Batch of Letters

For anyone that would like to write to Jacob his email address is for his entire mission is - jdayley@myldsmail.net

He is at the Provo MTC West campus and his departure date is Oct 14, his mission is Mex-Chi, and he is Unit 44.  Once on is in Mexico, you can still write him using dearelder, but you would put his location as Mexico-Chihuahua.  All of those letters will go to his mission home.  They are all free to send as well.

This is actually the first email that he sent us last week on his first p-day.  Honestly it was pretty non-informational, so I didn't send it out last week, but now that I have some other letters to add to it, I will go ahead and add this.

Hey guys hows it going? Everything is going good here. First full week of the mtc done and it was hard but rewarding but also disappointing but at the same super fun!

So mama you were right that I am at the west campus and it is way better here. I got two companions so its a trio of us haha. There was 7 elders and 5 of us are going to Chihuahua and the other 2 are going to Madrid Spain. The other two left this morning at 3 am kinda like what Devon did. But I wasn't the only one to mispronounce Chihuahua when they read there mission call all 5 of us did!  So now its just 5 of us living in a apartment and its super fun.

Papa I appreciate your two line long emails haha, but I'm jealous of you guys going to get In and Out. But I sent you guys an actual hand written letter with a little more of a personal stuff on it for you and mama

Provo is super super nice and the mountains are really pretty I got some pictures to send you guys, tell Kurt thank you for the camera again for me. Oh and thank you for the dear elders they really mean a lot. I got lots of pics for you! 

(All of the pictures he sent are on the blog Lee started.)

But I wake up every morning 5 am and make some soup, I love it! Its the best! (Another tribute to Nacho) But I really wake up at 6;30 shower, go to personal study in a small classroom, then breakfast, then additional study, classroom which is all in spanish. Then maybe lunch I don't remember, but then we go to language study or more study for a few hours then dinner then more classroom time then planning then bed at 10:30. It's pretty exciting.

Remember when you promised that we would build a rally car when I got back well I'm holding you to that!

So now you know why I wasn't super excited to send out just that last week!

So here the 2nd hand written letter we got from him.

Dear Mama and Papa,

Today is my first p-day and it's a Wednesday, and it marks the one week of me being here.  So yesterday we got moved over to the west campus and before hand everyone was saying how much it stunk over here and how it's just not nearly as good, so I wasn't too excited to go and leave, well I actually I was because I did not like the main campus at all.  But I'll explain that in a sec.  But we got here and we have an actually apartment, a three room, one bath house for the 5 of us.  I have loved it here way more than the main campus.  We're on the 3rd floor of a building, we have a view of the mountains around us and there's trees and grass, it's awesome here.  I took a lot of pics for you guys that I'll try and send though email.  I felt like the main campus was of a prison.  Everywhere you looked it was brick building and old trees. 

Needless to say, his first week was harder on his than we originally thought.  He dealt with a lot of homesickness and some depression that goes along with being homesick and the white brick walls of the MTC didn't help at all.  Then he went on to say this.... 

Sunday night we had a devotional which was cool, but after that there was a video about the character of Christ.  In the video was David A. Bednar talking about how in trials we have to turn outwards to others instead of turning inwards.  So I've been trying  to do that and I've been praying a lot for comfort and all that has helped and the fact that we moved to the west campus has really helped me. 

On Monday I played my best game of basketball ever.  I don't know if it's just the floors here or something, but it was really cool actually being able to help my team win and actually being the leading point scorer haha. 

My companions are really cool.  One is sorta annoying sometimes, but it's not anything bad.  An elder in my district, Elder Wright (the non-annoying companion) and I are doing a dirt bike trip in Utahwhen we all get back, because we all ride dirt bikes and they both live in Utah.  

Ever since we left the main campus things gave been 100 times better.  The first three days have been agonizingly slow, but the last three have been flying by so fast.  It's crazy how much spanish I've learned in a week.  I can understand a lot of what the teacher says, but speaking it is still hard.  Over all I'm glad I'm here.  Love you all, tell that to the Wright's too, and tell Brother Wright I'm still expecting his letters he promised.

Love You!  Miss You!

Elder Dayley

So that ws pretty much his first week in the MTC.  Good life lessons and growth.  I'm proud of him for sticking through things and looking in the right places for the help and strength he needed.  So here is what we got from him today.