February 21, 2011

Hello.

mooooo.

um, I am in the... mexico! not really. philipines still.

um, yes. so i didnt keep track of what i did this week, so... i mostly
forgot. but ill see what i can come up with.

well first, ill give you what i send to my mission prez.

This week has been full of new things. Still fairly new to the area,
and this is my first trasfer of my mission. but we had some successes
this week.

Tatay Marsalo, really cool. He has been coming to church regualrly. He
has a testimony. He wants to be baptised. Hes problem right now is
that he still is smoking. But this week he has brought it down, to 1 a
day. some days none. I know he wants to be baptised, when he asked us
a question. He was saying how him and his family were going to go on
vacation for a week, and were going to miss church here. They said
they might be able to go to church, were they were going... if we miss
going to church here one week, does that mean we need to pospone the
baptism? I thought that was cool. We are hoping for a baptism on Mar
26. But he will need to compeletly stop smoking by the Feb 26 first.

Another cool experence. Tatay Madesto. Fairly new investigator still.
We were teaching about the plan of salvation, and he had a very
strong spriual experence. Oi! I should have written this down
before... doe. Well I remember walking out, a little speechless. While
we were there, he understood the purpose of us, the purpose of church,
and the purpose of life. And, he expressed it to us. After we got
started, we didnt have to say much, we mostly just listened. Still
hasnt come to church, but he expressed a strong interist, and said he
was wanted to talk to our preist, to see whats this chruch really
about. (we told him who the branch prez. was.) istig siya.

With the language, its still growing. And I am starting to notice that
when i put my effort in, it grows alot faster. I have been having 10
words everyday to learn, and actally learning them (well trying at
least). I have also learn if i try to listen, even when I was pretty
should i couldnt understand... i understand and learn. I guess its
ovbious, but yah. Kinda like when your on the freeway, and looking at
divideing lines, and its just kinda a big blur. But when you really
foucs, you can see the individal lines. Sorta like that.

Anyways I think I am learning to speak and teach more and more
everyday... sometimes i go a little insane trying to figure what
people are saying, and to be able to come up with a helpful answer...
But i guess I dont need to understand what i am going to say, just
that I say what they need to hear... um yes. it just works that way
out here, heh.

Yah, so i have been working on the language a ton this trasfer so far.
Espially this week. In one of the picture, is the white board in our
appartment. Alot of missionarys, use it to keep track of their
investigaters and stuff. We werent, so i desided to use it as a
language study board. As you can see on the board, there are lots of
L1P1, L2Q3.. etc. I have been trying to learn the lessions. yah. I
should have done that before the mission, or at least in the MTC. yah.
Well I guess I kinda had an idea, but going with the missionarys
before the mission might have helped me learn to teach it. So now I
have a basic idea how to teach a couple of the lessions, and
vocabuarly for them in tagalog. I also have a notebook that is filling
up fast sentances, questions, sriputes, scibbles, questions, crossed
out again... and stuff. I also have a section of 50 words. The plan is
to learn 10 words a day (5 general words, 5 lession vocab)
tuesday-saterday, and then review on sunday/monday. so far so good....
but the first week is always the easy one, week 2 is the hard week...
so far so good though.

Something else, is that we work with the group of single adult kids
all the time. So I am trying to learn from them. And now they want to
teach me. So good news. well sorta. Last night we had our huge dinner
appointment, were all of the 12-15 SA guys and us go eat... at some
guys house, maybe hes in the branch presidentcy... or something.. doe
lol. um yah. Anyways, one of the guys, kevin (well and ingo too) was
trying to convince me that there is tagalog, and mondern tagalog.. His
modern tagalog, was talking in 3rd person, saying stuff like, he said,
that I heard, that you him said, that you like food. right. anyways,
Then he taght me a bunch of werid words. throwing some words like "I
smell" in there. hahaha werid kids, but i did learn a ton, just
because i was talking alot. actally kevin reminds me of john a ton,
and ingo is very similer to spencer.... something, my roomate at
school. oh say "bag tit ak' " its means your cool. prolly.

hmmm

Food! about the tons and tons of sent food.

Started to use the food. I am starting to think I like american food.
And that I just got used to eatting rice everyday. Still rice is
deilous.
I made some of the natures burger. But there was no burger in that! So
while i was cooking, i desided to toss in an egg. and not make it into
a patty.
it tasted like... turkey stuffing?

ok.. so i like candy and stuff... but who put in the suger-free
lifesavors? I was a little sasisshous (sa-spish-iss). since lifesavors
are just suger. thats it.
I looked at the back, And it has a warning label, "Consumtion may
resalt in a laxidive effect" Well of course, take out the suger, add
laxidives.
anyways, I am still eating them... just more carfully.

In the scriptures I came across a verse, that i think i send home
before, but i like it. If you are planning on going on a mission, this
is a good verse for a plak i think. DC133:(well 57 too) 58. its about
missionary work. anyways. haha.

Also a more serious note, In the book of mormon came across something.
Its more of a personal thought, but i thought it was cool. In the Book
of Omni, i belive its amaleki, in verse 25. he is telling us to belive
in a couple things. One of them being speaking in tongues, and
interpreting of tonges... why would he say that, unless he belived
that himself? I am thinking that In the book of mormon times there
were a bunch of different lanugages, kinda like here in the
philipines... prolly the written language of the plates was different
then what people used in the day to day life. in Mosiah 24:4 it hints
on having at least a couple languages. I havent checked, but i have a
guess, that when alma is teaching, or when the sons of mosiah are
teaching, that they also had to learn all sorts of funky languages. I
am not sure how this helps me, but at least I know am not the only one
trying to learn a language.. Also, I am glad I dont have to write some
funky egyptian language on metal plates.

well here is a little bit whats going on here.

hmm i guess thats it for now.

Elder Dickinson

ps. extra extra todd smells.

real p.s. um so this is mostly for heidi... dont grow a mexi-stash
(mustach). its not in. Someone here thinks its in. Its not, its nasty.
I dont think i have the guts to tell her though.