More Good Times at the MTC

Yes...I am really Clark Kent!

I just happened to run into these two!!  Nathan & Riley

 Absolutely love my new scriptures!  Thanks to my Aunt Chelsea for getting them delivered so quick!

Elder Denning (on the right) knows my old Bishop..Bishop Lang! He's so cool!

Our District going to the Temple

Trick or Treat!!!  Elder Nebeker and I made out pretty good with all the goodies from Grandpa & Grandma!!

Letter Oct 26

Kumusta po kayo! 

So to start things off I have to tell you the RAT STORY haha. Our Teacher served in Manila, and is like 24, and from New Zealand and super funny! He said if we did a language exercise we would get to here a funny story from his mission, so we all did, and it was so hard but so worth it.

It started with in a mock lesson with him, his phone went off and he felt bad at first and then didn't because that will really happen in lessons. So this is the story: Him and his companion are teaching a lesson, and when they get to a pretty spiritual part of the lesson, a huge rat- he said it was like a kitten or small cat- falls through the ceiling!! HAHAHA. It was so big the ceiling couldn't support it, and just fell through, and then it was just laying there and they had no idea what to do everyone was in shock. So they kept teaching and a little later, it wakes up from getting knocked out and starts walking all slow and dazed and its just this huge rat and the kids start freaking out and it then ran off. So yeah, that was super funny hahaha.

This week has been awesome! I got my flight plans yesterday! 

I have to wake up at 4 am and leave at 4:30, and we will be going to San Francisco, to Hong Kong, and then Manila! I'm really excited. I do not think I am ready though haha. Im really lucky because the airport is in my mission boundries and some other elders that are don't have airports have to go to Manila and then like a 12 hour jeepney ride to their mission! So I'm really glad. 

The Elders a generation above us (2 weeks ahead) left on Monday morning, and it was really sad because we got really close, and we're the oldest now. Here at the Main Campus its way better to interact with your Zone and it was really hard to meet the missionaries a generation below us because we didn't know them, but since they older ones left, it was just us two groups and we really have become close, and it is awesome! The new elders arrived on wednesday, me and elder N. went and became hosts and the one elder we got was in our zone! So this week has been really fun hanging out with everyone, and they all look up to us, its weird.

Tuesday Night we had a super cool devotional, Elder Lynn Robbins of the 70 came and spoke to us, and i loved it because it didn't seem like he had any notes, and he basically told a bunch of awesome conversion stories and tied them in. He said that we need to be willing to open our mouth, otherwise no one will be able to listen to us, its like baseball, if you don't swing, you can't ever get a hit. He told a really cool story, these pair of sister missionaries were teaching this evangelical pastor who just wanted to give them a hard time, and eventually they got frustrated they stopped teaching him, and then a pair of elders were sent to their area. They saw his name in the area book and taught him and it was the same thing, and one lesson an elder just said, "When are you going to get baptized" and the man laughed and said he was never, it would take a miracle. The elders looked at each other and asked what kind of miracle. The man thought and then said a couple in his congregation were having a tough time and opened the bible and were comforted from the verse that they read randomly. So they handed him a Book of Mormon and said try it. And he opened it to Alma 32: 16-18. (Before he read the verses everyone started laughing already) 

 16 Therefore, blessed are they who ^ahumblethemselves without being ^bcompelled to be humble; or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believeth in the word of God, and is baptized without ^cstubbornness of heart, yea, without being brought to know the word, or even compelled to know, before they will believe.

 17 Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a ^asign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe.

 18 Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to ^abelieve, for he knoweth i

 He got baptized after that!

We watched a film from Elder Bednar and he talked all about the need for us to become missionaries, and change and the steps we need to do. And a story he told was insane! When he was going to Purdue for a graduate progam, he was married and had a 2 year old son, the missionaries came over on saturday, and played nerf basketball with the 2 year old, ate breakfast, talked and hung out. Then after an hour they asked if they had any referrals. And elder Bednar said: "You know, even if me and sister bednar have referrals for you, we wouldn't give them to you. You came here on a saturday, we are happy to feed you, but you wasted an hour of the Lord's time. I don't live in your apartment, but Im pretty sure that you didn't wake up on time. Im pretty sure that you didn't do companionship study. You shouldve came in here and said sorry we can't stay long, but may we share a quick lesson we just learned in our study. I would say of course, and then enjoy the lesson, and close with a prayer, and then you would ask for referrals, and then leave within 20 minutes."  

I was like wow! I butchered his tone and everything he said, but it was crazy. Needless to say the missionaries did just that 3 weeks later, and got some referrals. So as members, you need to help the missionaries out, and as missionaries, they need to gain your trust, because they are hopefully going to be teaching your friends. 

I encourage you to all pray with Real intent, That's something I have been meaning to share. Maybe I have? But it means to pray and be committed to act on the answer you receive. And that will really change how you pray. Well I will get to email you one more time until I am doing it from the Philippines!! 

Mahal Ko Kayo!! 

-Elder Roc

Letter Oct 19

Oct 19, 2013

Kumusta Kayo!!

So the missionaries that were 2 weeks older than us are leaving on Monday!! Which means we're the next to go!!!! I'm so excited to get out of here and start working for real.

I'll start with Sunday, which really got me pumped. After Dinner they have a devotional for us, and you'll never guess who came and spoke to us!! 

Richard Heaton -Administrator of the MTC! (Told you you would never guess haha) 

His talk was awesome and talked about the Holy Ghost and why it is so important to us. He did a little Question and Answer thing and I loved that because He didn't have a whole talked planned out, He was just going by the spirit. For some speakers they have teleprompters set up, and to me it distracts from them talking to us, especially if they are in the seventy or something. But anyway, After that, we all went to watch a film, which is an hour long and is usually a devotional you get to pick from a long time ago. Me and Elder N. walked into one given By Jeffrey R. Holland, And let me tell you, that was sweet! This Elder that we've become friends with in our zone  He turns to me and says "Dude I'm so Pumped" hahaha. Elder Holland came on Thanksgiving last year, and had his family there. He had his Grandson who was like 8 come up and bear his testimony, then His Grand daughter who was 20. She got called to the Italy Milan mission and was leaving in just a few weeks to the mtc. But she told her decision to serve a mission, and How the announcement of the age lowering hadn't come out yet, and she wouldn't be 21 for about 9 more months since she decided, and called her Grandpa to see what she had to do, and he told her "to just start now and get ahead of the game and it might take longer so do it now" and she was kind of confused but she did, and then the announcement came out hahahaha. I thought that was funnny. But His talk was amazing. He just talks with so much power and it's like he is yelling at your soul, and I was so motivated to work.

On Tuesday we moved to the Main Campus, and that may have been one of the greatest days of my life, you'll find out soon:) Packing was pretty simple, and the move went smooth. Our Dorms are nice but we have to squeeze 6 missionaries in a room for 4:( But it's all good. We didn't have class or anything so we just were doing whatever we wanted, walking around and getting a feel for the place, and studied on our own. We also have a devotional on Tuesdays, so we were excited for that. I always ask the people that work there who it is and they won't tell you, so when we were setting up for it, putting chairs up and everything, I was bugging everyone and they wouldn't budge, and then we were walking out and the control room is right there for the cameras and everything. We asked that guy and he wouldn't tell us but we saw who it was on the teleprompter screen!! 

I wanted to confirm my suspicions so a little later we walked by where the mtc presidency eats with the speaker so we could find out. The peep hole didn't really do anything cause it was a big room, but the chef was outside so we asked him and he confirmed it! 

it was DALLIN H. OAKS of the Twelve!!!!

So right after dinner we waited in line for like and hour and a half to get good seats, and no one else knew who it was! so we sat like 20 feet away from an apostle. When he walked in everyone stood up, and I guess the whole talk was broadcasted throughout all the MTC's! 

He talked about changing from 18 year old kids, to 18 year old Missionaries. And that other churches have such great doctrine and we should not put them down, but we have the fullness of it, and went into how that all happened. And we still do receive modern revelation. To me he was basically living proof of that, cause he's an apostle of God, that's insane to think about.

Our lessons with the mock investigator was really good, and Me and Elder N. played off each other really well, he would find perfect scriptures, and I was able to explain everything, and I bore my testimony in Tagalog and a bunch of stuff I learned came flooding back to me and I swear our teacher (who is the investigator) almost cried so I felt so good after that, but then our next lesson wasn't as great, we were humbled needless to say haha. 

There is an all sister district in our zone, and they have been having some problems that have been brought up in our leadership meetings, and I thought it would be good if we sat by them in the cafeteria just to talk to other people besides the ones your always with, but we never could cause they were late all the time.

Well on Thursday they had the idea I had, and said hey, lets have our districts be friends. So we studied in their classroom, and ate with them, and was great!

Well, That's all I have!

Mahal ko po Kayo!!! Thank you for the letters!

- Elder Bato  (Rock

MTC Zone leaders

Elder H knows cousin Josh!!!

Tie Trading at the MTC

Everyone's favorite pastime!!

MTC Mail Call

One of the fun jobs as District leader is getting the mail!

Elder N gets lots of it!

Studying at the MTC

Nathan really gets along well with his companion Elder Nebeker. (no relation to Mark that we know of)

So great to attend the temple in Provo!

Someone's on their toes for this one!

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Week 2 at the MTC

Working out!

Elder J

Elder L-  Recent convert!

Nathan and his companion are the youngest in their group! They really hit it off!

Letter Oct 3rd

Oct 3, 2013

Kumusta! 

If you're wondering why I am writing on a thursday and not my P-Day on Saturday its cause conference is on Saturday so we don't get a full pday this week and get to email earlier. Me and Elder N. decided to split it up to get more emails, so My time will be short today but will get to go on tomorrow, so feel free to write me emails and I can spend time replying!!

This week has been really great, and gone by really fast, I didn't even realize that it was thursday already!  I hope you had a great birthday get away mom. Let me know how it was. And I want to hear from emmett! Seriously, Elder nebeker gets 3 letters a day, if not more, so Im dying for some. let me know how you are doing.

As conference is coming up, be sure to watch all 5 sessions! I am so excited for it. My branch president told us to focus on 3 things that we want to learn focused on missionary work, and 3 things we want for our future families, and to pray about it so we can recognize it, and I encourage you to do the same, Its going to be great.

This week we had some great devotionals. On sunday, we got to watch an old one that was so good they replay it frequently here for missionaries to watch if they want. It was by elder bednar titled CHARACTER OF CHRIST and I want you to try and find it, it will seriously change your life. Its like an hour long, but you want it to be longer because it is so good. And I heard that he didn't have any notes! That was something that kind of bothered me about some other talks that we have heard, is they are so scripted, it doesn't seem personal. I think its alright to write it out, but not to be afraid to go off it. But anyway- The talk is all about having the character of christ and has influenced my scripture study a ton since hearing it. The other devotional was on tuesday night, we got to sit up front at the main campus because we had to walk so far, and listen to David s baxter I think his name was, from the 70. Hes from scotland and had a sweet accent, but talked about really cool doctrine. He basically talked about how wrong it is for people to say that we aren't christian by saying we are more christian than them haha. He talked about why we don't use a cross- which is we don't want to focus on the death of our savior, but on the resurrection- and the majority of the atonement happened in the Garden- and we don't want to focus on one symbol. He also talked about the book of mormon, and said "why would man limit what god gives us? If they found some ancient scrolls in a cave that had One of the apostles name on it, they would certainly use it" and how the "no one shall add to this" part at the end of revelations was to not add to or change Pauls revelation. And what dad always says about it being placed earlier in the bible chronologically. 

The main thing that was neat this week was learning the difference between testimony and conversion. A testimony is faith and believing and conversion is acting on what you believe to know is true. If we simply believe then we won't get anywhere- we have to act on what we know, to show Heavenly Father our faith, and become more like Christ (Hint Character of Christ). Im reading the book of mormon from the start, and realized what the first five chapters are for today. If you read them and wonder why Nephi puts those in, it is to show his conversion. He believes in Lehi's vision- and has faith but then goes and acts upon it thus his conversion, and prays to the Lord if it was true. Then when asked to go get the plates -a trial of his faith- he does so willingly and thinks of ways on his own until he has to put faith that the Lord will deliver them- and acts again and is rewarded with the plates eventually. I don't have any of my notes so its hard to explain, So I will tomorrow, but hopefully you read it and try and think of the first chapters as his conversion and watch character of christ, it will all make sense. 

If I could write everything down to be a good missionary I would give you Preach My Gospel. Stephen, Read it and study before you get to the MTC, And emmett, make sure you read it and study from it now, I promise it will be so great. 

Some other stuff: 

I heard this video is pretty funny but I cant watch it- its a guy who can talk exactly like the Apostles: "How General Authorities Eat reeeses Cups" I don't know if itll be good but you could check that out and let me know. 

THERE IS A TACO BELL IN QUEZON CITY!! (I thought Tucker would get a kick out of that, you better believe I'm getting there for happier hour haha) 

Theres a guy here that knows cousin Josh, Elder H., said he was a complete stud in High School while he was there. He wanted to see if he knew Devon or Taris? I don't know but if he could write me back about that that'd be neat. 

A cool quote I heard in a talk or somewhere was "The reason God gives us Trials is so when we don't think we can keep going, we take one more step in faith in him" So you can think about that if you are going through any trials.