Note from Mission President's Wife

7/30/2015

(Mom's note) I was so happy to get an email from Sister Christensen, President Christensen's wife, with an update on Tyler on his mission.

Here's her email and several pictures she sent.

Dear Sister Throop,

We are so pleased that Elder Throop is serving in the Ecuador Quito Mission.  We welcome him with all our hearts and know that the special gifts he has been given from our Father in Heaven  and talents he has developed will bless the lives of those with and for whom he serves in a unique way only he can offer.  His dedicated service will further increase his abilities and character in remarkable ways.

There are currently 229 missionaries in our mission, serving in 14 zones.    Elder Throop has been assigned to serve in Quito in the Turubamba North Zone with Elder Goodfellow as his companion and trainer.  Elder Goodfellow is known by the other missionaries as being hardworking, diligent, obedient missionary.

Attached are several photos that show Elder Throop with his companion;  the group of missionaries with whom he arrived; and the group with their new trainers.  I have also invited you to a Facebook site for families of missionaries currently serving in our mission.  I encourage you to add pictures as he sends them to you.

We know and understand that there is sacrifice on your part both emotionally and financially to support him during this period of full time missionary service and we express our gratitude for your offering to further the work of inviting others to come unto Christ and to receive the blessings of the Gospel in their lives.

With our love and gratitude,

President and Sister Christensen

Misión Ecuador Quito

Tyler and his new companion/trainer Elder Goodfellow

Tyler and President and Sister Christensen

The new group with Pres and Sister Christensen

Another pic of the new group of "greenies"

The new group paired with their new companions

Quick note from Quito

7/28/2015

They let me have a quick moment at the mission President´s home today (7/28) which is really nice. I guess that is one of the perks of his calling huh? The flight went well and was pretty quick. It took about an hour and something odd minutes. I got up 3:30 in the morning but I haven't felt tired yet. The first day is training and some orientation, as well as the start of tomorrow. I get my trainer tomorrow in the afternoon. We are having dinner at the mission President´s house which should be nice. It is weird having traveled to Colombia then Ecuador but cool.

Love

Élder Throop

No cheating, Still can't roll "r's", but Ready for Quito!! (Already?!)

7/23/2015

I am very excited to be leaving next week as I have been here for so long in my mind.  I don't know when I will write next though as I leave on Tuesday next week and I think the Pdays in the mission are on Mondays so it could be sometime.

I am glad I am here in Colombia as the culture is different but you have to practice the language and get used to dialects food and culture in general which is helpful. I am surprised how well I like the culture but once you play a game of futbol with people who really can play it well you start to appreciate it. My new Latino companion is Élder Herrera, which is impossible for me to say as I have yet to figure out how to roll my r´s like the Latinos. Having a Latino companion is definitely an immersion and I do enjoy it.   My Spanish is coming along very well and with Élder Herrera I can't cheat because he doesn't know any English except a few words that I taught him. Still once you start learning you got to keep going in diligence until even the Latinos say that "Usted es un bueno Latino ahora. Muy bueno."

I don't know if they will let me go out of my mission to go to the temple which will be sad, but when I get back I will want to go to the temple. Plus it will be nice to do a complete session in English as the start of our English sessions still involve Spanish but then the main endowment is in English when we do the English sessions which is nice.

I can't wait to see the actual real field and start to teach real investigators. Tomorrow should be nice as we have a proselyting activity for 3 hours. Saturday might be the only rough day left at the CCM as Sunday is devotionals all day as well as Monday and we leave early Tuesday.

I am attaching a good photo of this group. We got a lot of people but I know the next group will have even more.  My companion Élder Herrera is in the back row that is not in the top, fifth from the left starting on the left.  I got another companion as well (a trio) named Élder Flores because his companion got sick and was sent home because he was so sick. He is sitting in the front fourth Elder going from the right the Elder in front of President and Sister Duvall. (Can you find me?  LOL!)  It is hard with a trio and Elder Flores is a Venezuelan and he speaks so fast and I don't think he knows how to slow down so that I can understand as I have been here for only 5 weeks and that is all the Spanish that I have done in my life. Elder Herrera is a lot easier to understand.

Well I am glad to have written to you guys and I look forward to the mission field.

Élder Throop

P.S. I have memorized the Baptismal invitation, missionary purpose, D&C 4 and the First Vision in Spanish. It wasn't easy but worth it.

No Stir Fry Please, City Tour and Feeling the Spirit

7/14/2015

Well the food is not too bad here and some of it is more than palatable. So far the worse meal I had wasn't actually Spanish but Chinese stir fry.  I just do not like stir fry at all, so that meal I detested. We get some American food a lot so it is nice.  Every Pday here at the MTC I get to go to the temple which is awesome, although I will miss the temple when I go to Quito.

I believe I will continue to send emails in English unless I want a quick tidbit in Spanish.  Mainly to help you guys out with not having to translate. 

As for my experiences here it has been great.  I got a Colombian soccer FIFA World Cup jersey today which is worth about $14.  It is definitely a good souvenir to get from Colombia and most likely the only souvenir from here that I will get.

We went on a tour today were we went to the top of this mountain and saw the city and it was just massive. It was very chaotic and spread out everywhere and didn't seem to have much organization to it. But you could see very clearly the edge of the city as it changed from city to forest so quickly.  The forest just went on in the mountains and was so much green. The city is different from Phoenix as it is so much concrete and they have the forest right next to them so they have no green in the city. Seriously it was grey and brown. But it was nice to see the forest which stands in such sharp contrast to the city.

The experience here is definitely great and even though we are teaching faux investigators it is still spiritual. One investigator we taught was named Camilla and this was a 16 year old girl whose father was the bishop and her mother was the Relief Society President so you would expect it to be a strong family, right? Well this 16 year old girl was living with her novio (boyfriend) who had gotten her pregnant and her father had kicked her out and church members mocked her. She was inactive and in just the toughest scenario ever. Well, we managed to get her to live with her family, read the scriptures, pray to God, and start the repentance process. She prayed and knew she should be with her family and her novio should just help care of the baby when it was born.  It was just awesome the fact that we got that situation. We were led by the spirit most definitely and that was just great as I felt the spirit so much and I got to help this estranged girl go back to the arms of Jesus. I am so ecstatic for my mission. We also had a three-hour proselyting activity which was nice. We placed one Book of Mormon and got 2 contacts, got rained on but I just loved it as I just felt trapped in the classrooms. I have learned a lot and will learn a lot more as I get a Latino companion next so the last two weeks will be neat.

Love you all,

Élder Throop

More Frenchlish, Music, and Ready to preach the gospel

7/9/2015

It is strange having been here 3 weeks.  My Spanish is definitely coming along although I still can struggle with my pronunciation as my mind will occasionally think of how to pronounce the word in a French way because it looks similar to French words and that was how I learned to say the words but of course that is completely wrong. Also, typing with the keyboards here is not the easiest as the spacing is strange and they have different features than the keyboards in America.

I got a new companion who is called Elder Rhees, but next week we will all get new Latino companions. Next preparation day should be fun as we are going on a tour of the area of the city.  

I am learning how to do soccer a lot better and I rather enjoy the sport. When I am in Ecuador I plan on buying a soccer jersey for Ecuador for Pdays and any other opportunity and it would be a neat souvenir.  

One thing I look forward to on my mission is listening to music like MOTAB or The Piano guys (I think they got approved for missionaries) as music is not to be played in the MTC through music players which makes sense as if everyone played music it would be loud. 

I am glad I chose to go on my mission right after high school as I feel I would be wasting my time now if I was at home. Still I really want to be actually preaching as right now we do classes all day long which is basically prison for me.  It doesn't help that we are fenced in the MTC as well. I know the classes are meant to be for our investigators but we don't have real investigators right now and it is hard to not think of yourself when all the classes are meant for your benefit.  Still it is necessary even if it is hard.  I am looking forward to tomorrow as we have a proselyting activity for some time which will be great practice.   I was sad to hear that President Packer died.  Well I look forward to hearing back from home next Tuesday and the PDay after the next one you should be hearing about my Latino companion.

Love

Élder Throop

PS I jüst figüred oüt how to do the ümlaüts on all of the ü's.  I hope yoü
get them.

Here's a few pics of Tyler's new companion Elder Rhees, his district, and some crazy Elders at the Bogotá Temple

Crazy drivers, Graffiti, Spanish and the all elusive "ü"

6/30/2015

It's not easy to type as everything gets underlined in red. We had to move rooms today which was our second time so far which was not fun. The temple session today was en español which was interesting as they just dubbed the people in Spanish. The culture is definitely a lot different than America. For example when we are driving the drivers are very crazy and very impatient. Surprisingly, there are no accidents but they still do things that would get them killed in America. Also there is no real right of way and I am unsure that the police have real power here. The country isn't as bad as I heard but we probably don't see the worst parts. When we drive to the temple there is graffiti everywhere on the walls and graffiti is more of an art form here than anything. It was literally on all the walls and lots of buildings  It wasn't just like the graffiti we have in America with the names of gangs or names of people but they have just walls of spray paint that portray different things and makes it very interesting. The food is decent and not too bad here at the MTC. The MTC itself is not easy but I am glad that we have Latinos here to speak Spanish with as it helps me know how well (or how poor) my Spanish is.

My Spanish is coming along pretty well and I speak broken Spanish but it still goes well. I have heard some other missionaries say they wished they had practiced like me and really it takes a lot of effort. Fortunately a lot of Spanish is easier than French as even the irregulars are fairly consistent. The only real hard tense I have had problems with is with the subjunctive with the irregular verbs in the subjunctive. I think Spanish might have more irregular verbs in the subjunctive then French does which is no bueno. But quite honestly the fundamental principle in learning a language is practicing it a lot and even if you speak the language in broken phrases or simply it really helps. Spanish is definitely a struggle sometimes and I do not know if I ever will roll my rs like the Spanish people do. I think me being gone will really sink in after I arrive in Quito as it will be the longest time I was gone from home ever so that should be interesting.

This week the weather was rainy.  I never thought I would hate the rain but I do not like the rain as much due to the fact that whenever it rains we end up having to do gym time and the gym gets really crowded.  It is no fun trying to play a game when it is so crowded. The last day with our batch of Latinos was sad as some were great.  They are now out on the mission proper. In futbol I am doing better and yesterday I scored a PK for my team as the score was 0 to 0 and we ended up winning that round. The really neat part was I scored on a Latino and everyone there that was watching were very excited.

Our MTC president Presidente Duvall said this place was like purgatory once and I said to everyone that he was quite right about that comment. Here's a photo of the missionaries in the CCM in our group. I am in the upper right hand corner trying not to fall off the chair I was standing on. My companion Elder Woodmansee is standing next to me to the left. One of the Latinos that I am friends with is named Élder Egues with an umlaut over the u is standing in the back and he is the fifth person going from the left. (I still can't figure out how to put an umlaut over a letter and it is on the keyboard which is annoying.)  Our mission president and his wife are in the first row of chairs. You can't miss them.

Well until next week on Thursday,

Élder Throop

*Mom's note.  Another mom Sis. Cox, has a son in the same group as Tyler.  She is getting pics from her son and sharing them with me.

So, thanks to Sis. Cox, here's more pics of Tyler and the boys in the MTC.

Temple, Frenchlish, Futbol, and Potato Salad

6/25/2015

Hola. Está bien en la CCM y yo amo la experiencia. I have been learning Spanish at a very good rate and it is very neat to learn. CCM=Spanish equivalent of the MTC- Capacitan del Centro de Misioneros.  It has been an interesting week here and the weather is fine in Bogota with a mixture of sun and rain. We got to go to the temple today and did endowments for those who were dead which was a new and exciting experience for me. Bogota is muy interesante y muy grande con 9.000.000 personas. A lot of things here are fun and exciting but also hard. Learning español está un experiencia difficile por que mi comprehensión de francés. Pronouncing words is still hard for me because I still have a slight French accent but I am doing very well. I also cannot roll my "r´s" yet which is hard in words with a double r in it. Still the conjugations are not very difficult as there are very few exceptions to the conjugations that I have learned and they repeat a lot of the conjugations. Another fun experience for me is speaking and trying to understand the latinos. They speak muy rapido y está difficile por mi de comprender todás la tiempa. But I can understand them sometimes and I really just need to have my vocabulary grow to better communicate. We have a faux investigador in the CCM which is fun as we can practice teaching lessons (en español bien está) and it is a lot of fun teaching the investigadors. Another neat thing here is futbol. Now in America we call the sport soccer but its proper name is football. Almost every day so far I have played football with the Latinos and the nortees (North Americans) and it is a lot of fun as they love the sport  Here in this country it is a religion for some and a god for others. Wearing a football jersey on game days must be a law because on one of the game days all but around three people didn´t have a jersey on. The sport is amazing and I do fairly well at it for someone who is still new to it. I have also done some basketball which is awesome as I do well at that. My CCM companion's name is Elder Woodmansee. That is quite correct, Elder Woodmansee.  He is from California and he is to go to Cali, Columbia. He is six-foot five like me and a skinny white boy so it was interesting to see that the two tallest people In the CCM are companions. We do get Latino companions later on but he is my companion for now.

The food here varies with some stranger things but then we also get more American food. For example for lunch today we had salmon and ham.  Breakfast was cereal, but a little while back we had a burrito with guacamole and chicken. Things do vary for our food, but I can normally eat most food. Only one meal caused any trouble for me so far and that was a potato salad thing which almost no one liked. Even some of the Latinos hated it and I got pretty close to hating potatoes after that one meal. It has been fun and I am glad to be here.

I will have preparation day next Tuesday so until then, Élder Throop