Over the Top of the World

09/10/15

Hello Family!!  안영하새요!

This time at the MTC has been a good nine weeks.  Since time is relative, it seems like it has been both a short and a long time.  Even though it felt long at times, I have enjoyed it thoroughly for both the influential people and the huge feeling of the Spirit that is present here.  I'mg going to miss my teachers and my district so much!  Sung 형제님 and Driggs 형제님 are some of the best people that I have ever met.  Sung 형제님 is very ADHD, but he is very funny, so class is always great when he is the teacher.  He is naturally Korean, but he speaks tons of English to us in class.  Driggs 형제님 is a little more strict when it comes to English, which is probably necessary.  He is also really funny, but his humor is a little hard to recognize sometimes.  I am also going to miss  my district  so much.  They have influenced my a ton.  I'm not going to relate my impressions of them, because they are all just about the same as they were in the first email I sent.  They are all such great people, and have made me really strive to become a better person.  

Our first baptism is on Saturday!! How crazy is that?  I'm kidding a little bit.  One of our investigators/teachers has a baptismal date scheduled for Saturday.  His name is Gorrell 형제님. He is the investigator that Sung 형제님 roleplays for.  I really enjoy teaching people now.  It's pretty fun to see how the Spirit can affect people in such a way.  

Just think, in four days, I will be on a plane on my way to Korea.  Our flight plans are:  We fly out of Salt Lake (Monday) at 7:30, and land in Detroit (What??) at about 1 o'clock.  Then, at about 3:30, we begin our flight to Korea.  Apparently, we get to fly from Detroit over the top of the world, through the Arctic Circle.  How awesome is that??  I am so excited to go to Korea, and have some food with superior quality.  I am getting tired of the MTC food.  But it's okay.  

I'm going to finish by sharing a short testimony, first in Korean, then translating to English.

저는 예수 그리스도가 우리의 구주 라는 것을 알고있습니다.  저는 몰몬경이 잠된 책 라는 것을 알고있습니다.  저는 예수 글기스도의 속죄를 통해 우리가 깨끗할수있다는 것을 알고있습니다.  저는 복음을 통해 우리가 하나님의 면전에 돌아갈수있다눈 것을 알고있습니다.  예수 그리느도의 이르미로 간즣 드립니다.  아맨.

I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior.  I know the Book of Mormon is true.  I know we can be clean through Christ's atonement.  I know that through the gospel, we can return to God's presence.  I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.  

Thank you for all you've done for me!  The next time you hear from me, I will be in Korea! (and then I will be sending you tons of pictures. :) )

Love,

Elder Tyler Brett Conley

Here are some pictures...

1. A picture of me and Elder Polley

2. A picture of my full Korean name tag

3. A picture of a lion turtle, because that is a Korean legend/myth thing

I am so excited for this new adventure I am going to be on!!!

09/03/15

Dear Family,

Thanks for the email!  It's exciting that you get to substitute for organ!  I know that that is one thing that you really love to do.  And Mom, thanks for those pictures!  They totally made my day.  I really like that morphed one of Grant.  That one was hilarious!  It's funny that Spencer biffed on that glorified tricycle.  I can definitely see him doing that. That is so many songs to practice for Mom.  That is an insane amount.  I could never do that.  

 The Pictures:




                                                                           

  

I do get my flight plans tomorrow.  Isn't that exciting?  I also get my full Korean name tags, which I think is just a little more exciting.  Just think, by the time I tell you my flight plans, it will only be five more days before I head out.  I'm so excited to get out there and begin working.  A couple days ago, Brother Driggs was our teacher, and he started some personal interviews with some of us, but he only got to me and Elder Sabey.  During that interview, he told me something that changed my perspective on the MTC.  Not a ton, just a little bit.  If we were here just to learn Korean, they would have sent us out here like two weeks ago.  We are really hear to recognize the promptings of the Spirit, and to learn to act on those feelings.  That was a good thing to learn, because a lot of the time, I am complaining about just wanting to fly out to Korea.  

How is everyone doing with school?  Are they enjoying it all right?  I really liked school, so it would make me a little sad if one of them hated it.  

During TRC this week, we got to Skype a person in Korea.  He was in a car, riding through Seoul with his friend.  It made it a little difficult to understand on both sides, so he ripped us apart  in his evaluation of us, when it was really that we couldn't understand him because he was in a car. 

Companionship inventory was a little interesting this week.  Elder Polley sort of fell for a sister missionary in our branch who will go unnamed.  Let's just say, it's probably a good thing that most of my friends would come to me to sort out their woman problems, because that gave me some experience in dealing with this subject.  On Sunday, though, he got ripped apart by most of the leadership in the branch, so he's still working on it, with quite a bit of progress, and I am proud of him for that.

We got some more new missionaries this week, and I already know them better than the missionaries that came before them.  The reason for that is that they are in our residence hall floor, and the other age group is not.  They are pretty cool, but most of them are pretty much punks.  Almost all of them are pretty obnoxious.  Our district has started something that I think is quite humorous.  Whenever we see anyone in our branch, more or less, we both say "Oh," pretty loud and then say hello in Korean, which I can't type out right now, because there is no Korean keyboard on this computer.  

I got to see Elder Mikesell about seven times since the time he's gotten here.  He left for Canada yesterday, and I am so excited for him.  I got to talk with him about a lot of things, but not for very long.  One of the times we talked, he told me he was grateful that he had played DnD, because it gives a lot of experience in role playing.  The other times, it was mostly talking about things that had happened at home that Ben had told me about, because, besides you guys, he is my only link to home.  I am glad for that, though, because I consider him to be one of my best friends.  

We taught three different lessons yesterday.  We taught both Brothers Sung and Driggs, and also taught a lesson with Elders Rees and Sabey.   I would say that they all went quite well.  The Spirit was present in all three of them, so that is pretty awesome.  I actually enjoy teaching lessons, and it makes me excited to go to Korea, and to teach the people there.  I am so excited for this new adventure I am going to be on!!!

Love,

Elder Tyler Conley

P.S.  Mosiah 3:17 is my fave scripture  

Only 2 and a half more weeks until it gets really exciting!

08/27/15

Dear Family,

I'm sorry I've been writing so short, but I am really not sure what to write about. That is really annoying that everything got stolen from the swim lockers.  You have to be a real jerk to pull something like that.  

I really want to just go to Korea right now.  I feel like the only thing to learn at all now is vocab, at least in the MTC.  We have gone through basically all of the grammar forms, and so I feel that the only way that I can speak a little better is to just go out there and figure it out.  Yesterday, Driggs 형재님 told us a little bit about the culture there in Korea.  They have two different number sets, a Chinese and a normal Korean one.  The Chinese set was pretty easy for me to learn, for obvious reasons.  But, the Korean numbers are a bit harder to figure out for me.  There similar to the Spanish numbers in the way that you count with them.  Anyway, our teacher was telling us that one of the things that the Korean numbers are used for is age counting.  The only way that you can call someone an actual friend is if you are the same age in Korean.  I am technically 19 in Korean, because they count by birth year, and not birthday.  They still celebrate birthdays, but they don't mean anything special.  It's the older people that are super honorific in Korea.  Some of them will go and make a big deal out of their age, and our teacher said that when they do that, even if you don't understand what their age is, you just say, "Oh," and bow really low.  

This last week, we had TRC again on Friday.  If I haven't told you, TRC is when we teach people that volunteer from the outside world.  On Friday, we taught the same person that we taught last week.  We had a lesson prepared on missionary work and temple work.  We had him read a scripture and asked him how he felt, and he was all like, "I don't know," and it totally confused us.  He then told us he was an investigator.  I don't think he is one, though, because I believe I recall him telling me he went to Hong Kong on his mission.  Anyway, we completely dropped our entire lesson plan, and taught him as if he were an investigator.  It went quite well, to be honest.  

Yesterday, we got new missionaries in our branch.  These ones are going to the same missions as the people at our age or whatever (level of experience is probably the best way to put it).  It feels really weird, because that makes us the oldest district now.  To be honest, I still feel like I should be the youngest district.  The MTC is going by really fast, because I also feel like I just barely got to know the missionaries that came in less recently.  We talked to the new missionaries last night, and they seem to be pretty cool.  

I love Sung 형재님 so much.  He is probably one of the greatest people that I have ever met.  He is so fun to have as a teacher.  Even if what we are learning one day is going to be really boring, like yesterday, he makes it enjoyable still.  He got sick this week, right after he got back from Korea, so I kind of felt bad for him.  However, he did come yesterday, even though he was taking like four pills or something to make him feel okay.

Something new that I have found that I like to do is to play four-square.  It is so much more intense than it was back in fourth grade.   We played it with our district this morning, and it was pretty even.  One of the rules that I don't like is that it's not supposed to go over another person's head, and I like to smash it a lot, so I get out a lot because I do that.  I hope this e-mail was better!  Only 2 and a half more weeks until it gets really exciting!

Love,

Elder Tyler Conley

Rex Kwon Do

08/20/15

That's awesome to hear so much from you guys!!  I can barely think of how to respond to so much information.  Thanks to Dad for the tips on staying awake.  I think I'll start taking those vitamins that you sent with me now, and also do a small workout before bed every night.  This week was pretty fun.  I started learning a little bit of Tae (Rex) Kwon Do from Elder Peterson, who is an elder from one of the older districts.  I can't learn any more from him now, sadly, because his last gym time was yesterday.  Yesterday, our district had the opportunity to help the new missionaries with their "How to Begin Teaching" class, where we were missionaries that started off a lesson and a group of about 50 other missionaries took over and finished.  I did see Calvin there, but not for very long, because he wasn't in the group I was helping with.  I actually also just barely saw him, and he wanted to hear some Korean.  So, I bore my testimony to him in Korean.  He was quite impressed.  I haven't actually had enough time to have a real conversation with him, but it's still good to see him.  Those pictures that you and Dad sent me are awesome.  I especially like the one of the waterslide and Chad in it, because of Drew's face in it.  Spencer's job is seeming to be really fun... not really.  That sounds more like a pain.  Just so you know, junior year was my favorite year out of all three at Sky View.  It was also the hardest academically, but it was great.  I don't have my travel plans yet, sadly.  I don't get them for another 2 weeks or so.  

Thanks for the emails!! They totally made my week!

Love,

Elder Tyler Conley

The best gift!

08/13/15

Hey, Family buddies!

I have been working quite hard this past week.  We learned so much new stuff about Korean this week.  The most interesting thing we learned about is called gerunds.  Basically it allows you to put more than one verb in a sentence.  English has them too, but I had never heard of them until I learned about them in Korean.  I have been very tired lately.  Does Dad have any suggestions for staying awake during personal study?  Because I don't ever totally fall asleep, but I nod off quite a bit.  I haven't seen Nathan at all since he's been here, but I've seen Carter like three times at least.  I always love to see him.  I am so excited for Calvin to come!!  I have missed him a lot.  My Korean is definitely coming along.  I actually get the grammar very well, so right now my problem is mostly learning vocabulary, which is a little tougher for me to do.  Yesterday, we taught Brother Driggs as our investigator, and it did not go very well.  The Korean was fine, but we couldn't figure out what he needed to hear.  We kept telling him that following God and Christ would make him happy, and he kept saying that he already was happy.  We talked about answering that question after we taught him, but I didn't feel like the question was actually answered very well.  I am getting very anxious to fly out to Korea.  The MTC is getting a "daily grind" type of feeling, except for the fact that we've gone through about 9 teachers because both of our main ones left on vacation at different times.  I am glad that I am already on my fifth week, though.  It does not feel like it has been that long.  A little over one more week, and we will be the oldest missionaries in our zone.  That's weird, because I still feel like the youngest ones.  

On Tuesday, I got a cool mission T-shirt.  I would send a picture, but I left my camera in my classroom.  On Wednesday, I got one of the best gifts I have ever received from Shawn, the janitor for our service building:  A parachute soldier!!  It was Shawn's last week here, though, which makes me kind of sad.  I am sure it makes another elder happy, though, because Elder Jenkins in another district had to clean toilets three weeks out of the four that we have worked there.  I suppose that this concludes my email for today.

Love,

Elder Tyler Conley

P.S.  Thanks for the package.  It made my whole day better.  I have made sure to share some with my district.  The cookies are in perfect shape still. 

Great, kid! Don't get cocky.

08/06/15

 Yeah, it's been real down here.  Chinese is not coming out so much anymore, but it is helping me more now.  Apparently, the Koreans use different Chinese characters for the days of the week, as well as the character for love.  Everyday we take a quiz on them, and everyone groans because they don't want to take a quiz, and I just ask, "Do I even have to take it?"  Then my teacher gives me this look and says no.  I really enjoy being taught by Sung Hyeong Jae Nim (That's the romanization for the Korean word for Brother).  He left this very morning, and our other main teacher doesn't get back until tomorow, so tonight we are being taught by Campbell Hyeong Jae Nim and Punk Hyeong Jae Nim (His real name is Brother Reynolds, but we call him that because Sung is always calling him a punk, because he speaks low form to some of the teachers).  Also,  P sounds like the Korean word for blood, so we always call today Blood Day.  I've seen a couple people I know so far.  I actually just barely saw Chaylee Chadwick from colorguard walking into the lab.  I have seen Ryan, but I think it was like his first or second day or something.  I have also seen Josh Von Niederhauser, who is a person from my school.  As of yesterday, we are no longer one of the youngest districts in the branch.  Three brand new districts of missionaries arrived yesterday, but sadly, they don't even have the same residence hall as us.  

Yesterday, we were eating breakfast with the sisters.  They asked us what we planned on doing when we got back home.  I said I would reacquaint myself with a friend, but I was referring to Emmett.  Sister O'Loughlin asked if it was a "special" friend.  I was all like, "Yeah, I guess so.  I guess he was basically my first high school friend,"  and I totally missed the actual point of what she was asking.  She said, "Oh, it's a he,"  and I soon realized my mistake.  Ha Ha!!!  :)

On Tuesdays we have different General Authorities come speak to us in the devotional.  This last week,  we were told that we would really want to sing in the choir, because they were going to record it and blast it out to every MTC in the world.  I was already planning on it, because I have been in the choir the whole time, because it isn't audition anymore.  Anyway, the speaker turned out to be none other than now-President Russell M. Nelson!!  That was pretty much one of the greatest moments of my life.  On Sunday we heard from Sheri Dew, who I was told by Sister Fields is a great Time Out For Women speaker.  I have to say, she was amazing.  

I am glad for this chance to serve the Lord in Korea.  Korean is finally making sense grammar-wise.  Thank you for supporting me in this decision!

LOL (Lots Of Love),

Elder Tyler Conley

I failed to mention that I also have seen Elder Watts here as well.  

I also failed to talk about our service assignment.  Basically the janitors in the building where we do our service are a bunch of goofballs.  The head janitor has a tall head, and a really low, but obnoxious voice.  He is one of the funniest people I've ever meant.  The other janitor that we work with is a ginger, and he pretty much just hates on all the Elders in a really funny way the whole time.  Yesterday was an eventful service day.  Previously, Shawn (the head janitor) found some Goofy String and a bag of parachute soldiers.  He told us that the hardest working elder would get the goofy string and a soldier, and the second would get just a soldier.  While we were working, Shawn unlocked the door to my companion's twin brother's room, just so he could prank him.  At the end, after Elder Littlefield and I finished cleaning toilets (bleeahhh), we had a huge ceremony, seeing who would win the prizes.  Shawn had taped the goofy string and the soldier to the mouth of a rubber chicken, and pretended for it to slowly gravitate towards the winner, who was some Japanese Elder who I did not know.  But, Elder Baird won second, so now our room has a parachute soldier in it!! 

The routine and the guilt trip :)

07/30/15

First off, I'm going to answer Tate's question that he sent in the mail:  My companion's name is Elder Polley.  He is from Las Vegas, loves Smash Bros., and marched trombone in the marching band for four years.  That's mostly why I said he's basically the same person as me.  Usually in the MTC, we wake up at 6:30, except on Saturdays.  We go to gym time, where we usually play volleyball, either indoor or sand.  We then get ready and have breakfast, then go to 4 hours of studying, which include personal, companion, language, and extra time that we can spend on whatever we want.  We then go to lunch.  After that, we have class time until dinner, then more class time until bed.  My teachers are so awesome!  Well, right now, we are switching teachers up a little bit, because we are getting some more, and one is going on a vacation.  The one that's mostly teaching us right now is Brother Sung.  He's a really funny person.  He speaks way more English than the American teachers, and he's Korean.  I think that that's kind of funny.  I know that he totally cares about us, almost as much as his family.  I'm not really feeling neglected right now, although I wouldn't mind you sending some treats ;).  A lot of the other Elders in my residence hall get a bunch of treats from their parents.  Elder Littlefield actually got two packages each week for the last two weeks, so whenever that happens, we always say that it's Christmas.  Also, if you could send me some more normal socks, that would be much appreciated.  They don't even let us listen to music in the MTC, so that is not necessary.  I'm really enjoying my time here, and I'm grateful for the chance I get to serve in the Lord's name.  Thank you for your support!

With love, 

Tyler