Where do I even begin? This week has been crazy! It kind of stunk because all the Philippines missionaries get P day on Thursday, but they don't want to give you a P day your first full day at the MTC so we had to wait over a week. It is kind of a joke at the MTC to say to all the people “Happy P day” if you notice they are on their P day, but it also holds some truth. It's kind of like a birthday or something. It is relaxing to not have classes or anything you have to stress about which is nice, and you also get to go to the temple and do laundry which are both amazing in their own respects. Today was my first day doing my own laundry so we will see how that turns out. Hopefully I won't need all new clothes sent to me in my next package.
Wednesday: As I was walking away from my family after getting dropped off Bodie starts waving his shirt around saying "It's my room now! Suck you!". That was a funny choice of words, but it made it easier because I was laughing instead of crying or anything like that. The Elder that was showing me around said, "Well at least he loves you". It's crazy once you get to the MTC because once you get dropped off they don't wait a second to throw you right into the mix of things. The first thing I did was go and get a packet that had my name tags and a few other things in it. It was a crazy feeling putting on the name tag. I had the realization that this is real now. It also felt like I was putting on armor or something; kind of like in that picture of the missionaries getting ready, but in the mirror it is showing the Army of Helaman soldiers.
Then after that, I went to my classroom where the teacher (Brother Hill) doesn't even skip a beat. He starts just going off in Tagalog hoping that we will catch on to it, and since then I have only heard him speak a handful of sentences in English. He is a really cool guy though. I like him a lot. At dinner I was really excited because I was seeing a bunch of elders I knew from school, they had good food, and they have a drink called POG in the cafeteria. It's a passion fruit, orange, guava juice mix which is amazing and I get to drink it whenever I want.
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| Elder Williamson and Elder Aubrey (Frasier's friend since they were born!) |
Thursday: Thursday was a really weird day. By the time dinner came around, it felt like the shortest day ever, but then by the time it was time for lights out it felt like we had gotten to the MTC 3-4 days ago. We had to go and pick up a package from the office building that all new elders get. The elders going to the Philippines got a package that was seriously 20 pounds chuck full of dictionaries, language guides, a Tagalog Aklat ni Mormon, more dictionaries, a filter bottle, a Tagalog preach my gospel, and then a few more dictionaries. The Elders in my district took the liberty of calling it the Christmas package. I will send a picture of it.
Then the stress started kicking in realizing that we will have to learn what is in all of those packages. And we had another language instruction where he only spoke in Tagalog (more like Taglish, but still rough). During the class, I told myself to take a step back and realize it will come with time. Near the end of the lesson, Brother Hill asked us how much we were understanding him and we all said that we were getting the gist of what he was telling us. He pointed out that that wasn't us just learning the language, but rather the gift of tongues already taking effect on us. It was really cool to come to that realization, and it made the stress go away even that much more. Before we went to bed we had a meeting where we met our branch presidency. They only talked for a minute, but they seem like really awesome people. Still having a ton of fun!
Quote of the day: "Keep praying because heaven is as close as your knees are to the ground." Some elder just said that in one of our meetings and I really liked it.
Scripture of the day: 1 Cor. 13:11. We were talking about becoming missionaries and what we should be like and we read this scripture. It's pretty powerful!
(Added by Alayna, the scripture reads: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”)
Friday: Before I left someone told me about the law of opposites and that it applies to the mission as well.
(Added by Alayna: The context of the discussion was that you can’t understand good without evil, joy without pain, etc. Even on a mission, you have to have hard days, hard companions, temptations, etc. in order to appreciate the good.)
The elders in my district are coming together very well. We have all already become good friends. Their names are Elder Peterson, Julander, Dixon, Gordon, Tangulig, Jones, Wichers, Palmer, Bennett. Elder Bennett is my companion.
During lunch, we were all sitting next to each other laughing and having a good old time. I told them about (a friend’s) tapeworm story and they were almost crying because they were laughing so hard! Then comes the bad part of the day. We had to teach our first lesson today, and we were supposed to use as much Tagalog as we could. The lady we are teaching is named Candy and she only speaks Tagalog. That made it really hard and stressful, especially because Elder Bennett and I completely forgot everything we were going to talk about with her in the process of walking to the classroom she was in. After the lesson, we were all supposed to be studying Tagalog and planning for our next lesson, but I was having a little mini panic attack. Then a teacher from another district walked in and started talking to us. He was honestly an answer to prayers. He changed the whole attitude of the room and put a new perspective on the gift of tongues. He said that the gift of tongues is more about speaking to people’s hearts than to people’s ears. The most fluent Tagalog speakers won't be able to get the message across as much as people will that have the spirit with them. Everything Brother West said when he came in was very helpful to me. He also said that as we learn Tagalog words and phrases, we should throw away the English version so I might start throwing Tagalog words and phrases into my emails every once and a while.
We got our first exercise time today which was nice. Elder Bennett and I just ran around the MTC to see what there was to do. Apparently, 4 square is a real deal here in the MTC. I also got my first package and letters from the mail today. It was really nice to know that people are back at home thinking of me. Send me emails or dear elders or anything you want and hopefully I can try and reply to them. FYI the MTC checks our mail apparently, and they will throw away anything that goes bad if it can't go in the fridge in 24 hours. So thanks for the thought Whitney and Courtney, but next time you might have to wrap in some Mary and Jesus wrapping paper so that they won't open it. Thank you so much though! They gave me everything else.
I also learned how to pray in Tagalog today. It is very short and simple but is really cool to be able to do that.
Saturday: Today was probably the best day so far. We had our second lesson with Candy (the mock investigator). We learned from last time and just wrote down and tried to memorize simple words and phrases to try and get the point across to her. It went so much better than last time. I felt really good about it. We probably told her to do something completely unrelated to the gospel, but hey, at least we thought we were saying the right things. It was funny, Elder Bennett gave her his new Tagalog Aklat ni Mormon so that she could "keep it and read it"; the only problem is she actually kept it. So we will have to trade with her next time we have a lesson.
Some Elders and I were talking about the language classes and saying how even though it is hard, we actually get excited about going to class because it is fun to try and learn the new language. That is also an answer to prayers that we are getting excited for language classes instead of dreading them. Someday we will be able to talk and hold a conversation in Tagalog and bear our testimony back at home and none of you will know what were are saying. I can't wait for that day to actually come. Someone mentioned in class today that Tagalog would be a very hard language to speak if you had a studdering problem. There are so many words where there is an A or an L every other letter that if feels like tongue twisters sometimes.
The second half of class we had a Book of Mormon study where we were all supposed to write down a question we had and then we were going to read a chapter out loud together and talk about it. We read Alma 32 and it was such an amazing experience the spirit we had with us. I had some really strong answers to my question through what I got out of it and what other elders mentioned they learned. Some of the things I got from it were "afflictions and suffering humble people; the more humble you are, the more receptive you are to the spirit”. And, “even if you have a small amount of faith, if you work on it, it will grow”. Everyone should go and read that chapter.
During exercise time all the elders in my district went and played volleyball together and that was really fun. Then we had like 3.5 hours to study before we went to bed that night. We studied for about an hour, and then some of the elders in my district started talking and we all just got into a conversation about anything from girls/girlfriends to movies we like to watch. It was really fun and a good district bonding time, but some of us also felt like we missed out on some valuable study time. We need to have fun though, right? Wait till what happens tomorrow.
Sunday: Everyone kept telling me: “just make it to Sunday and it gets easier from there”. We'll I made it to Sunday and I haven't been having a bad time so far, so I guess I hope it can get even better. The first half of the day today was cool because we had sacrament at the MTC, but it was honestly kind of like going to church for 6 hours. They also don't have the cafeteria staff work on Sunday mornings so it was only cereal at breakfast and I only had a small bowl of cereal so I was hungry also.
After lunch, we went to a lesson by one of our branch presidency. He was really cool. He kind of just throws the lesson at you like Elder Holland does, so I really like him. Here's the ironic part. They were talking completely about following the rules and being diligent and on task. The conclusion I came to was that the branch presidency has eyes on us because we were off task last night and then we immediately got a lesson about it. It was really helpful though. One quote he said was "rules are basically guidelines for blessings".
After that, we went on a temple walk. We got to leave the MTC and go and walk around the Provo temple grounds which was pretty cool. We are lucky to have that so close by.
Later that day my whole district went to choir practice. The choir doesn't usually sing on Sundays, but there was a special speaker that night, so we were. That got us all excited because we were assuming it was going to be a General Authority, and it was! Elder M. Russell Ballard came and spoke to us. It was so cool. When he and his wife entered the room you could just feel the spirit fill the whole gym. They broadcast his talk to all the MTCs throughout the world which made it even more special. You know what he talked about among other things, he talked about being on task as a missionary, and specifically not worrying about girls at home or trying to flirt with girls at the MTC. It was really funny having an older gentleman- specifically an apostle – talk about flirting and relationships like that. He said, "Lock your heart and leave the key at home. Keep the Lord in your heart at all times on your mission. A mission isn't about baptisms as much as it is about your ability to be 100% missionary". It was such a good talk, and I'm pretty sure he knew we were talking about girls last night as well.
After his talk, we got to choose a movie to watch Sunday night. It is recommended that new missionaries watch "The Character of Christ" by Elder Bednar. I honestly can't explain the feelings I had during that video, but it was absolutely amazing! I hope everyone will watch that video. I don't know if I have ever been that touched by a church talk before. He mentions "are you converted?" in his talk, and I always thought it was just a cool thing my dad had on his classroom wall, but I found a new meaning to it and it was amazing! Can you send me a picture of that in your class dad? Elder Bednar also said that he has somewhere around 400 copies of the Book of Mormon. Every time he has a question, he reads through the whole thing with just that question in mind and marks the scriptures throughout. He challenged others to do the same. That would be pretty interesting to try.
Monday: Monday was honestly just kind of a normal day. My district got to guide the MTC tour that is going on. That was really cool because I got to talk to lots of people. It was really fun and a good missionary experience just talking to people. We also had our third lesson with Candy. It didn't go as good as last time. We planned too much and ended up teaching her for 45 minutes instead of the 20 we were supposed to. I was flustered about the language after that and the only advice I got was to speak the language as much as possible and keep working.
Tuesday: For language study time my district played isa (Uno) together. We had to use correct Tagalog words or else we had to take more cards. That was fun and we got props for our creative way to use language study time.
Tuesday night there is a devotional and the choir sings at it. So we went to practice and at choir
practice they told us another special visitor was coming. We all got excited again. They were making a big deal out of it at practice so we knew it was going to be someone awesome. It turns out it was Elder Neil L. Anderson who was speaking. WHAT THE WHAT!?!? Two apostles in one week! It was awesome! He basically just talked about missionary work and how it is our responsibility to find the ones we teach. They will hardly ever come to us. He showed a bunch of videos which doesn't normally happen with an apostle, but he used them very well. One really cool quote was "ask for miracles, pray for miracles, they are going to happen". It was cool because after he was done talking, he and 8 of his grandchildren walked around for about 10 minutes shaking missionaries’ hands. Sadly, I didn't get to, but it was cool to see him walk around the whole gym shaking as many hands as he could. I set a goal today to gain a testimony about the Book of Mormon.
Wednesday: My district had service today. We had to clean windows, so nothing too special there, other than we started to spray each other with window cleaner at one point. During exercise time I got to run 4 miles just around the volleyball courts, but it was the first time I really ran after I got here so it felt really good. During class time we learned how to conjugate verbs. Its a lot easier than it is in English and makes a lot more sense because all the verbs follow patterns, the only problem is I have to memorize the patterns so I'll let you know how that goes.
I also talked to Brother Hill about having a testimony about the Book of Mormon. He took me out of class and we talked about it for about half an hour. To summarize what we talked about: He asked me if I had ever had spiritual experiences with the Book of Mormon and what those felt like. Then he said "A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, just like a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. The Book of Mormon is either all true, or all false. So if you have had some spiritual experience with the Book of Mormon, then that must mean it's true." He also said "It is ok to say "I believe in the Book of Mormon" until you can say "I know the Book of Mormon is true". He then went on to talk about Elder Bednar's talk "The Spirit of Revelation" which I have yet to print off and read, but he said a lot of times people want a testimony to hit them in the face, when usually it rises slowly like the sunrise. I think that is my type of personality where I want things to happen quickly, like when I would do track workouts, but it usually happens more slowly for me. That whole discussion was a testimony builder for me, but I need to keep on working.
I also talked to Brother Hill about having a testimony about the Book of Mormon. He took me out of class and we talked about it for about half an hour. To summarize what we talked about: He asked me if I had ever had spiritual experiences with the Book of Mormon and what those felt like. Then he said "A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, just like a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. The Book of Mormon is either all true, or all false. So if you have had some spiritual experience with the Book of Mormon, then that must mean it's true." He also said "It is ok to say "I believe in the Book of Mormon" until you can say "I know the Book of Mormon is true". He then went on to talk about Elder Bednar's talk "The Spirit of Revelation" which I have yet to print off and read, but he said a lot of times people want a testimony to hit them in the face, when usually it rises slowly like the sunrise. I think that is my type of personality where I want things to happen quickly, like when I would do track workouts, but it usually happens more slowly for me. That whole discussion was a testimony builder for me, but I need to keep on working.
Love, Elder Williamson!
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