February 19th, * ** PICTURES BELOW
Kumusta pamilya!
I hope you are all doing
well; we haven't been able to get mail for 3 days cause of the holiday weekend
so hopefully i'll get some dear elders from you guys when we check tonight so I
know how you all are doing. I'm sure you're doing wonderful though :) This past
week was pretty great, I feel like I just keep learning so much here It's been
such a great experience. I'll be on my way to the Philippines in 6 days! I hope
you got my letter with all my flight plans on it. I get to stop in Tokyo for a
layover! so cool! Excited Ko!
Mom all your valentine
goodies came in handy ha-ha Sister Wilson and I decorated our door with hearts
and we made little valentine goody bags for each of our elders. Sister Wilsons
mom sent a bunch of candy too so combined with mine we were able to make some
pretty awesome valentines. I gave each of them in their bags candy and those
little jumpy frog toys ha-ha they loved them we were all playing with them all
day having contests and stuff. It was so fun. Sister Wilson and I got up early
to decorate the door and then we sat and waited in our class seats with our
boingy heart headbands and kazoo lips for when the elders walked in haha they
were so excited! Some of them (2) were a little sad cause they missed their
girlfriends but they said they felt better when they saw our door. Yah so that
was our valentine’s day here at the mtc, it wasn't much different though we
still studied all day and continued to work hard.
We met our new roommates
last Tuesday...and we finally got ones that are going to the Philippines too!
They are so awesome Sister Wilson and I looove them, and they are in our zone
too. We have so much fun together, they are very funny! Sister Foster is from Wisconsin
and sister Mailo is from Samoa and she gave us both lava lavas! We wear them
all the time :o) Sadly they are not going to our same mission they are going to
Anjeles I think. We stayed up till 11 last night laughing and giggling ha! It's
a nice change compared to our last roommates that we had cause they were super
quiet and we barely got to know them very well. sister Wilson and I are loving
them! Oh! And I finally found Dewitt! ** (Ammah's Mom's best friend from St. Johns
son) I see him all the time now we have the same eating schedule every time I
see him I never have my camera though so I'm gonna take it with me to each meal
incase I run into him again:) I always love seeing familiar faces around here,
it brings me home for a little bit.
So this week I had my
ups and downs with the language. I had a really bad day this week I think that
the stress just got to me and we were practicing a lesson about the word of
wisdom to one of the resource teachers, Sister Scott, and we finished our lesson,
and.. I just couldn't hold it in I started crying, I was just so frustrated
with myself cause the lesson didn't go very well and I was just struggling the
whole time mostly cause it was a new topic for us to teach and we had never
taught it in Tagalog before. I was just telling Sister Scott about the things
that were bothering me and that I was frustrated with myself that i couldn't
speak very well, and I looked up at her and she had started crying too. And she
said that she was crying because during our whole lesson she was just thinking
to herself about how amazing it is that we know so much already and she was so
sad to see me so very frustrated because we really do know how to say a lot of
stuff, more than all our teachers had learned at the same points during their
stay at the mtc. They keep telling us how amazed they are, cause when they were
all at the mtc they were on the 9 week program and their teachers didn't start
talking to them in Tagalog till the end of their fourth week and then they
started easing Tagalog in. They constantly bare their testimonies to us about
the power of the gift of tongues and how they know that it's real because they
see us progressing so quickly here with this very shortened program. I think that I just
forget that sometimes, I shouldn't expect to be fluent by the time I get out
cause that's impossible and I just need to have patience with myself. This is
so much harder than I thought it would be... but I'm glad it's like that
because I am going to appreciate being able to speak this language just that
much more knowing that I had to work so hard to get to that point. I really am
falling in love with this language though...it is so beautiful to me and I love
listening to my teachers speak it so well. I love thinking about the future and imagining
about how useful it will be and how much I'm going to enjoy being able to speak
it for the rest of my life. I really would love to come back here to the mtc
and teach it to missionaries that would be so cool! And I was talking to a
teacher here the other day about using it to get credits in school. You can’t
minor in it because they don't have a program for it but you can take classes
and I can get up to 16 credits just by taking a test to pass all these Tagalog
classes. That would be awesome! They say it really helps with your GPA too :)
so excited ko! Anyways after that day and after many prayers...Sister Wilson
and I had to teach a few investigators and it went awesome! We walked out and
sister Wilson just turned to me and was like "oh my gosh!" you did so
good! I just was able to say all that I needed and I just felt so good. And it
was weird all day I was just putting together all these sentences in my head in
Tagalog and I just knew that heavenly father was helping me. The gift of
tongues is so real, Heavenly Father has asked me to learn this language, and he
wouldn't ask something of me and expect to me do it on my own and when he saw
that I needed help, and when I asked for the help he came to my rescue. I am so
grateful for a loving Father in Heaven who loves me and watches over me. All we
need to do is have faith in him and ask when we are in need of help and he will
help us, I know that to be true.
We had the opportunity
to role-play yesterday with each other in our district. And we were able to do
it in English the first time which I really love doing cause it helps to gather
my thoughts first in English and then after I know that I can teach it in English,
I just translate it in my head into Tagalog. We were taught by Elder Castillo
and Elder Erickson sa englais, and it was probably one of the most special
experiences I've had here. They taught us the first lesson and when they got to
the first vision part sister Wilson and I started tearing up and so were they.
As they were teaching us I just said a little prayer in my heart thanking Heavenly
Father for the opportunity to feel the spirit and be taught by them and as I
finished the prayer I just felt the spirit hit me so strong and a few tears
spilled over. This church is so true, I knew that coming in but every day my
testimony continues to grow and I constantly feel the spirit testifying to me
the truthfulness of all that we are learning and teaching here.
We had a really good
devotional last Tuesday by Gregory a. Schweitzer of the seventy. He talked
about how we need to follow the example of Jesus Christ and have the kind of
love that he had for the people he taught.
In Luke 15 Jesus gives
the parable of the lost sheep. When one of the shepherds sheep ran off and was
lost, he went to find it. And when he did find it he didn't use his cane and
snag it around the neck and drag it home scolding it along the way. He gently
picks up this sheep, and lays it softly over his shoulders and walks it back to
the flock calling to his friends and neighbors to come rejoice with him for
finding that one sheep. This is the way we need to teach our investigators and
bring them unto christ. These investigators are just heavenly fathers children and
we need to bring them back the way the shepherd brought back his sheep.
I love you guys, please
be safe and I really look forward to talking to you guys on the phone on
Tuesday!!! Mahal Kita!!
Love Sister Jones
** Excerpts
from her hand written letter home.
I love you guys i don't know when I’ll call
but it will sometime on Tuesday between 8am-4pm I’ll just call the house phone.
If not tell me otherwise through dearelder I’ll get them through Monday night.
I leave Feb 26th
at 8 am from the MTC my flight from the SLC airport leaves at 11:00am
Arrive in Seattle
Washington at 12:19, Leave Seattle at 12:55 – land in Tokyo, Japan 4:35 pm Feb
27th, Leave Tokyo at 8:30 pm and land in Manila at 10:35 pm. This is something like 20 hours on the plane.
Yeah…so I’m not going to
Hong Kong?? I’m going to Tokyo?? What the??
I’m so excited!! We will be traveling with two other elders from our
Zone plus two girls too. Sister Houser and Sister Tingy (who did the Easter pageant
with us the last 3 years Mom.) Then we will meet up with two elders from our
Zone who are going to Quezon too. We do not get to travel with any of the boys
from our district though. We are all very
sad about that and have to say our goodbye’s Monday night. They will be
leaving Tuesday night at 5 pm. I am sending lots of pictures today, some from doing
laundry with our district super early this morning and from Valentine’s Day.
And our dorm room too.
Thank you for all the support and prayers they help tons. Mahal
Kita!
****
Ammah's Dorm room & all her meds she had to take when she was very sick. Thankfully I think she is better but none of her letters have said she IS better. Just assuming?
Ammah on her first outting from the MTC. To bad it was the Health Center at BYU to see the Dr. to get some much needed meds.
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