Super ;)

Heyyyyy!

So this week was super good! We have been studying so much everyday and I already feel like I have learned so much! My companion and I started finding all our favorite scriptures and marking them with a sticky note so we can find them fast. It has made my scriptures super fun to read because I want to keep finding powerful verses that we could read in future lessons. I'll send a pic of what I have so far haha they look pretty sick. We have had so many cool devotionals and discussions here it's been so much fun!

One thing I heard today that I liked was "Many books can inform you, but only one book can transform you." I can testify that the Book of Mormon is the only book that can change a person's priorities and desires in life. I have seen it in my life and the spirit has comfirmed that over and over this week.

I have loved the MTC so far even though the language is pretty difficult to learn haha. Our district has made it one of our main goals to stay positive with the Tagalog though so that has been super helpful for all of us.

My district is super fun! We have been bonding super well these last couple days especially. We had free time one night to study, but we were all super tired because we had been doing all of our lessons in Tagolag that day, so Elder Lungren and I decided it would be necessary to lighten the mood a little bit haha. We gave a 30 min "seminar" that we just were standing in the front of our district room reading scriptures that like "And he dwelt in a tent." "And he said, yea." "And he answered, no." "And he said again, yea." We were just cracking tons of jokes, but none of them would make sense unless you were there so I'll just end here before I start sounding like a missionary that lost his sense of humor like Parker;) But yeah it was super funny and it helped our district bond and now we have been making the learning part a lot more fun each day!

So last week after I emailed, we got to go to the temple. It was sooo good. I felt the spirit one of the strongest I have ever felt it while we were sitting in the Celestial room. I know that this is where God wants me to serve, and I know that through Him we can accomplish anything. Knowing that has been such a big comfort to me as I have been studying the language all day every day haha.

We got our first practice investigator this week! My companion and I taught sister Gie! She was just an actor, but she didn't come out of character at all. We had to do all of our lessons in Tagolag, or some Taglish if we needed it at some parts of the lesson. We taught her for 5 lessons and were about to invite her to be baptized tomorrow, but we just found out that we won't be teaching her anymore:( We will get a new investigator on Thursday, so we'll see how that goes! It has been super fun to try and teach though bc we aren't allowed to take any notes in so we have to teach purely by the spirit! It was super hard the first two lessons, but I realized that the spirit is the only way we are going to be able to touch people's lives. I think we get to go out proselyting sometime next week, but that might be after our next pday so we'll see! I probably won't understand much, but it still sounds so fun!

The food here has been alright haha. It's rice every meal and usually some mystery meat on top. Last night we had fish for the meat and it still had its teeth and eyes in it! I was like shoot I'm going to be hungry tonight, but I tried it and ended up loving it so much! I ended up going back for a second little Nemo and he tasted just as good as his first friend!

I have been working hard with the language. I learned over 300 tagalog words, 60 phrases, memorized our missionary purpose in tagalog, and memorized Moroni 10:5 in tagalog too! It has been super hard but I am slowly learning more and more.

Sorry this is pretty long haha I'm using the Alphasmart so it is longer than last weeks:) I know my mom won't mind it though haha. But a special apology goes out to Cannon haha;)

Love you guys!!

Elder Reber

Elder Hales and Elder Reber

Good to hear he hasn't lost his sense of humor yet