{4th Week}

Hello Hello!!! Just got back from the temple and got to do Initiatory today and it was great! It was nice to change it up and I had not done them since I went through for myself. This week has been great, I feel like I can teach better in Italian than I ever expected to be at week 4. I feel like my emails are getting shorter and more repetitive as the weeks go on haha. It has been awesome to get letters and packages, I am so thankful to all of you who have sent me things! Can't really think of anything I will need or want for my birthday. First year I could say that haha. I am now just getting used to wearing church clothes everywhere and something our teacher said the first day was that you have to get used to sweating in them. It really is weird for the first little while, I always found I wanted to go change when I started to get hot. I am developing some really great relationships here and have a lot of very good friends. Having P-day here in the M.T.C. gets me even more excited for those days in Italy when I can go out and explore. Hopefully somewhere along the way I also learn how to cook! Glad to here everyone in doing well and I love you all. Hope y'all have a great week! Love, Anziano Bird

weeks 1 day

well hello everyone!!!

 

          Wow! dont have alot of time this week.  So I will keep it short.  things are still awesome here, tons of people in my district have been sick so I have had the opportunity to give a blessing!  there is a tongan guy here that every morning for breakfast he eats 30 hard boiled eggs, so i challenged him and got 14 down and wasnt feeling so hot! haha pictures to come! I was thinking if somebody could send me another sd card for the camera I could send mine home then you wont have to wait 9 weeks to see pictures! haha The older group of Anziani and Sorelle left this week so we stole thier desks that were way nicer! which makes me happy when you spend alot of time in them!  it was supprisingly hard to say goodbye, mostly because I was jealous I had to be here for 6 more weeks haha I dont know how many of you know about Narnia holes, but they are secret hiding places in your room that when the older group leaves they leave stuff in them, and we got some sweet stuff!  If anybody has bens address I would like it please.  It is pretty cool at night we bear our testimony to random people in Italian and last night we did it to some spanish Elders and we could understand each other way good, Italian sounds way better though!!  I recieved 9 Dear Elders and three packages yesturday so thank you everyone so much! I have to be the most loved in the mtc!! More pictures are always appreciated! I love them and so do other people!! they love to see my awesome family and cat!! I love ya'll so much!! keep sending stuff cause it is about to get way more expensive! haha funny thing about them calling us Anziano instead of elder, it literally translates to "old man" haha but in a respective way I guess! haha  sorry this is short, I love ya'll, keep the letters coming.

 

Love,

            Anziano Bird

             Jared Bird

Week 3

Hello family!  I will try and not repeat myself too much because all the days start to blend together in here! haha But this P-day has been awesome, and will continue to be awesome if I can find some time to take a nap!  We were studying earlier today and some fellow Ansiani came into our room with thier hands full of ties yelling "there are free ties at the garment center".  So we ran as fast as we could to the garment center and got our share of some sweet ties!  I took pictures so ya'll can see in a little while.  I have been trying to be good about taking pictures and will try to continue to be good.  Its kind of strange to realize this opportunity only comes once as so you have to enjoy every second and make the most of every opportunity!  I did find out an interesting tid bit of news this week.  The older Ansiani and Sorelle got thier travels itinoraries and turns out you can call your family when you are in the airports!  And our flight should be like thiers so we will go from SLC, to Chicago, to London, to Rome I believe, and I think we have about 2 hours in each airport!  So I will call ya'll when I get to London and it is like 3 a.m. :)   Days are still going great, and someone said in a devotional recently, that if you ever start to have a bad day, just think off all the people praying for you, not just your family, but everyone in the temples, and almost every other church member! So then you don't feel like its that rough.  The email time in here goes really fast so for the time I am in the MTC it my be easier to dear elder me and then I can answer questions and respond in emails.  Packages are welcome!  Probly the best thing that happened to me this week was I found a fan in our room that a previous Ansiano had left so now I have a fan right next to my head and have been in heaven ever since!  I am very curious about how the Olympics went, and no one of course in here knows.  I would also like everyone to know I have yet to gain wieght so that is also good.  It is still a little sureal that in a little over 6 weeks I will be in Italy!  I am so excited and blessed to be going there, and have a feeling that I won't want to come home.  I can not wait to talk to ya'll in a couple weeks and maybe be able to send some pictures home then too so we can get my blog started.  I love you all so much, and I know its only been a couple weeks but I miss ya like crazy!  But at the same time there is no place I would rather be.  We are now teaching 2 "progressing investigators' a day (in Italian) with no notes, so they say these are the weeks the language really comes.  I love you all so much.

 

Love,

 

            Ansiano Bird

             Jared Bird

 Hello Friends & Family of Elder Bird! This is Elder Birds sister Jessica, and I will be runn'en this Blog from here on out! Hopefully I can scrape up some time each week to keep y'all informed on the exciting life of Elder Bird! Check back with us weekly to see pictures, and his weekly emails!

OH!! And don't forget to go to DearElder.com to write Jared a message! His box # is 234-1002. I know he would love to hear from all of you!!

August 9, 2012

  Well hello family!  Well this is actually just going to Mom and Dad, cause those are the only email adresses I have.  So please feel free to foreward this to everyone, and to all those, feel free to write me emails whenever!  I will only be able to respond on Thursdays though.  Well I just got back from the temple and it was amazing as always!  Today has been a very nice change from the normal schedule we will be following for the next 8 weeks.  I feel like I might be repeating myself a little from my first letter but this is just such and amazing experience that its just hard to keep it all to myself!  I miss you all a ton, but I am so happy to be serving the Lord.  So this morning I had some time to write a few letters, did laundry, ironed my clothes, ate lunch, and went to the temple.  I also recieved letters from Aunt Danika and Dad!  But I always save them for the evening to see if I reached my goals for the day first.  All of your letters and Dear Elders have been appreciated!  It just puts a pep in your step all day knowing that you have letters waiting for you at the room.  As I have mentioned before my companion Anziano kasper is awesome.  We get along great, and find new things in common with each other each day.

     Now I am just awaiting the arrival of my first package!! That will be a good day.  It was kind of funny today I was thinking about how Uncle Brent and Aunt Kathy get here on my birthday, and that is also the day that the new Sorrelle and Anziani get here!  Its also funny, Mom, that one of the older Sorrella (Sister) worked at chick-fil-a with Cathy Chudlieghs daughter!  Im am seeing tons of guys from both Skyline and Hillcrest in here so that is always nice to see a familiar face.  I also found out that my friend that went to Rome only left a couple of weeks ago so there is a chance I could serve with him!  All the mission confrences and Devotionals are Amazing! Our first night here all the new missionaries met in a meeting and we sang "We are now the Lords missionaries" and it was extremely powerful! It really makes me want to go to Italy right now and teach those people who are ready for the Gospel.  our group that came in had 28 people going to Italy, and that is the biggest groups they have had, especially in the past 20 years.  That really tells you that the great Italian people are ready, and that the temple is generating a ton of excitment!  Sorry that I can't write a ton more because I would love to, but I have about 3 minutes left.   I sent some letters off today so they should be on thier way.  I want you all to know how much I love and miss you all, I wish that you all could be here experiencing the with me!  The atmosphere and spirit here are like nothing I have ever seen before, it is truly an amazing place.  We had our first "investigator" agree to be baptized yesturday after teachihng her in Italian since the 2nd day!

 

 

Love you all so much,

                                                Anziano Bird            Jared Bird