Week 4: A new Elder arrived at the training center from New Zealand who had Been! With! My! Brother! Joe! In! New! Zealand! DAYS! AGO!!!

3/31/16

This week I had the blessing of being able to be like Moses. I didn't part any seas but I did have my mouth filled with the Lord's words. In one of our lessons I got the overwhelming feeling to bear my testimony and the words just came! My grammar was good and the words all made sense and it was an absolutely beautiful experience. I pray every day to be able to have the faith that the Lord will be able to work through me again like that.

SO GUESS WHAT FUN STUFF? I LOST ALL THE NOTES I TOOK THROUGHOUT THE WEEK ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED SO I AM GONNA GO AND TRY TO WING IT. SORRY IF ITS NOT AS DETAILED AS USUAL NOT TO MENTION MY PICTURES OF MY COMICS DIDN'T REALLY TURN OUT SO THERE WILL ONLY BE THE ONE...

IT'S SNOWING!!!!!!!!!

 Magundang Hapon Everyone!! (beautiful day)

    So spring has sprung here at the MTC and the weather cannot make up its mind. One day it will be snowing and the next it will be bright and sun-shiny and I want to quote the dwarf from Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe "Its so warm out" because its sooo warm and you want to take off all the million layers you've put on to try and survive! My mother has been such a blessing and has sent me jackets, vests. the softest socks on earth and her love. They all came in separate packages so every day I'd get a new package full of love and warmth! It was driving my mga Kasama crazy!! (So in the Philippines in order to make something plural you add 'mga'- pronounced 'manga'- before the word) 

My mga kasama thank my mother daily for the warm things she sends, as I tend to share them with them! It's rather funny, as I keep confusing Sister Rosser's name with the light artist Rothco and mixing the two up to call her 'Rosco.' She tells me she is going to name a dog Rosco now, because of how often I call her that.

    

    So Easter was an absolute blast here at the MTC, we got to listen to M. Russel Ballard speak for our Sunday morning Easter Devotional. And with next week being General Conference I don't have to worry about preparing a talk for sacrament meeting! So how my branch president, President Howard, does sacrament meeting is he gets up to do the announcements and then announces who is going to give a talk. No warning whatsoever so everyone must come with a talk prepared! Last week I got called to give a talk and I had not prepared a thing! I honestly didn't even know what the topic was. So I went up, sang a song out of the Tagalog hymn book Ako ay Anak ng Dios (pronounced: ah-ko I ah-nah-k n-g d-joe-s) and bore my testimony that God loves us and did my best to look like I knew what I was doing. It was rather funny because as I walked to sacrament meeting I just KNEW I was going to get called on to give a talk so I had two songs I was going to choose from, Espiritu ng Dios (The Spirit of God, PronouncedL eh-spiritu n-g d-joe-s) and Ako ay Anak ng Dios. (I am a Child of God) Apparently I did pretty well as people kept thanking me for singing and complimenting me on my singing voice.

    I don't know if I've told y'all but in the Philippines most of them do not know how to play the piano so how they begin singing is the conductor will sing the first few words so everyone starts on the right key and then they say Handa, awit (pronounced: Honda aw-wheat) which means ready, begin. So I have gotten pretty good at guessing what key a song can be sang in where everyone can reach it. It might not be the right key but its high enough for the Sisters and low enough for the Elders

    So last week we got a new batch of Sisters and Elders and they are the best! I thought I connected well with the district that left a few weeks ago, but these missionaries are amazing. My poor dears, a sister in my zone tried to warm up some pre-popped caramelized popcorn in the residence microwave and it CAUGHT ON FIRE and the whole level smelled of burnt popcorn! We came in just as it had stopped burning so we saw a bunch of Sisters evacuating because of the smell and our poor sister running to the microwave to try and clean it up! Later that day an Elder got a package and in it was the exact same kind of popcorn that the sister had burned and so he gave it to her and told her to not stick it in the microwave and she fell out of her chair laughing. It was good fun. Thankfully the burnt-popcorn smell didn't stay longer than a day...

(from right to left: Elder Fifita, Elder Lowry, Sister Banham, Sister Rosser, myself, Elder Tibeti, (Pronounced tie-bess and Elder Maoingoa- pronounced mowh-ing-oh-ah)

    I am so incredibly blessed in my district. We all know how to have fun and mess around, but we also know when we need to study. It's been such a blessing to have been assigned to work so closely with these missionaries. They are what keep me going, they are encouraging and have the most amazing testimonies. Elder Tibeti, even though he arrived a week after we did and had to try and catch up with us in the language has surpassed us and his testimony makes us all cry. As a District our first week we decided to try and read the entire Aklat Ni Mormon (Book of Mormon) in the 6 weeks that we are here at the Provo, MTC and although most of us are only in Helaman Elder Tibeti- even starting a week late- has finished!! 

And it is always fun when the teachers join in on the joking around!

    Yesterday I ran into an Elder who, before he came to the MTC, went on splits with the missionaries in his area and guess who he tracked with?!?!?! JOE!! I mean Elder Eldredge. It was soooooo funny! I walked up to him and his companion to welcome them to the MTC and he asked me if I knew an Elder Eldredge in New Zealand and it was the friggin' coolest thing ever. He's going to serve in Kiribati (kitty-bus) which is a pacific island right on the equator by Australia. Half of my Zone is from that Island so he and his companion got swamped by my zone all wanting to talk to them and get their names so they could write home about them. It was sooo cool. Its certainly a small world- especially in Mormon town.

     

    So sadly, I lost all of my notes detailing all the things I wanted to talk to you about, so this will be a very sort blog post! Just know that I love you and I think of you, all of you, all the time! And Fun stuff, it only takes a week for mail to exchange between the Philippines and America, so you will definitely be getting snail mail from me while I am out in the field! If I've written to you then I'll probably do so again. If I haven't its probably because I don't have your physical address! So send it to me!

Mahal ko tayo! (I love all ya'll- yes that is the literal translation. pronounced mah-hall co tie-yo)