Week 3 in Knoxville

Hello people of Facebook! Last week was a great week and it went by even faster than the last. I'm going to be home before i know it! I loving serving the people and I love serving the Lord. The people here are all amazing people with great stories if you're willing to listen. We had a baptism Saturday night and it was just an amazing experience to see someone change their life completely in order to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the proper priesthood authority of God. I love this church and the happiness it brings to peoples lives. If anyone has any questions about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, just email me (tyler.byron@myldsmail.net) or go to mormon.org

 Have a great week!

Week Two In Knoxville

Hey Everyone! I'm on week two of my mission in the field. So far everything is amazing!! I'm getting so caught up in the work here that time is flying by! Even though it's going quick, the days are still hard. I have noticed that when I’m working the hardest and being the most obedient that time goes by quickly and my days are generally a lot happier! I've noticed a few things that bring about miracles on my mission. Proper planning brings miracles, Faith brings miracles, Obedience brings miracles, and hard work brings miracles. I have plenty of examples to back it up too. This week we did a lot of visiting to people that lived close because we were on bikes. The city and areas where most people live is about 4-5 miles away from where we live, so we only went up there twice this past week. All in all we did around 30 miles on bike this week, which really wasn't that much at all. The only problem is that it's up hill... both ways! But I guess what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger! This weekend is the ward party Chili and Pie cook of which I’m really excited for. If there is anything amazing about the South it's their food without a doubt. So I’m really excited for that. We also should have some less active members there so hopefully the ward with fellowship them well! The people down here are so nice. Even if they aren't Mormon they still love to talk about us and about Christ which is always a bonus. And EVERYONE down here knows their Christ! I love the spirit here and I’m really excited for the holiday season when Jesus is on everyone's mind and the joy can be felt in the air. I love my mission and I love doing God's work on the earth. I hope to hear from everyone soon! Love you all! 

          Love Elder Tyler Byron!

I think this might be the mission home?

Mission Flag

Tyler's Apartment

Tyler's Apartment

Tyler said a lot of the churches out there have cemeteries in the front

A random sign they found

Tyler

Tyler's first week in the field

Well I don’t even know where to start. This was officially my first week in Tennessee and it's going great! I'm in a town called Maryville (pronounced mur-vul), about 30 minutes outside of Knoxville. It's a decently sized town. Probably a little smaller than Bremerton but it's much more spread out than b-town is. There are a lot of tree's here but they actually change color. All the trees in Washington are green, but these trees are green, yellow, red, pink and purple, etc... It's a really beautiful sight! The weather out here has been consistently in the 70's and sunny. I left my journal at the apartment so I will have to say all this by memory. My companions are Elder Brown and Elder Christensen and they are both from Utah, surprise! The area I’m in is like the buckle of the bible belt. It's crazy. If you aren't Baptist or LDS out here, than you are under a rock or something. The Baptist churches out here are like the size of my high school. Bigger than any church I have ever seen. That's for sure! Our main investigator right now is Amy. She is about 21 or 22 years old, Baptist, and studying to be an RN. She is loving the Book of Mormon. She read from the beginning to Alma in between the first and second lesson with her. She is progressing really fast and just loves the Gospel! Besides her there are a few other people interested, but not really dedicated like she is. The members of the church here are really cool! Brother McDaniel’s had us over for dinner on Friday and it was awesome, he's so redneck. He and his wife (probably in their 60's) made us an entire thanksgiving dinner like turkey, potatoes, corn, and all that jazz. He also collects guns and knives. He had around 50 guns and 80 knives. He let us look at all of them, it was so cool! We also had dinner with the Twiner's, but they are just your average Mormon family. Hopefully I can get a picture with them before I leave! We also went to the Fall Festival, which is a giant festival and it's free to get into. We went and tried handing out mormon.org cards. We also saw Squiggy, the water-skiing squirrel. That was weird to say the least. Rascal Flats even made a guest appearance. I guess this little town is more well known than I thought it was. I have only been here for like 5 days, but next week I will write a much more detailed letter. Have a great week!!

Elder Tyler Byron

Tyler's Last Week At The M.T.C.

Hey everyone! This week was one of the best weeks, if not THE best week here so far. Everything was perfectly normal until around Thursday. Thursday is when I got my temporary re-assignment in the US until my Visa comes through. If you haven't heard yet, I am going to Knoxville, Tennessee mission. I am super excited to go serve in the south because it's so different than where I have grown up my whole life. I also here that they have some amazing BBQ which I am also a big fan of! I found that out Thursday night while the rest of my district also opened their calls. We have some missionaries going to the Everett, WA mission, Little Rock, Arkansas mission, Indianapolis, IN mission and the Long Beach, CA mission, a lot of amazing places to go while we all wait for our Visas. Unfortunately, this means that I won't be using the Portuguese language as much, which could hurt my current progress. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE. If you know Portuguese, email me in Portuguese so I can practice reading and responding back. That would be a huge help! Friday, actually nothing really happened. But then Saturday and Sunday came which was when General Conference was on T.V. General Conference is when all the members of the church gather together, or watch the broadcast on T.V. of the Prophet and his apostles speaking to the members of the church about what God wants us to hear. They talk about what we can do to improve ourselves as Disciples of Christ and how we can learn to serve others in new ways. It is usually the most spiritually uplifting part of the year! (Happens twice a year). That took up most of my day, because here in the M.T.C. when there is conference on, we pay attention! Our whole schedule is formed around the Conference times so we don't have to miss a single minute. It was amazing. Then Sunday night we had our devotional which was the best one we have had so far. The guest speaker was actually a guest group. To share their testimonies through word and song…Vocal Point came and talked to us and sang some Hymns. If you don't know, Vocal Point is an Acapella(don't know how to spell this) group from BYU and happens to be the #1 College Acapella group in the country. They were absolutely phenomenal. I think that the best part was that they were all return missionaries and had really strong testimonies about the true Gospel of Christ. That was Sunday. All I have done today is pack up my stuff. And now I’m here emailing. Well you should all email me because I love hearing from everyone! 

tyler.byron@myldsmail.net

Tyler's Fifth Week

Hello Friends! I thought I would take this message to describe a typical week in the MTC, especially because this is one of my last emails from the MTC. The week here starts on a Monday and ends on Sunday. Monday we wake up at 6:30 and go pick up a sack breakfast from behind the cafeteria, then go straight to Gym. At Gym you can play basketball, volleyball(my personal favorite), four square, soccer, sand volleyball(outside) or run the track and lift weights. After Gym we go TALL which is an online language learning program. Then we have lunch(11:00-11:45), go to our classroom and study for about an hour, have a 3 hour language learning class(we learn a ton) and the go to lunch(4:00-4:45). Then we go back to the classroom for additional study for about an hour and have another 3 hour class for language and gospel study(9:30 when class is out). Then we go back to our residences and go to bed at 10:30 This is a pretty typical day but sometimes stuff happens in a different order, like class before breakfast and Gym before dinner. The only different days are Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday. Tuesday is P-Day which means we have until Dinner to do all of our chores such as laundry and cleaning our room or getting a haircut(I get mine today!). Then after Dinner i go to choir, than we have a devotional given by a really great speaker(still no Monson) Wednesday, instead of Gym and TALL in the morning we have a service project(usually cleaning bathrooms) and personal exercise time to just work out in your residence hall. Sunday is completely different than any other day. It is our day to rest from our language studies and center our days on Christ. Everything we do is centered on him. We go to priesthood meeting and sacrament meeting(if you have any more in depth questions, feel free to email me). Everything else is pretty much personal study time to read the scriptures. Than at the end of the day i got to choir again and have another amazing devotional by a speaker that usually makes you want to be more Christlike than the last. It's amazing. That's pretty much a weekly schedule here, it's a lot of language learning so i can know the basics before going to Brazil. Oh speaking of which, i get my reassignment on Thursday so I will have my mom post it to Facebook Thursday night. I'm super excited to serve where ever the Lord wants me to serve while i wait for my Visa! Well that's it until next week!

email me tyler.byron@myldsmail.net

    -Elder Byron of course!

Tyler and Elder Sapngler from Port Orchard

Elder Sapngler, Elder Fowler(both from Port Orchard) and Tyler

Tyler's District and Buddy District

Tyler and his Branch President

Tyler with a statue of the first missionary, Sam Smith

A  care package from one of  Tyler's good friends