April 16, 2010

Travel plans for all!!!! We are probably the happiest we have ever been here. I mean people are freaking out and everyone was hugging and high fiving. Our teacher after that just stopped teaching for a while because in the Poulsonators words "there will be no learning now". We love Poulson, although he leaves for Texas and he gets back the day after we leave, he was actually kind of bummed. Anywho, we leave April 26th at about six from here. So our flight arrives in LA around 10:45, then we have a massive layover until 4:00 or something. So, I'll probably call you around noon or perhaps a bit after but just be prepared, I am soooooo excited to talk to you all. It's gonna be awesome! Let's see, after that we leave on our ten hour journey across the sea and arrive around 9:30 their time. We stay in the temple housing that night, wake up to see the sunrise, then get our bank accounts companions and callings. Then it'll be a car or a plane ride to location. It's going to be crazy. I can't even say how excited I am for everything. We have been waiting for this moment forever.

April 9, 2010

I'm so excited to leave. Although I do love it here I don't think there is any doubt that I will love it even more there. Here we see none of the fruits of our labors, laundry man.. Really though, I am excited to get into a country that doesn't speaka my language as we like to say in the suburbs. I'm excited to sweat for 22 strait months. I'm excited to eat nasty fafaru (which is fish fermented in sea water for about a month is the sun). I'm excited to be eaten alive by Dad's little bugs and wild dogs alike. I'm excited to deal with some nuts companions who could probably bite my head off, and maybe they will since I won't hardly be able to communicate with them. All that is said and known but I am sotally toked! So yeah we should get our travel plans Thursday if you can believe it. We're all freaking out because the language struggle is enormous.
This Wednesday me and Elder Carlisle were on official splits for the TRC (Elder Ferrin is my companion, but Elder Carlisle was in our trio). It was a little crazy, our teachers gave us a commonly seen scenario in Tahiti and told us to teach what we would to deal with it. The deal was that this person new everything about our church but wouldn't be baptized do to the fact that there family was all Protestant. So we prepare a pretty good lesson plan in Tahitian, and we practice it many times. We're ready for this thing. We get in there and she has ignored the paper entirely and wants to know about stuff that we don't know how to say! It was hard but we did pretty well for winging it I guess. Point being, this Tahitian thing is going to be much harder than French I think. With French if you just know sentence order almost half the time you can say an English word with a French accent and your probably right. Tahitian is just weird man, i guess I'll show you guys a bit in a couple weeks when I call from the airport. I didn't know I could do that.. But yes prepare to be amazed at my inability to speak clearly. In all fairness though I have learned a ton is this very short time.

April 4, 2010

This is by far the most excited I have been for conference, that's really saying something.. For reals though this is the best place I can think to watch it. Because here it will be almost like a break, away from the routine and away from the languages just for a bit. Let's see, as for this week it's actually a touch more interesting than last week. We hosted Wednesday which was totally awesome. I got this kid who i felt so sorry for. His parents didn't get out of the car (for which reasons I'm not sure) and he and his mom just looked at each other sadly for a couple minutes, i felt terrible for them. Anywho, I take him up to his room and on two occasions Elders learning Spanish try to show off their skills and speak Spanish to him, now keep in mind he's darker skinned, but still he spoke zero Spanish and he said in this sad voice, "Do I look like I'm not American?" Haa, it was bad but it was funny, too. As for the regular life here it's getting better and faster everyday. I realize now how short the mission is. Now I'm really not counting down but the math is far to simple. We are nearly a twelfth done with our missions. When I think about that it's really hard to waste time. Our district is probably the best with time usage. We still get distracted but not as bad as the rest of our zone, especially since we started Tahitian. I like Tahitian, it's way cool. We taught on Wednesday at the TRC and I felt really good about it. I mean it's like that first week all over again except we did much better. My philosophy on language study has changed since I got here. After working hard on French to memorize sentences I realized that it was worthless. The thing is just sentence structure and words. Then trying to make sentences, I am way slow but it's happening man! We commited our little progressive investigators to baptism. I'm really stoked because although it's just our teachers they made an incredibly challenging couple based on real people. They expected us to teach them till the end but we just killed it. I guess we'll start teaching some in Tahitian now...

March 12, 2010

Ha it's funny all of the firesides here are something I actually look forward too. We always go to them early so we can sit in the actual room with the guy talking. Yeah we're cool. It's weird though because almost every piece of advice they give to us doesn't apply to us at all. Like all the obedience and work tips just don't go down in Tahiti I guess. My teacher explained it like this: Just as a coconut could not grow in salt Lake (unless we were to change the entire environment) the American way of missionary work cannot work in Tahiti. So all three teachers randomly drilled us last week on terrible it will be out there. Especially Horton and Wilkin. They went so far as to say that the MTC is amazing in comparison to the trials out there. Now we really do listen to them and respect their opinions but they still didn't scare us. No centipedes or crazy punching through wall companions can stop me! The next day our teacher Frere Poulsen came in and we asked him the same things we had asked the others. He had a very different attitude on the subject, whilst not totally going against his fellow teachers he said it's gonna be awesome out there. In every way imaginable he is T-Daddy, he talks the same, he treats school the same, he looks the same, and he acts the same, we love him

March 5, 2010

We are almost a third of the way done here at the MTC and we still haven't gone insane! I can't believe it. The food has gotten pretty old though. The breakfast is "buck-nasty". The only reason we eat is to sustain ourselves. We have already fasted three times. Usually the fasts have reasons - it's just we are pretty fast to commit to one.
Anyways, basically we are always studying, we have sooooo much freaking language study. And our teachers thought it would be a good idea to have us teach progressive investigators as well. So we teach two progressive investigators (our teachers in character) one in English and the other in French. We teach them two or three times a week and we also have to teach at the TRC every week for an hour of french. It's pretty ridiculous because we have no time for anything except for our fake investigators.. It's cool though I guess the hotter the flame the faster we run. It's hard here too because everything that they try to motivate is with is concerning the people we are teaching, problem is that applies more to those who are out in the field... It's weird but I just try and think that everything I learn here is something I don't have to learn there.
Gym time is getting more intense errry day. Hah everyone had always said foursquare is the way to go but we didn't believe it. Well- here we are, we have played foursquare a few times now and it is soooooo much fun! I still occasionally play volleyball but foursquare is just so much more passionate because you can win, you can be king of the court! We also play ninja destruction, it's as painful as it sounds, I fear having to go home because someone slaps my heart or something. That would be the worst thing ever. Oh random note- and I realize this letter is quite sporadic, but the snow makes me unhappy. Why in the world is it snowing now and not a month ago?! I mean come on! We had some amazing days sure, but it's lookin like the snow is comin in full force now.
Ah once again allow me to jump subjects to my companion Elder Fer bear. He's a good guy. It's just us two in our room so it's a good chance for us to get to know each other a little better. We stay up at night talking every single night, in the morning we don't chat so much. It's good though, he's not a morning person at all and he is really working on waking up on time. Because those shower lines are ridiculous we have to wake up early and we're still late! grrrrrrrrr people take FOREVER to shower, they are like girls man. That or possible they fall asleep in the showers, weirdos... Yes, Wednesday is our one month anniversary, so cute... Only two more to go baby! I've only gained like five pounds living on the top floor and all. Love yall, peace out. Love, Elder Oldroyd

February 26, 2010

Yeah okay so this week has been a little nuts and I am doing my very best to get as much information as I can into a very small email. Much like the Book of Mormon... However there are no wars, plus I am not a prophet, let alone a collection of many prophets. Anyways, here are the answers to your basic questions. I wake up at about 6:20 although my companions often don't. I try to wake them up but it's often difficult for them. I on the other hand am getting nearly twice as much sleep as I was at home so I feel great! The food is nasty, everyone farts so much. There are no girls in our district so when our female teacher is not there it's death. We go to the temple Friday afternoon's. P-Day rocks. I'm pretty sure we don't even have a choice on the devotionals but they are fun so we hit one Sunday and one Tuesday. I have only worn the brown one so far because as a "one suit Elder" you can always say it's being dry cleaned. Hah I'll use old blacky though. I forgot nothing. We aren't even allowed to listen to music! But we sing lots so it's cool, and not just church music. We fill the showers with beautiful songs. I'll keep you updated on food. We try and hit the hay at 10:30 but my companions who are tired all day all of the sudden aren't tired when it comes that time.

February 19, 2010

Wow, you guys ask soooooo many questions!It's pretty awesome here. We all get along great and it's fun. The first three days took FOREVER however since Sunday all the day fly by. I love getting letters, our district leader brings them in and when I get one I freak out (inside of course). Friday is my P-day from now on and it's way chill not getting in church clothes.I have received all your packages, I love the shoes. I am getting pretty wide in the mid-section but isssall good. Send me everyone's emails (via letter "snail mail"). I like personal study time the best, weird... The only thing that really drives me nuts is while we're all studying some people like to say there french phrases out loud and the problem is I always listen to them so I learn nothing. I love all the instructors, Frere Horton is chill except he doesn't watch many sports so he doesn't help us much in seeing the outside world. Soer Wilkin is awesome because she often just talks about Tahiti and doesn't hurt our heads with French. I hope I can start to pick up the language better, I can understand when I'm reading and other people are talking but it's hard to remember what to say. Wednesday we have to teach a 35 minute lesson in french. Yeah okayyy it's hard enough in English. Well anyways keep in touch, getting letters is so boss, especially from you. I'll write you as often as I can, just know I'll probably be alive at least until it snows next... The snow makes me miss skiing. I would bear my testimony in French but it's hard on these darn keyboards. So just hang out I'll write it in letter and stuff. Hah just kidding about the and stuff but seriously I'll talk to you soon.

The Mission Begins

The MTC
I am here on my little LDS account deal and the system is somewhat ridiculous. I have loved all the letters but mom you were right- cookies are a bad idea. I easily eat twice as much here as I do at home. It's way way fun here. We are all learning French very quickly. The first day I played basketball and it wasn't all that fun but I still had a good time. Yesterday I played volleyball with some cool cats and my serve definitely helped me find a place on the team. Anyways, I like all the Elders in my little Tahitian district as well as the entire French branch. I am in a trio with Elder Ferren and one of his best friends, Elder Carlisle. We have gotten along just fine and we're certainly having fun with the other Elders. They love the way I always say "ELDER!". Shark Bait officially wrote me my first letter and I recieved it the first day I got here. Oh shark Bait... I really miss all my friends, and you guys, but it's not THAT much longer right? Anyways I can't really think of all the things I should probably say. But tell me all about what's happening at home. I don't know just tell me the stuff that's happening because in here we hear nothing of the outside world. Oh random thought to close- I see Zeke and Taylor Ririe all the time. Zeke always talks to me in Spanish and I respond in English, Spanish, and yes, even some French. I also saw Andrew the other day and although my trust worthy companions left me lost and alone it was totally worth it.I'm out of time.. See ya!

Elder Robert K Oldroyd

THE MISSION CALL

Setting Elder Oldroyd apart

Good bye, Elder Oldroyd - see you in two years!