Umutot kayo!

From Alayna:  This is Frasier's email from 9/7/17.  I'm behind in updating the blog.  Sorry!  Also, this picture is of our cute neighbor Rylee who just entered the MTC last week.  They both look so great!

Umutot kayo!  (Added by Alayna: Translation is Get Up!)

One quick little thing before the rest of my email. Someone told me they wish they could feel like how a missionary feels. (paraphrasing) Honestly, in a lot of ways, you can't because you aren't set apart. But in so many more ways you can. Just focus on doing service for others and being your best person. Also, try to do your own personal scripture/gospel study daily. Use all the tools. (lds.org, preach my gospel, Jesus the Christ, True to the Faith, Scriptures, etc.) Do honest diligent study and try to be a good person and that is as close as I can think to it being like the real thing. Remember you don't have to be on a mission to be a missionary. 

Thursday: Another P day down. Honestly, it was a lot of the same as the past P days. We went to the Temple again today. I realized I am already becoming more patient. We got all the way to the Temple, and then Elder Bennett realized he forgot his recommend, so we had to walk all the way back down to the MTC and get his recommend and then walk all the way back up. The reason I say I was patient is I didn't even say one angry thing to him. I was just like "OK, Lets go and get it". Go me!

I understood just the slightest bit more about the Temple as we did our session today. So that is an answer to prayers because as some of you know, the Temple is really confusing sometimes.

Emailing was kind of weird, because I just wanted to call my family and talk to them, but obviously I can't do that. I saw the results of the Utah game, so that was good! It was another weird thing just because that is the first time I haven't watched an opening game in who knows how long. I was wearing my Utah shirt all day though. Some BYU student that works at the MTC tried to give me crap for it. I was like "just wait till next weekend before you try to give me crap".

During our evening class, another great question was asked. "Am I living up to my priesthood responsibilities?" That is a good one to study because a lot of people, including me, probably don't even know exactly what that question means. 

Friday: Today for personal study I was studying Faith out of the Preach My Gospel. First I would say, even if you are at home and you aren't going on a mission, or already went on one, I would definitely recommend getting a Preach My Gospel and using it in your personal life. It is such a great tool. I wrote down like 2 pages of notes off of one little section in the book, and what I gained from reading the scriptures as well. "Faith is a principle of action. One can command elements, heal the sick, and influence any number of circumstances." This is what I got from that, "True faith makes miracles happen. True faith is like going into a game totally blindfolded, but still trusting the best will happen. The only thing is you aren't truly blindfolded. You have the help of the spirit." -Elder Williamson

Today during class time, we learned about lesson 3 in Preach My Gospel. All of the lessons in this book are amazing. This one would give people that don't know about it so much hope. 1) through Christ we can be cleansed of sin. 2) faith in Jesus Christ 3) repentance 4) baptism 5) enduring to the end. I could feel the spirit so strong as we were learning about this lesson. It also had a strong connection because my morning study was about faith, and a big part of this lesson is that you have to have faith or none of it is going to do any good for you.

"You need to have faith and it will all work out, but you need to work your hardest as well" -Elder Williamson

Saturday: Today we taught Noel again. We went in planning on teaching about the plan of salvation. That didn't end up happening. ha ha

He asked us about the Book of Mormon, so we ended up spending the whole time again talking about why it is important. It was good though. We could feel the spirit in our lesson, and I felt OK about the language. Later on, in class, we reviewed what we have learned about the language so far. It was amazing to realize how much I already know, yet I can still feel stressed about the language.

Today for our "study" time we have at the end of the day we played Phase 10 the whole time. It literally took the whole night to play one game. We ended up playing for over 5 hours, which meant we went to bed at about 12:30. It was really fun until the end of the game. I came from way behind and ended up being the first one to be out. The only problem is 2 other elders went out on that same round, after I did, and they beat me by points. That was one of the most intense card games ever, and I don't really play cards at home that much. I realized why, we all went to bed mad because of how the game ended. Not fuming or anything, but none of us really talked to each other. It was kind of funny. We also designated a corner of the room to go and utot. (Added by Alayna: Translation of utot is “fart”).  After about 11 o'clock that becomes really funny. Tomorrow is fast Sunday so we had a bunch of food and drinks out as we were playing as well. 

Sunday: Today was probably one of the longest days ever! There are a few reasons for that.

1) I stayed up till past midnight and then got up at 6:30.

2) I didn't eat for a good majority of the day.

3) It was Sunday. I spent a lot of time trying to understand fasting and realize the purpose for it. I didn't really get much other than we do it because we are commanded to. I need to work on having a better attitude about fasting, but it kinda stinks to be hungry all day.

Today while my district was waiting to have our mid-MTC interview we started watching a bunch of videos on LDS.org. For some reason, we decided to watch all old cheesy church videos that have been put out. Our playlist was Johnny Lingo (old version), Putting on the Armour of God, and the Phonecall. They were funny because they are just so bad. ha ha

During my interview, I got one word of counsel: "Comparing yourself to others is one of the great poisons of life. It always ends up going bad in one direction or the other." I catch myself comparing myself to some of the other Elders in my district quite a bit. Some of them seem to already be fluent in Tagalog which can be demoralizing. That council applies to real life just as much as it does to missions. If I ever compared myself in running, or anything else, I either get a little full of myself, or I get really down on myself. Simply put, just don't compare yourself.

For the Sunday evening devotional, one of the members of the MTC presidency and his wife spoke to us. Some really good quotes I got from them:

"Enduring to the end isn't simply enduring, it is striving to be better than you were until the end."

"If you give everything unto the Lord, He will give everything unto you."

Both of those were answers to prayers I have said.

For film time, Elder Bennett and I watched a talk called "Consecrated Missionary".  A consecrated missionary is willing to give up everything for the work. 5 things a truly consecrated missionary gives up:

1) Any streak of disobedience. I'm still working on that one.

2) Any of your fears. I'm still working on that one.

3) Put all your romantic passions aside. I guess I'm still working on that one too.

4) Give up your pride. Definitely still working on that one.

5) Give up negativism and sarcasm. I don't know if I will ever be perfect on this one.

Basically, I am nowhere near a consecrated missionary yet. ha ha

"If you have the power of a consecrated missionary, you are basically without limits. You need to collapse at the finish line, finish the marathon, go all 15 rounds and you will be a great missionary." If I can be like this someday I will be so happy. 

Monday: Happy Birthday to me! Honestly, today wasn't all that special. It was the same old schedule, and it was Labor Day so no mail was delivered. I did get a couple emails from people though, so thank you! You know who you are. ;)

I said a prayer this morning asking for the spirit to be with me and God answered my birthday present. For personal study time, I was studying hope. That is the next section after faith. Those are amazing two sections. They have so much to do with each other. As I was studying I felt like I could have written conference talk on what I was studying. Faith has to come first before you have hope. Faith is a principle based on action. Once you act on faith (in Jesus), you hope for a result. Ether 12:4, 32.

(Added by Alayna: Ether 12:4 & 32 read:

“Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God.

And I also remember that thou hast said that thou hast prepared a house for man, yea, even among the mansions of thy Father, in which man might have a more excellent hope; wherefore man must hope, or he cannot receive an inheritance in the place which thou hast prepared.”)

It was pretty amazing to have the spirit with me during my studies. I thought of the story of the lady touching Jesus' coat and how she had faith and hope, and also the story of the Stripling Warriors.

During exercise time I was running on the track and I started running with this kid who you could just tell was a distance runner. He had the skinny lanky body and was wearing shorts that were borderline acceptable for the MTC. We ended up just running and talking for 10-15 minutes. That was nice to talk to someone who kind of understands where I was coming from in high school for a little bit.

During class time, we had interviews with our teacher. He suggested one thing for issues with getting along with people. Don't just hold things in and bottle them up if they are bothering you. Talk to people in a constructive way and tell them that it is bothering you. Say that you are working on trying to not let it bother you. Often times the people will recognize what they are doing and try to tone it down a little to help you out.

We also taught Jaci today. We could definitely feel the spirit in that lesson with us. She still has a lot to work on, but she agreed to think about baptism before we teach her again. So you could say we are on the right track.

I almost forgot. So there is an Elder in our district who is deathly afraid of worms for some reason. We found a caterpillar today, which is sadly not a worm, but it does the job. We set it on this Elders desk and then put a cup over top of it. When he came into his room he saw a cup on his desk, went to take it off, and then absolutely freaked out. He slammed the door open as he ran out of his room. It shook the whole building. Then we kept on teasing him and one elder actually threw it at him. I have never seen reflexes like that in my life. He smacked the caterpillar out of the air and into the window. It was really funny. 

Tuesday: Today was a pretty awesome day! Today my package from my family got delivered. It was HUGE. It looked like a mini fridge box when I picked it up. It was loaded with stuff also. It had balloons that popped out when I first opened it. Then it was filled with all sorts of treats, food, and candy. My birthday cake was the birthday cake flavored Oreos. It also had Shauna Cox’s cookies, Mountain Dew and Red Solo cups and ping pong balls to do who knows what with, some Utah gear to have for game day this weekend, and then a Weber State shirt, tie, and sticker. I was so happy!

And, everyone that I walked past as I was carrying my box to my room kept on saying “Happy Birthday” so that was cool. Then we went to choir practice. As usual, brother Adget was amazing. He tells really amazing stories and cracks jokes all the time, and somehow he still manages to tie them into the song we happen to be singing. He talked about how he was in a class once and his Institute teacher said that our Heavenly Parents literally birthed us. He said he tried to prove her wrong, but everything he found proved her right. I thought that was pretty amazing to think about. He also shared a story about how when people die they aren't really gone. They have just moved over to the next room in God's doll house. (He was saying how he explained this to a little girl once.)  It was another pretty amazing story.

Afterward, we had our Tuesday evening devotional. It was pretty awesome because Elder Dallin H. Oaks was the speaker. He and his wife gave some amazing talks. Elder Oaks plain and simply laid it out on the table and talked about like 5 different things throughout his talk. He talked about 3 challenges of being a missionary which are:

1) Learning new skills; language skills especially.

2) The challenge to become. To become a missionary or anything else.

3) The challenge to change. You must change who you are to be a missionary.

He also talked about Temples. He said without the resurrection or the afterlife Temples would not matter. They would just be pretty buildings. That is very true if you think about it. It put a whole new perspective on temples for me. He also talked a lot out of Preach my Gospel. One reason for that is he helped write it, so it is basically his teachings anyway. He really did brush over a lot of gospel topics, but the way he speaks, he taught you something about them. Overall today was just awesome in so many ways!

Wednesday: We had service again this morning. It was kind of funny. They want all the missionaries to do service, but they don't really have enough jobs for everyone to do something, so by the end of our service time, the janitor guy just started taking us around showing us secret tunnels in the MTC. After that, we had exercise time. I went on a split and ran with this kid from another district. It was nice because we both could run the same pace, so we just ran around the whole campus a bunch for half an hour. It was nice to get some new scenery on my run today.

Today during class time, one of the Elders was asking us where Las Vegas was, so we ended up drawing a really funny map across the whole whiteboard in our classroom. Hopefully, I get a picture of it to show you. It is just another one of those things we do when we are left alone for too long.

Later on, we had another class. Elder Bennett and I taught Noel. We also did another Book of Mormon study. Those are truly amazing. I would highly recommend doing one if you ever have time. What you do is you sit down with a Book of Mormon, a pen, and some paper. You start out with any question you want. Say a prayer about it, and then go to any part in the Book of Mormon you want and you just read and write down any thoughts that come to your head. It can go as long or as short as you want. After you are done, close with a prayer and that's it. It is pretty simple, but it does wonders. If you are really trying and studying right, you will always get some sort of an answer to your prayer, even if it doesn't come directly from the Book of Mormon itself. What I was studying was kind of personal, but I can tell you I definitely got answers to my question. 

All in all, this week was pretty great! I miss everyone so much, but I know everyday what I'm doing is what I should be doing at this point in my life. Hopefully, everyone is doing well!  Send me emails if you want. I won't always reply, but I love getting them. I am very excited to leave for the Philippines. Some of the Elders that left last week have sent out emails and they have said it is already just so amazing. I can't wait to tell you what it is like. 

Alam ko po na ang simbahan ni Jesucristo totoo!

(Added by Alayna: The translation is “I know that the Church of Jesus Christ is true!”)

Sadly, we get English name tags because the church was established in English, so they want our name tags to match the signs on the churches and temples. This is what it would say though: "Ang simbahan ni Jesucristo ng mga banal sa mga huling araw".

(Added by Alayna: The translation is “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints”)

There's your weekly dose of Tagalog. Sorry I don't have many pictures, after a month at the MTC there isn't much else to take pictures of.

--

Forever and a day, Love Elder Williamson!