Week One

These last few days have been cccccrrrrrraaaaaazzzzzyyyy!! They have been filled with so much. First day we got here they started speaking tagalog, they took me to my classroom and my teacher immediately started speaking tagalog, and he has barely spoke english since. When I got there he was trying to tell me something very important and I was just like "whhhhaaa", I felt so stupid. And I thought that there was no way that I will be able to talk like this man. Eventually when we started going on the language it wasn't too bad, we just have to keep in mind that the lord just wants us to put forth our best effort and when that isn't good enough he will make up the difference. But ya, these last few days have been crammed. We barely had any free time. And there is just so much thrown at you, it feels like trying to drink out of a fire hydrant. There is just so much, our brains feel like mush at the end of the day. The other elders that have been here a few weeks that are going to the Philippines said that it takes about 3-4 days to get used to the fast pace learning.


My companion is Elder Allen, he has a great sense of humor and we can really get along and joke around a lot.


Something that was interesting that happened is that on our third day, Friday we already had to teach an investigator!! They're more like fake investigators but act like they're real ones. But what's even more crazier is that we had to try to teach him in tagalog! He spoke no english! Its was nuts, everyone was freaking out, and it was so stressful. My companion and I decided that we were just going to use the things that they taught us, like basic "get to know you phrases" and then we were going to try to give him Ang Aklak ni Mormon. Which was very interesting seeing as how we didn't know how to put out that invitation. But we were able to by talking to him like he was an alien..haha with like hand gestures and short tagalog mixed with english phrases. But eventually he picked upt the idea and he took ang Aklak ni Mormon. It was awesome afterwards it was such a relief, cause it really wasn't as horrible as we imagined.


Anyway that was very fun, but I do have some bad news, I dislocated my pinky on Thursday playing basketball, it hurt alot, and setting it back in place hurt even more. But I was able to get off the campus and go to the byu health clinic!! All the older elders were jealous of that. Its really really swelled up now, and its hard to ice cause there are very few places here to get ice, or cool down ice packs. Sooo im kinda sol. But I know that it will be okay. The doctor said no sport activities for 4 weeks though which is a bummer cause gym time is one of the best times of the day.

Anyway I'm very excited to be here, conference should be awesome....I really hope some GA's come this weekend to the MTC that'd be sooo sweet!! But thanks for all of your love and support. 

 

Love Elder James!!!