January 3, 2011

Wow! It's already been a week! i'll probably only update this once a week because they only give us one day to write our mail (and 30 minutes to write emails). First of all, i had a great time on the ride up to Provo with the Finlaysons. The kids for the most part were pretty good but got bored a lot (we all were, it was a LONG drive). When I got to the MTC, it was snowing and it was a wonderful sight. After I was processed, we met our teachers- Brother Cooke and Brother Slade- and for the first day they didn't speak a word of English, only tagolog. IT was VERY confusing. My first night here, it snowed and they still had their christmas lights up and had them on. It was wonderful, I couldn't have asked for a nicer first day. (I know it's strange that I'm happy we had snow, but come on...I've lived in Arizona my whole life. We don't ever see snow) I'm sure I'll start to hate the snow soon, but it made for a memorable first day. So far though it's been a rough adjustment. Everynight I go to sleep around 11:30 and wake up around 6:00. I've been really tired this pask week. I even fell asleep during one of our firesides. Whoopsie! I have companions, Elder Garlick (like the spice) and Elder Ioane (YO-AH-NEH). Elder Garlick is from Salt Lake City and Elder Ioane is from American Samoa. Our district consists of me, Elder Ioane, Elder Garlick, Elder Viamalu, and Elder Abbot. It's a very small district so we tend to do everything together.

I liked how at my first fireside (that I fell asleep at) we sung Army of Helman, this time we sang "We ARE NOW the Lords missionaries" instead of we will be the lord's missionaries, we also sang "brightly beams our father's mercy" for the first time. It was very nice and I've really enjoyed the music here, I would like some more CD's though, maybe I could get some care packages too... :)

I'd like to bear my testimony:
Alam ko po na totoo ang simbahan at buhay si jesucristo at mga propeta ng diyos sina thomas s monson at joseph smith, amen.

P.S. no time for spell check or anything, they only let us have 30 minutes to write all our e-mails. it's really ridiculous! especially if someone is a slow typer!
P.P.S. No pictures yet, still waiting on my camera, sorry you guys!
P.P.P.S I would also be very thankful to everyone if they could send me a picture along with their letters. i forgot to take a single picture with me and I would really like to be able to see everyone's faces as I write them home.