October 14, 2011

 

Hello!!!

As usual I don't have much time to write, but I wanted to let you all know that I am still doing great! I started feeling sick yesterday, but with an awesome blessing from 8 elders yesterday and some extra sleep (the power was shut off for some construction going on so they "made" us go to bed an hour early :) I am feeling a little better today. I am loving it here. It is so nice to just be focused on one thing- becoming the best missionary I can so I can help those in th Philippines! I am learning so much! It really is amazing how much we are able to learn here in such a short amount of time.

The language is coming along. I feel like I am getting worse at teaching, but I figured out why. We have had to teach in Tagalog every time we have taught, which started on day 3, so the first few lessons we would plan everything out, find where we could read it out loud in tagalog from preach my gospel and some of our other language books and then try our best to not butcher the pronouniation. Well it seemed to be going great and we felt like we were getting better. This week we have 2 new "investigators" to teach and started the TRC (where volunteers who speak the language come in to have us teach a lesson to them- kinda scary :) This week I felt like I was a thousand times worse. I realized it's because I am now able to understand what the investigators are saying to me but I usually have no idea how to say what I need to say back in Tagalog, other than scrambling some words together. So the first lessons went so well because they probably would say "how can this help me?" or some other question I would just smile and say "mabuti" (good) and move on like an idiot :) Oh well, it's really funny and really cool that I am starting to understand. The sentence structre is crazy but I'm able to write the lessons down in my own words with help from the books and dictionary. One step closer :) I am so excited to be able to express the things I feel in Tagalog. We have learned to say simple prayers and testimonies and that is really cool as well.

Another big thing happened this week- I have a new companion! Starting today Sister Allen is my companion!!! I am so excited! I love Sister Funaki and we were finally starting to get on the same page, but President Stott (our branch president) was worried about Sister Maiava (Sister Allens comp) She is from Samoa and doesn't speak english and it is hard enough to learn Tagalog from your own language. Sister Funaki is able to communicate with Sister Maiava, ao President Stott thought it would be best to switch us up. I am so excited because I know the Sister Allen and myself will push each other to be better and really get the most out of our last 7 weeks here- I cannot believe it's only seven weeks til we are in the PHILIPPINES!!!!

Time is up but I will try to get some letters and pictures out today. We are not able to email pics from the MTC :(

MAHAL KAYO!!!! (I love you all!!!)

Sister Morton

PS-Thanks to everyone who has sent letters and packages!!!! You have know idea how much it means to get them!!!!