Elder Ryan Bird

Hope things are going well back home. This week I was thinking about
what I wanted to write this week. I have a few shoutouts I would love
for my friends to read:

Dealy- My Spanish has been improving a ton here.
Jared and Abe: THANKS so much for all the Spanish preparation you have
given me.
Stephen- Just like my district in Provo, all the missionaries in my
district here in Santo Domingo are jealous of the notebook you gave
me. Its absolutely perfect for what a missionary needs.
Kevin- I have been thinking about moving to Alaska for my zombie plan
and I have concluded that it doesn't work as well as we would hope to.
Zombies don't have body heat so they can't freeze.

Anyway, hope that brings a few chuckles. We haven't had any real big
experiences since our first visit to USD. I find that I'm speaking
better but I'm not able to understand them any better. I haven't had
any people randomly come up to us and want to speak english. A few
other Elders have had that happen to them. Oh, this past week we were
talking with another man who was preaching repentance and he started
talking to us. We gave him a pamphlet and seemed really interested. I
don't think he was part of any organized church. But if he knows as
much about the bible as he says he did, he'll probably find some
interest.

The food here is GREAT! RICE AND BEANS! We also have various meat
mostly chicken and beef. We have a few American entrees every once in
a while. Last night we had spaghetti. We've also had hamburgers and
hot dogs. But those are rare occasions. Once a week we get ice cream
which is way good. Also, once a week, Hermana Hendricks will make
cookies for us. They are most delicious.

Speaking of food, I would love Sis. Hansen to know how much I loved
the Red Vines which I finished off this past week. I can't remember if
I told you the story about the package she sent me. It arrived the day
before we left from Provo and I only got it because Elder Grant felt
inspired to look in our mailbox even though we weren't supposed to.
But because of that, I was able to receive it =D

For the past 3 weeks there have only been gringo missionaries, except
one Elder from some Island Country that doesn't have more that 500,000
citizens. He reminds me of Jared's Chilean companions. But he speaks
English fluently, but his native language is Dutch and he's learning
Spanish. I wish I was multi-lingual like that. Today we received a ton
of Latinos and they will be here for 3 weeks. Elder Bentz and I will
find out who will be moving into our room. The Latinos are actually
currently in the room 5 seconds from here. They're having their
introduction meeting. I imagine the ratio will now be bumped up to
50/50.

I extend my congratulations to the Romney family for their newest
member. I was actually just thinking about Chelsea this last week and
wondering if she had her baby or not. I remember Kara went and helped
Chelsea out during summer. But I had no recolection if they had their
baby or not. I do remember that Chelsea wanted to name her Ruby. I
just hope she doesn't name another girl Crystal. That would make any
Pokemon fan who knows their Pokemon games laugh. As pretty as those
names are, they're versions of gameboy games.

Another reunion would be great for you guys. If you go, dad will HAVE
to take Jared on that hike we did. In fact, we should fly me out for
the day just so I can do it again. But seeing as how that isn't a
possibility, I'll wait at least two years to do that again. But
hopefully Jared will receive my enthusiasm about that hike.

Its incredible for me to believe how small our mutual has gotten. I
remember when I was 12 we would fill up the entire Young Women's Room
with youth and now we hardly have any. I hope you have fun in your
calling.

Well, this past week I spoke in church (Spanish of course =D). I spoke
on baptism. Afterwards, Hermana Hendricks came up and spoke with me
(during lunch or dinner) and said that she can see that I'll be a
great missionary. Reminds me of my experience when I spoke with the
Temple President in San Diego. I'm sure that's something that Dad
remembers.

This past week there were two things that happened that were crazy
awesome. We went to a store this past week to buy things we needed (or
wanted in the case of most missionaries). It was just really fun to go
to this giant store and look around. I was really tempted to buy a
machete for 300 pesos (roughly 10 dollars). But that isn't going to
happen...yet O:-). On the drive over to the store, there was a thought
that came to mind while we were on the road.

"Siento en mi corazón, que vamos a morir."
"I feel in my heart that we are going to die."

I don't know how people drive on these streets, but they do. lol.
Anyway, this week at the university, we saw some clouds moving it
rather rapidly. When it was about time for us to leave, it starts
raining cats and dogs. The rain started pounding us (note that these
were huge droplets of rain) and we had to find shelter as soon as we
could. A nearby vendor in the street invited us under his umbrella
while our district leader went to find our teacher that was
accompanying us. We had a nice conversation with him, he lived in New
Jersey for a while and then lived here. I don't know why we didn't ask
if he spoke any English, although I think he did.

Anyway, that was fun. We walked home and arrived completely drenched.
But we live for adventures, no?

Love,
-Elder Bird

Hey Mom,
Glad to hear that you'll recognize my face anywhere, cause I certainly
wouldn't recognize my face anywhere.

Last week I sent you two pictures I thought that were the two I wanted
to send at the time. I can't find my camera cable right now, but we're
going to try and see if Elder's Bentz's adapter will work with my
memory card so that I can send you more pictures. He's currently using
it.

Anyway, I may be an example, but I certainly don't think I'm a shining
example. I probably could be a little better, but I don't think its
something that I should need to do in the first place (I hope that
makes sense). We are 8 in our district. Elders: Bentz, Bird,
Farnesworth (not the same as in Provo), Pettyjohn, Lund, Hampton,
Eskildsen, and Sanders. Dad, I was talking to Elder Eskildsen during
our service project at the temple just 20 minutes ago who is from
Washington. He is from the Mattawa area. He lives in a place that
starts with a "C" or C sound of some kind. He said that Othello and
Mattawa are his rival schools.

Today was my second session in the Santo Domingo Temple. So we do more
that just looking around and weeding there ;). I feel a little spoiled
that the sessions are in English, but the majority who attend at that
time are Americans.

Well, time to talk about Elder Bird's health for the past week. My
headache last Thursday probably came because I wasn't drinking enough
water. I started drinking tons and it slowly went away. However, after
the headache, tons of things came. All minor things until a few days
ago. I went to bed not being able to pop my right ear and thinking
that it was weird. At some time during the night before I fell asleep
I started to get pain in my ear and ended up only getting 4 hours of
sleep that night. I got an ear infection and had it looked at a few
days ago. It hasn't hurt since that night, but it definitely feels
weird. The MTC doctor told me what I needed since he didn't have it at
the time and President and Hermana Hendricks got some eardrops for me.
I've been taking it for 2-3 days and my ear feels fine. The doctor
checked it today and says it looks much better, but still not 100%.
Maybe I'm just getting all these illnesses now just so that I'll be
immune/resistant to them in the mission field.

Well, now that I've answered all your questions, lets see if I
remember all the things I did this past week.

Monday night/Tuesday morning was the event of my ear infection. I
remember being worried that I wouldn't be able to go to the University
to teach people. But I was able to go since I didn't have any pain. We
ended up teaching this one girl for practically the whole hour. We
found out that she was a member. She gave us some good advice on
teaching. She is from San Cristobol which is in my mission and she
wants me to tell her family "Hi" (technically Hola!) when I get there.
The Latinos here love to talk to Americans/Gringos. Many of them love
to practice their English. I LOVE it! I guess its only Latino
teenagers that I can say that.

Well, that's all that I can think of for now. I hope all is going well
at home, and everyone. I usually write an outline of what I want to
write home, but I forgot to do that this week so my letter is a little
disorganized. But all is well....

Ciao!
Love,
-Elder Bird
PS. I can relate to Jared as I am now used to being called Elder "Beard"
PSS Looks like gym is coming up so pictures may not come now, but
probably later.

Greetings from the DR!

Sorry that I missed you with my second call. But it was for a good
cause. Dad gave me a brief description of what you were up to. I was
very sad to hear what happened. I hope Tayrn's recover goes well.

The weather is definitely in the low 90's, but we don't spend enough
time outside to figure out what "widespread dust" is. We're inside
most of the day.

Well, time to tell some DR stories.

We got here late last Thursday, which meant that we had to wait a full
week to write you. The night we got here we found the van we needed to
go in and it wouldn't start. So we had 10 missionaries push start this
car and we were able to get out of the airport. I believe the natives
when they say that there's practically no Traffic Laws here. I'm just
going to say it was an adventure driving home. The few times we've
been outside in traffic, not a moment goes by without hearing some
kind of horn.

We got to our room and I met my companion, Elder Bentz, from Los
Angeles. The other companionship in our room were Puerto Ricans. They
were here for 3 months cause of visa problems with Mexico, but they
were finally able to leave last Monday.

My district here doesn't compare to my district in Provo. I'm the only
one who was in intermediate Spanish (I'm fine with that) but my
district here isn't very disciplined or diligent. We go off topic
quite a bit and they apparently can't take a hint from several of our
teachers expression frustration. My teachers are excellent, but
there's only so much that they can do. The nice thing is that my
teachers realize that I know more Spanish than everyone else, so they
turn to me if they're confused with something that the other Elders
are saying. They all speak really good English though, so that doesn't
happen much.

On Tuesdays we go to the University of Santo Domingo and hand out
church stuff (it varies). Elder Bentz and I placed a Book of Mormon
and that made our day. We had a pretty good experience that day since
we had 3 nice "encounters" for lack of a better word.

A story about one of those encounters, we finished our discussion with
the two girls who accepted the Book of Mormon and we were walking
along the huge library. Kinda hard to explain how, but there was a car
in our way on the sidewalk and I tell Elder Bentz to wait. 10 seconds
later there was a native who asked us if we had an English Book of
Mormon that we could give him. We just gave him the numbers to the
Santo Domingo Missions and said that they would be able to get one for
him...somehow.

Today (P-day) we went back to the University to do some service. There
was this girl who called me "Juanito". I'm not sure why, but I think
its either cause I look like a celebrity named Juanito or (probably
this one) I finally got my hair cut today and its super short. You
probably won't recognize me.

We went to the Santo Domingo Temple this morning and it is very
beautiful.

Well, that's all I have for now. I don't want you to worry but I
actually have a massive headache right now that I want to take care
of. I'll try and get you some pictures since we can actually do that
here =D

Love,

-Elder Bird

Buenos Dias!

I made it here to the Dominican MTC and it's awesome. I'll have more
details later. Sadly to say, P-day is Wednesday/Thursday. One of them
I can't remember xD So it'll be a while.

Love,
Elder Bird

Ryan sent us a few photos from the Provo MTC.



Ryan in front of the Provo Temple.


Ryan's companion, Elder McMahan, and Hermana Keller, who is a solo missionary. Ryan and Elder McMahan were assigned to escort her around.


Ryan's district


The missionaries going to Ryan's mission, Dominican Republic Santo Domingo West.

This week was quite a week for me. I'll try and say what needs to be
said. So, to start off with the two biggest things of news. Elder
McMahan went home yesterday. He had some stuff that he needs to take
care of and will return in what sounds like 6 months. He'll come to
our mission, but I was devastated. I was looking forward to going with
him to the DR. But I guess we'll have different times to go.

But, to hopefully brighten things up a bit. Last Tuesday we had Elder
Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles for our weekly
devotional. Two things that I think you would really appreciate. As an
apostle of the Lord, he exercised his authority to give us two
blessings, one of the Gift of Tongues and a blessing of Protection.
There are some requirements to these blessings, but you can count on
the word of an Apostle.

I did obtain a phone card and here's probably what's going to happen.
Our longest break is in Dallas Texas and that's only an hour and a
half. So I'll probably have a 45 minute window to call home, but the
phone call can only be 15 minutes or so. I'll probably call between
12:10 and 1:15 Texas time. Which should be 10 or 11 CA time.

There is an Elder on our floor that was on the BYU volleyball team.
Chris, he was one of the two red shirt guys who can pound the
volleyball harder that most guys on the team. He's Elder Seymour and
he's leaving today for his mission.

I'm glad that you got my pictures. Hopefully there will be a better
method of sending them in the Dominican MTC so that I can send
pictures often. Hermana Keller is really short, but Elder McMahan and
I are the 2nd and 3rd tallest in our group. And not to mention we are
on a sloped hill, so she could be standing downhill from us. I haven't
had a haircut yet. When I decided I needed a hair cut, I saw that
appointments are full until I leave. So I'll have to cut it in the DR
MTC.

Oh, time for spiritual comment time. So, you remember how Elder Scott
gave a blessing of the Gift of Tongues? Tuesday is our P-day which
means we can do several things including going to the Provo Temple. In
the temple I gave a prayer asking for one thing in particular. This
was inspired by Jared but I prayed for the Gift of Tongues/
Interpretation of Tongues. Keep in mind, I haven't said a prayer in
English since the 3rd day here, so I thought it was weird praying in
Spanish in the temple. Anyway, Elder Scott started the devotional with
that blessing. God truly answers prayers. I feel honored mine was
answered through an Apostle. The Blessing of Protection came in the
middle of his talk.

Well, I'm glad to hear that Kara is doing well and that she's praying
for me. I feel special....She's got quite the school schedule. I'm so
happy for her.

Spanish is coming along. Its mostly stuff I knew from High School. But
the thing that's new for me is religious vocabulary. I found that when
we memorized the Articles of Faith in Spanish, that helped immensely
here. In fact, for the first couple days I started memorizing more. I
had the first 5 memorized the first week here at the MTC, don't know
if I still do.

Anyway, that's all I have for now.
Ciao,

-Elder Bird