2/10/12

So this week has been pretty eventful. Yesterday, we finally got to go to the consolate. We were there for about 5 hours, and all we did was get our picture taken, get fingerprinted, and sign a couple papers, but it was worth it. This morning, we were getting ready to go to the temple, and they called us down to the travel office. Apparently, they are going to go pick up our visas sometime today, and we are leaving tomorrow morning at 8 am. Three of the elders in my district got to leave last night and flew up to Boise to go get visas at the consolate up there and they are flying down to Mexico tomorrow as well. We'll meet them in Texas and we'll all fly down together. The other two missionaries in my district, the ones that are going to Villahermosa, got their reassignments on Wednesday. They leave Monday morning, and will be serving in Dallas while they wait for their visas. I'm super excited to leave. The MTC is a great place, but I'm ready to get out and try to help some real people. Tomorrow morning, we leave the MTC at 8am, and then our flight leaves Salt Lake at 12:45, so I should have time to call at the Salt Lake airport. Then we arrive in Texas around 4:30 and leave around 5:45, so I might have a few minutes to call at that airport too, but I'm not sure. I got your package, the queso was good. They have a microwave in our residence, so I heated it up and then just let people eat it. They all seemed like they enjoyed it haha. I hope everything is going well down there and that you are all having fun. The address for the mission home in Mexico City is in the book that came with my call. It's:

Mexico Mexico City Southeast Mission
Av: del Taller No. 540, Col. Jardin Balb
Delegacion Venustiano Carranza
C.P. 15900, Distrito Federal
MEXICO

or the pouch mail address is:

Mexico Mexico City Southeast Mission
POB 30150
Salt Lake City UT 84130-0150

I'm not really sure how the pouch mail system works or anything, but that's the address haha. I'm sending my memory card down with my letter to Katie, so she should get it either Tuesday or Wednesday I think. I love you, and I'm grateful for all the support you give me.
I'll talk to you tomorrow. Elder Janda

Elder Janda welcome to Mexico!!!

Hola!
So I got to Mexico fine and all is good. I was going to call when I got to Houston, but I ended up only having a couple minutes because our flight was a little late, then they changed the gate, and the card wouldn't work anyway, but that's ok. At least I got to talk to everyone a lot in Salt Lake. So Saturday night, we got here around 9. The secretaries picked us up and we all just went to the offices. Of the four secretaries, three are from Mexico, and one is from Alabama. The three from Mexico can all speak some English, but not much. And they can all usually understand pretty well. The one that's from Alabama is pretty cool. Anyway, so we got here Saturday night, then Sunday morning, we split into two groups and went to a few different wards. It was pretty cool. They didn't have anyone to play the piano, so I had to ha ha. I didn't understand everything that they said, but I understand quite a bit, I was surprised. ha ha Anyway, after church, some of us hung out at the chapel and some of the ward members fed us there. Their church building is very different from ours. They have two buildings with a little open walkway between. In one of the buildings is basically the chapel and the overflows, and then the other building is the classrooms. After we were done eating, we had to wait around for a bit because two missionaries had gone with this other companionship to go eat at a members house. After they got back, we just went to the offices and the assistants came and then a little later the president came. They basically just talked to us about specific rules and ways they do things in this missions. They are really focusing on members in this mission. Were supposed to go to a members house every day except Sunday and Monday and talk with them and teach them basically how to share the gospel. Then, they president started doing interviews with all of the missionaries. And that was basically what we did the whole day. Then, today, the president came over again to finish the interviews. Then we went to a chapel and talked some more about specific things about our mission and how they want us to do things. Then all the trainers came and the president talked with all of us and all the trainers about the new training program. Then we had our transfer meeting. I'm serving in the same area where we went to church yesterday. Its in Pantitlan which I believe is in the more northern part of my mission. My companion is Elder Rogers. He's most recently from Globe, AZ but before that he lived in Chile for about 7 years. He seems pretty cool. I had met him yesterday at the church. He's pretty new. Hes only been here for 3 months. But he already new Spanish before from living in Chile. I think my Spanish is pretty well, I can usually understand what people are saying. Like at church yesterday, I understand almost all of what the speakers and the teachers said. My only problem is being able to speak back. I'm sure that will just come with time though. Its weird thinking that I'm in Mexico right now. I like it though. The weather here is super nice right now, or at least it has been since I got here. Hopefully it continues ha ha. Well I hope everything is going well, and that you have a great week. I love you. Elder Janda

2/4/12

Sorry I didn't email you yesterday. Because it is supposed to be our last week we had a thing called in field training, which they have every friday for all the missionaries that are supposed to be leaving the next week. It's basically classes all day that we go to that teach us all the things we haven't learned yet about missionary work and then review some things we already learned. Such as goal setting type things and how to plan. But because we usually have p-day on fridays, and in field training is always on friday, I have p-day on saturday this week. I should've thought ahead and let you know last week so you weren't worrying, but I didn't think about it. Sorry about that.
Anyway, I have some good news and some bad news regarding my travel plans. The good news is that out of the 94 missionaries who are supposed to be going to mexico next week, 12 got their permisos, and I am one of those twelve. The bad news is that I still don't have my visa and won't have it for anywhere between 5 days and 2 weeks, so I have no idea when I will be leaving, or when I will get to call you.
However, the other 82 missionaries who did not recieve permisos are getting temporarily reassigned and will find out those plans next week and be gone by saturday. I'll try to explain what a permiso is as far as I understand it. Basically, it means that I will be recieving a visa, but I will first have to go to the Mexican consolate in either Salt Lake or Boise, and then after meeting with them, they submit paperwork so I can get the actual visa and a week or so later I will recieve the visa. I don't know much about what it all means or what is going to happen because mostly all the information that I recieve comes through several rumours. But, as of right now, that about as much as I know. Sorry it's not much, as soon as I found out more, hopefully I'll be able to email or something and let you know the plan, otherwise I'll send a short letter and I think it usually takes about two days for letters to get there.
I'm glad to hear everything down there is going well. Tell Court congratulations on her soccer tournament.
Yesterday at the in field training, I ran into Kyle Deem. That was a nice surprise. I didn't even know he had come back out on his mission yet. We ended up being in the same classroom for in field training, so it was cool getting to see him and talk to him again. Other than that, this week was pretty average.
We got a new district this week, they all seem pretty cool. Two of the hermanas are even from Mesa.
Elder Zufelt and I got released from being zone leaders this week since we're are going to hopefully be leaving soon. It's nice not being as busy, but I'll miss being a leader. It was nice always being able to help people, and getting to know everyone and everything.
The Spanish is still coming, I always have more I need to learn.
I hope everything is going well at home. I love you all and can't wait to talk to you, whenever I get to.
Con mucho amor. Elder Janda

1/27/12

Hola!
I haven't received my travel plans yet, so I'll have to let you know next week all the specifics, but I'll most likely leave Monday morning. I think the 6th? Whatever date Monday is. But yeah, we thought we were going to get our travel plans yesterday, but we didn't, so hopefully they come soon. Apparently there are a lot of missionaries leaving to Mexico on the same day as I am, so I think the travel office is just behind on paperwork or something.
We had another district leave from our zone this week. It was pretty sad. For only knowing them for 6 weeks or so, I felt like pretty good friends with some of them. I hope everything is going well at home. I heard from grandma this week. She wrote me a letter. She said she's doing well and Megan was going and taking care of Grandma great every now and then so grandma could get out and do stuff without having to worry. I thought that was great.
I think letters usually take about two days to get here, so packages would probably not take much longer than that, so I'll probably get it next Tuesday or Wednesday or something. I don't know, the mail service in here isn't super efficient when it comes to packages ha ha.
Well, tell everyone I love them and am grateful for all they do.
A Muchas gracias. Te amo mucho! Elder Janda

1/20/12

Hola,
Everything here is basically the same.
I got to host this week which means I got to go stand out on the curb when the new missionaries come and get their luggage and go help them find their way around. It was pretty fun. I got to host Nathan Lewis which was cool. Even though we were never really good friends, it was still cool seeing someone I knew.
I can't really think of anything I'm craving or needing. Katie sent me a package last week full of candy and stuff and I still have almost all of that ha ha.
Canaan is hilarious. That story reminds me of one of the missionaries I met here. His name is Elder Cannon. At the first fireside while we were waiting in line to get in. He just turned around and stared at us completely straight faced, and then every time we saw him after that, he would do the same for a few weeks. And then one day he just started talking to us. He's pretty cool. He's leaving on Sunday. But he reminds me of all the stories you tell me about Canaan. Ha ha
My companion is on the computer next to me, and I guess he was emailing one of the missionaries that left the week after we got here, and went to Washington DC South, where Katie's grandparents are serving a missions. And I guess he met them ha ha.
One of the districts in my zone is leaving on Monday. It's weird, I've only known them for 7 weeks or so, but I know them way better than I would get to know anyone back home in the same amount of time. Well tell everyone I say hi and that I love them all.
Te amo. Elder Janda

1/13/12

Hey,
This week was good. Elder Nelson came on Tuesday for the devotional. It was good. It wasn't quite as good as when Elder Bednar came though. Elder Nelson's talk was mostly just a lot of scripture references and then he kinda left it up to us to really apply it to our lives, where Elder Bednar's was more of just application and this we should do to be better. They were both good though.
I can't wait til I can go to Mexico. One of the districts in my zone is leaving a week from Monday. I'm so jealous. They're all really cool. I'm gonna miss them.
I was gonna print out some pictures at the store and mail them to you guys, but I think I'm just gonna mail you my sd card. We'll see.
I'm learning Spanish very well. I even get bored at times in class because I already know a lot of the stuff just from studying it on my own time. Every day we get about two hours of personal study time, about an hour of language study time, another hour of language study time where we use this computer program called TALL, and then two three hour class periods. During class we do lots of different things though. We usually have about an hour of each class for progressing investigator which is when we teach one of our teachers who is pretending to be an investigator. We don't all teach every day though. Usually two companionship's will teach each class period. And then for everyone else it's basically just study time. I feel like all that we do is sit in class, eat, and sleep. And we get an hour of gym time, But it always go by really fast.
I just started playing volleyball this week during gym time. Before now I usually just either played basketball, or ran on the track. Some of the missionaries in my zone were playing volleyball though so I figured I would just join them. It's pretty fun. I'm not very good though.
It snowed this week. I don't remember which day. All of the days run together since I do basically the same thing every day. haha But yeah it snowed. Only once though. Then it's just been kinda cold since then. It's not too bad though.
I hope you're all doing well.
I love and miss you all.

1/6/12

Hola, this week has been very busy.
My companion and I are the new zone leaders, and a group of missionaries left Wednesday morning and another came in Wednesday afternoon, so its been super busy just trying to figure all that out. But, everything is still great.
Thanks for sending me the pictures, I loved them. And tell Wesley to tell me when he is going to go into the MTC.
My schedule depends on the day. I do the same things every day, but in different orders. Everyday, I have 50 minutes of gym a few hours of personal study time, an hour of language study, an hour where I use this computer software to help me learn the language, and then I have two three hour class periods where a teacher is there. About a third of each class period, is called progressing investigator. Its where we teach someone. We don´t all teach every day, but usually at least every other day. We have to people that we teach. They are just our teachers, but they are acting like someone they taught in their mission, so it´s basically like teaching the actual person. Then, every Tuesday, they have teaching resource center, which is basically where people volunteer to come in and we just teach them a lesson. It´s cool, because unlike in progressing investigator, these people are just being themselves. A lot of times their members of the church, and sometimes they´re even teachers who work here. it´s a cool experience.
I don´t remember the name of the guy who came and spoke on Tuesday, but he was the guy who is in charge of all the foreign MTC's, so he had some really cool stories about people who made huge sacrifices to go on their missions, and just other good stuff like that.
My companion and I were waiting yesterday outside of a classroom, because we got a missionary in our district who flew in from Sweden and didn't get here until late on Wednesday night, so we had to help him get everything he needed and get all situated and everything.
Anyway, while we were waiting, some elders were down the hallways in one of the other room practicing a cello piano duet. It was so cool. I definitely think music is one of the things I miss the most.
The temple opened again today. It´s been closed since the week before Christmas, so we haven´t been able to go, but we get to go today.
I´m excited. I love you. Thanks for all the support you give me.
Yo estoy muy agradecido por todos mis bendiciones. Este lugar es un lugar de milagros. Es un lugar mas maravilloso de todos otros. te amo mucho.
Elder Janda