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.
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