"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.