Letter from Ryan #6 03.17.14.

What a week! 

 I almost forgot! DAD Happy Birthday! How's the school board treating you? How's the OSE campaign coming? Tell Doug and Dave good luck for me.

  I seriously miss you guys so much!

 This week was awesome! The new district came this week. And one of the guys is going to my mission!!!! FINALLY!

Everyone in the family, I need you to send me your email and addresses. Starting next week I can't write you.  

 Chad there was a fireside, and the speaker said he served in sweden or something. and their motto in his mission was.. "just remember every door you knock on...  is a baptism in Mexico.." hahaha its so true. Thinking of you Chad.

This  week was so awesome! I got to skype a Returned Missionary in the Philippines! It was so awesome! 

 

 Today was my last time going to the temple for two years. I'm kinda bummed but I'm more excited to actually get to the field.

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that... I GET MY TRAVEL INFORMATION TODAY!!!!!!!! In exactly one week I will be flying to the Philippines!!! I'M SO EXCITED!!! I'm trying to stay super focused here but it's like getting senior- itis all over again. 

But the Mission is the best! I'm in 3 nephi 13. I have to finish  the Book of Mormon before I leave! 

Thank you so much for all of the mail and packages! They make my day! And THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE NEW TIES! They are so sweet! I already have the grey one you sent so I gave it to my companion. P.S. speaking of him...His family doesn't have a computer and stuff so could you send him some cinnamon rolls or cookies or something please... because he never gets mail or packages. Because he is from a very very very very small island. Thanks so much!  

  I heard baseball season started?! Lets go Oakland!!! hahaha

  

I also heard the President of BYU got released! That's so crazy. And I also heard that BYU MADE IT INTO MARCH MADNESS?!!   We all know Duke is going to win this year because of Jabari Parker. At least one Mormon is going to win it all haha.

 I love you all so much!

Letter from Ryan #5 03.10.14

HEY!! 

Okay, I'm really going to try to answer your questions today.

Dad I don't know my account username and password to my account info. Sorry all I know is my pin number. If you want that I can give it to you. 

 I got my first companion yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

The old disctrict that I morphed with left. So I got transfered to the disctrict that came two weeks after me. His name is Elder Neemia. He is from Christmas Island. It's a puny island kinda by fuji. I don't really know how to actually spell the country he is from. But he is so awesome! He's trying to learn english and Tagolog. Because to learn tagolog you basically have to know english because of the sentence and grammar structure.   He's awesome! He is so good at volleyball. But I love my new district. I have Elder Lee from Georgia. Elder Riddle from Oregon, and Sister Koncurat from Maryland. When we have down time, we have rubber band shooting contests... We've gotten really good.. and they get pretty heated haha.

  Each day I'm getting more pumped to get to the Philippines. JUST TWO MORE WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I get my travel plans this friday.I'm scared that I might have to travel without anyone, but I don't care. I  just want to get there. 

Hayley!  Thank you so much for all of the packages! You've made me the most popular kid in the zone! haha and MOM! COMING THROUGH IN THE CLUTCH WITH THE CHESS SET!!! and the green socks --it made me miss my crazy sock collection haha.  

The language is so amazing. I'm falling in love with it!  Pray that I can memorize all of the vocabulary.

 I love you so much!

 Mahal kita! salamat para laghat ng mga pangilin! alam ko po na totoo ang simbahan, at alam ko po na unang propeta po is Joseph Smith sa panahon natin. at sa pamamangita ng pananampalatay at magsimbhan, at pangalin. puewde po tayo marandaman ng mahal sa Diyos. 

miseneryo ninyo 

Elder Hernandez 

P.S.  Keeping the dream alive --Hernandez for President 2040.

Latest Photos from the MTC

Photo of Ryan & Mckenzie at MTC

A family friend of ours works at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah. She ran into Ryan the other day and sent us this picture and said he is doing great!

Letter from Ryan #4. 03.14.14.

HEY!!

 

I got my first companion yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

The old district that I morphed with left. So I got transferred to the district that came two weeks after me. His name is Elder Neemia. He is from Christmas Island. It's a puny island kind of by Fuji. I don't really know how to actually spell the country he is from. But he is so awesome! He's trying to learn English and Tagalog. Because to learn Tagalog you basically have to know English because of the sentence and grammar structure.   He's awesome! He is so good at volleyball. But I love my new district. I have Elder Lee from Georgia. Elder Riddle from Oregon, and Sister Koncurat from Maryland. When we have down time, we have rubber band shooting contests... We've gotten really good.. and they get pretty heated haha.

  Each day I'm getting more pumped to get to the Philippines. JUST TWO MORE WEEKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I get my travel plans this Friday. I’m scared that I might have to travel without anyone, but I don't care. I  just want to get there.

Hayley!  Thank you so much for all of the packages! You've made me the most popular kid in the zone! haha and MOM! COMING THROUGH IN THE CLUTCH WITH THE CHESS SET!!! and the green socks --it made me miss my crazy sock collection haha. 

 

The language is so amazing. I'm falling in love with it!  Pray that I can memorize all of the vocabulary.

 

I love you so much!

 

Mahal kita! salamat para laghat ng mga pangilin! alam ko po na totoo ang simbahan, at alam ko po na unang propeta po is Joseph Smith sa panahon natin. at sa pamamangita ng pananampalatay at magsimbhan, at pangalin. puewde po tayo marandaman ng mahal sa Diyos.

miseneryo ninyo

Elder Hernandez

P.S.  Keeping the dream alive --Hernandez for President 2040.

Letter from Ryan #3. 03.03.14.

Hey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

   

  Crazy story... they messed up my mail so I didn't get any mail and stuff until friday!  I'm sorry Mom. All of the questions you asked might have to wait. But everything is going great! The language is coming more and more each day! I'm trying my best and  it's crazy to think I leave for the Philippines in a couple of weeks. I feel like I just got here yesterday.

  I had to give away my clock you bought for me Mom. At night the ticking sounds were so loud! I couldn"t take it anymore. I'm sorry.

 I can't believe it's already march. They always said it was going to fly by but I never expected it to go this fast.  I hope everyone is doing great! How's my dog GIGI doing? Miss her like crazy!  Can you guys send me some ties? Please! Apparently, all silk ties in the Philippines is a crazy bad idea and will get ruined in two seconds. So please get some polyester ties, please, so I can machine wash them.

 Since it's march, and its a tradition for us to do a March Madness contest, send me a bracket!!!! 

  Dad, did you pay the immunization stuff i sent you? In the Philippines they wont let you do humanitarian work there if I didnt get those shots done.

 The district they morphed me into is leaving in a week! That's so crazy!. I've only known them for 4 weeks, and I feel like they're family. But since they're leaving that means I have to join another disctrict. I've already met them and they're super sweet. So I'm pumped. But I'm sad at the same time, because I love the people that are leaving so much. 

  Funny story...   every time, one of my companions  walks by a group of other missionaries, he always says, "maputing mga tao!"  Here people are always friendly, and you always say Hi to basically everyone you pass. ( Maputing mga tao, which in translation means white people)  since we are the only ones that speak tagolog here. No ones knows what he is saying. But  one time when my companion said that to a group of sister missionaires, a girl in the group spoke tagolog, because she was from the philippines, and called him out on it and we all busted out laughing. hahhahah

 I love you all so much!

 Grandma thank you so much for the Cinnamon rolls!! You're such a life saver! And I love you all so much!

Love Elder Hernandez

Letter #2 from Ryan. 02.26.14.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANDMA AND CHAD!

Another week down and only five more until the PHILIPPINES! But everything is awesome! I love it here so much! and I finally learned my favorite word in Tagolog..... Ding-Ding which means "wall" haha.

 MOM thank you so much for the package!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YOU'RE  A LIFE SAVER! haha

  Funny story, every time someone walks in the room  and sees our family picture they always comment on the same two things. First they always comment on how Tyler's beard is so sweet and how after the mission they want to grow one exactly like that. And how in the family picture,  I'm the only one not married...then I jokingly say, " why do you think I'm serving a mission?" haha.

  Crazy news... they made me the zone leader yesterday. Which is crazy because they usually don't call you to zone leader until the fourth week.  The language is slowly coming. The more I learn it, the more I love it. 

 Yesterday  (sunday) was my favorite day of the week by far! First off, they asked me to play the piano in priesthood and sacrament meeting. It was awesome even though I messed up pretty bad both times.  Still rocked it but we sing in tagolog so it makes it difficult to try and follow along because I have no idea on what words they are saying. But it was fun! AND then the fireside was fantastic! The speaker was my favorite by far and got me super pumped to teach the people in the Philippines.  After was the best part. In this zone its tradition that the leaving zone always give a testimony meeting the night before they leave.  It was so powerful!  Missions are the best! ! ! ! ! ! I love it so much.

 I'm still trying to adjust to the sleep schedule. It's so hard to try to be asleep at 10:30, especially when you're not tired. I know that will change when I actually get to the philippines.

 But I love you all so much and I love hearing from you. Keep sending letters, and updating me on sports. It's what I live for! 

 P-day is the best day ever! The day we get to wear normal clothes!!  I don't think I would be able to survive without my everyday basketball games. It's a bummer they don't allow us to play soccer, but it's alright.  Everyone here is obsessed with playing 4 square... yes, like we did in elementary school. Everyone treats it like the Olympics, and takes is so serious. It's kinda hilarious.

 CHAD HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! For your birthday, and only for your birthday..... this is the only time I will ever say, "GO UTES!"....(.except when they play BYU.) But I love you so much! DAD, thanks for coming through in the clutch with my sports updates. I got so pumped to find out that BYU beat gonzaga.

 I love you all so much! 

 

LOVE 

Elder Hernandez 

Letter #1 from Ryan. 02.17.14

Hey Everyone!

Thank you so much for all of the letters! They make my day! But send me your addresses so I can send hand written letters.  Man it's crazy! First week in the MTC and I already love being a missionary. But the crazy thing is I'm not getting the same MTC experience as everyone else. Because I technically don't have a companion.  You see there was  supposed to be two tagolog speakers that were supposed to report on Wednesday. Me and someone else, for whatever reason the person didn't report. So it was just me. The way they organize you in the MTC is by the language your learning, so they assigned me to a zone/district thats already been here for a couple of weeks. But in a way thats awesome because during my language classes its only me and the instructor. All of the tagolog speakers here, call me "the Chosen One" because they think I'm spoiled because I'm the only tagolog speaker that reported. So I really have a private tutor teaching me tagalog, and he served in my mission/area so thats awesome.  The missionaries they assigned me to, are awesome! They are Elder Ritter and Elder Rodgeres.  They technically are my companions but we have different schedules so sometimes I am BY MYSELF FOR HOURS AT TIMES. It's definitely a challenge. For whatever reason I've been blessed with this challenge, and I dont know why. But all I can do is just show  the Lord that I can be a perfectly obedient missionary when I'm by myself.


But its so awesome! I joined the MTC choir and there is literally 600 people in the choir.  We sang at the sunday fireside, Elder Bednar was THERE!!!!!!! He wasn't the main speaker, his son was. He spoke about Joseph Smith, and gave me a whole new perspective of how incredible of a man he was and what he had to through.

  Please update me on how the olympics are going. GO AMERICA!!!!!!!!!!!! I heard we beat Russia in hockey?! and when does bobsledding start? and how are my cougars doing?! Both BYU and Del Campo? and I would ask about the future world champions the Kings, but Chad wrote me saying how they lost.... So I already know the answer to that one.

 I took pictures, forgot to put them on my memory card so you'll have to wait one more week for those. But I see so many people from school, even my companion Elder Ritter,  went to BYU.  I knew him because we lived in the same dorm hall. But it's so hard to see so many people you know and not call them by their first name. I have to call them Elder or Sister. And the rule is that you can't call the elders "dudes or guys" so its an adjustment.  The MTC food isn't bad, I like it. But I'm trying not to gain  20 pounds while I am here.

Stew and Hayley, thank you so much for the cinnamon rolls!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They literally were a life saver. All of the guys in my room also thank you too, they said you guys are the best.  Hayley if you want to manage the blog, then I would love you too!! I've seen your blog skills so you have complete artistic freedom with it.

Which reminds me, PLEASE SEND FOOD!! I desperately need snacks, we eat  at awkward times in the day so you're always starving when you go to bed.

I learned how to pray and say my testimony in Tagolog which so sweet. My first lesson made me kinda jealous of all the missionaries that are speaking English haha.  Tagolog is extremely hard to learn, but  the structure of the language is actually way more simpler than english. If I've learned anything, it's that English is such a complicated language. 

Everyone give me your personal email, so I can write you guys personal messages.

But I love you all and

Alam ko po na unang propeta po si Joseph Smith sa panahon natin.

Alam ko po na totoo po ang Aklat ni Momron.

Nagpapasalmat po inyo para ebanghelyo at Jesucristo.

Until next week

Your Elder,

Elder Hernandez