Week 4-5

Overall, this week has been pretty normal. Nothing too crazy really happened. We just minded our own business mostly, did our studies and went to classes. 

Saturday - 

So on Saturday, for our first class the teacher asked me to lead the discussion on our in class Book of Mormon reading. This basically means that as we read people would just comment about certain verses along the way and what they liked about them and stuff. When nobody had much to say it was kind of my job to ask questions to get people to comment and stuff. I've done this before and it's really no big deal but this week a member of our district chose chapter 60 of Alma to read. This chapter made it more difficult because this is the Epistle of Moroni to Pahoran. Basically, this whole chapter was a great upright guy, Moroni, and his jumping to conclusions and accusing Pahoran of a bunch of stuff. Seeing as the chapter was about a hero being in the wrong, it wasn't super easy to pull a lot of thoughts out of it, but we managed. There were a few good verses to discuss, and the whole thing was a good example of how no one is really perfect. 

During our second class period we also learned Tagalog of course, but what I wrote down was the sentence "Bababa ba." which means "We will go down." Which is really just a super funny statement that tells a lot about the Tagalog language.

Sunday - 

Sunday had the typcial schedule of Priesthood, District council (I conducted), sacrament, some type of skills training, lunch, more training, a mural walk, discussion, choir, dinner, devotional, and then videos. 

The devotional was given by President and Sister Martino. Earlier in the day though, we were given emails that said for everyone to wear white long sleeve shirts and some people were really convinced that it was because the prophet was coming or something. I didn't think so myself though because when D. Todd Christofferson came we didn't have to dress nicer. When I said that everyone was like "Yeah but he was an apostle not the PROPHET!", but I insisted that the quorum of the "12 are all prophets, seers, and revelators so it shouldn't matter." To the surprise of many, it turns out it wasn't President Nelson. It was actually just our MTC President and his wife. Some people were really disappointed considering they originally thought they'd see the prophet, but in the end, they still gave some pretty good talks. They talked a lot about both of their individual conversions and how just two missionaries could have such a huge impact on so many people and really not even know it until later.

After that, we watch a devotional video. This week we watched one by Dieter F. Uchtdorf. The talk was really all over the place but was really good as well. I can't really summarize a huge main point of the talk but I did take a few small notes. One of the things he said was "If God is for you, who can be against you?" which I thought was something pretty cool to think about. If you're doing the will of our Father in Heaven, then no one will be able to stop you from completing the work he needs done. Apparently this was something Elder Uchtdorf's missionary that taught him would say. He also said it's better for people to have a "humble occupation that requires growth and work rather than a prestigious one that you don't regularly learn." Which I really just thought was interesting. He also talked about how sometimes we might not receive clear answers to all our prayers and things because not all questions have eternal consequences, and God knows that, so it's not really a big deal for Him to reveal it to you immediately. 

Monday - 

On Monday, I didn't really take many notes on things that happened. I think we just went to our classes and did our normal stuff. I did write that within the last couple of weeks, we haven't been doing in class role playing as much though. Instead, we approach it just like we're teaching the topics to the members of our district as themselves rather than some random person that they come up with a complete backstory on, on the spot. I think it's really helped because we focus on just teaching the topics rather than the cringe factor of being fake people. That being said, we still do individual companionship role plays with our teachers.I don't necessarily love them, but I've got far more used to them. We use this time just to teach lessons and stuff.

Tuesday - 

For Tuesday, I didn't have any notes from the day except for the Tuesday night devotional. The person that gave the talk was Elder Brent H. Nielson, the Executive Director of the Missionary Department and a member of the Seventy. His wife talked first. Her talk was based around one statement that a Filipino man made to her when they served in the Philippines. When she was going to put a ladder away the Filipino guy said "No, no. I will be the one" instead of "I will do it like Americans would say. Apparently "I will be the one" is something Filipinos say frequently. She kind of related it back to Christ and how he said "I will" to lots of things and how we should figure out what we will be the ones to do. If you look in the topical guide at "I will" there's actually a ton of cool things to read.

Elder Nielson himself gave a talk about gathering Israel. He mentioned a quote from President Nelson about missionary work being of high importance and magnitude. He also talked about how being a missionary isn't about the amount of people you convert or something, but rather changing the lives of individual people. He told a story about how on his first mission in Finland as a young man he "didn't have very much success." He said that near the end of the mission he was doing very well with one man but he was unable to get him to commit to baptism before he got sent home. He had taught him all of the lessons and everything but just couldn't finish (lol Finnish) the work. After he got home he found out he got baptized and stuff and eventually lost track of him. Many years later he heard a lot about his convert and that he was a stake president and stuff and had a huge affect on the gospel growth in Finland. From this story he explained the importance of individuals and how you might not always know the major role you played in the lives of others.

Wednesday - 

This day was actually really pretty busy. We had our normal morning service of cleaning the bathrooms in the R3 building. We also got some toilet paper from the janitors there because our janitors never fill ours up. I guess their just trying to prepare us for life in the Philippines without toilet paper. Oof. But anyways, we talked to them about it and they said R8 (our building) has notoriously bad janitors.

After our first piece of service we immediately showered and had to prepare for our next service activity. It's unusual to have more than one service activity at a time, but for this Wednesday, we got to host new missionaries. It was a pretty uncomfortable experience kind of.. Like to me, it wasn't super enjoyable to take missionaries away from their families and  stuff. Bringing them to their dorms and stuff wasn't so bad though. It was actually pretty fun just waving to people has they were bringing new missionaries in and speaking to them in Tagalog. While we were waiting in lines we were talking to this Filipino Elder that got called to serve in Korea. It was pretty fun to talk to him in Tagalog. He spoke scary fast. Though it was a little intimidating, it was cool that we basically could understand most of what he was saying to us. He also told us that we were doing super good. I don't know if he said that just because he realized he was scaring us with his speedy quick language or if it was sincere. Either way, it was great. We were also talking to him about how popular basketball is in the Philippines  and one of the elders asked him "what do they play it on" and he said on dirt or "Cemento, pero hindi gaya ng magandang cemento dito" which means "Cement, but not beautiful cement like this." as he pointed to the parking garage floor. Considering it looked like normal crappy cement, I'm just trying to imagine how bad the cement is over there. Haha.

Thursday- 

Later in our second class everyone including Brother Roberts got a little off topic and started talking about seer stones and stuff which was pretty fun. Also my companion and I were looking at our Tagalog dictionary and found what the old school Tagalog alphabet looked like and I'm glad we don't have to learn it or it would have made things 10 times harder. Also Elder Earnest told me about the punctuation called an interrobang that I had never heard of. It's just a mix of an exclamation point and a question mark. Also we learned a funny word in Tagalog as well. It's "naaalaala" (you pronounce every a) which means "remember."

Friday- 

Today we went to the temple and did our normal stuff. I also have seen a few more people that I know in the MTC recently including Elder Dalby and Elder Stettler. Probably the most exciting thing that we will have done this week is actually gonna happen after I've already sent this email. We're doing another TRC (lesson with members) but this time it's over Skype and with a real member family from the Philippines. It's a little stressful, but exciting too.

Pictures - 

So there's a bunch of good and random pictures in here. There are a few of us with our Host stickers on. One of them is a picture of the ancient Tagalog language. Then there's the Provo temple that I go to every week, a picture of a piece of a building that says "What-E'er-Thou-Art-Act-Well-Thy-Part" which I think is a good quote to stand by. Then there's some random pictures from in the residence hall and also a picture of Elder Etcheverry that I took while we were watching him from inside the window with his new missionary he was hosting. And that's basically all.

"Week 3-4 (kind of - I realized that last week I titled the email as Week 3 even though it was about both week 2 and some of week 3 so now I'm changing how I name the emails)

Really the days have been seeming less exciting as we get further into the groove of things. Not necessarily less enjoyable, but as we grow more accustom to the regular MTC schedule, nothing really seems to surprise us anymore as it first did. I'm not sure if I said this in the last email, but I've never heard so much whistling and singing in my entire life. As we've been deprived of typical music, Elders are resorting to singing songs themselves. As you can imagine this only sounds good occasionally. In the showers we all decide what we want to sing together and then we go at it.

Saturday - 

This day was VERY normal. We did our everyday schedule of 2 classes and meals. That was really it.

Sunday - 

This sabbath day was more exciting on the other hand, at least for me. To start the day we did normal personal study until about 8:20 where we had district council and also our priesthood. After district council the branch president called me out and he told me that I'd been assigned to be district leader. I didn't necessarily want to be district leader because that gave me other responsibilities that I didn't really want to worry about, but so far it's been pretty great. I didn't really want to have to be the one to assign people to give lessons and who prays and stuff, or conduct, but it's been pretty good. I know that the spirit has been helping me along for sure. Also during our district council we were informed that instead of leaving on September 19 like we were told at the very start of our time here, most of us will be leaving on September 10, and will spend our last week in the Manila MTC. Two other companionship's in my district will actually be leaving earlier than that on September 3. It's funny because one of the companionship's is Elder Wilkins and Wells, and don't get me wrong, they're super hilarious funny dudes, but they're the least prepared language wise. It's funny to think about them being the ones leading the way. They talk about how they always take naps and stuff and always forget to do language study... but I'm sure they'll do great. 

Later on Sunday night we had our full MTC devotional and it was decent. It was weird because the guy talking was the Executive Church Media dude or something. He apparently had attended Harvard and stuff too. The weird part though was that his whole talk was really about how the church media markets our church. It was pretty interesting and statistical but it didn't have much spirit. I'm not really upset but it really wasn't what I was expecting. 

Monday - 

This day was another pretty basic schedule with a few interesting things. So we woke up, ate breakfast and then prepared for our TRC (which is the thing where we teach members a lesson of our choice in Tagalog). During the TRC we got to teach two 20 minutes lessons again. The first person we taught was a younger woman. She said she had two little kids and stuff. It was funny because we'd ask here questions and she'd give really short answers so it was kind of difficult to kill time, but we still taught a pretty good lesson about the Christ-like attribute of patience. The next person we taught was this Tongan dude wearing a BYU shirt. As we were getting to know him at the start (in Tagalog of course, so you can just imagine us speaking some weird language), I asked him what he "likes" as a general statement. He said a few things like "the gym, basketball, sports, etc" and finally he said quietly "mga babae." And I repeated "babae" louder just to see if I heard him right. "Mga Babae" means girls. After I repeated it, he gestured over to the camera and microphone that our teachers use to hear and listen to our lessons and kind of gave a sarcastic "shh". Now this isn't really a big deal but it was kind of funny I guess.

The rest of the day was pretty normal until the end when we were going to bed where elder Etcheverry pulled out some Prawn Flavored chips that were from the Philippines. Now I'm not a fishy-eating individual but they didn't disgust me. They weren't very good, but they weren't revolting. The main downside is that after eating them you could tell that it was giving you super fishy smelling breath. If they were tasty it might be worth it, but seeing as they weren't, no one really ate the rest. 

Tuesday - 

This Tuesday was a pretty cool day I guess. At the start of the day, for exercise time we decided to go play sand volleyball outside as a district. When we got out there though, the sand we all wet so it wasn't super enjoyable. 

Later in the day we had a workshop about "teaching people about repentance and baptism." As  all workshops are, it wasn't with our typical everyday teachers. I don't remember much about the workshop except for a couple things. The first one being that as missionaries if we lower our expectations we will do worse. The second thing that happened in there was this awful cringey and fake video of baptismal interview questions. Basically, the teacher showed this video on the projector and acted like it was a real person live on the other side. It was a totally scripted video. The recorded person on the other side would say something, then the teacher would ask as a question about his worthiness and then would read her line back to the screen. It was obviously fake the entire time. I mean you could see the dude's garments through is shirt haha. If you're someone that likes uncomfortable roleplaying cringe, then the MTC is perfect for you. That sort of thing is why I like to just to go to our regular class and just learn about the language and scriptures. Overall though, it's strange to say it, but I've grown accustom to the in class roleplays with our teachers and stuff because I use it as an opportunity to just practice my language and answer gospel questions.

Anyways later this night we had our Tuesday night devotional. Finally, this devotional, we got someone legit. It was D. Todd Christofferson of the quorum of the 12. His whole talk was about the whole church title thing. He explained how we should not call members of the church "mormons" or say things like "the Mormon church", "LDS Chruch", "Church of Latter-Day Saints", but should use the full title "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints." They said you can refer to it as other thing like "the church", "the Church of Christ", "the restored Gospel" and stuff like that. The whole basis of the talk though is the idea that because it is Christ's church, it should be recognized as such. He quoted things from the Doctrine and Covenants about how its says what the church should be called in the last days and such. The most astounding thing he said though was that we need to "Repent, the Lord is displeased." This statement really showed the seriousness of the matter. Previously the church has discouraged the use of things like "the Mormon church" and stuff but now it's the real deal. Apparently someone told President Nelson that "it's impossible to fix all of the things like 'mormon.org' and 'lds.org' but the prophet responded with "Yes it is, but we'll accomplish it because it's what the Lord wants." Overall, it initially seemed like a kind of disappointing talk because we were all expecting something amazing. Every Sunday night we watch old MTC devotionals that were given and they are super cool and specifically to us missionaries, but this talk was more a general talk for everyone. After the devotional, we go to our district room and do a "devotional review" which I had to conduct with a member of the branch presidency there, and that's when I think we all realized how good the talk really was. 

During our review people would comment and then I'd give my insights on it and stuff and I had to ask "inspired questions" and things. It was actually super spiritual and I always had something to add onto other peoples comments. The spirit was really talking to me. During that time, I thought about how when I was reading about Abraham in personal study that he seemingly had casual conversations with God. I also realized how God is non-changing. This kind of taught me that President Nelson is truly receiving messages from on high. It's not that I hadn't known this before, but the spirit really testified it to me this day. Anyways afterword, everyone was like "Wow thank you so much, that was super spiritual" and "Nice job Hunsaker that was really unexpected" (probably because I'm super sarcastic in all our free time and things. I couldn't take credit for it though because I know it was the spirit, not myself. It was pretty cool experience for me.

Wednesday - 

This day, we woke up and went to exercise. All the Elders in my room (except for Elder Etcheverry and I) have played soccer in the past so they all wanted to play soccer, so we did. While we were there, Elder Etcheverry and I decided to just hang back near the goal and just defend. We did alright for not having any soccer experience. It was a huge game with tons of players and it was funny because a lot of them were English. They all had funny accents and were really good of course, but somehow we managed to not get utterly destroyed.

Also at some point in the day during our free time after lunch we were in a room with pianos while some members of our district played them. Others were throwing their MTC ID cards around for fun to see how far they could get them to fly. While this was going on Elder Willis (who is going to Utah State after his mission BTW so I might seem him later) threw his companion's (Elder Etcheverry's) card and it flew through the wall in a crack into another room where a meeting was going on. We were all uncomfortable and concerned to try and retrieve the card, but eventually some hand just passed it back through which was kind of funny.

Thursday - 

During our second class period we always have a time to share insights from our Book of Mormon personal study and sometimes people won't say anything so there's awkward silence, so while my teacher was out of the room I was like "Hey everyone lets just all say something today." and someone else basically said "yeah and lets do it in this specific pattern." So we ended up all sharing but it was from one side of the room all the way back to the other side each time. We wanted to see if our teacher caught what was going on and he did, but only at the very end. He's a pretty friendly fun guy that will go along with our jokes so it was pretty fun. 

Also on this day we did an LSA (language study assessment) thing. Apparently it's not a big deal if you do bad but mostly to measure how well the language programs are working at the MTC, so it wasn't really on stuff that we all know. We were apparently supposed to aim for above 20% and most of the class did pretty good. I got 50%. So basically, if I go to the Philippines right now, they might understand half of what I'm saying and I'll probably have the vocabulary of a religious 5 year old rather than a religious 3 year old.

Friday (today) - We went to the temple today.. and that's what's basically happened so far. While we were walking there some guy in an Army t-shirt was running and he saluted us.. so that's cool too. 

This week I didn't really have many pictures. In fact, the last one of me and my companion was taken today just so we could please our moms. So the other one is of my golf pants soaked from walking in rain for a little bit and the other one is prawn cracker thingys. Anyways that's all. 

Love all 

Extra exchanges

Brodie:  I have seen a few people from my high school like Kyle Griffiths and this kid named Wyatt Theurer, but no one I know really well. I've also seen some kids that I recognize from Mountain Crest, but most of them I didn't really know. I also saw Eli Wells. He's a big friendly clown haha. How's Houston doing with the little bit of high school he's had so far?

Mom:  I let Brodie know that Houston had enjoyed his first three days of high school and that he really seems to like seminary,

Brodie:  Nice, seminary is an amazing break from all the stress. He better enjoy it cause it definitely will help out here in the field.

Week Three

This week we all have really gotten into the rhythm of things. The days seemed long but the week really went by fast. Every single day is structured very similarly. We always have two 3 hour classes  a day except on Friday (our p-day) and Sunday. On Friday we still have one class though.

So on last Friday after my email only one significant thing seemed to happen. During our class for the day we had another fake lesson with our "Filipino friend Alfredo." He looks strikingly similar to our teacher Brother Roberts, has a very pale complexion for a Filipino person and strangely has  blonde hair. Anyway, beside the fact that the lessons seem insincere and cringy our teacher explained to us after how we did. He told us that we were the only companionship that used 100% Tagalog and not English and he was impressed. That's not to say that we're very good at it, but that just means we used what we knew until we could convey the meaning. It probably was bad grammar, but he was super happy with us. He also told us not to tell anyone else in the class about it.

Saturday was also really pretty normal. We woke up, showered, had breakfast, then went to our first class at 8:30 until 11:30. During that class period Sister Atkinson taught us about having "natural and meaningful conversations" with people we teach (notice I didn't say investigators because apparently that term is being phased out. We also can't refer to elders as "guys" or "you guys" which a lot of people can struggle with). As you can imagine, role playing is basically the polar opposite to natural and meaningful. As we were doing it, it reminded me of a YouTube video my younger brother Houston showed us one time. Basically, it was kind of making fun of Mormon missionaries and in the video it said "Do you have time for.... TO BE BAPTIZED?" I thought of that because it seemed like a prime example of what not to do. If you don't think that's super funny that's fine because it's kinda like a family inside joke thing and your judgement doesn't phase me. After that class we ate lunch and then had our second class (keep in mind that as I'm explaining my days we also are filling the time between classes and exercise and things with companion, personal, and language study, but I probably won't explain exactly when. We need an hour of each. It always just depends on when we have time in our schedule). During our second class we just learned some more "stuff." One interesting thing I thought I could share with all of you is the word for humility in Tagalog. It is "Mapagpakumbaba." This language is honestly pretty funny. Also, later Saturday night we had to use all our "free time" to write our talks for church (that everyone had to write, but since only 2 people have to give their talks they go to waste) and our District Lesson that my companion and I were assigned. 

Sunday was busy of course. Started at 6:15, we were doing personal study by 7:00. Then we had our priesthood meeting. After that we had our district council meeting and we had to give our lesson. It was actually really nice because we could say it in complete English. My companion and I decided to give the lesson on Christ-like attributes but since we were limited on time we planned to only talk about 3 of them. We chose, humility, charity, and diligence/obedience. We actually only got through the first two but it was really enjoyable. Everybody was super happy after word and told us thanks and how they could really feel the spirit, so that was pretty cool. After that, we had sacrament meeting. No one in my district had to talk, but a sister missionary that we don't know did. During that sacrament meeting I realized how long the sacrament prayers were in Tagalog. It seriously felt at least a sold 5x longer than the English ones. The bread prayer is

 " O Diyos, ang Amang Walang Hanggan, kami ay humihiling sa inyo sa pangalan ng inyong Anak, na si Jesucristo, na basbasan at gawing banal ang tinapay na ito sa mga kaluluwa ng lahat nila na kakain nito, nang sila ay makakain bilang pag-alaala sa katawan ng inyong Anak, at patunayan sa inyo, O Diyos, ang Amang Walang Hanggan, na sila ay pumapayag na taglayin sa kanilang sarili ang pangalan ng inyong Anak, at lagi siyang aalalahanin at susundin ang kanyang mga kautusan na ibinigay niya sa kanila; nang sa tuwina ay mapasakanila ang kanyang Espiritu upang makasama nila. Amen."

It might not seem ridiculously long from just the text but when you have to pronounce every vowel individually and things it really took forever. After sacrament we did some "interview skills" thing which was basically more role playing, but with people that mostly didn't speak Tagalog. After that we had lunch, then "afternoon training" as my planner says. I don't exactly remember what that was.... but I'm sure it was "amazing." After that we had a mural study thing. For this we just went and studied and pondered about a mural of Saul seeing Christ. It was pretty cool and it was awesome to be reminded of how awesome of a missionary Saul became. 

A lot of the time I feel like people discredit Paul or Alma the younger because "they saw a miracle, so it must've been easy for them to change" but I think back about Laman and Lemuel and how they watched a ton of miracles unfold but never became truly converted. The comparison of these stories really shows that it's more about softening your heart than anything. 

After that, we had dinner, then choir. To end the day we had our Sunday devotional. For the devotional some guy came, and I don't really think they explained his significance... and I don't remember what he said... so yeah. After that, for our final hour or so, we watched a talk that elder Bednar gave at the MTC a while back called Recognizing the Spirit and it was AWESOME. He basically said "stop worrying if you think it's the spirit telling your, or just yourself. Just make the right decisions and you WILL be guided by the spirit." After that statement at the start, he then continued to tell different experiences about times he listened to the spirit unknowingly, and only realized it later. I would tell you them, but that would require me to type way more and take a ton more time. So basically you can just trusted me that they were awesome... and also funny. At one point he even told about Elder Packer bribing an East Germany border guard, but Bednar referred to it as "righteous payment" or something, haha. And that was basically that.

Monday we had a sack breakfast, then planned for our TRC lesson. I'm not exactly sure what this stands for, but it basically just meant we were giving a lesson to people in Tagalog. On the 3rd floor of one of the buildings there is a giant room full of weird cubicle type things. It's basically practice for missionaries to talk to people that either went on the mission to the country they're going to serve in (which basically meant everyone we were talking to served their mission in the Philippines) or other people that just know the language. Our job was to just give these volunteers a lesson about the topic of our choice. It wasn't role playing, but really just seemed to be a normal conversation.. but in Tagalog. When we were planning it we decided to talk about enduring to the end since the people we'd teach are members. As members they've basically done the saving ordinances they need to and now they just need to endure, so we thought the topic was fitting. We taught two lessons, each 20 minutes and in complete Tagalog. The first one was with a middle aged lady who served in the Philippines and the other was a younger dude that was super excited to talk and was wearing a Deadpool shirt (I only include that statement because I'm sure the shirt can just help you imagine him a little better than just my explanation.) After each lesson they asked us how long we've been in the MTC and when we said about a week and a half, they were SUPER impressed. Now I don't know if this was just them being nice and encouraging or if it was sincere, but either way, it was good acting. So even though lots of our other normal things happened on Monday, I'll just leave you with the whole TRC experience because I'm limited on time.

Tuesday was a pretty cool day which means I'll have a lot to say, so I'll just skip to the interesting parts. So during our first class one of the three sister we have had to go to a shoulder therapy session, which meant that the other two had to leave as well because they're all companions. This left all the elders in there with Sister Atkinson. Seeing as she didn't want to teach us and get us way ahead of the sisters, she just ended up showing us pictures and videos of her mission. It was really cool to see what we're getting into. I won't say too much on the topic but one picture she had was of her legs all super red from getting a ton of cockroach bites at night. Nice. After that other stuff happened... blah blah blah... then we had our Tuesday devotional (we have both a Sunday and Tuesday devotional) at 6:45. This time, someone seemingly legitimate came. It was President Kearon of the Seventy. He and his wife came and gave talks. Sister Kearon gave a talk basically about how missions aren't competitions and we shouldn't make it that way. It was pretty good and probably a much needed talk for missionaries humbling themselves. Then President Kearon's talk was really good and all over the place. With his English accent he talked about things like not hesitating when asking people to be baptized, how we thrive on opposition, and then he made up story about a Rolls Royce. Also, I just remembered something. Earlier this morning I was doing personal study. I always read from the Book of Mormon for like 45 minutes and then spend left over time on the Old Testament that I started reading. Anyways, I was reading about Noah and his ark and everything and it all seemed normal until I got to Genesis 9 and read a story I never had heard. I'll summarize it right here:

So after the flood subsided and stuff, Noah's sons started having kids and Noah became a "husbandman" or a dude with a wine vineyard. One day, Noah got drunk off of his wine and wound up naked in his tent. After that, his son Ham walked in and saw him in the nude. He walked back out and got his two other brothers who grabbed a "garment" and covered him up without looking. Once Noah woke up he cursed his son Ham in a drunken stupor. He told him that his son Canaan and his descendants were cursed to be servants for the rest of the family forever. After that, Noah died... and that was the end of the legacy of Noah. Glad to see that it ended on a good point for sure.

Wednesday included another session of acid hose bathroom cleaning which is great. Also during our second class period we memorized Moroni 10:5 in Tagalog as a class. It took about 30 minutes to do so. Then we tried to memorize Moroni 10:4 as well (which is MUCH longer). We tried that for about an hour and only got about half way done. Also, on Wednesday we had a workshop about "using technology on your mission" which was really useless considering we don't actually have technology.. but yeah. 

Thursday we had a super normal schedule. During our exercise time I played basketball with some kids in our district and it was super fun. During our first class period we basically tried to say the whole first lesson in 30 seconds which was really fun because it was just really ridiculous and also learned some other stuff or something. During our second class period with Brother Roberts we learned how to conjugate "I-verbs" in Tagalog. So far, we know how to conjugate "Mag-, -um, and I-verbs" and we learned that there's still 5 different types of verbs to conjugate as well. It's really pretty ridiculous. 

Today, so far we've just ate both breakfast and lunch, and also did an endowment session at the temple. 

The pictures below include a lot of bathroom cleaning stuff, our Laoag Mission shirts, and a picture of me being transfigured.

First Full Week

Alright, so this week was a lot better. It took a little while to get into the motion of things, but now we feel like "pros." We are still super busy here at the MTC but nothing compared to the first few days. Those first few days were completely packed schedules and it made it impossible to even read scriptures which actually REALLY concerned me. After last Friday things began to slow down a little bit. When I say slow down, I don't mean we had free time. I mean that we actually have a few hours between classes to get our scripture and language study in. It feels so nice to just read the scriptures for an hour at a time. At home it would seem difficult to do it, but here reading seems like a break. The times where I often feel the most spirit are when I am reading. Also, the language is already stressing me out way less. The first day was super difficult and concerning and we had a huge list of words that we need memorized by (as of now) tomorrow, but now everyone feels so much better about it. The gift of tongues is real. We got here the first day and saw the missionaries that have been here for several weeks speaking what seemed to be fluent Tagalog and we were intimidated for sure, but at this point we can basically say full prayers in the language. We have this philosophy called "Speak Your Language" (or SYL) and we are just supposed to try and speak Tagalog always and if we don't know certain words just speak them in English. This results in a weird grammatically incorrect Tagalog-English hybrid that takes a ton of time. Everyone has to think for a long time to remember their Tagalog and saying basic sentences seem to take forever, but at least we can communicate. To give you an idea, the word for faith is "Pananampalatay." If you were wondering, that's 7 "a's."

Anyways, I am going to break up this week day by day. So last Friday after I sent my email we basically  had exercise time and then a class afterwords for about 3 hours and then the day was over. During exercise we went up to the MTC exercise field and all the different sports and things were super congested and packed with people. We (meaning the elders in my district) decided to play horseshoes because no one was doing it at all. So, I mean... it was okay. It was just a game of horse shoes I guess. It was nothing amazing, and also seemed moderately dangerous. If you missed the sand pit, the horseshoe would land on a rubber panel that surrounded the pit for about one foot all the way around. When it hit the rubber it would go flying. There was surely some potential to lose some teeth. 

On Saturday, August 4th our schedule consisted of waking up at 6:15 (instead of 6:30 because the bathrooms get super crowded, not to mention gross). We immediately get up, shower then shave. After, at about 7:00  we put on our church clothes and head to breakfast (your not allowed to go in the cafeteria in normal clothes even on your p-days). Then, once we're finished, we go to class at 8:00. Class lasts from 8:00 to 11:30. Then we at lunch at 12:00 and did some personal study, until more class instruction begins at 1:30 and then ends at 4:30. After that we ate dinner and then went to exercise time. This time we went into the gym instead of the field and it was still super crowded. Tons of the elders were playing basketball and the games seemed to be heated and contentious. It wasn't something I was super interested in on a mission. Most of us opted to play some volleyball with some elders and some of the sisters in our zone. It was actually pretty fun. That lasted from 5:30 to 6:30 and then we basically jammed in language study from 7:00 until about 9:00.

Most of our days consist of two classroom study periods that are both around 3 hours long. We sit in the same room for all that time which can get a little painful but the spiritual and learning aspect make it not nearly as bad as a school class. In the mornings we usually do personal, companion and language study before class starts. Our first  class starts in the afternoon around 1:30 or 2:00-ish.  Then we have dinner, then our second class at about 6:00 and it ends at about 9:15. After that we head back to our residence hall, write in journals and then try and sleep in our hot room. That's what a normal days typically seem like but the first coupe days were a little different because we were being taught other one time information. Most of the days you can assume are similar to this so if I only talk about certain events that happen each day, you can assume that it happened at some point in this type of schedule.

On Sunday, it was our church day of course. We woke up, studied from 7:45 to 8:00 (studying meaning anything from personal scripture study, companion study, or language study... each of which we need to squeeze in 1 hour of each day). Then we had priesthood and district council early in the morning. From about 10:30-11:30 is when we had sacrament. Every week everyone needs to have a talk prepared to give in sacrament because you aren't informed you are giving a talk the day of. You also have to say it in as much Tagalog as possible... so that's cool.. I guess.. After that we had mission conference. An apparently famous violinist named Jenny Oaks 

Baker came to it and basically played church  music the whole time with her kids that also played a bunch of instruments like piano, classical guitar, another violin, and a viola or something. Don't get me wrong the music sounded really difficult and complicated to play but you couldn't even recognize the hymns because of the ridiculous amount of ornamentation. She played Child of God for one of them and it was nearly unrecognizable. After that, we basically had other types of class activities that weren't like our normal everyday classes. It was a mix of people going to different missions and stuff. We ended the day learning stuff in different classes until about 9:00. The Lord rested from his work on the sabbath, but we don't rest from his work on the sabbath. Also, we had a choir practice at some point in the day. You're not required to go, but it seemed like the whole MTC did. ALSO, we finally got our keys to our rooms on Sunday, so that's nice.

On Monday  (I'm gonna type way less because you have a general idea of how my days go) we basically did all the normal stuff, except in our classroom we had to teach an "investigator" in Tagalog. This investigator was just our teachers (we have two of them, Sister Atkinson and Brother Roberts, Roberts  teaches later in the day and Atkinson at the start) pretending to be Filipino people while companionships taught really simple  lessons to them in Tagalog. Saying everything in Tagalog really limited what we could teach but it was okay. I'm not a huge fan of role plays because they are cringey and seem really insincere but we do them frequently so as missionaries you just get used to them. 

On Tuesday we had another fake lesson that we gave during class and my companion Elder Witt and I did a lot better in this one because we know what was expected unlike the first one. During the  first one we basically  had no criteria about what we were doing, but in this one we had it figured out and it seemed to go a lot more smooth. Also later that night we went to choir. Immediately after that we had a devotional, in which the choir performed. We were already preforming after a second practice. The Relief Society General President gave a talk about the concept of order in God's plan. It was alright, but the quotes and things she took from past prophets and apostles made it way better. 

On Wednesday it was basically the typical everyday schedule. The main difference is that in the morning we did service. Every Wednesday we are apparently going to do the same service. We didn't know what our service was going to be until the time of. We got a sack breakfast in the morning to conserve time and still ended up being a few minutes late but it was no big deal. As we were sitting and eating, two of the Elders in our district were walking around looking for us. They were in tall rubber pig boots, long green rubber gloves, and goggles. When we got up to the building we were doing service in we were told that we were going to be cleaning a few bathrooms and showers. We didn't have to clean the toilets (luckily that job was for someone else) but we did have to clean the floors, walls and sinks. Our job consisted up hooking up a hose to the wall, connecting it to an acidic cleaning liquid, spraying everything, wiping everything down with different variations of mops and squeegees and then finally, taking the cleaner off the hose and rinsing everything off with normal water. We were warned not to get the cleaner on our skin and if we did, to immediately rinse it off. Apparently it would burn our skin. I got some on my skin and so did a couple other elders and we rinsed it off and seem to be fine... so far... That was the most exciting event of the day. While cleaning we all sang songs and stuff. We sang church music and some Disney songs (I'm not sure if that's allowed, but they didn't have any "romantic overtones" that our missionary handbook prohibits so I think our salvation isn't vetoed yet). Other that you can imagine what the rest of our day in classes and things was like. Learning to say new types of phrases and grammar in Tagalog and stuff is what we do every single day.

This Thursday was pretty basic but one thing that happened is that during personal study I was reading Alma 32 and it was really awesome because it talked about how Alma and the sons of Mosiah were finding lots of success in missionary work among those in poverty because of their humility and it reminded me of how blessed I am to serve in a country like the Philippines.

Finally, today, we woke up at 6:15 and did laundry (it's so nice to have a bunch of clean clothes). Then we went to the temple today. It was super awesome and spiritual. And that's basically it. SORRY for the huge email, but I really just wanted to set up how the days go around here. From now on I'm going to try and focus on the most interesting events of each day rather than all of each day, that way, I don't have to waste a ton of your time. :) Everything is good awesome!

Also, the pictures are of each companionship in my district and then a couple group pictures and stuff. Also, I took a picture of a humming bird that flew into a window and was dying. The sisters in our district showed up and were like "oh no come help this bird." We ended up taking pictures of it dying, then my companion tried to pick it up. This resulted in it trying to fly away and then suddenly falling out of the sky.. presumably to it's death.. We were about 4 stories high in the build. Hope you like the email.

First P-day (August 3, 2018)

Kumusta po! 

I've been here only about two days and if I could describe the MTC (Missionary Training Center) in one word, I would say busy. Our schedule is very packed and we have to plan VERY carefully in order to complete everything we need in the day. Even for today on P-Day (which is on Fridays) we have a packed schedule and places to go. 

When I got here Wednesday we were brought to our residence hall to bring our bags into our rooms. When we got there, none of our keys worked.. and they still don't. So as of right now, all we do is have one of the elder's luggage tag stuck into the doorway so it doesn't lock. All our stuff is up for grabs since anyone can access our room. Immediately after that, we were sent over to our class where we were bombarded with Tagalog. Our teachers spoke nothing but Tagalog until they decided to talk about "dressing rules." Right after that, they continued into Tagalog. I've been studying Tagalog for three months or so before I left and it was still very stressful. They gave us around 3 pages of paper and said, "all of these words and phrases need to be memorized in 10 days." Though, I have studied it, all the "church language" was very new to me and I was very unprepared. After going to class, we went to a short devotional, which was pretty cool. After that we continued to different class with fake investigators that they acted like were real, but later we were told from some elders that have been here longer that they were fake. Around 9:00, we head to our residence hall and then at 9:30 it is quiet time, so no one is supposed to be socializing in the halls. It seems like most missionaries weren't super compliant with this rule. My dorm was though. There's six of us in there. There's me and my companion Elder Witt, Elder Etcheverry and Elder Willis, and Elder Palmer and Elder Williams. We seem to have a pretty cool group of guys. Everyone is super friendly to each other and we talk about how we're basically all Kasama (companions) even though we're technically not. Anyways, we're supposed to go "lights out" by 10:30, but we went a couple minutes over, until about 10:37-ish. It took so much time to get ready for bed and write in our journals and do everything we needed to. During the day we struggled to find time for scriptures. At home I was even able to read more scriptures than this first day. Oh also throughout the day we had a little orange sticker on our name tags to show that we're new and basically all the missionaries sarcastically told us "Welcome to the MTC!" really sarcastically to make fun of us. you know the next day we immediately took them off. I threw mine in my journal as well.

The next day we woke up at 6:15 even though we're only required to wake up at 6:30, even at that point there did seem to be a lot of other people up and the showers and sinks seemed kinda crowded. Luckily, we were just before the rush and didn't have to wait in a line. After that, we ate breakfast and then went to classes until lunch. Then during part of our lunch time and a little in between class time we went to the MTC store and got a bunch of the supplies that were mission specific that they had ready for us. I also bought a folder to keep all of the papers we got organized, a nice pen since I only brought average ones, and also all of us got this attachment on our belts that we put our ID cards and room keys (if I happened to have one) on. It makes us look "legit." Also later after some more classes we met with our branch Presidency and got district leaders and stuff after each of us had a short interview with them. Elder Willis from my room got called as our district leader and we joke around and tell him how amazing he is and call him Sir Elder Willis and stuff which is pretty funny. He hates it. We also say "po" in every Tagalog sentence we say to him because it's a sign of respect and politeness but to us it's more of a joke like "your majesty." The meeting went on until like 9:25. We were supposed to get there 25 minutes earlier, but then we also had to go to the information desk to check up on our keys.. which they still don't have. After that we went back to our residence hall, got ready for bed, wrote in our journal, and read some more scriptures since we didn't have much time during the day. Again, we went over until like 10:46-ish this time. 

Today, we've basically done two things so far. We got up and showered and ate breakfast, then we went to the temple, which always takes a long time. Those activities have taken up most of our day. After the temple, we went and ate lunch and then went into our room to change out of our nicer clothes" but before changing we all took a bunch of pictures just to send in our emails. Excuse me if they're not the greatest quality but we simply don't have time to take "good" pictures I guess. Also the MTC has been super hot compared to my air conditioned home. I'm sure that the church clothes don't help much either. I'm super sweaty all the time, I'm sure the Philippines will be much worse. The rest of the day we still need to wash our clothes, go to the gym, make flashcards, read scriptures, and read part of the Missionary handbook or our "white bible." And that's pretty much it. I've also be able to help most of my "companions" with basic Tagalog things that don't have to do with church related things, I still need to learn those myself. So that's mostly it for what's happened so far.

Overall it's been a pretty good experience and I wish we just had more time. We're constantly busy and always in a rush. The good thing about it though is that it doesn't give me time to think too much about home. I'm sure I love and miss my family more than most of these missionaries, because my family is the best. The painfully long and packed schedule on some level is a complete blessing. It keeps me distracted. So it's been pretty fun though too, I love the guys I'm with Elder Etcheverry and Palmer are from Washington and the others like myself are all from Utah. Around 1/3 of all the missionaries in the MTC are going to the Philippines as well. So this hasn't been easy but I know it's the right thing to do. I love my family enough that I'm willing to leave them for two years so that other families can be together as well. So this whole experience so far is a busy blessing. See all of you in dalawang taong (two years).

Some of the pictures below are of us taking pictures of each other, pictures of our shoes, and a picture with my "real" companion Elder Witt. That's the one with just me and him.