Jon is famous!!!

Betsy here. Today on facebook I got a note from a missionary momma!  She said...

Before our sons went into the MTC, I had read your post about your son going in the same day as my son I think...anyway, my elder is a big batman fan and I told him that an Elder Batman would be going in at the same time so he could really meet "Batman" lol...guess what I got in my pictures today...a photo of my elder with yours! I will have to send it to you! It was awesome and shows me what a small world it is!

Hola familia,

First the weird stuff:

- Found a Devil's Cake Mix (tm) Box behind my room mirror. It had messages written on it from the     last time it was found, gone back all the way to 2013, had to email the person who origonally found   it saying i am the one to find the cake mix.

- A Elder in my zone decided to de-shell a hardboiled egg WHEN IT WAS IN HIS MOUTH.

- THE MTC PLAUGE is a thing in my zone, where nearly everyone in the zone had either pinkeye or   some sort of sickness, I was the only survivor.

- I'm basically Red from Shawshank redemption in here.

Now for the rest,

Its a good time in the mtc, lots of things to do, eat, sleep, teach, repeat. Had some 70's come and give us devotionals which was nice. Everyone is saying how easy this week was, and i still thought it was thursday. For the people asking, YES i did join the choir. yes its fun even though with the mtc plauge and all, no one can really speak because everyones throat is dead.

We have a weekly testimony flood. Every weel/

My  companion found his friend who was in a emotional wreak via, the SPirit.

We had a random investagator come to our room un sheduled, she is considering being baptised after our district gave her a mock lesson

We starting TRC, meaning we teach normal family home evening type lessons, or investagator lessons, Getting to the point that i can do lessons without any notes since you really only use the lesson that you first created and just modify it depending to their needs.

Spanish is still pretty difficult, im trying to write in as much spanish as possible, besides emailing.. so i can get in the habit

 
 Favorite passages this week : Alma 32, Alma 26, Alma 17;13.

Im gaining weight in the mtc, gained about 3 pounds so far, so i broke my 35 pound 2 year streak.

I'm going to say it was the 8 min abs, or the constant garbage i eat here.

Ill try to update you guys every week. These Group emails will vary of length, but i know i will get them done.

Love you guys all, see you next saturday.

-Elder (Jon) Batman

New pictures of Jon's week. Notice he really does workout. Check out the planking below. 

Hola Familia,

Loving the MTC so far, its a blast! My district is pretty chill and they are about as goofy as me, we have a thing where everyday we try wearing weird ties in our zone, so our district is floral ties.

Language is fun although its very difficult to learn. Still struggling on conjugations.

Funny story: For two days straight, i had no clue that i was accidently using Sunscreen instead of my head and shoulders shampoo!, i have no idea why i did not notice the smell of sunscreen.

Anyways, MTC is great. Eveyone is insanely awkward as normal missionaries are. Everyone wants my nametag so they can wear it for costume partys. Me and my companion Elder Peterson are essentally the cool kids of the MTC. we get constantly stopped about my name, and we chain jokes arround it.

Language is going well!, learning slow but its better than nothing, struggling on conjugations. Packages are recieved. letters read. Nice to see everyone is doing well back at home.  Any updates on world news and stuff, everyone in the MTC has no idea about whats goin on in the world. we have to use the new arrives that come in on wednesday to get the news.

I heard about paris. AGAIN? 

i heard about grandpa out of raidation. hopefully he is 100% Cancer free, waiting on the result in a month. when they scan again.

District guys are dope. everyone is weird in their own way. So the sport of the MTC Is 4 square, its extremely competitive. Got 5.5 weeks for training on it. District has an obsession for floral ties, so the funnier floral ties/ cool ones, the better!

Elder Benar spoke at Sunday devo. He gave an insane Q&A and i never knew how funny he is, you cant even record the talks that the prophets give in the mtc cause they are filled with jokes that can be taken the wrong way.

Bedar gave a lot of insight, about the love of christ, and how prioritise others before yourself.

We also had a devo from one of the 70. talked about how to be a better missionary. Words to live by, (let the spirit go through you, not you go through the spirit)

District is called, GOALS. we are essentailly the only 4 districts in the entire MTC That likes eachothers company, we are esentailly The Squad.

Everyone is funny and all pop jokes all the time, and all are extremely spiritual as well.

We are all extremely competitive at 4 square as well.

We did initatorys today since we are low on time in the morning. it was fun re experencing the first time in a way.

My district is:

Elder Peterson: Layton

Elder Morris, Saint George,

Elder Calderwood: Morgan UT.

Elder Hardwood: Kansas City

Elder Smith: Arizona

Elder Turner: Bear Lake

Elder Erikson; Texas

Hermana Curtis: Lone peak 

Hermana Bronson: No clue

Hermana Peres: Cape Verde

Hermana  Dean: Springville

we are going to do sealings next week, but we can only be sealed as a child.You can't be sealed to a sister. Inappropriate. So every guy is so desperate, the handshake rule for elders with hermanas is 4 seconds, but we savor all those seconds, 

We try doing as many pushups as we can a night, and the zone does a thing called 8 min abs a night

Essentailly I'm getting ripped.  I get fireman carried by the guy who we call the creator, cause he invented the workout, every night to do it. my abs are now more defined.

Craptastic fact: Theres a whale that makes its sound at a higher freequency than other whales, so no other whale can hear it, its named the lonelyest whale

I love you and will talk to you soon,

Love,

 Elder Batman

P.S. I get to host the new missionaries this wednesday, so i get to technicaly relive the first day again, so fun!

Holy mi familia y mi amigos!

First attempt at a group email, had to figure it out on my own.

Well i survived 3 days at the MTC and you realise, every single day is different in a way, but it is a blast. Today is my first PDAY - personal day. meaning i can send out emails to everyone who sends them to me. 

It's a very interesting experence on your first day, you drop off all your stuff into your dorm, and immedialty go to class, and when you meet the teacher, she speaks PURE spanish to you,  and you have no clue at all what she saying. it was scary at first, but now i'm 3 days in, and i can catch some stuff that she is saying. you learn so fast even though it is very difficult. There is no way that im doing this on my own, the gift of tounges is bestowed upon our district, and we are recieving "extra" help. life in the mtc is amazing. everyone is hilarious and theres so much things to learn. we are constantly teaching and eating. we have to do things thoughout the day that helps us with our spanish. We call it Spanglish. we basically talk in english and if we know a word in spanish, we use that instead of english. Eventually we will replace english entirely and speak purely spanish except for the words that even our teacher doesnt know. 

Going to end with a quote that i learned from my teacher. "Love the people more than you fear the language" If you are fearing the language, then it is distracting you from the people, understanding the people does not mean knowing what they say, I testify that if you love the people you serve, then you will recieve guidance on how to teach them, even though its hard to speak the language, you are a messanger and god will speak for you.

Love

~Elder Batman (Jon)

PS: Don't judge my spelling, im using a spanish keyboard layout and it causes the inability to spell check. If i try correcting them, it deletes every single thing that i wrote. I can only respond on PDAYS so look foward to saturdays, Ill try to email at 10am usually, and if not sometime with in that period of time. Looking foward to all your emails and letters. Love you guys.

Madre,

The experence is amazing and its a complete blast. My companion is Elder Peterson and I believe you have allready recieved a picture of him. The district is amazing, everyone is hularious in their own way but everyone says that im the funniest person of them all. Right now, we are trying to learn how to give lessons, bare testimonys, and pray in pure spanish. The first few days for spanish was very difficult for me, I have diffiucltys learning so many new words at once, but my teacher Hermana Imbler is hularious and helpful in teaching us how to learn spanish as easy as possible. Food, is the exact same as BYU food, so I give it a solid 5/7. We have a goal at our distict to help one annotherf they are having a hard time, so far everyone has had it but me, but I know it will come.

 

Craptastic fact of the week: Reason why you smell the street so well when its raining or wet, is not because of the concrete is very smelly, its acctually the same, we just can smell it better because rain brings smell into the air and causes you to love the smell even more, hence why if you for some reason pee in the shower, its smells horrible.

Quote of the week: "Your love for the people must be stronger than your fear of the language" 

See you guys soon, i cant respond every day as i have minimal time to do so, I'm allowed to respond every saturday, and only saturday. as it is my PDAY.

Love you guys, see you soon and hope you guys are doing well over at home.

                                                Jon's companion Elder Peterson

Here is a look back of Jon getting his mission call. 

July 13, 2016


First day at the MTC, It's fun trying to understand my teachers with little to no knowledge of spanish. Hope you all are doing ok with us being gone. I couldnt send an email to thebatfamily because i didnt have time to add contacts. I just responded to You. It's great so far and we found Ugly Joe, so there will be pictures with our tags sent your way. Hope spanish becomes easier.

Love you guys.

Cheers.

~Elder Batman