My companion Elder St. Gelais
Kumusta everybody! Everybody says
make it through your first Sunday (I on the other hand tell everybody to 'watch
out for that 3rd Friday because it'll get you'...) and then time flies by and
that seemed to be true because this week seemed to go pretty dang fast. I feel
like I've been here forever though and my old life seems so long ago! It almost
feels weird to be called Bryce now. I hope everybody is doing good back at home.
First and formemost, I need to introduce
you to the self-proclaimed G Squad. I spend almost all my time with this crew
and the MTC would probably stink if you weren't having fun, but we quickly
developed a strong brotherhood and we just have a grand old time out here.
Hopefully my mom can load the pic okay so
from left to right:
Geezy-My companion Elder St. Gelais but
nobody can pronounce that right so St. Geezy it is. Such a cool and friendly
dude and a volleyball champ. He has helped make my MTC experience a lot
better. Frosty-Elder Wright has a white mark in
his hair so Kruger calls him 'Skunk' but we all thought Frosty would be nicer.
He understands my sense of humor better than most and we laugh about seriously
the dumbest stuff all the time.
Div-Elder Divver is our district leader
and I have come to the conclusion that he is Skyler Munson's long-lost fraternal
twin. They act so similarly! He is always such a nut but he can also be
spiritual so that's good.
Lady Slayer Lamb-The tall, quiet Elder
Lamb who is a bank of knowledge. We all know for a fact that this guy knows his
way around a woman's heart.
Muscles-I always dare Elder Musselman to
do stuff and he is down for anything. He is in the other district with Elder
Wright but the same zone so they're always with us.
So many funny things have happened
already but it's hard to explain a lot without knowing the people or the inside
jokes. Some entertainment tactics I use though are getting sisters from our
district or other random missionaries in my camera selfies (like Charles would
do to people at school), welcoming everybody to the MTC whether they are new or
not, and looking up dumb stuff in the Tagalog dictionary. In honor of J-Rob who
left this last week, I learned part of the chorus of 22. I saw Elder Anderson
and Elder Madsen quite a bit but they finna dipped as well.
We teach these 'investigators' and even
though they are just members volunteering to play the role, it's incredible how
much you can still connect with the person and feel the Spirit while teaching.
Our last few lessons we haven't used any English. We usually don't understand a
lot of the stuff that they say back to us but we make progress each
lesson.
The language gradually gets better every
day but there are times that I get pretty frustrated. I think that it would
sometimes be tough to get my point across in a lesson-let alone teach the whole
message in Tagalog. But a scripture that has helped me this week is Proverbs
3:5-6 which basically states, "Put all the trust in God and he will direct thy
paths." If it weren't for the Lord, there is no way I could do it. But basically
as long as we are putting forth our effort, Heavenly Father will take care of
the rest and the Holy Ghost will testify what is needed to the investigator. You
might not always know the language and the doctrine completely, but the most
important thing you can do is give your best effort, turn outward to God, and
LOVE the people. If you can do that, you can become a great missionary.
Sige po. Mahal tayo! (Goodbye. I love you
all.)
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