Tagalog and "Goofing Off"

Pamilya and friends!! ( I forgot how to say that in tagalog :))

 

How is everyone doing?! I haven't heard from a lot of you while I've been here. If you can send a dear elder or write a quick little letter I would most appreciate it!! Missionaries love letters- believe me, I would know :)

 

Anyways, it's been a great week! I'll actually be leaving in about two weeks to the Philippines! I get flight plans on Friday- crazy!! Monday the oldest district in our zone leaves and then I'll be one of the oldest! The MTC has been great, it was slow at first but it's starting to pick up and everyday I come to love my Sisters and my district so much more- I don't even want to think about leaving them, it makes me sad :/

 

This week did start off a little rocky- Elder Gallen, who is from Micronesia, was having a hard time and wanting to go home. We have already lost an Elder our second week here so we couldn't bear the thought of another one leaving. He's just having a hard time with the language- going from his native language to English to Tagalog. Super hard. And his kasama isn't probably the easiest person to be with. But thankful Pres. Smith stepped in and helped alot. He changed some championships around and things are going better. Elder Oberg is a great Elder and he's very patient with him. And we Sisters do our best to help.

 

I meet Elder Moyle!! He was going around to all the Tagalog classrooms looking for a Sister who had a Grandpa Stone. Haha it was great! Hopefully I can send the picture I got with him :) He seems to be a great Elder.

 

We taught our "investigators" aka our teachers throughout this week. It  was really good! I love teaching and I had another eye opener as I was teaching. As we commited Daryl aka Bro. Kovach to be bapitized, I just had this overwhelming happiness for him. I came to realize that this is my purpose and I'm going to the Philippines for those people. I thought when I was leaving I was doing it for my family, my friends, my ward and even myself a bit. But it's so much more than that. I'm doing it for the Philippino people, and most importantly for the Lord. Last Sunday we watched a video by Elder Bednar called the Character of Christ- it was given at an MTC devotional. Super good! He was very blunt in it but super powerful. He talked about getting overselves, letting go of the natural man- or as he called the cookie monster. Which fits so perfectly! But thinking outward, like Christ did. He never once thought about himself, but worried about others. Even in the process of the atonement and dying for us. Amazing. But the man thing that really got to me was that this mission is not about us. It's not about you. It's about the people who you will serve and especially the Lord you will serve. It was overall just an amazing devotional and things said that we can apply in our lives, no matter where we are or what we are doing.

 

Most the time we are in classes- tagalog, tagalog, tagalog!! Tell Sister Wilkins for me that I actually understand half of what she said, but half of the words were unfamiliar to me. Hahaha but I'm working on it! I finally get the sentence structure but I still need to work on my conjunactions, so confusing and hard to remember all of them! But I have faith that I will learn the language and it's amazing how much I do now. Yesterday we had a English fast were we could only talk in Tagalog. If we didn't know the word we would have to look it up. It was very entertaining especially at breakfast trying to figure out how to say "Pass the salt and pepper". Haha but we kinda stopped by noon because our brains were hurting. But it was good and it helped alot. We're going to try to do that more often. Especially since we've been slacking and goofing off as a district the past couple days- well not yesterday. But we've been falling behind. So tagalog, tagalog it is and work and work!

 

Yesterday was funny- Elder Finch, our district leader said he had letters for all of us Sisters and when he pulled it out he realized that he I didn't have one. I think he got confused with my name with Sister Brewer's. Anyway- he felt super bad and I was teasing him how I wasn't going to talk to him anymore- just joking of course :) But he wrote me a letter and stuck it in an evelope and acted like he found my lost letter. Haha it was just funny yet super kind. We have a great district- I love the Sisters and Elders. We all get along great and have a good time together. Elder Oberg and I were drawing funny pictures on the board and transalting lines from Lord of the Rings and Star Wars into Tagalog. Yep- it was great :)

 

Something else the other night when I was jsut feeling down about the language- Sister Hardy, out Sister Trainer, told us Sisters in my district how much Elder Finch just respects and admires us. I guess in their zone meetings he always tells them that we do good because of the Sister's strength and the encouragement and support we give the Elders. It just made me happy to know that our district leader thinks that about us :)

 

Well, I have to get going! I would love to hear back from all of you. Send me letters- way better than email. My address is on facebook! I love you all and wish me good luck with my last two weeks in the MTC and learning tagalog. Cameron- you still have not written me in tagalog yet!! I need the practice!! Haha :)

 

I love you all and I hope you all have a great week!!

 

Love, Sister Burnham