WEEK SEVEN: New Responsibilities

Elder Peck and Elder Pace doing the Skype lesson with Jan (pronounced Yawn) in Slovakia

Elder Pettit (one of his favorites)

Elder Toone

Elder Mandla (one of his favorites)

Elder White (he knows Tyson's cousin, Ethan, since they both went to Lehi High)

Elder Byrd (one of his favorites)

Elder Curtis

Elder Blackwell

Elder Hill

Elder Larsen who is in England Leeds right now (I think this is one of the Polish elders)

With Elder Holmes (not in his zone but still one of his favorites!)---He said he sees Elder Holmes all the time and loves it!

Elder James (one of his favorites) with Elder Holt dabbing in the back

Sister Locey (one of his favorites) with Sisters Benion, Dahl and Yergensen

A few of the Polish elders

Elder Baldwin

Elder Morrise

Elder Clark

The Zone

(Tyson sent a lot of pictures of the missionaries that left.  He had a lot of favorites! :)

This week was really good. We got new people in the zone and more are coming this Wednesday again. These new guys changed the dynamic of our zone. We are a lot more musically gifted now. I love them all. They are super nice and even are willing to play soccer! That is good news. 

We said goodbye to all the old ones and it was sad, but we knew they were going where they needed to. On Sunday, I gave my first priesthood blessing to a Sister in our zone. It was easily one of the scariest things I have ever done, but it was a super spiritual experience. I felt like I was able to be directed by the Lord in what to say and how. 

The devotional was great. It was by Bonnie L Oscarson and I enjoyed listening to her. The spirit was really present even though we all had hoped it would be Elder Holland. We did skype TRC which means we taught a member in Slovakia. We skyped one of the 60 or so active members in the entire country and had a 40 minute lesson with him. He was super hard to understand since the connection was bad and he mumbled like crazy. Our teacher knew him and said that he sometimes can't understand him so we had no hope. I understood maybe 2% of the conversation. 

Anyways, I am a Zone Leader and it is new and kind of weird. I am grateful for everything I learn because of my chance to serve though. The mission is great.

Love you all,

Elder Pace

Sister Wilson's mom just sent this to me.....I love that Tyson gets to see so many faces from home!

Tyson said it seems like everyone thought he was depressed from his last email but he assured me he is fine and doing well.  He was sad to see friends leave but he reminded me that is normal :)

He doesn't enjoy writing so email time is one of the most stressful times of his week.  I asked him a bunch of questions last week hoping to give him some ideas of what to write about.  He just answered them question by question to me.  I'll include them here since they give some additional info to the email above....

#1 The language is coming alright. It isn't super easy, but I understand grammar principles and can memorize and use vocab without needing to work harder than you would expect. One day this week, the grammar hurt my head a little, but after some prayer and thinking about it, I got it down. I have to think about it real hard, but it comes. 

#2 Me and Elder Peck get along great. He is an awesome missionary and a good friend. We are pretty open and are understanding of what each other do so that way we don't have any tension between us. He is super funny and nice and I am glad to have him as a companion.

#3 (Last week Elder Peck's letter talked about how they were just made the Zone Leaders so I asked what that meant.)  We are the Zone Leaders. Forgot to mention that. We interview district leaders and pray about our zone and have a responsibility to help make sure we all follow the rules and we make sure everyone is spiritually and physically okay.

#4 This was not a question. (Sounds like Tyson!  He is very literal!) But, I will try better to write about devotionals. Usually, if something stands out to me, I try to write it. I keep my journal and write my thoughts and impressions so I have it all there. I usually just forget to talk about it when I email.

#5 (I asked if he still liked the type of garments he selected) I am totally fine with my garments. I lost a pair somehow. I don't know how, but so did another elder in my room. We wonder if someone took them on accident from the laundry or something.

#6 We have one elder in our zone who is injured. He is getting better though. I don't do anything stupid or go hard enough to where I would get hurt. I know you would be super upset if I did.

#7 (Tyson could never wake up to his alarm clock in high school so I asked how he was doing with that.) I  think this letter jinxed me. I had woken up every day on time or a few minutes early until the day after this letter. I didn't hear any alarm and woke up 5 minutes late. I felt bad but I am back on top of it. The schedule is fine, but sometimes I get a little tired. I am feeling just a little sick right now.

#8 We have 3 teachers. I only have a picture of the one. He is my favorite. He is Brat Utley. The others are Brat Sharp and Sestra Palenikova (she is a native Slovak and is trying to start a Slovak class at BYU)