Elder Mann's Mailing address

Elder MacGyver Reed Mann
Nicaragua Managua South Mission
De la Retonda del Periodista
150 vrs al Sur Ofiplaza Suite 725
Managua, Managua
Nicaragua
Please do not use FED EX, UPS, or DHL.  Use the US Postal Service.  Cards and letters are about $1.15 to send regular mail.  You can also send him an email still at dearelder.com
chooose Nicaragua South from the drop down menu.  Or you can use snail mail.

LAST WEEK IN THE MTC

Hola!!

This is it. This is the final email from me from the MTC. Crazy, no? I've got my travel plans, but not with me so I don't remember exact times and flight numbers.

Anyway, flying out Monday morning. Checking into the travel office here at the MTC at 5am.

First flight is around 8am to Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas; then to Miama, Florida; then our final flight to Nicaragua. We will be travelling in a group of 14 missionaries (two are in my district going there too, so I have them to talk to for sure). We will land in Nicaragua around 7:05pm, their time. Probably buy a donkey with a pair of gym shoes and then ride that for a few more hours until I see someone in the middle of nowhere who I can teach the gospel to. Ha So it will be a full day of travel. The MTC doesn't have a policy on calling home from the airport, but I do have a prepaid phone card thing from the bookstore here. So mom, dad. I will be calling you at some point from a payphone Monday. I think 4:40 to 6:30 Miami time is when I will have time to do that. That's our longest layover. 4:40 we arrive, and 6:30 is when we depart, so there is a little bit of a window to talk. I'm not sure how many minutes are on the card either, so if it just hangs up... sorry. I'll try to find that out before I make the call. Can't wait to talk to you two!!

Also, we were able to watch the dedication of the Brigham City Utah Temple on Sunday. It was really neat. We arrived quite early into the auditorium/gym with bleachers and chairs that we have our devotionals and whatnot in to get good seats. We went as a zone (some 35 missionaries) and sat in the same area. Elder Baldwin sat on the opposite of the end of the row of me which was fine because we were with our zone, but I had saved a seat for him next to me. Empty seat next to me. So, we had plenty of time to relax and wait for the dedication to begin, so we were just talking when I saw Hermana Clement walking down at the front of the bleachers (I was about the 5th row up). I see her. I see my entire zone (all 31 elders and the 4 sisters) see her and then I see them all turn and look at me. I waved to her as she looked for a seat when a number of elders called out "He's got a seat right there!" "Go sit there!" "Yeah, look at that! Perfect!" She became all giddy and started making her way towards me, I didn't know if she was actually going to do it. She did. She plopped down right next to me and we were both grinning ear to ear, but I still felt every single eye in my zone (including our presidency [the old guys to take care of us]) staring at me. We shook hands and I expressed I didn't know if we should do this. A presidency member and his wife were sitting right behind us and his wife said, "It's okay, sister. We're right behind you! And these are good elders!" A sister in my district sitting next to the wife leaned over and whispered, "That's Elder Mann's girlfriend." She fell silent ha and I looked over to the other side, and Elder Baldwin was standing up with a stern "What in the world do you think you're doing?!" face with another presidency member standing up behind him shaking his head in a very strong manner. Yeah.... I sighed and said, "Yeah, we can't do this." The three elders to her left shuffled one seat over towards me and she ended up sitting three seats over in the aisle, right behind her companion. Yup. That was interesting. Haha, wish we could have sat next to each other, but alas we did not. Oh well, we can at least stand next to each other after the mission without getting stared at by everyone surrounding us. Looking forward to that day haha

Oh! I also saw someone I knew from Utah here. Mom, Dad and Mac you'll probably remember them. When we lived on Standard Ct in Magna, my best friend at the time Colton Squire is here! It was so weird! I was standing in line for ice cream when I heard someone call me and I turned around and here's this young man with the same face (minus some 5 o'clock shadow) that I used to hang out with every day way back when. That was so sweet to see him, I was in awe. Now Sage is coming in today (he might already be here). I haven't seen him yet, but I'm definitely getting a picture with him before I take off. Speaking of pictures, I tried to send them earlier when i was doing laundry, but the SD card readers weren't working. I even have good pictures this week! I have a few with Rinna in front of the big map and one with Squire Elder (he's going somewhere where the name comes first, weird huh?).

I taught our Sunday School lesson on Sunday for our district. The subject was the Book of Mormon, so instead of solely flipping pages in the BoM, I decided to make it more of an "object lesson". I explained a little bit about my flight training experiences and where I trained, what some of the basic instruments were and whatnot. At the beginning of the lesson, I had them make a paper airplane to represent themselves in the flight of life. It's hard to explain without me drawing it up on the board, but I drew the routes I flew to practice and what each area represented. IE The runway was heaven, since we were there before this life and we are going to return. A certain mountain was baptism that we had to fly over to get to the practice area which represented life because of all the different maneuvers and whatnot we practice there. Yeah, so it was a really fun lesson. I have forgotten a TON about aviation. It kinda made me sad, but as the lesson went on, I remembered more and more. After the lesson, we all went out into the hall and tossed our paper airplanes down the hallway to see whose plane would go farthest and flip the most and things of that nature. At a random point in my lesson, i remembered a letter my mom sent me about my dad's calling to teach the 13-15 year olds for Sunday school. How she went to go drop something off to him or pick something up or tell him something, and when she opened the door he threw a paper airplane across the room. Hahaha I love you dad, I'm so glad you did that. While, I was teaching this one, I thought "Holy cow, I'm just like my dad. Making paper airplanes for a church class" haha It made me really happy. He did tie it in somehow, but I feel it was kinda like mine, more for the fact that they could make apaper airplane.

Well, I have started packing and getting everything set in order. We have a new district coming in today, so Elder Baldwin and I get the opportunity to give a tour and show them around again. It is such a fun thing to do. I'm so excited.

Special shout out in appreciation for someone reading my blog every week: Grandma Heyman!! I love you and so does Taylor!

Love to you all, and don't worry about me going to Nicaragua. I'm really not nervous or worried myself, I am just excited to go help people in a different world. I'll be safe and keep my head up.

Love you all!

-Elder Mann

Picture of Elder Mann and Sister Clement in the laundry facility/Below Elder Mann doing a flip off the wall in the MTC hallway

Week 7 MTC

Hola!
Zone leader stuff. We have a new district and they are SO AWESOME! We had a fun time showing them around the campus and where to do what (like freshman orientation). When we were having a meeting with them and going over the rules, doing a demo companionship inventory, we had them do a mock when where they just asked funny questions to their companion for a while. One of the questions was "What animal would you be if you could be an animal?" We had some funny responses. One that has actually stuck as a type of nickname is one small little Elder who chose the animal a "sparrow" because they're small, they fly, and I always see them diving through the cars, sometimes they get hit, but they are just so cool and I've always wanted to be one since I was little." Hahah the best part is that the Elder is really small. Like only 105 pounds and just a little guy with a lot of spunk ha He goes full out in soccer and we call him sparrow by reaction. They're really an awesome district though. We have one of the best zones in the MTC, by far.

I believe it is official now, I have spent more time in the MTC than I did outside the MTC with my call. That's weird. But it happened. I'll be getting my travel plans to Nicaragua either tomorrow or this weekend. That's super exciting! Next week our schedule is a little different. One day we will have an "in field orientation" where I believe we go on "splits" with actual missionaries in Provo. We will pretty much just tag onto an elder who has been an elder for a while and go to his lessons and meetings with different people. That's what I think is going to happen anyway. Haven't heard too much about it. SUPER EXCITED to finally get to Nicaragua though. It's cold here in the mornings and I have absolutely zero warm clothes haha Jeans and a tshirt conclude my list of warm clothes. Normally we would go outside in the morning at 7 for an hour of personal study time, but now we kinda just stay in our residence halls and I have a blanket wrapped around me as I study haha

This Sunday will be interesting for a few reasons. First, we get to watch a temple dedication. I don't remember which one it is, but we get to watch it in our big conference gym/room on the big screen. That'll be neat. Then, I'll be singing a duet with another elder in our sacrament of "Come Thou Fount". He did musical theatre before he came here. He was actually the Phantom in the Phantom of the Opera. Haven't really practiced it yet, but we will get some practice time in tomorrow and the weekend before we sing. Not sure how we are going to do it, but I have faith it will turn out well. Haha Pray for me still.

Something cool we have done as a district is memorized Joseph Smith's first vision of God and Jesus Christ in Spanish. I hadn't even memorized it in English before my mission, but now I have the whole thing in spanish. It's super powerful. Not too much longer in the MTC, so I am trying to crank down on my study time and learn as much as I can. I feel confident in my Spanish, but know I'll still be in for a shock when I get there. I'm looking forward to it though. I can't wait for the challenge. Nicaraguan spanish is going to be sweet!

Love to you all, thank you for the letters and dear elders. I know there will be a lag time, major lag time, between wherever you live and Nicaragua, but know that it always makes my day to receive mail!

I know that what I am doing is a good thing to do and that I am in the service of my fellow men.

Love,

Elder Mann

Week 6 at MTC with 3 Weeks left!

Hello hello!

First off! I haven't seen Corrinne yet!!! GAHHHHH!!!! It's wiggin' me out that she's here and I haven't seen her. I wanted to be at the curb a bit early, but I wasn't able to be. My companion was writing an important letter to his family and I didn't want to take him away from it... so we arrived there about ten minutes after she said her drop off time was (12:30)... and waited. It was terrrribbbleeee. I can't wait to see her, hope I'll recognize her haha

Oh and Cameron, I need your address too, so if you could send that to me that'd be great.

Alright, so one of THE COOLEST things I've learned here in the MTC is how to study. That sounds really weird, but it is true. This morning I had personal study time and I just had my scriptures, my notes from the devotional last night and the missionary manual Preach my Gospel. I was flying through everything. I studied obedience which is the most preached topic here in the MTC. "Be obedient, it's important. Do it. Be obedient. Don't be a robot, be obedient." But most times with a loving heart and good intent. Anyway, I was studying the Book of Mormon a bit more about it, just started with a scripture reference in PMG and fwoo! I can't even express what I have learned about it, other than why the heck wouldn't we want to be obedient to God's commandments? If we follow them as best as we can and understand the principle of forgiveness and the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can literally live with God and our families forever. Then I also studied patience (something Taylor has/had to learn in Chile already apparently haha) and that is going to help me a lot on my mission.

Zone Leader status: Okay, oday is Wednesday. New missionaries come in. They get to do a lot of neat things in a huge group (pretend to teach investigators as one huge companionship of like 40... when I did it, it didn't go well at all ha Too many ideas, too much "this is what I know" stuff... Rinna will have fun in that for sure. She might be the one talking the whole time =P) But after that, they'll go to a welcome thing from the MTC presidency and then to dinner and class. In class, solely their mission language, it's a blast. I loved it. Then at the end of class, Elder Baldwin and I will swoop in and talk to them about the in's and out's of the MTC. What to do, where to go and what not. We will also give an example Companionship Inventory (I think I already explained that previously). Then tomorrow night we give them a tour of the MTC. We also show them our residency room to show what it should look like (ours is actuall ypretty darn clean thank you) and review the rules of the residency (no dormitory behavior pretty much). Which reminds me, mom and dad, that flange ball squeezie thing you sent me has disappeared. I used to throw it at my companion in the morning to make sure he was up, but we don't know where it is at now... and it's not in our room haha we looked. Sorry, but there aren't supposed to be "toys" in here anyway. The mexican jumping beans also died. Sadly. They used to be clicking and hopping in my drawer all through the night... maybe I'm not so sad those thigns are gone ha

I did choir for the first time finally. I went on a companion exchange with another elder in my zone (Elder Jepsen) because my companion wanted to do language study instead. Choir is SO FUN! I want to learn how to actually sing so bad. That's really the only form of creative expression here in the MTC and Elder Baldwin is already sick of my "not cool oldies" songs that I sing often. Soo.... Hymns in Spanish are next, I just want to sing them right ha

Only 3 weeks left, ya? Weird. We're the oldest district in our zone now. It's a weird thought because it seems like all the elders we knew and looked up to were here yesterday... but they're all gone and a new group is rolling in. The MTC seldom has a shut door, always revolving.

The firesides have been amazing recently. I think one reason why is because I have been able tos tay awake for them all, regardless of the speaker. Well, for the past two weeks at least, which is an improvement. I love learning and learning from others is a quick, sure fire way to get topics to study further and discover on your own. Remember I had my notes in the second paragraph? Or did you skip that part? Yeah, our last speaker has spend almost four decades in the Army as a financial advisor or something. He was a super dry speaker and didn't change his inflection more than twice throughout his whole 35 minute talk. I thought I would fall asleep, but I stayed awake and now I know why. The principles of just being able to do something, be able to be told and taught why a commandment is important, or a personality trait, and just following through on it. Something else he commented on is that so many people say "Congrats, you made it here in the MTC"; he said that then followed with "Now do something about it" or something to that effect. Yeah, we don't want to waste our time here. I'm trying to not waste my time at all and through a number of conversations with my district, I appear to be very diligent, but there is always room for improvement.

Before I forget, Mom, do you remember those colored pencil things we bought from Deseret Book? They're plastic and have like the lead insert in them? blue, orange, green, purple, yellow and red? Could you send me another package of those please? I have almost worn through mine entirely. I made "Google Scriptures" which are awesome, and I will just send a picture of them back some time instead of explaining i right now.

Something else, that Samoan elders grandparents' names are: Ese (grandpa) and Sowe or Sone (can't read his writing).

As a district, we have designated Mondays and Thursdays to be Spanish Only for the entire day, except when in class to make sure we understand what is being taught. I love it. I love Spanish so much. I have read Taylor's experience of people just not trying to talk to him because he is handicapped with the language... and I think the same thing will happen to me. It's gonna be funny. I feel like I can speak fairly well, but if any of you are familiar with the subjunctive tense, that's difficult. Moreso when to use it. So that may be the major flaw in my Spanish right now, but I can still get my point across. In addition to that, we have been learning how to teach more simply. Something I took for granted, but I suppose words like "restoration" "priesthood" "gospel" and such are not exactly normal everday words (which I only know a select few normal everyday words in spanish), so we are trying to do that now. It's great.

Funny experience in a lesson with one of our investigators:

Normally, I don't do this. I try to be very careful with my words and mostly get my message across without saying a ton of dumb stuff. This was actually probably my first "dumb" thing I said in a lesson and Elder Baldwin lost it hahaha

So, we were teaching the word of wisdom, which is a commandment of God telling us to not drink Alcohol among other things. Our investigator said he drank alcohol with his friends, but that it wouldn't be a major deal for him to stop drinking it because he understood the importance of it. I intended to ask him this "Would you like to stop drinking alcohol?", but I mixed up some words in my head and asked "Quiere tomar alcohol?" And if you know spanish, I recently learned that "Le quiere" is like the "I love you man!" thing, so I slipped that "quiere" is "you want" instead of "you like"ish... So I asked "Want to drink alcohol?" during the lesson. The investigator looked baffled and said "ahora?!" "Now?!" "No no no no no no no!!! Lo siento!!" Yeah... that was funny. Oh well.

Time to go, adios! Hope all of you have a great week and thank you for the dear elders and letters. I have a good time writing back!

-Elder Mann

MTC WEEK 5

Hola!!!

So, I want to start with this:

Our district has been quite sick recently. 4 of the 9 members have a cough, one in our district, Elder Smith, is the start of this Plague (other districts are now catching the black death). Our branch president, President Hollister, who is a really amazing man and he knows how to speak to missionaries, told Elder Smith this as he was leaving our class one day: "There's plenty of priesthood around; if you die, we'll raise you.'' Hahaha I loved that. It made me laugh at the delivery of the line. Anyway, continuing from quotes from President Hollister, dont tell but Elder Baldwin and I are going to be assigned as the Zone Leaders (over all the districts). One week break from District leader and then Zone Leader. But don''t tell, no one in our zone is supposed to know besides my companion and I and the current zone leaders who are leaving Monday to go to their missions.

In our interview with Pres. H, he pointed out a few thigns about being a zone leader and then made the following comments which I found interest in: "[Elder Baldwin], youre more of a loving, happy-go-lucky guy and [Elder Mann] youre more of a disciplinarian... Theyre going to have to feel love from you and you [Elder Baldwin] are going to have to learn how to be a disciplinarian." Yup, I suppose that is about right,and I guess I have some lasting effects of leading from lacrosse? Maybe. Anyway, I thought it was a bit funny, so take it as you will.

Secondly, Jake Holme: Write me! haha, my address is on my facebook. I wanna talk to you!

(And Jonathan L., Jesus V., Dabs!! Send me a letter so I can get your address or DearElder.com me)

Ah, back to Elder Smith. I had the opportunity to give him a priesthood blessing. It was my first one that I have ever had the opportunity to give. He asked Elder Brown (one of his companions) to anoint him with the oil and me to seal the blessing. I was honored at his request. Just after a class, we had all of the district in there. All of the elders laid our hands upon his head and I started to offer the blessing. It was an amazing experience. I really believe in the power of the priesthood because of all the times I received a priesthood blessing before being hauled off to a hospital after an accident in a lacrosse game or something (Curtis and Ray Heyman, thanks! ha). Anyway, as I was giving the blessing, I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to say a few things that were rather unrelated, but related, to his health. In fact, I blessed his health in the beginning and then started talkinga bout his mission. How he is needed int he MTC, how the people in Chile (his mission) arebeing prepared for him to arrive and teach them because of his personality. It was such a neat thing, I took almost no thought beforehand of what to say (the request for the blessing and the beginning of blessing itself took place in a matter of minutes) to ensure I would speak by impressions of the Spirit. I really enjoyed the experience and although he isnt at full capacity yet, I believe he will be soon.

So yes, being called as zone leaders on Sunday. We will pretty much go to all the leader ship training classes they ahve on different days of the week with the district leaders. We will attend the meetings where we discuss the members of the zone and how we can help them in any way. We also meet with each district leader each week to see how their district is doing and to offer advice. Additionally, we show the new districts entering what to do and where to go (we give a tour of the MTC) and we even give a preview of Companionship Inventory (in the real world, it is similar to a ""determine the relationship"" to make sure both companions are on the same page and openly discuss any issues, but to also share strengths and good attributes of your companion. Its a really good thing, I like it. We also escort the Coordinating Sister (the district leader for the sisters) to her meetings because you cant be alone in the MTC pretty much at all. Only in the bathroom. That actually applies to the whole mission. Yes, I have spent 6 weeks x 7hours a day with my companion. And sorry, the keyboard Im using is not very good. Im blaming that, especially the quotes. Not working.

CORRRINNNNNENEEEENENENEEENENEEE YOURE GONNA BE HERE INA WEEEEEEKKKKKK!!!! IM SO EXCITED!!!!! Youre gonna love it here. I promise you, its amazing. Know that. =D

Also, we had a workshop like every Tuesday. This one we made a question that we would ask God if we could sit down with him. We watched a few clips on revelation through the Book of Mormon and then we were told to study for 8-10 minutes on whatever we feel like we need to study. We were also told that we would be answering the question of another elder without knowing his question and vice versa. I made a question, What should I do when I am discouraged on my mission? I studied about a different topic and then we moved around to sit with someone we didnt know. The elder taught me about the wise man building his house upon a rock and expressed that in any time of trial or discouragement, we should just remember what we are here for and why we are doing what we are doing.I felt like it was a really good answer and he actually used the word I had in my question: discouraged. That was really neat. Definitely, go to church or study the scriptures with a question and look for the answer. You''ll find it. Its there.

Hope you liked the pictures! Hopefully my dad and mom got em posted. I didnt have much time to make sure they are actually the good ones, but I sent them off anyway. Now my blog page thing should look a little more personalized. I''ll send more when I actually remember to take my camera places (probably not until the last week).

Sunday was probably my favorite day at the MTC (minus my first day). It was fast sunday, but it was just a really spiritual and a really wholesome day. OHHH and we watched President Monsons Celebration of Life thing. (its on lds.org) for our Sunday devotional. It had REAL MUSIC in it!!! Whoa!!! They (Mormon tabernacle choir) sang a variety of songs from Broadway because President Monson likes broadway. My favorite one that was done was ""Bring Him Home"" from Les Mis (the lead actor from the musical even sang it) it was amazing. I almost cried. Seriously, the sound of the music was such a blessing to my ears. They talked about Pres. Monson''s life ab it and mentioned how he met his wife at a dance. When showing pictures of it, some big band music started playing and my district looked down the row at me and expected me to start dancing. I almost did. How I miss dancing. Haha I''ll get over it eventually, or I''ll just keep doing the tranky doo and shim sham over and over and over again.

Pues, thank you for you letters and love. Feel free to drop a letter or dealelder.com at me, my info is on facebook or probably on this blog page somewhere. Ill write you back (you actually have a 95% chance which is pretty good).

Also, Kristen, sister, send me a letter too please. I''m calling you out too. I know I don''t really write you when you were in France, but I will write you now haha Love you

Yo se que esta iglesia es verdadera. Mis experiances en el CCM son marvelloso. Les amo ustedes y gracias por su amor tambien. Por favor, saben que Dios les ama y puede ayudarles con cualquier. Es posible por ustedes a reciben respuestas por sus preguntas por medio de oracion. En el nombre de Jesucristo, amen.

PS Spanish is super fun. I love it. Not fluent yet, but getting there (until I get to Nicaragua, then Im no where near close)

PSS Quick story, on Sunday an elder said this "Estamos agradecidos estoy aqui"" which translates to ""we are all grateful I am here"" Hahah I don''t think he meant to say it, but only me, and hermana in my district and our Presidente caught it and laughed. Oh the woes of learning a language... its actually really funny

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