Week 3 Mar 24, 2016

Kumusta!

So in class this week we read 1 Nephi 1-2. Its always amazing to me how much there is to learn from those first few chapters. Nephi was definitely supposed to be the first author of the Book of Mormon.

The gym was closed on Saturday was closed to prepare for the temple dedication, so we had to go to the weight room. I still hate lifting and working out.

We had a really good lesson with "Delony" on Saturday. She had a lot of questions, and we answered all of them. Then Brother West gave us a lesson on the gift of tongues. We watched a couple of videos. The message was asically that learning Tagalog is not our purpose. Our purpose is to bring people unto Christ. Tagalog is just one of the means to the end. We still have to focus on the main goal. The Kiribati missionaries actually have being doing a little better since then.

Alright, so the Provo City Center Temple dedication was amazing. We watched it from the gym. They had three sessions, and we got to be in the first one at 9:00. The new Temple President and Matron spoke, and then Lynn G. Robbins of the Seventy. Then Dallin H. Oaks spoke, and offered the dedicatory prayer. He actually prayed specifically for the missionaries at the MTC in his prayer. It was really special. Then we did the Hosana shout with our white handkerchiefs. After that we all sang the Spirit of God. It was absolutely amazing. The Spirit was just so strong.

Merrill J. Bateman, an emeritus Seventy spoke for the Sunday Devotional. His talk was fantastic. He talked about the blessings and the power of the temple. Each temple is one more battle won.

Sunday was just awesome because we also got to watch Meet the Mormons that night. 

On Monday we had Taco Bell for dinner! I thought Elder Knowles was going to cry. It was delicious.

On Tuesday, Brother Eggert was finally back for choir practice. It's so much better with him than his sub. We sang "Jesus, Once of humble Birth." Gerrit W. Gong of the Presidency of the Seventy was the speaker for the devotional. He was pretty funny.

Yesterday marked halfway for us, and the other missionaries (that were already here when we arrived) left yesterday, except for Elder Collins. He is going to Edmonton, Canada speaking Tagalog, and their transfers are a little off, so he is going to be companions with Elder Mwarie for a week until he leaves. He's actually going to connect through Seattle.

People always write on the whiteboard in the hallway, and I thought the little dog angel was pretty funny. Also, last week Elder Knowles made up a story about Elder Lowry (from Wyoming) and his horse Bucky that made Elder Lowry cry form laughter. It was pretty funny. So I wrote a summary of it on the whiteboard in the hallway. Our teachers were very confused.

I'm going to miss the missionaries that left yesterday, but we got some new ones yesterday, and some more new ones are supposed to come today. So far, two of them from Pasco and Kennewick, and then the rest are from Kiribati. I guess the Lord just needs a lot of the people of Kiribati in the Philippines. They all seem really nice so far. I'm very excited.


2nd Email

So we decided to have a testimony meeting before bed on Tuesday night with the missionaries that we were leaving. We decided to make a mattress fort for it. I used AP Euro knowledge to fortify it with flying buttresses made from ladders (obviously I haven't really changed.)

Elder Solis wishes that this could be his missionary attire. He did this after gym one time when we were getting ready for class.