Blogging from Baguio: Happy (and hard) Days in the MTC

This week was amazing! And exhausting. Hard in a super great way. I learned so much and I am excited to share! While my companion and I were preparing our fourth lesson for our investigator I felt such a huge impression that I needed to learn how to ask him to be baptized in Tagalog. Crazy, right?! It was only our fourth lesson! But I followed the prompting and when I asked him to be baptized he said yes!! It was amazing. The spirit is so strong. They tell us as missionaries that we need to teach by the spirit, but we definitely are taught by the spirit as well. Every day.

So when I asked our investigator to be baptized, he told us he was already baptized. I quickly looked for a scripture that told about baptism by immersion. Turns out the one that I had him read was about baptism for the dead! After he read it he asked us (in Tagalog), "Am I going to die if I get baptized?" or something like that. I don't really speak the language, but that's what my companion and I are pretty sure he said! We quickly tried to clear that misunderstanding up in our broken Tagalog. Oh man! At least we understood what he was saying this time :) Baby steps!

The next morning in class our teacher told us that we were done teaching Roy. :( So sad. But then.... PLOT TWIST!! ROY IS OUR NEW AFTERNOON TEACHER!! It was SO weird to walk in after lunch and see Roy. In church clothes. Teaching us Tagalog now. During a break my kasama and I asked him for some personalized feedback. He said we gave him some of the most memorable lessons, not just because every single one was hilarious, but because he also felt the spirit really strongly during our lessons. :)

Oh, also.... Happy Halloween!! My Kasama and I have way too much fun together. We are always laughing at our mistakes, and having a great time. We decided to dress up like twins for Halloween! (pictured below) Chambray shirts, glasses, orange white and black chevron shirts... Awe, totes presh! But we do work really hard too! We balance fun and work well. We have a clip full of flash cards that we carry around all day and quiz each other any spare moment we get. I love Sister Golightly! It's hard to imaginge going to the Philippines and getting separated from each other by what she calls, "The Reaping" (hunger games:).

My favorite scripture study sequence from this week:

Matt 7:7-11

Nephi 1:5

Prayer in the Bible Dictionary, paragraph 4

Check it out if you get a chance. I know that prayer in behalf of Gods children is so much more powerful than praying for yourself. Praying for help is not the easy way out-- it is a form of work. Once we pray for rightous desires, God will bless us with things that he already wants to give us. I am trying to pray for my language ability. Not for my own benefit, but so I can benefit God's children and share His message with them. I know that I cannot learn Tagalog on my own. I pray that He will bless me with the knowledge that I need in order to teach what he needs me to teach the people in the Philippines.

Here are this weeks funny highlights:

-While practicing "getting to know you" in Tagalog with some Elders, I was playing the role of investigator. They asked me if I was married. I said no. They asked, "Why not?" I wanted to say, "Because I am a child!" Instead I said, "Because I am a book!" My Kasama had no idea what I was trying to say and she looked at me for a couple secconds and asked, "Why did you say you are a book?" Haha good times!

-My teacher told my kasama and I not to worry about our mistakes that we made with him. In the field he told an investigator, "Jesus kills for you." Oh man, that's pretty bad!

-Our district leader was giving us a little devotional one night. He told us (and this was in English) "You are all tools, whether you like it or not!" People still make mistakes, even in English. I love that our district is close enough that we can all laugh together at that.

-We found a tree that smells like pink starburst. For real.

Mahal Kito! Mahal po tayo ng Diyos!