A new letter

Dear Family,
It was good to get your letters. I think I said this in my last letter, but I wasn't able to write until last Thursday so I'm sorry if I left you wondering what had become of me. I actually didn't get most of your letters until I had already sent mine off so let me reply to some of your questions. Yes, there is a choir here and my entire district has been going to the practices. We sing at every Sunday fireside and Tuesday devotional and those always fill up very quickly, but if you're in the choir then you are pretty much guaranteed a saved seat. I feel great about my Spanish. I really have been blessed with the language so far. I learn more and more every day and I've already had a couple SYL's (speak your language) during lunch that I just committed to personally. By next Friday, our instructors have challenged us to have an SYL and everyone promised to do it, even though a few were reluctant. I'm glad that you had a great trip to Oregon and it sounds like Dad had some great hikes lined up. What's the deal with Bryce doing rugby now? I've had a couple letters from you mentioning that, but who is he doing it with? Anyway, I'm doing awesome here. The time has just been flying by and lot's of days you wake up realizing that things you thought weren't for a couple days are right then. The temple here is amazing! We did a session last P-day and I loved it so much. The temple is the one place while you're here at the MTC where you can actually just sit and ponder about all the amazing blessings you have. We also have had some incredible firesides. Among the speakers we've had are, Richard G. Hinckley, a coordinating director for the MTC, Brother Heaton, and then just this Tuesday we had Elder Jeffrey R. Holland speak to us. It was so incredible! I thought that I was able to get a bunch of thoughts from talks before and that they could all apply to me in some way, but out here, when the speakers are actually talking to 2400 missionaries and are teaching messages specifically designed to help us, then you can feel the Spirit testifying to you so strong and as Elder Holland shared with us, receive "a fire burning in the marrow of your bones to teach the word of God." I wish that I could have recorded all the things that Elder Holland and all our other speakers have shared. It really does put a fire in you to go out and preach! One thing that I want to share with you Bryce and any other prospective missionaries who read this is this. Study Preach My Gospel! The lessons and discussions we learn to teach as missionaries are designed to bring people to Christ and be baptized. But PMG was, as Elder Holland put it, "born to convert the missionary." No matter where you go or how many you teach on your mission, you can know that by studying PMG and by working your very hardest, being obedient to the letter and enduring to the end, YOU at least will be fully converted to the Lord and that is something to marvel at. I love you all!
Elder Bradley Bishop

Brad's MTC E-mail

Hey everyone, this is Brad's first e-mail. He's doing grand and would love to hear from you all!

Dear family,
Sorry it took me so long to get a letter out to you. The rules about writing home
changed around the time that I got here and our zone leaders weren't sure what they were
so we didn't get to write home on the day we got here like we normally would. My p-days
are on Thursdays and I get 30 minutes to write an email, but everything else has to be
handwritten. So, if you want to send this on to everyone that would be great. Well, I
don't really know where to get started. I really love it here! My companion's name is
Elder James Mills from Washington. He's a really great guy and we get a long fine. In
fact, we just have a really great district all together. We have 8 Elders in my district
and 4 "Hermanas." We are all really close and do almost everything here
together. If there's one thing I can say about the MTC it's that there's no wasted time.
You study, eat, study, eat, study, eat, study, and then go to sleep. You get 50 minutes
somewhere in the day to go to the gym, but other than that you're either in meetings, the
classroom or the cafeteria. I never thought the day would come that I wouldn't be
hungry, but sitting in classes all day definitely doesn't build up your appetite. They
have good food at every meal though so I always eat a lot still. No wonder they say
missionaries gain so much weight in the MTC. The language is going great for me! I
can't believe how much the Spirit brings to your remembrance from just the two years of
Spanish I took. The concentration here is not to learn the language, but to learn how to
serve your purpose as a missionary...in your language. We practice the language all the
time and go contacting other missionaries in Spanish. So far, I know how to pray, meet
someone, get to know someone, and testify in Spanish. Yesterday, I also memorized The
First Vision in Spanish which was one of my goals for this week. Elder Mills and I have
also already taught the First Discussion (in English), after we met the investigator and
testified to them in Spanish. There are some great teaching programs here like the TRC
where we taught our "investigator", the TE, and the Refferal Center. All of
them are designed to prepare you so you can come out of the MTC already teaching the
lessons effectively in your language. I've met 3 people from home so far here in the
MTC. Elders Ryan Merkley, Scott Guthrie, and I just saw one of the Stuart twins who
arrived here yesterday (I forget which one was coming in this month). Also, I don't know
if you've heard of it, but there is a program called Dear Elder on the internet, which
allows you to write an email to me for free, which they then print out and get to me
either that day or the following day. I think you just need to know my name, departure
date, and mission to get it to me. You don't have to use it if you don't want to, but if
you want to write me a letter other than on the email so I can spend the full 30 minutes
writing to you, then that's how you do it. So, far we've had some great devotionals and
firesides from the MTC mission president, other MTC coordinators, and on tuesday we had a
devotional from Richard G. Hinckley and his wife which was awesome! I hope everyone is
doing well and I'll try to write you another letter today in the old-fashioned way:)
We've been asked to only write letters whether, email or not, on our p-days so I'll try
to get more to you. I love you all so much, but know that I'm learning a lot and that I
can't wait to get out to Mississippi.
Love,
Elder Bradley Bishop

My mission blog

I'm leaving tomorrow for the MTC! I am now converting my old rarely-used blog into my mission blog. I hereby turn all control over to my surviving heir...my brother Bryce. Hopefully he will be posting any letters or pictures I send home. If he doesn't do it on here, then you can always check to see if he did anything on my Facebook account. I now bid you a fond farewell and may "Para siempre Dios este con vos!"

Pride Rock!

Ok so these pics were actually taken on January 3rd when me and my good buddy Aaron Webb hiked in the Superstitions. I would have posted them a lot sooner but I had already done some big blog stuff recently and I didn't feel like overwhelming whoever reads these blog things with too much information. Keeping that in mind these pictures won't come with too much commentary. After all pictures are supposedly worth a thousand words!

The Superstitions- our destination

Flat Iron (aka Pride Rock)

Base of Mountain

Flat Iron (aka Pride Rock)...We made it!

I think the wind was trying to push me off the mountain.

Look! Flat Iron is really flat!

Four Peaks!

Well that's all of it. Sorry about the terrible pictures but I was taking fast pictures so I could put my hands back in my pockets as soon as possible. Early morning cold + blow-you-off-the-mountainside-winds + me stupidly forgetting a jacket = Really cold hands. Despite the cold, this was one of the best hikes I've ever been on! Anyone who can should totally try it some time!

Happy 2009!

Ok so I know I posted like 2 days ago, but here's what happened on New Years Eve and New Years Day.New Years Eve/B-day party at the Johnson's house. Happy Birthday to Calli, Katie, Juliet, and Josh! This was the only pic I got of the party. I guess no one could decide whether to be goofy, smile, or frown, in this picture. Nice poses by Kelson and Josh in the back too. :) The party was way fun and it was great watching Calli try to chug down a whole Martinelli's once it hit midnight.
Then the next day we drove down to Tucson with my sister and her kids to spend the day with my brother's family. We played games all day and even made a trip down to the park to play. Here are my nieces and one of my nephews at the end of the day:

Maybe it's just me but I think that they could all be future PJ models. This last one's of my bestest, fantabulous, most amazing sister ever who revealed to us for Christmas that she is having yet another fun baby in August! With luck I'll be able to see him/her before I leave for my mission. I can't wait!

It Came Upon A Midnight Clear

So its not midnight yet, but here's all the great stuff that happened to me this year that I haven't posted about yet. First of all Winter formal! I had the privilege of attending the dance with the amazing Ariell Bratton. We had almost all of our classes together last year and it was so much fun to hang out with her again.I'm so glad that she asked me! Since then we've also done our day activity where we made breakfast for dinner, played games, and gave out awards to houses for having something special in their use of christmas lights (including mine; my mom was so proud).

Then, I skipped the last day of school and spent the weekend up at our newly built cabin with my whole family including all my nieces and nephews. All us guys had to shovel a path into our cabin. It was the first time I'd ever had to shovel snow and it was great!

While we were up there we:

Made snow angels

Had snowball fights
Looked at weird snow formations

And did tons of other fun stuff like sledding and playing games. I could have spent forever up there with my family!

Next big thing was Christmas. Even though we had to wait until 12 for eveyone to come over from their other houses, it was still one of the best Christmases ever cuz everyone was there. Later we tried getting a big family shot by ourselves and it took a lot of effort, but we finally pulled it off!

Hurray for 2008 and all the good memories! I can't wait for next year!

Turkey Fest!!!

So it finally came. One of the best holidays if not THE best holiday of the year. Thanksgiving. Oh how I love the wonderful aromas of all the delicious tasting foods, the annual Turkey Bowl celebrations, the Turkey Trot, the requisite sleep in between stuffing yourself at meals, and of course just chillin with the fam. I could go on forever in my Ode to Thanksgiving. However, I'll just stick with the out of the ordinary stuff of which there was a lot this year. First of all, my family decided to give thanks for our many blessings in St. George this year where my Great (in all possible meanings of the word) Aunt Shirley lives. My Mom's parents came down as well and with the addition of my parents, Bryce, and I we had a small little family reunion. After the 8 hour drive Wednesday night to get there, we were definitely ready to chow down. Thanksgiving day was filled with cooking, playing cards, cooking, receiving ever-present comments about how big we had both grown, and more cooking. Finally, it was time for dinner and it was delicious. I would go into it more, but i'm sure you all had similar delicacies so I will just show you instead.

Oh I love food so much! (Except for the turkey stuffing. Bryce ate it again this year...I did not partake. End of story.) Anyway, after all this great food we cleaned up and then we watched this awesome movie called The Errand of Angels. Its about a sister missionary and it was really great. I never realized how good looking a girl can be when she's preaching the gospel. :D Haha jk. I've known it all along. Moving onto Friday which was fantastic cuz Bryce and I got to go SNOWBOARDING! We had been looking forward to this ever since we missed our chance to go last year. It was great because Brian Head got a foot of snow on Thanksgiving Day so we had fresh powder for the day. (Of course that was the only foot of snow they had so only one ski lift was open at the whole resort.) On the way up there, the scenery looked amazing and I had a whole bunch of Christmas songs going through my head that actually started to make sense.

So, the lines for the lifts got to be a little long, but it was still so much fun. After getting used to being on the snow again, Bryce and I decided to go down the Terrain Trail where a bunch of rails and jumps were set up. It was the first time we had ever done it and it was great! By the end of the day we were getting pretty good at all of them. Bryce and I decided we wanted to take some pictures of our sweet jumps. It actually took us a couple tries to pull off any decent looking shots and none of them still look that great.

(Napoleon Dynamite quote kinda comes to mind on this one.)

Just kidding. I probably have made it sound like Bryce and I are pros at snowboarding...we're not. We try hard to be though and its fun to pretend. :D

This picture is my favorite one. Because the lines were so long, Bryce and I would go into the faster singles line and be put on the chair with people we didn't know, but we'd always wait at the top for one another and go down together. He's the best little bro a guy could ask for.

I don't have pictures for the last big thing which we did on Saturday. About half of us went to the St. George Musical Theatre's musical they were putting on right then. I actually had never heard of it before, but "Nunsense" turned out to be really good. As you probably guessed...its a comedy about a bunch of nuns. There ended up being a little inappropriate subject matter for children (me and bryce) or maybe it was just boys (me and bryce) but my mom told us to forget what we heard. :D (It really wasn't anything too terrible and luckily for me and bryce we only understood about half of those kind of jokes.) Right after the musical we came back down to nice, warm Mesa. We got back really early Sunday morning and then after church we ended up playing with Ben and Macey and Kiley and Sterling. While Kiley and Sterling were asleep we busted out Settlers and played the familiarly intense kind of game that we always have in the Bishop household. Mom and Macey both declared that they were not so intense in these games because they technically were not members of the Bishop bloodline so then they made a temporary alliance of poking fun at our competitiveness. All in all, I had a splendid Thanksgiving and once again I realized how much I truly have to be thankful for. Hence, the reason why I took up so much of your precious time that you could have spent otherwise. So I must thank you for reading this ridiculously long post and ask you to consider reading my stuff again sooner or later. See ya!