Two weeks in..

This is the second week of emails we received from Jake:

Okay so that's pretty crazy the weather stinks there! It's 90's here almost every day! The days in the MTC feel like weeks but the weeks feel like days... this past week went really fast! I can't believe. I'm 1/4 of the way done with my MTC stay. When I think of being home it seems like it's been forever but when I think about when I arrived here it seems like I just got here! It's pretty awesome. Yes we get to do a Temple walk every Sunday where we just walk over to the Temple and talk and take pics. On P-days we get to go and do a session and that is so awesome! It's such a nice break from everything else.

Thank you so so so much for the package! It was awesome! My district is pretty cool! We have 6 sisters and 5 elders. My best friend's name is Elder Richards. He's super cool and we get along really well. He's into sports and a lot of the same stuff I am!Sso that's really nic.  I hang out with him a lot! I am picking up on the language pretty quick compared to everyone else.. There is another elder in my district that already knew a lot of japanese and there's a sister or two that is picking up on it quick too. Other than that everyone else is struggling..(Including my companion) It's super cool cause I'm finally starting to make sentences! In our zone there were just 5 Nihongene (Japanese) elders that came in for 2 weeks. There is one named elder Suzuki and he is super cool. He loves basketball and I get him to play with us and he is so good! He speaks very little eigo (english) but that's good cause I teach him english and he teaches me Nihingo!! So that's super cool! And yes I get to play bball EVERY DAY!!!!! YAYYY! it's a big time stress reliever for me. We go to the gym and my comp does his own thing while I play bball! So that's sweet! 

But that's about it.. I love and miss you guys!!! Ai shitte imasu!! (I love you!!!) I'll send some pics later today!!

Love Elder Snyder

My Zone:

Me and my companion, Elder Canfield:

Elder Richards and me:

Elder Hansen, Elder Suzuki and me:

P-Day!

So, usually P-Day is on Mondays.  P-Day stands for Preparation Day, and it's the one day out of the week that the missionaries can relax a little, dress down, do laundry, get on the computer and email, and basically just catch up on little things.  So, we were looking forward to hearing from Jake on Monday the 4th, but instead we got a letter that said his P-Day would be on Thursday so we would hear from him then.  This is the first email we received from Jake in the MTC:

 Hey Fam!! What's up!? It's nice to hear from you guys!! The MTC is good! I'd say awesome but sometimes it's really not... ha! But it's so hard. Japanese is such a difficult language. But I'm getting ahold of it! You guys can read Kelsey's email cause I put a lot of stuff in there and don't really have time to type it all again. But I'll write you more letters with more stuff that's going on! It's actually super nice to just relax at night and write in my journal and write letters! And send me letters!! It would be super nice to here from you guys throughout the week! My companion gets like 3 or 4 letters a day.. haha. And its pretty funny, everyone gets so excited when someone gets a package!  We love snacks.. (so you can give everyone my address and tell them to send me packages) haha. But the MTC experience so far has been pretty crazy. We were soooooooo excited for our first P-day! but I don't have much time so I'll tell ya more in letters! Bye everyone! I love and miss you!
Love, Elder Snyder

Kels,
I can't wait to hear about everything thats going on there! The MTC is crazy. I'm not sure what it's like to learn Spanish....but learning Japanese in the MTC is by far the hardest thing I've done in my life so far. STUDY AS MUCH AS YOU CAN BEFORE YOU GO. You're going to walk into your classroom for the first time and your teacher will not talk ANY english to you at all. I was so overwhelmed the first few days and sometimes I just wanted to cry. I'm understanding a lot more though now and it's getting easier. Oh and on Friday, you have to teach a whole lesson in your language.....which is so frustrating and depressing. But the lessons get better too. But the MTC is awesome, you're gonna love it. That's about all I have time to say so i'll talk to ya later! PLEASE SEND ME LETTERS AND PACKAGES. I get lonely and I'm the only one in my district that hasn't gotten anything... lol. But I love and miss ya! 

Love, Elder Snyder

Obviously, we quickly got on the ball and wrote Jake some letters and sent some packages.  Poor kid!  But, he lived through it, snacks or no.  He seems to have an upbeat attitude, though.  Love that kid!

Home for the next 8 weeks..

Hello, Missionary Training Center! The morning that Jake entered the MTC, Craig's awesome parents babysat Addy and Tucker so all the kids could take him to the Provo Temple. They had a great morning at the temple and then they went to lunch at a Brazilian restaurant where Seth ran into one of his mission companions! (So funny, because he went to Brazil on his mission. Go figure!) Then they took Jake to the MTC and dropped him off. There are so many missionaries coming in that you pretty much just drop them at the curb and say goodbye. So glad they were there for him.

Bye, Jakey!

So, today is the day! We knew we would have to get up early in the morning, so Jake had said his goodbyes to Gideon and Savanna the night before.  We took Jake to the Pittsburgh airport to see him off.  We were all doing great until we had to send him through security.  It was hard to say goodbye to him, but we know there's no better place for him to be going right now. 

 Brooke and Craig picked Jake up at the SLC airport and took him to the Bednar's to spend a couple of nights before he had to be in the Missionary Training Center.  He was so excited to see Addalyn!  Seth, Kirsten and Tucker got there that evening and Jake loved meeting Tucker for the first time!  They all had a great time together for a couple of days, relaxing and playing racquetball.  It was great that Jake got to see everyone before he left.
  

God Be With You 'Til We Meet Again...

Today was Jake's farewell at church.  The meeting was wonderful with our family singing "I Know That My Redeemer Lives" with the missionaries from the branch, and Kelsey singing "God Be With You Til We Meet Again", which was a major tear jerker.  Savanna, me (Mom), Steve and Jake spoke.  Jake really sounded like a missionary and we could all see that he is ready to go!

Family Fun!!

The weekend before Jacob was to leave we had a super fun family get together where we played games, shot skeet, lit chinese lanterns and had a bonfire.  We loved having everyone there for the whole weekend and for Jake's farewell at church the next day.

The House of the Lord

One very important event that needed to happen was Kelsey and Jake going through the temple. In temples, we make special promises with Heavenly Father and He promises us special blessings in return. Kelsey and Jake were able to do this for themselves in July in the Washington D.C. Temple. It was an amazing experience!