8/13/2012

Hello Family!

Today was a good week and we had a lot of lessons. We had one more lesson this week than we had last week so we are improving! We did companion exchanges this week and so I was with one of the zone leaders for 24 hours and we do that to learn from another missionary and see how they teach and do things so we can help ourselves become better. It was a good experience to do that. We had one more lesson this week than we did last week. It has been good getting a lot of lessons and getting to teach so much. Well I don't have a lot to say this week. I love you and hope you have a great week.

Love, Ryne

 

 

Hello Family!

I hope everything is going well for you. This week has been good and we were able to have a lot of lessons. Our lessons didn't get cancelled like last week so it was good to be able to be more busy with teaching people. We also got a new investigator who is ready to be baptized. She just needs to take the lessons. She is 12 and her dad is a less active member. She has an lds friend who introduced her to the church by having her over for dinner one night and before dinner they said a prayer and then she started to ask questions and get intrested in the church. She met with missionaries twice before but they never actually taught any lessons they just talked to her a little bit so now we are teaching her the lessons. She is staying with her grandparents for a few weeks and went to church with them and after church she wanted to take the lessons so she can be baptized. We set a date for August 18 but she lives in Reno so we talked to our bishop and he said it would be better to just teach her here but have her baptized in Reno so we don't know really what is going to happen because our bishop is also going to talk to her bishop in her home ward in Reno and see where she will be baptized. It is nice to be able to teach her though and if she doesn't get baptized here we may get permission to attend the baptism in Reno since we taught her all the lessons, so that would be good. Everything else is going well and we were able to have more lessons this week. We didn't have any lessons cancelled on us so we have had quite a few lessons so that is good to be able to be busy teaching more people this week. Well I hope you all have a great week!

I love you!

Love,Ryne

August 6, 2012
(I pieced together all of Ryne's emails this week as I did not recieve the family letter yet)

Well I don't have much more to say. I hope you have a great week. So the missionaries are coming over tonight aren't they? I really hope dad listens to them and that he will gain an intrest in the church. That would be great and it's great that he is willing to listen to them at least once. I love you very much and it is really nice to be able to write to you even if it is only once a week. I hope I start getting those letters soon because I still haven't gotten anything yet.I love you very much and I hope you have a great week! Okay I still haven't gotten anything but I guess it might come soon but I don't know. Nevada is the same time as Spokane.  My week has been great this week. I can only use my money for food and we get a lot of leftovers. I didn't know we would get so much food but almost every night we get leftovers from dinner so I don't have to buy that much food.  I love you! We have to be in our missionary clothes and I forgot to tell you this but the only time we have to wear suits is to meetings so I don't have to wear a suit everyday just white shirt and tie and slacks. No we don't have to pay to use the computers we just ask for a guest pass and they give us a card number to put in as a guest.

July 31, 2012

 

Hello Family!

 

Well today was a good week, I am doing better at adjusting to life here even though it has been heating up this week, haha, it's okay though because we have a car that has air conditioning so it's not too bad since we don't have to walk everywhere. We had a lot of cancellations this week so that really sucks. We were supposed to have about 3 lessons but they all got cancelled and we rescheduled for this week so hopefully it works out this week. It is good to hear that you have my address now, I brought my binder that has the address in it just in case you weren't able to get it, then I would have been able to give it to you this week but that's okay. Well I don't have a lot to say this week not a lot has been happening so we are trying to get more people to teach because it has been slow so far. Well I love you very much and I hope you all have a great week!

I love you!

Elder Ryne Bailey

 

 

Hello Family!

So I am leaving tomorrow morning and my plane leaves at 8:47 AM but that's 7:47 your time so I will call before then sometime i'm not sure when but it will be before 7:47 so hopefully you will be able to answer when I call. I think i'm getting a phone card here and we are all buying it together since we can only use it once, it expires after 90 days after the first use and it's $3.50 for 500 minutes so yeah I hope I will have enough time at the airport to be able to call you. So the MTC has been really awesome but I am ready to leave. I have learned a lot here but the best practice will be going out into the field and teaching people. I got my address for the mission home but I can't remember it right now maybe if I still have time after this I will hurry and send another email with it in there. I got the box you sent and thank you so much for it. I don't know what to do with all the candy haha. I tried giving some away but I still have a lot and I don't know if I wan't to take it with me because it's a lot of chocolate and I don't want it to melt all over my luggage. These last few days have been great and we have been working hard to get ready to leave. I have to do all of my packing today because I still have to do laundry so I can't pack my clothes until after I get done with that. I did pack some stuff I don't need but I still have a lot to do so today will be a busy day I think. Oh one thing I forgot to say a while ago is thank you for getting me glasses before I left it has really helped my eyes, I have been doing a lot of reading and so it has helped a lot so thank you. Also thanks for the glasses cleaning kit that helped too because they were getting really dirty. I am so excited to be able to leave for Reno tomorrow. Yeah we have to fly into Reno first then the mission home is in Sparks I think. Our whole day is planned out. I got a email from the mission president and so we won't find out who our companion/trainer is until around 5 PM tomorrow. So I will be with that companion for 3 months because he will also be training me so that will be nice. I don't know what my first area will be yet. I have been taking more pictures and so I will be able to send those next week I think. I do have enough money now at least if I make sure both my bags are under 50 pounds then I will, I haven't gotten too much extra stuff so I don't think it will be over that but I guess I will see tonight. My new scriptures got engraved yesterday and I put Elder Ryne Bailey on them and I also took a picture of that. I still haven't taken the pictures of my room and everything else that you wanted mom but I think I should be able to do that today. I also enjoyed getting the letters and dear elder letters this week, thank you! So I don't know how the dear elder letters will work now, I don't think I will receive them every day now I think I will only get them on Preperation day and now you will also have to pay for it, but I don't really know how that will work so I guess send them to me and I will see if I get them. You have to send them to my mission address now and I think it might show that online so you might be able to get it from there. Hopefully I don't miss any of your letters that you send because I am leaving the MTC but I think they might be able to get them to me if I don't get them before I leave. I didn't recieve the letters from when you were in Seattle until yesterday but it was nice to hear that everything went well and that you had fun. Well I guess you said you were probably going to be bored waitng at the finish line though. We had this all day orinetation thing for all the departing missionaries for this week and we got to learn so much more about the mission field in that than we have learned so far. It was a lot of fun to be at and we had a lot of practice with how to start conversations when just contacting people on the street or around the city. We also got to watch a talk that was given at the MTC a while ago, I don't remember when, but it was by Elder Holland and it was about his mission and what it means to him and how we can be able to feel the same way and make the most out of our missions. It was one of the best talks I have ever heard and we were told it is only shown here at the MTC, there is no other way to see that talk, I guess because it is about missions and missionary work but I learned a lot from it and was able to take a lot of notes to go back and look at to help me become better. Elder Holland is great and I love the talks he gives. I might be sending a box soon because I think I will have to send some stuff like clothes and so tell me sometime if dad wants his belt back now that I have mine, I guess I could just send it anyway though.

I love you all so much and I hope you continue to have fun and have a great week. I will write the handwritten letters today and send those today. Have fun!!

Love, Ryne

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Hello Family!

I had a pretty good week this week. Elder Linn and I are finally getting the hang of teaching in unity and by the spirit and it is too bad its happneing now because now we only have one week left here. Its crazy to think I only have that much time left here. It is going by so fast and I am happy about that because the mission field will be awesome and that will be the best practice for me. So for some questions now I don´t remember all of them but yes there are sister missionaries here and they are awesome we have some in our class and they are great. Everyone in my room is going to Nevada also. Uh I can´t really remember the rest of the questions so I will have to write them down next time so I can remember them. Oh I did get my travel plans and I am leaving next wednesday. So I will have one more preperation day before I leave but I will be leaving the day after that. I am leaving really early in the morning again, I think around six AM. I don´t have it with me right now so I don´t remember exactly when. So yeah I am really excited about that. The box you sent was so awesome thank you very much for that! I love the picture album, I got to look through it a little when I first opened the box but then we had some study time so I had to put it away and get to work but then I went through it last night and I am very happy that you sent me that. I was so happy to see the Washington Capitals page haha thank you for doing that. The pictures of Alicia at soccer were hard to see her but she said she is having fun and that is awesome and it´s cool that you got to go to her practices with her for the first week because you had the week off mom. So for gym time at first I was running/walking on the track for the whole time but Elder Linn started playing four square, yeah we play four square here! Lol. So I started playing that and it was fun, we play that every day now for our gym time. We get about an hour and ten minutes for gym time and it is everyday except Sunday and Preperation day. Oh so I was told that we are not supposed to abbrievate things so that´s why I say preperation day and not P day now. I was also told I might be able to call you from the airport before I leave for Nevada and possibly after I get there but I don´t really know anything about that right now so I will try to figure that out and next week I will tell you if I can or not. Well my classes are still going well and I have been learning a lot more. I have been doing better at dealing with homesickness so that is good, I have felt a lot better this week. I had more good days than bad days! I hope you all have fun this weekend while going to the Seattle to Portland ride, it will be awesome and that is cool that you are bringing boe along with you, he should have fun haha. Wow I can´t think of a lot of stuff to say this week. I am really happy to be able to leave for the mission field it will be great. So for the letters home I will probably always send the letter home to the whole family and everyone on the email to you mom then I will write to everyone individually in a handwritten letter because I have more time to do that and more time to think about what I want to say. It feels like three weeks here is not enough time, it is a very short amount of time to learn all of the things I am supposed to learn before going out into the mission field but I know that is the way it is supposed to be and I will learn everything that I can here and try to remember it. We have done a lot of note taking and so much writing but it is good to be able to write all of it down so I can refer back to it whenever I need to so it can really help me out when I need it. We have been learning how to teach by the holy ghost and follow promptings we get while teaching and its been pretty hard to do but good thing we get so much practice here. Planning is very important and we have a lot of lessons to plan for and it is hard to think of what to teach these people some of the time but it is something that has taught me it is very important to use time wisely and not slack off and really get to work planning for these lessons so we can be prepared to teach when we need to. Oh yeah I will be taking more pictures today I remember I need to take picutres all around the MTC so i will hopefully be able to remember to do that at least before I leave. I love you so much family and I hope you are all doing well and will have a great week!

Love,

Elder Ryne Bailey

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Hello Family! So this is the message I want you to put on the blog if that is ok. I hope you remember how to do that. If not you should ask Brother Sands at church to help you because he knows how to do it. So first off I am sorry that I told you preparation day was Mondays. I didn't know that it wasn't going to be on Monday. So here at the MTC it will always be on tuesday. I don't know what day it will be when I am in the mission field. So my shampoo, toothpaste, and shaving cream were all taken at the airport before I left Spokane becuase you can't have things in big contaniers in your carry on bags so that sucked that I had to throw those out. So I am homesick a little bit and it really started as the plane was taking off. That was when it really hit me that I am going to be gone for two years and not be able to see all of you for the next two years. It is starting to get better though because I am becoming more busy so that is good. It really gets better when I have a lot to do because I am focused on the work and trying to help people. So I have spent quite a bit of money already because I had to buy more shampoo and toothpaste when I got here. I still had a whole thing of shaving cream that I hadn't used yet in my suitcase so I didn't have to get a new one of those. I also bought a scripture tote or case because my scriputures needed it or I think they might fall apart completly. I bought a different case thing that didn't really work so I am going to return that today. Also I threw away my reciept for my bags when I got here and just remebered yesterday that I could get money for that so I had to dig through our trash to find it again haha but I did find it so I will be getting more money for that later today. So my companion is Elder Linn and he was born in Seattle but moved around during his childhood but he was in Rockwall Texas for high school and before he came here for his mission. He is awesome and we get along really well. Yesterday was hard though because we were not as focused as we should have been because we were both looking forward to today too much and just lost track of what we needed to be doing. That is something I need to work on. So there are four of us in our room and the other companionship is Elder Clark and Elder Schembrie. They are both awesome and we are all becoming good friends and get along well. The dear elder letters that I have gotten are awesome thank you so much. They helped me a lot to get through the day. I would love to recieve more so you can send as many as you want and that would be great, and it's free! So we are being fed very well here which is good and the food is really good they have some great foods here but I bet if I was here for longer than three weeks it might start to get boring but I'm not sure. So we have two classes each day and my teachers are Brother Woolf and Sister Call. Both of them are returned missionaries that are working here at the MTC while going to BYU. It is nice being able to have teachers who have gone through the same things that we are going through and can really help us out when we need it. I like them both a lot, they are great. So we have "fake investigators" that we are teaching. They are real people that our teachers taught but our teachers are acting as those people so we can really get good teaching practice and that has really helped. Some of the time it is not the best lessons but that is why we are here, to learn how to teach and being able to teach then find our mistakes and working on fixing them is great. So before I left Spokane I found a bookmark that you made a while ago mom for your class and I have it in my scriptures. It is the one about the scripture mastery which is 1 nephi 3:7. I don't know if you remember when you made that bookmark but it really reminds me of you mom so thank you very much for making that and letting me have one. So I also purchased a hymn book because we sing a lot here and I have actually started singing now and I like it. I am not a very good singer but I do like it because it really helps me to feel the spirit and it sets the tone for the classes or the study times that we have. I am not able to send pictures here in the MTC. I have to wait until I am in the mission field. I am sorry about that I didn't know that I couldn't send you pictures yet. I forgot to take pictures until Sunday when we got to walk over to the temple and just spend some time on the temple grounds which is awesome. The Provo temple is amazing and I took some pictures there but haven't had the time to look at them to see if they turned out good. That will be okay though because we are able to go to the temple grounds every sunday. The temple closed yesterday for cleaning so I won't be able to attend it while I am here. I am bummed out about that I was really looking forward to being able to go to the temple. Hopefully I will be able to go when I leave for the mission field. I love going to the temple and really being able to feel the spirit there.

It is very awesome to here that Ben is doing better. I am very happy for him. Thank you for telling me that. You are right I did want to hear that. Maybe I could have called when I got to the airport but i'm not sure. I am very happy to be able to email you today. Preperation day is awesome and we just get to relax. It has already been a hard week with all of the teaching practice that we have gotten. Planning for these lessons is one thing that is very hard. It is hard to know exactly what to talk about but the main thing I have learned is to pray about it and the spirit will guide me and tell me what I need to be teaching so when Elder Linn and I can't think of what to teach about we stop and say a prayer to help us. I am running out of time now but I have a few more things to say. I can't sleep well and I have a cotton pillow so if you could send my feather pillow on my bed with the pillow case that would be great. I also forgot my tie clip it is on the ledge around my room. I think near my dresser. I would love it if you could send those to me please. Oh and also pictures if you could send pictures of all of you and also of Boe and Billy that would be awesome to be able to have. I will write more in written letters home today so look for those!

I love you, family, so much and I hope you all have a great week.

Love, Elder Ryne Bailey