Elder Ryan Echols: Into Week 2 at the MTC: My Second P-Day

Elder Logan Leach, from Spanish Fork, UT, is Elder Echols' companion.

August 27, 2016

Hey everybody!

So, to start off, this keyboard is trash and the shift button is awful, so forgive my lack of capitalization. also, this email is probably going to be ideas a bit haphazardly put together.

This week has been pretty good. as a general overview, we're getting into the routing of class, study, and occasional exercise time. Something fun I like doing around here is speaking spanish to the missionaries that are going spanish speaking. it's just one of those random joys that doesn't quite understand.

Study Materials

Vocabulary to Memorize

Ready for Daily Exercise Time

Last saturday after i emailed, we got to go to the temple. it was pretty great. the temple is such a wonderful place.

These are all the missionaries going to the Adriatic North Mission (my district).

These are all the missionaries in my zone, which include: Croatians/Serbians, Slovenes, Czechs, Bulgarians, Hungarians, Polish, Slovaks, and Macedonians.

Elder Ryan Echols and his companion, Elder Leach, on the Provo Temple grounds

There was also a night when there was a huge necktie trading party in the elders' residence. as it went down, i traded one of my leas favorite ties for one i liked more, then my companion, Starješina Leach eventually traded around and ended up with my tie that i gave away. and he just handed it back to me. so, i got a free tie?

A little rough patch this week was when i had a headache for a full day and a half. dunno what was going on there.

Some cool stuff has been memorizing the missionary purpose in croatian ("Naša svrha je da pozovemo druge da dođu kristu..."), singing christmas songs for no reason while studying, actually getting good at Australian Handball, and playing volleyball. a lot of people in the zone played volleyball in High school. also, we got the new missionaries going to Poland and introduced them to handball.


Homemade Australian Handball Court - made with tape

The Australian Handball

My roommates starješine Crapo i Leach have gotten packages this week to share with everyone, such as food, and matching ties.

Treats for Elders Leach, Echols, Isom, and Crapo, from Elder Crapo's mom Carrie.


Left to Right: Elder Jared Crapo, Elder Logan Leach, Elder Ryan Echols, and Elder Noah Isom. Elder Leach's mom, Dana, sent us all matching ties and handkerchiefs.

We got to see the nashville tribute band on sunday for the devotional, and on tuesday our whole district was in the choir for that devotional. (we have 2 devos each week)

Lots of Missionaries at our Devotional

Yesterday we had what was the first hard class for me. i had no idea what our teacher, sestra vukorepa, was saying. no one really did. and she wasn't giving us much help either. but then after that i saw a friend at lunch, had a fun exercise time, and our evening class was awesome. for that one I understood 98% of what sestra Watts was saying. and it was super spiritual. I know that the Book of Mormon is true and that it can bring peace and happiness to your life.

Alma chapter 7 is great, and teaches about Jesus Christ. that's your domaća for the week.

i like it here. i see lots of friends from elsewhere, and the Hrvatski is coming along really well. the gift of tongues is real. the lord gives it to his servants that need it to serve him. we've been teaching entire lessons to investigators in Croatian.

Lots of photos!

i love you all!

Elder Ryan Echols
OCT18 ADRTCN
2005 N 900 E Unit 232
Provo UT 84602