! It was way good. It was just like I was in America again! You order in English, and they play classic American rock music, and the best part, they gave us huge American portions! I got a way good BBQ Cheeseburger. Yumm! Well, the next day I got my new companion and we drove back to our new area Esbjerg! (We have a car in this area) I'm excited to get to know this area! I think it's gonna be great! I haven't got to know my new companion, Elder Holladay, too much yet, but he seems like a great guy and a great missionary. But honestly, I think that this transfer might be a bit long and maybe a little boring... :/ My new comp doesn't seem too exciting.. But hopefully we will get to know each other really well and get along, and have a lot of fun adventures together. Oh and by the way, you can still use that same address. You can use that for my entire mission. That is the address of the mission office, and you send stuff there, and then they send it to me wherever I am. So that makes it easier.
Oh, the update with Jonas, the midnight train man! We went and visited him, and it went way well! We had a really good discussion about Joseph Smith and and Book of Mormon, and then he asked about what happens after death, so we taught him about the Plan of Salvation too. He told us that if he finds out that it's true, he will stop drinking coffee, and stop drinking alcohol, and join our church! And then, when we gave him a Book of Mormon he said ''I want to read this book in a month, do you think that is possible?'' Whoah, golden! We were just like, ''Yeah, you bet!'' He is a good one! But of course, we had to leave him, and move away. :(
That must've been fun meeting with all of the other missionary parents. I'm excited to hear about all of the other guys and how they are doing in there different places in the world. Sorry, I kinda forgot to include something special in my email for that, but hopefully you were able to just put something together from my emails, and what you've heard from me. I'm looking forward to getting that letter. Oh, before I forget. I got that letter from the Fife family and I wrote something back, but I don't have their address. Could you tell me it? Thanks
Sounds like you saw a couple of really great farewell talks! Thanks for telling me about them! I'm sad that I'm missing all of my friends farewells, but I'll be there for there homecomings! Doug's farewell sounds like it was really good and spiritual, and also funny and fun. They have been really good friends. Doug was my best friend growing up, and I feel bad that when they moved away, we never really stayed in touch more. I gotta say, I'm jealous that I missed out on the after party. It must've been a good one!
Whoah! That is crazy that Jansen is 16! And that the school year is over!! I can't believe that it has already been a whole year since I graduated! Time goes by a little too fast sometimes!
Of course I remember that you are going on a cruise! }:-( And I am super jealous. But I hope you have a really great time! And hopefully you don't encounter too many troubles this time, (hurricanes, broken ships, etc.) You have to let me know all about it!
Well that's it for this week. Have an super fun time on your cruise. Bye for now!
Love,
Your favorite missionary,
Elder Tyler Lee