Day 10- Never a dull moment at the MTC :)

Well, to sum up the MTC in two simple words, Holy Cows! Holy because the Spirit truly is amazingly strong here, and every day is filled will great opportunities to learn the work of the Lord. Cows because there is waaay tooo much dairy food available and tempting at the MTC.

Anyway, it has been a wonderful week for me here in Provo. Definitely a difficult one as well, but mostly difficult in ways that have helped me to grow. 

Almost every day my companion, Elder Wilder, and I have had the...ummm...opportunity to teach a practice investigator named Mary Grace. This has been simultaneously an incredibly difficult and highly instructive experience. Our study of the language has come along to the point the we can speak a lot Tagalog words, pero forming complete Tagalog sentences is still quite beyond us. Just about everything in Tagalog grammar is reversed compared to English grammar, making translating English sentences in Tagalog quite the trick. I can tell I'm improving every day, but for the time being, speaking anything meaningful is quite difficult. 

     The first real lesson Elder Wilder and I tried to teach, we were determined to try and speak only Tagalog to our "investigator". It seemed like a reasonable goal since we were able to speak pretty well as we practiced the lesson in advance. When we got into the lesson however, everything we had practiced vanished out of our heads and neither of us had any idea what to say. It didn't help that we could only barely understand what Mary Grace was saying to us. Needless to say that lesson essentially turned into the longest staring contest of my life, and I'm pretty sure the MTC employee playing the part of Mary Grace was done with us after only two of the twelve minutes the "lesson" lasted. Ugh...never again...  Thankfully, every lesson after that one has gone much better. Elder Wilder and I now speak very much Tag-lish - mostly Tagalog with just enough English thrown in to make sense. Mary Grace has been slowly but surely progressing as we've taught her about God, prophets, ang Aklat ni Mormon and the Restoration. I have very quickly had to learn to pray constantly during the lesson for the Spirit to guide our clumsy words and touch Mary Grace's heart, in spite of our inadequacies. 

     During the past week, I've been able to listen to multiple amazing talks that have uplifted and taught me. Sunday evening, I was able to watch a devotional given by Elder Bednar during a past Christmas at the MTC. The talk, entitled "The Character of Christ" was easily one of the most profound things I have ever heard, and I enjoyed it greatly. For our Sunday devo, Sister Sherri Dew spoke to us and Tuesday we were blessed to hear from Elder Gong (the Apostle). Both gave awesome messages, and I enjoyed getting to be in the same room as an apostle once again. A recurring theme throughout all these messages has been one of turning outward to love and serve others, rather than turning inwards when things get difficult. While this is one of the trickiest things to accomplish in this life, I know that it is possible, and even essential to work on developing this characteristic every day. As I've been learning, this is what it means to truly follow the Savior. 

     As I continue to get to know my companion, Elder Wilder, I am continually impressed by the many dynamics of his character. He has learned a lot from his diversified life experience working different jobs and meeting lots of different kinds of people. But most of all, I can feel that he has a firm testimony of Jesus Christ and His gospel and truly desires to share the truth he has obtained. This makes me so happy for him and grateful to have been given an awesome companion.

All of the members of my MTC district are headed to the Philippines, though only three of us are going to Baguio. Other destinations include the Urdaneta and Kawayan missions, as well as a couple others I can't remember the name of at the moment. My zone is also all Tagalog speaking, with probably a dozen or so different mission destinations. Currently our zone in composed of about 26 or so missionaries, with most of the having been at the MTC for 3 and a half weeks. Two and half weeks from now, Everyone in the zone except my district will leave, and apparently about 40 new missionaries will be joining us. So my little district will be training a huge pool of new missionaries. Yay!

     Well, I've probably rambled on quite long enough, so I'll close. I love being here at the MTC- it is incredibly difficult, but I can feel myself growing daily, and the Spirit testifies to me daily that I am where I'm supposed to be. :) I'm so grateful for each of you, and I pray every day that the Lord will watch over you.

Sincerely,
Elder Dickison