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