Magandang hapon po to all of you this fine Friday. This will be the
first email of hopefully many. This email will also possibly be the
shortest of them all just due to the fact that I've only been out for
2 days. It will also probably be the sloppiest email of them all.
To start things off I will begin with the first day of the MTC. After
being greeted and shown to my room and classroom, I was introduced to
one of my teachers, Brother Frei. He greeted me in Tagalog, as I
expected, but then continued to only speak Tagalog for the next hour.
Needless to say it was in everybody's best interest to quickly learn
the language. After the first hour of everyone arriving we were
introduced to our companions, mine being Elder Wirthlin from
Wisconsin. Pretty cool guy so far and hopefully he remains so. My
other roommates, Elder Adams and Elder Dunyon, are also cool dudes.
After being introduced to our companions, we were taken to orientation
where the law of the land was explained. Next was dinner and the food
here is AMAZING, like, AMAZING. I'm gonna end up putting on weight
over the next 6 weeks. When dinner was over we met with our zones and
it is crazy how someone who has been here for 3 weeks seems SO much
more mature than those who just got here. It's like the difference
between Freshmen and Seniors. That was the last thing we did before
heading to bed where I was actually able to sleep despite a 3rd week
saying that he still never sleeps at night.
Our first whole day was yesterday, starting at 6:00 AM. Waking up
wasn't hard at all. The day just consisted of more classes, during one
of which we learned that the basics book for Tagalog was on back
order...buuuuut we are still expected to memorize the whole thing by
next Saturday? One small snag out of the countless number of snags
that could have possibly happened. We continued on however, and sang
"Called to Serve" in Tagalog. It was just as terrible as you could
possibly imagine, however it inspired me to pick up a hymnbook in
Tagalog, one thing that they actually have in stock. I am also
planning on joining the MTC choir, but we'll see if that stays a
common thing.
In closing, I will share the one "long" passage that I have learned so
far in Tagalog.
"At sa pamamagitan ng kapangyarihan ng Espiritu Santo malalaman ninyo
ang kototohanan ng lahat ng bagay." -Moroni 10:5
I will get better at writing these, and I will start to include
pictures next week.
Ingat,
Collin