First p-day news

Matthew’s Mom here:  We only got a partial email from Matthew; there seems to have been some kind of computer problem which messed up the first part of his email.  Hopefully he will be able to fix this on his next p-day.  We gather from what he said that Matthew is the district leader. 

Here is a link to a welcome message from the Philippines MTC President:  http://www.lds.org/locations/missionary-training-centers/philippines/welcome?lang=eng&country=ca

Matthew:

“Family,

Well, the responsibilities are pretty easy for district leaders--make sure everybody is on time to everything, everybody gets blessings if they're sick or homesick... etc etc. There are a lot of New Zealanders here. I LOVE NEW ZEALANDERS!! They're all so tall and conversationable and have a sweet accent. Plus they're awesome at basketball (there are a lot of ballhandlers here at the MTC). I didn't know the church was that strong there, but it is! They provide me a lot of inspiration.

Most Tongan girls here are really crazy. Bring three of them together in one place, and they will be laughing their head off in a matter of thirty seconds. It's incredible. They love trying to say my last name. I never knew my last name was hard to say. But, when they're being spiritual, they get REALLY spiritual. But, that only happens some of the time. We do most of our events in our district room, and it's hard to keep them reverent or "quiet dignity" as they put it. My challenge is they (and a lot of my district) don’t take the rule of keeping with their companions seriously. And the teachers ask me to look after them. But don't get me wrong, I love talking to them. 

I was able to go to the temple. I was actually an escort for this Filippino who didn't know any english. He was practically peeing his pants out of nervousness, but he got through it okay. When I opened the scriptures, I came upon the scripture Ether 12:27. Need I say more? I felt really happy then. 

The food is pretty good here. Rice is served for practically every meal. It's not too bad. I actually get to go over to the convenience store in just a little bit. I heard they have oreos. I can barely wait.

One more thing, me and my kasama (companion) are always the first ones to get up in the morning. Turns out, I only need 7 hours of sleep! We go to the gym early in the morning and exercise, on top of the 1 hour of exercise we get during gym, but there are too many people then and it's hard to do anything.

What do I miss most? Definitely being able to understand everybody.

The second day we started out with our first investigator, Gloria Talaman. She barely knew any english. We basically wrote down a bunch of phrases to tell her. Only later did we find out that she will be our next teacher next week. I figured, though. She looked like a teacher. Our current teacher is bro Rondilla, and he's like 5 feet tall and super adorable and super skinny. I've been learning the language okay, but I get frustrated with myself at times. I just want to get that part over with and start teaching for real!

Is there anybody I need to pray for in the ward? I pray so much that I run out of the things to say! Also, could you give me the email and physical addresses for my friends? 

There’s a lot of ruckus that happens here at the MTC, but I’m surviving and I still love the Lord.  Just send me as many emails as you can. I'd appreciate it!

I love you to death!

Matt