July 26, 2012 Email

Hey Dad.

 

How is everything going today? I hope work isnt being too hard since you just got back. I wrote Mom, so she has some info on me as of today, so I will just respond to your email. Unfortunately we have not gotten to hear from the twelve yet. The week before we got here 11 of the twelve were all here at the same time to train the new mission presidents around the worl, so we just barely missed that. And that was their last assignment before July. July is their vacation month. None of the general authorities have any assignments through July, so we have just been hearing from emeritus seventies and administrators. They have still been good though. the exciting thing is, that President Monson ussually comes every three months, and it has been four months since he has been here, so we are due to hear from him. I hope he is able to come while I'm here. Anyway, I'm super busy, and my time is up so I got to get off. Love you dad!

We Have Pictures!!!

Alex's Bed

Alex's Desk

Learning Spanish - Conjugation Board

Alex & Cody - Friends at BYU

Alex to Washington, Cody to Taiwan

Elders at the Provo Temple (Elder Jolley, Andrus, Seadluck, Archibald, Sherman Miner & Cybulski)

Cool Elders at the Provo Temple (LOL)

Our District at the Provo Temple

Our District

Elder Bunker and Elder Cybulski.  Elder Bunker was Alex's RA at BYU last year.  Elder Bunker was leaving for Peru.

Our Zone before the old District left.

Our District

 The Provo Temple

Hermana Kirwin before she went home.

Elder Jolley and Elder Cybulski

Elder Nelson and Elder Cybulski

Elder Miner, Me, Elder Sherman

Elder Winitana and Elder Cybulski

Elders in my district going to do service.

Elder Archibald's drawings of our district.

Rainbow from the Missionary Training Center

Are you seeing double?  Nope there's a Double Rainbow!!

July 23, 2012 Letter

Dad and Mom

I got your Dear Elders letters today (Monday). It was great to hear from you. Dad, I'm glad you got home safe and sound. You have to let me know how your brother is doing. Now that you are home, Matt doesn't have to be the man of the house, that I put him in charge of being. I love you dad!

Mom, I have no idea how you survive on so little sleep. Lol It sounds like the new shift is going good for you. You asked about our companionship situation. So, we started with eight elders and 7 Hermanas in our district. Elder Walton left which put us in a trio. Another Hermana left which put the other three in a trio. And then one of the other 4 elders got his visa, so he is leaving for the Peru MTC tomorrow. That will give us three trios until Elder Andrus gets his visa and leaves for Peru. so as of tomorrow we will have 9 of 12 left. But that isn't bad cause the district that left for the field today only had 6/15 after 9 weeks. Crazy huh!

OK, so I do have a request. You guys need to keep me updated on news and stuff. I have no idea about the outside world. It is ok to tell me that stuff, I just can't get it from media. And tell Matt to write me about sports! I need updates People!!! And let me know how the Olympics go. It is like lock down in here, so I need info. LOL!

Anyways, everything is going great here. We have three investigators now. They are all kinda tough though. They are either evangelist or catholic, so it is tough to teach them without offending them. It is great practice though. My teachers are great. I love learning the gospel all day. I believe spanish was good for me cause, spanish words are much more clear and precise.

Keep having fun and keep me updated. I love you guys.

Buenos Noches,

Elder Cybulski

July 19, 2012

Spanish is going great, Elder miner and I are already working on the past and future tenses of verbs since we are really far ahead of the rest of the class. We are working with Elder sherman to get him caught up to our level, but he is hanging in there, and the spirit is helping him in leaps and bounds. We had two new investigators this week. Our lessons with them didn't really go so well. We are getting used to teaching with three of us. It is a very different dynamic. I know that we brought the spirit into the lesson, so that was good, but it is hard to jump in and help each other when all three of us have something to say instead of just one other companion, but we are getting used to it. We got kind of down on ourselves, and Monday and Tuesday were pretty rough days. I had doubts about things, and about if I even new the doctrine well enough to teach it. But in my personal study time on Wednesday, I decided to read the first vision. It was amazing seeing the process that Joseph Smith went through and how much strength he had. Then, I used a cross reference to Isaiah 29 I believe. I want you to read this, and think about the story of when Martin Harris took part of the translation to a university professor and compare the revelation that Isaiah gives to that story. It just strengthened my testimony so hard, because there is no way that Joseph smith could have made any of this up. As for the rest of the week since I wrote last, nothing much else has been going on. We had TRC yesterday, which is where we go in and teach volunteers that are members, and that was cool to do since we could teach something a little more deep into the doctrine. I cant wait to get into the field and share what I know, but I know that I have so much more work to do before I can do that. Six more weeks to go!! I love you Mom!

Buenos Dias,

Elder Cybulski

July 13, 2012 Letter

Mom,

Everything is fantastic here.  I am crazy busy, but it is all enjoyable, so it goes by fast.  It feels like I've only been here a day, but when I look back, I have done soooo much.  The older districts in our zone were very helpful when we got here, especially Elder Winitana.  He and I get along great.  He has been here eight weeks though, so he is almost gone.  The food here is great, it is just like the Cannon Center so don't worry about that.  I'm eating enough.  Yesterday we got two new districts in our zone, so we are not the newbies anymore!  Yahoo!

Anyway, I think I'm going to get a new set of scriptures.  Mine are pretty messed up from seminary and my combo has stickers in it which aren't appropriate for investigators.  I've also found that its easier to study if my Bible and Book of Mormon are separate.  I'm going to check them out at the bookstore.

Dad, I really appreciate the letter you sent in Spanish.  It is pinned on my board.  In your letter you told me to learn to recognize the spirit which is awesome because that is what I'm studying right now in my personal study time.  Chapter 4 of Preach My Gospel talks about that.  You gave me even more points to think about.  Thanks!

I love you guys so much.  I miss you!  Thank you for being the mother that you are!

Love,
Elder Cybulski

Thursday is "P" Day!

Mom, and Dad

Everything in the MTC is going amazing! I have had more spiritual experiences this week than I have had in my entire life. I have the best two companions in the world! Elder Miner was my original companion, and he and I are almost the same person. He is a great example to me, and we are basically the leaders of the class even though we arent district leaders. We bacame a trio with Elder Sherman yesterday. He is in our residence room, so it made sense. His companion, elder Walton had to go home because of medical reasons. This was a very special experience for us. We have grown crazy close even though it has only been a week. Elder Walton asked Elder Sherman, his companion to give him a blessing before he went home, and Elder Miner and I stood in on it. I could feel the spirit enter the room. I could almost feel as if someone was standing in the circle with us while Elder Sherman was giving the prayer. I dont even remember what he said, because the spirit was so strong. We were all crying and we felt terrible as Elder Walton had to leave, but we knew that he wanted to be here. Anyways, I have found that living in texas has helped me immensely with learning spanish. Elder Miner is from southern California, so we know spanish the best, and everyone turns to us to learn more of the grammar and random words that we know. The second day we were here, they gave us our first investigator. It was just an employee that was acting like someone from their mission, but the make it as real as possible. The investigator only speaks spanish, so we had to learn fast. We have already taught him three times, and he has already committed to a baptism, so I think we are doing something right. And we are the only companionship to get him to that point. I a, having sooooo much fun while I am out here. I cant imagine myself being anywhere else anymore. I hope you guys stay safe, and have a fun time for the rest of the summer. My tentative date to leave for el campo (el campo) is on September 3rd.

I love you guys

I'm starting this blog for three reasons: 
1.  to keep family and close friends informed of Alex's progress as a missionary.
2.  to serve as a permanent record of Alex's mission.
3.  and, to keep myself sane during Alex's absence :).

I will have some comments along the way but mostly it will be a collection of Alex's emails during his mission and some of our emails to him.  My interest in keeping this blog is so that Alex will have a reminder of one of the most important times in his life. 

To all those who read it, I hope you will share in the joy of his successes and remember to pray for him while he's gone.  Everyone...ENJOY!