So I am in the real MTC and I absolutely love it! The first few days were really really long and kinda rough, but not terrible. And after that life just kinda clicked and everything got so much better. I know where everything is now, and I have made a ton of friends.
The one thing I didn't expect is that we have a LOT of time during the day that we just study on our own. but we also have a lot of class time.. basically the entire day we are either studying or eating...not kidding. but I like it. My teacher never speaks in english.. starting on the first day. so we just have to learn ilonggo. but it's so fun. I love it. It is a super crazy language and none of the words sound like english at all... a few sound kinda like spanish so that's good. But mostly its just like memorizing gibberish. Most words are like 15 letters long. like to say pray it's... magpangamuyo and restored is nagnumbalik and stuff like that. The first few days everyone was very very overwhelemed but finally I woke up one day and it all clicked. i was able to pray and bear my testimony.. which the day before i was struggling with so much. What a blessing. I keep progressing so that's great. We definitely still have so much to learn! In some ways I definitely envy the english missionaries. but I think since we have to work so hard we'll appreciate it more.
Oh my teacher is great. His name is Brother Spiecer..something like that. and I love him. He is really nice and funny and he teaches well. He got home a few months ago and he is married and his wife is already pregnant.. crazy. haha.
My district is pretty diffent than everyone elses. we have 12 sisters and 2 elders.. almost all the other districts I have met are only elders. There are certainly a lot of sisters in the MTC but there are still way more elders.
I found out there are now 21 missions in the philippines! so cool
Oh and i talked to an elder whose brother is in the philipines right now and i gues they get like 300 pesos a month which is like $7.... CRAZY!!
Mom and Dad, I am so excited for you to come to the MTC. You're gonna love it.
So now a few funny things... when new missionaries come on wednesday everyone yells welcome in their langugae. but we asked our teacher and they never say welcome in ilonggo. so we decided to just yell random words at them.. the benefit of no on speaking our language is that we can say whatever we want. so to most peole we yelled "palangga ta ka" which means "I love you" but to some we said "magpangamuyo"..pray and to a few we yelled "maghinulsol"....repent hahaha it was a lot of fun.
The other day a sister asked me what the word was for "sing" but i thought she said "sin" so i gave her the word and i few minutes later i heard her practice saying..."will you commit to sin with us?".... hahah it was awesome. Luckily we fixed it before she taught the lesson (by the way we started teaching on the 3 day and have already taught 5 lessons!) ...all in ilonggo. without notes.
I think i was on the screen for a minute at the broadcast so that's cool. it was great. it was so good to hear about uniting together. gettting the world more involved and excited about missionary work. My favorite part was that they kept saying things like "You are apart of God's work which mean you have access to God's help." He wants to help the work along and He will support His missionsaries! What a neat feeling to know God is helping me do this. And it was so so cool to be there with SO many missionaries. We went like 2 and half hours before it started so our seats were pretty close. We could see all the apostles well. It was neat when they all walked in, you could really feel their strength and the spirit. It was great.
I think the coolest part of being a missionary is that I get to wear a name tag with Christ's name on it. What an incredible blessing and responsibility to be His representative, to act as he would act, and do what he would do. I am trying hard to do that and show charity and kindness to those around me and be on time and productive all day.
I'll just close with my testimony in Ilonggo.
Kabalo ako nga matuod ang Simbahan ni JesuKristo sang mga Santos sa Ulihing mga Adlaw. Kabalo ako nga matuod ang Libro ni Mormon. Kabalo ako nga importante pamilya kag propeta kag magpangamuyo. Kabalo ako nga kilala kita ni JesuKristo. Kabalo ako nga palangga kita sang Dios. Kabalo ako nga manluluwas si JesuKristo kag buhi si JesuKristo. Sa Nglana ni JesuKristo. Amen.
I love you all so much! Please keep sending me DearElders it means so much to have all of your suppport, you are all so great. I can feel the support of your prayers. I love you all more than words can express. Trust in God, life doesn't get easier but it does get better. He has a greater perspective for our lives than we do. I really know that when we turn our lives over to God he can do more with it than we every could on our own. My life is not where I expected it to be but it is so much better! (even if it is scary)
Palangga Ta Ka!!!! God is truly helping this work move forward.
Love
Sister Kimberly Foote
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