Saying Bye to Byron III

 Ka-chow!

We did it. I survived nine weeks of the online MTC and you survived nine weeks worth of boring emails from home. It was a team effort.

We did it!!

Seriously tho, I cannot believe that I "graduated" from the MTC. It went by really fast looking back, and I am so grateful for my experience with it. I went into it with a pretty negative attitude towards it, but really came out enjoying it. I want to say "thank you" to all of the fellow missionaries in my district, my two great teachers, and the many other awesome people who were able to come in and help co-teach throughout it. Most of all, I want to thank my family. I want to thank them for making this all possible. My siblings and parents would all take their fair share of turns bringing me down food and other treats to help keep me awake and engaged. HUGE shoutout to Momma Ditto for making some seriously yummy foods too. My family really made it all possible and did a great job at adjusting to my weird Online MTC schedule.

I learned so much in the past 9+ weeks and am SO ready to finally get out and serve people! SLC here I come.

I also had the opportunity to give a farewell talk* in my home ward* this past Sunday.

It had been 28 weeks since my family has gone to church.  We have been doing home church each week but now get to attend in-person twice a month in my family ward.

I was glad I was able to take my mask off to speak.  This is a picture of live recording as others could join in watching sacrament meeting in this method since we are limited to only having 50 people in attendance at church right now.

Elder Tyler Ditto's Farewell talk

Here is a audio recording of the talk, though I do recommend reading it rather than listening to it, to get a more fluent and smooth deliverance😀

Me climbing Mt Adams

I made it to the top!!!

Highlights of this week:

- Biking with my favorite disabled friend, who sadly, is getting less and less disabled every day. I am sad I will miss Kade's recovery from his next surgery. He really is healing so fast and it's been so cool to see one of my best friend's get back to doing the things he loves.

So fun spending time together with my friend, Kade.

- Fishing. Caught some small bass, but am still on the look out for the big poppa that lurks deep

I caught a bass!!

- Runs with Nate and Dad (no pics )

- Mom cooking up some "yummy" brussel sprouts

I ate two of them!! 

ALSO: Exciting news. I just got my temple* date! I will be going through the Jordan River temple on Nov. 2nd. I am very excited but also not really sure what to expect. If you have any suggestions on how I can better prepare, I would love to hear them!

This will be the last email you will be receiving from my for a few weeks. I fly from Yakima to Seattle to Salt Lake. My first flight is around 5am on the 27th. Don't miss me too much till then! And feel free to send me emails (tyler.ditto@missionary.org) anytime!! I would love to talk to all of you!

For all of you wondering what I will be filling my time with for the next 2+ weeks, here are a few things that I plan to do:

- Spend time with my grandparents, aunt and uncle and cousins in Oregon

- Celebrate turning 20 years old... #oldman

- Hang out with the fam

- Fish

- Study Japanese and pray that I don't lose too much of my "skills"

- PACK for the next two years of my life

Song(s) of the week:

- Praise to the Man by The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. 

Turn the volume up. BOOM this one is too good. I have always loved this song and I really liked it this week. Although I do wish that they would have sung louder in the recording. I feel like it's always just a little too quiet.

- My Tears Are Becoming A Sea by M83. 

This song is truly insane. So much passion and feeling behind this song. Shoutout to Elder Scow for bringing it up to my remembrance. 

Controversial song of the week:

- Hallelujah from "Messiah" by The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square. 

I have heard many people hate on this song. I just want to clear things up. This song goes way hard no matter who you are or what kind of mood you are in. I don't really know if this is a Christmas song, but it better not be because if you know me, you know that I am quite against Christmas songs outside of the Christmas holiday. So I guess I personally do not consider this a Christmas song. Shoutout to my dad for knowing like all of the words (even the ones in some other language).

*Words that may be new:

- Farewell talk: usually before a missionary leaves to serve a mission, they are given the opportunity to speak in front of the local church congregation and say some final words before they leave for their 18-24 month mission!

- Ward: The name we use to distinguish church congregations from each other based on geographical location

- Temple: The temple is a place where we learn a little more about Heavenly Father's plan for us, and make sacred covenants to help us become better disciples of Jesus Christ.

Much Love, 

Elder Ditto

またねみなさん！

(To address my title: for the first few weeks of the MTC, I thought that my companion's first name was Bryon III. After some much needed clarification, I was told that this was not really true at all. Though it is included in his name, that is not actually his first name. Anyways, I had to say bye to him this week and I am so excited for him to do great things in West Virginia on his reassignment.)