Getting Reassigned Spanish Speaking

Howdy partners!

I hope everyone had a splendid week. To quote my companion: "out of all of the weeks of the MTC, this surely has been...one of them." Powerful words given by Byron III himself. 

Not many new things happen here at the YBOMTC (Yakima Basement Online MTC), so I have found myself becoming entertained very stupid things. For example; earlier this week, I was facetiming one of the Elders in my district and we were talking about how I finally printed off this paper called "the green card" (this is basically just a piece of paper that is chalk-full of Japanese language and grammar rules that is all in romaji). I was given this paper before the MTC even started, yet I still had failed to print it off. Which really isn't a big deal, but it is a super helpful resource, so I have so just been holding myself back;) Anyways, he brought up how his printer can print things from his phone, and we were talking about how cool it is that printers can do that so fast. Then I was telling him how insanely fast our new printer that we just got could print. Given the fact that I felt he didn't quite understand the extent of my printer's speed, I found myself proving it to him by pressing print on my computer downstairs, sprinting upstairs, placing a piece of paper in the printer and then watching this speed printer do its work. 

Let me tell ya, this printer is wicked fast. 

I then proceeded to talk up how cool it was that the printer could print so fast as I walked back downstairs. It was at that moment that I realized what being a missionary and staring at a screen for 8+ hours a day had done to me... 

The "green card"

Please send me help. Any suggestions of forms of entertainment are welcomed😁

Lots of zoom "pranks" were pulled this week

This week a big focus in our classes and lesson we taught was teaching with happiness, power, and not worrying about speaking perfect Japanese. The way that one of our teachers informed us of this new goal was surely an interesting one tho... She basically started off by telling the whole class about how we need to be better at teaching in our TRC's (Teaching Resource Center), etc. She then told us that she would be attempting to teach one of the Elders in our district in Spanish. And let me tell you; she can not speak spanish. I thought I was bad at spanish, but after hearing that lesson, I was convinced of the contrary. Then she said she would be teaching one of us in Japanese. This lesson was just about as painful to watch, if not worse. This was because she was speaking very very broken Japanese, teaching with no conviction, she seemed all mad, etc. Basically the whole time it seemed like she was just roasting (for the older folk: making fun of us) the whole class and I was honestly kinda mad at the end of the lesson. I really could not see what point she was trying to get across. Then one Elders who is definitely more Christlike than me said something along the lines of "Wow I can totally see that when I teach I need to smile more, and make the person we are teaching know that we care about them and are engaged in the lesson." After he said that, I immediately regretted a lot of the things I had though during the fake lesson. 

Even though I still do not think that it was the best way to teach the principle she was trying to get across, I did learn something from that lesson. From then on, I have been working on not worrying about speaking perfect Japanese, and making sure I smile more when I am teaching and even struggling while speaking a language that I have only been speaking for 7 weeks 😊

This past P day, I was able to go on a fun little hike with my family. We hiked up to Edgar Rock and then went out for burgers after. It was super fun, and we even found Edgar! I was also able to help Nate and Coop go shopping for some more supplies of another quarter pipe we are building!

On top of Edgar Rock

My momma and me

Love my dad!

Okay I've got one last story to close this email. The other day, Nathan came up to me and told me that he had some crazy news to tell me. 

Just a quick preface: If you have ever slept in the same room as me, you know that sometimes I like to sleep talk (idk for sure tho, cuz I have never heard it myself...). For example, my college roommate, Gavin, used to write down some of the weird or funny things I would say in my sleep, and I am sure he is saving them for some devious plan. But that's besides the point.

He then told me about how the other night I had gone to sleep earlier and when him and Cooper were going to bed, they noticed that I was talking in my sleep. After a few moments of analysis, they reckoned that I was speaking in Japanese!! WOAH. I was shocked to find this out, and also kinda excited. My hope is that in my dreams I speak perfect Japanese and am fluent in the language. Of course, there is no real way to prove my hypothesis, but I will continue to live my fantasy. 

Songs of the Week: 

You lucky ducklings are getting two new songs to jam to this week!!

Sanctuary by Nashville Cast, Charles Eaton, Lennon & Maisy. 

This song is mostly dedicated to my mom since she became obsessed with this song this week, and played it on repeat for basically 48 hours straight. So I had to share it with you all. Plus it really is a good song and has a great meaning behind it, especially when you think about God being your sanctuary.

IPlayYouListen by ODESZA. Shoutout to Elder Scow for reminding me of this song. I especially love Odesza when I am stressed out and need to listen to some upbeat music with no words haha.

Missionary music is limited, but not too limited. Keep on sending me any music suggestions you have, and maybe you'll even get featured on an email😀

And don't forget to watch General Conference this weekend!!  It's a chance to hear our living prophet speak to the world and it will be full of positive messages.  It's on Saturday and Sunday. Go here to watch it.

P.S. Sorry for the sorta clickbait title....

またねみなさん！

Love, 

Elder Ditto

Behind Every Tree is a Pretty Girl

I am a "fisher" of men!!  Fun little fishing excursion with my friend, Kade.

Another week in the books. I was going to try to prolong the announcement and give you guys a big cliff hanger on the update that I received this week regarding the location of my missionary assignment. The only problem that I ran into when writing this email is that there really wasn't anything unique that happened this past week. SO here you go. The news.

DRUM ROLL...

On Tuesday, I was over to my favorite, temporarily, disabled person's house (Kade), when I went over to my phone and noticed that I had a missed call from my Stake President. I immediately knew what was in store. The dredded yet exciting word. My temporary reassignment. I called him back, and after a little bit of phone tag, we got a hold of each other. After some catching up, he asked me if I was ready to find out where I am getting temporarily reassigned until Japan opens up for missionaries like me to come into the country, serve them, and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of Japan. He then read me off the email that he had gotten, and informed me that I have been temporarily reassigned to the SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH mission! 

I know, I know...take a deep breath. I know what you're thinking. "But Tyler, how are you going to survive in such an exotic and new place? Do they even know who Jesus Christ is all the way over there? Will you be able to handle new exotic foods that the people of Utah enjoy?" All of the same things rushed through my head when I heard the words "Salt Lake City Utah Mission" too. I report the week of October 27th (two weeks after my basement MTC finishes).

Okay, all jokes aside. I was not expecting to go back to basically the same place that I had spent the past year of my life living at for college. And I can't lie, I was a little (sometimes a lot) disappointed with the news. I have asked questions like, "Why can't I go somewhere new and different?" "Maybe they gave me the wrong call," etc. The day after I received the news, it was hard for me to focus in class and especially hard to study Japanese.

All I want to do is go to Japan and learn this crazy hard and beautiful language, and serve the people of Japan. 

Now, after a few days of thinking, praying, talking about my call, and having people ask me about my reassignment, I feel so much better. I know that I am being sent to good ol' Utah for a reason and that there are still people there that need to hear what I have to say. Also, sidenote, my mission actually includes a lot of Wyoming as well, which is cool. I want to say, "thank you" to everyone who has continued to pray for me, and all missionaries out serving the Lord. I love you guys. 

Salt Lake City, UT Mission boundaries are in blue

Proof of getting called to SLC, Utah: now when people joke about "how terrible and funny it would be to get called to Salt Lake"...I know what it's like, so BOOM😉 

I thought I'd end this post with a joke that my mother shared with me (shoutout to one of her friends that told it to her first). I will attach the screenshot below since I know I will say something wrong. 

Funny joke that someone sent to my mom

Song of the week: I Am a Child of God | By One Voice Children's Choir - feat. bless4

A little English and Japanese music to bless your ears. I have always liked the song "I am a Child of God," and this version is cool cuz it features a Japanese singing group. 

Love, 

Elder Ditto

MTC Cookie Business

Aloha goziamasu minasan! 

I wanna start off this post with a little story regarding the MTC and my immense talent in Rubik's cubing:

Cubing has become a passion of mine and I think I will be postponing my mission so that I can attend the World Speed Cubing Associations tournaments...and as Elder Flores would say...no cap. Okay but for real, at like week two, Elder Scow and Elder Nield and myself decided we wanted to do some sort of zoom magic trick to our district using Rubik's cubes. This trick required as to be able to solve a 3x3 cube. Elder Nield was already pro at solving it, but Elder Scow and myself were still just young padawans in the cubing world. For the next 3 days or so, we trained and worked harder than ever to be able to solve said cube. Eventually we all solved our cube and the time came to execute our zoom magic trick. I will not go into details regarding this trick due to copyright issues and magicians never reveal their secrets. Following this trick, I became sorta addicted to trying to solve the cube without instructions and I wanted to get faster. I decided to upgrade from my traditional Rubik's to a $9 speed cube set from amazon. This greatly improved my skills and confidence in my new found talent. And for all those that are wondering, I can now solve a 3x3 Rubik's cube in under 60 seconds, and a 2x2 cube in under 20 seconds. BOOM. I have learned stuff in the MTC.

Favorite pasttime!!

Okay so when learning a language, you obviously learn a lot about new vocabulary words, phrases, grammar principles, etc. And obviously learning a language is hard because everything is new. New sentence order, new ways to say things, new words, etc. But one thing that is the same in all languages (as far as I know. Please don't crush my dreams) is that they all have verbs, adjectives, nouns, adverbs (what every those are), punctuation, etc. You would think that this would provide me with a level of comfort and joy. BUT if you know me, then you know that I am not even very good at speaking English, and I am 99% sure that I was never taught about that thing called grammar. I am pretty sure I have never taken an Advanced English class, and was never taught what all those things are or which words are classified as which. SO often during classes (especially grammar lessons) our teachers will say something like "Alright minasan. I need a noun to go in this empty spot in the sentence. What is a noun that I could put there?" Seems like a pretty easy question, right? Wrong. I have no idea what a noun is, so how am I supposed to pick out a noun that I know in Japanese and could fill in the blank with it. With that being said, I am getting a lot better at being able to distinguish which words are nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. Maybe one day I will be able to speak English and Japanese with proper grammar. Please keep my grammar in your prayers. Or if you have any great suggestions on how to remember which is which, that I would love to hear.

My basement MTC set-up!

My district having fun!

This past week me and my companion (Elder Lowe) taught a Japanese TRC*. Wow that was an experience. And let me tell you...teaching someone in a language that you have only been studying for 5-ish weeks is very hard. But I felt the spirit throughout the whole lesson and we were able to get to know Eri-san better and we are excited to teach her again this week! It's an amazing feeling to be able to understand someone who is speaking in another language than your native language. Even tho I definitely didn't understand every word...I was able to understand at least the basic idea of what she was saying. So excited to continue to learn more!

If you know me, you know I love to bake cookies! Something that Kyle (Elder Murdock) and myself have been doing for the past few years is baking and delivering cookies to people in our ward, or just random people throughout Yakima. This has become something that I always look forward to doing each Sunday. 

Sad news: Kyle left for Pocatello, ID this past week. SO no more delivering cookies with him😢

Nathan and I went to the airport super early in the morning this past week to say goodbye to Kyle as he leaves for Pocatello.

Kade, Elder Murdock, and myself saying our goodbyes.

Good news: Sometimes we get lucky and have the pleasure of Kade join us in the delivering of the cookies. 

So this last Sunday I made some killer peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies and Kade and I were able to bring those to a few peoples houses. PS- let me know if you are in Yakima and are dying to have some famous Elder Ditto cookies. I will try to add you to the list!

WOW, if you have made it this far in the email, then I feel honored. I really don't know how these emails always end up so long. Love you all!!!

Chopstick tips of the week:

- you can't eat a hot dog with chopsticks

- you can't eat pizza with chopsticks

Song of the week: 

Rescue (Lauren Daigle) Cover by Operation Underground Railroad Ambassadors

This song goes way hard. Especially from like 1:30-2:30. The original of this song is also way good, but I really like this version cuz of the variety of talent and types of voices that are a part of it. This music video also is supporting a really good cause.

Fit of the week:

Featuring one un-done button, a fatty short tie, shorts, tag on the tie. (I promise I normally wear pants and actually get ready. But this was an extra busy day...probably)

Uncle Seth and myself 

TRC*= Teach Resource Center. As missionaries, we have the awesome opportunity to sign up for TRC's and teach people more about The Gospel of Jesus Christ via zoom calls. We get to sign up for English and Japanese, which is so cool! 

For P-day this week, my family and my aunt and uncle's family went to Clear Lake for some fishing and lake fun.  I caught this crawdad.

Nathan enjoyed fishing IN the water.  It was such a smokey day that we had to cut our fishing short.  I caught one fish.

Feel free to contact me if you have some time to talk! Hangouts, FB messenger, and email are all awesome! Or even my phone number while I'm here at the home MTC and still have my phone. Thank you to everyone who has sent me nice letters and emails!  My mission email is tyler.ditto@missionary.org

Love,

Elder Ditto

He's the strength in this race that I run!

What is up big dawgs! This post is going to be a quick reflection of the past two weeks (not including this week). 

The last two weeks have flown by! I cannot believe how many things that we have gotten done and how much I have learned. Being a missionary is mega hard but also can be super rewarding and SO fun. I wanna say that each day is different, and brings new challenges...but honestly every day in the MTC is basically the exact same. With that being said, there are good days and bad days. My mommy said that I should share some more heartfelt experiences, so I figured I might as well tell you all about one of my hardest days in the MTC so far. I am just going to insert a little portion of my journal entry on that day:

"Today has been a really tough day. I started off today really desiring to be a better missionary, being perfectly obedient, and spending more time outside of class studying japanese. I started off class feeling really good and like I was understanding everything my teacher was saying. But from there it just seemed to go downhill. I did a terrible job at my Task Practice (almost every day we have a task practice that we are supposed to prepare for class. This requires memorizing 4-5 new phrases, 10+ new vocab words, and being prepared to teach what you memorized in Japanese  and I felt like I knew barely any Japanese. I need to try even harder to be a better missionary and do better in my japanese. Being a missionary is so hard but I know it will be good." 

As I look back on that day that was so rough, I am reminded of a few things. 

1- You can't expect to change something about your life and see immediate results

2- Everyone has bad days

3- Japanese is hard and I'm not gonna be fluent anytime soon

4- My amazing parents are always there to support me and are proud of me

5- Beating my dad in ping pong can make any day a good day

6- Listening to music fixes everything

My Uncle Matt wanted to treat me to sushi in hopes that it would help my Japanese language skills improve more quickly.  I feel smarter already!

As Grannie always tells me: Obedience as a missionary is the most important thing. This is something that I strive to do better at every day and know there are spots I can improve on still. 

Dang Tyler, that was deep. 

My parents

Scripture of the week:

Doctrine and Covenants 81:4-5: 

"4. And in doing these things thou wilt do the greatest good unto thy fellow beings, and wilt promote the glory of him who is your Lord.

5. Wherefore, be faithful; stand in the office which I have appointed unto you; succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees."

My family this past June in Pacific City, WA.

Song of the week: God Is by Kanye West. You can't listen to this song and not tell me that it's basically a hymn. This might be unconventional, but I really do love this song and feel so much peace and joy when listening to it. Kanye makes art.

Chopstick Challenge of the week!

Love you guys!!

- Elder Ditto