First Missed Mailing
Why didn't you send me anything this week? I was kind of looking forward to that.
Nikolai will depress me if he doesn't send anything this week either... Seriously, you and Papa are fine, but you just... don't satisfy...
I'm emailing you with as much as I can... so here goes.
Learning more Tagalog... I can actually sort of make sentences now, like I'm getting it, but I still need to work at it. I also need to learn more vocab.
I've got the invitation to baptism, the first vision, and 1 Nephi 3:7 down in Tagalog... here goes:
Susundan mo ba ang halimbawa ni Jesucristo sa pamamagitan ng pagpapabinyag sa isang taong may taglay ng awtoridad ng priesthood ng Diyos? Magdaraos kami ng serbisyo ng binyag sa (date).
Ihahanda mo ba ang sarili mo na mabinyagan sa petsang iyon?
Acko ay nakakita ng isang haligi ng liwanag na tamang-tama sa tapat ng aking ulo, higit pa sa liwanag ng araw, na dahan-dahang bumaba hanggang sa ito ay pumalibot sa akin...
Nang tumuon sa akin ang liwanag, nakakita ako ng dalawang katauhan, na ang liwanag at kaluwalhatian ay hindi kayang maisalarawan, nakatayo sa hangin sa itaas ko. ang isa sa kanila ay nagsalita sa akin, tinatawag ako sa aking pangalan, at nagsabi, itinuturo ang isa--ito ang aking pinakamamahal na anak. Pakinggan Siya.
At ito ay nangyari na, na ako, si Nephi, ay nangusap sa aking ama: Hahayo ako at gagawin ang mga bagay na ipinag-uutos ng Panginoon, sapagkat nalalaman ko na ang Panginoon ay hindi magbibigay ng mga kautusan sa mga anak ng tao, maliban sa Siya ay maghahanda ng paraan para sa kanila upang kanilang maisagawa ang bagay na Kanyang ipinag-uutos sa kanila.
Those were, in order, invitation to baptism, the first vision as written in the restoration pamphlet, and 1 Nephi 3:7. See if you can figure out any words and send me back what you come up with.
This week I also got sicker. It affected me. I let it affect me.
My demeanor depreciated, my attitude depreciated, my study depreciated...
not good.
But I feel better now.
I had an immensely spiritual experience, but it was so good, I don't feel comfortable sharing the details...
suffice it to say, that even though I and a few other missionaries weren't in the temple, we felt the Spirit as strongly as if we were. Really crazy.
Like I said, I'm understanding the language somewhat. For instance, the main grammatical structure of Tagalog is: VAOL. Verb, Actor, Object, Location/receiver. Meaning, that first you put the verb, then you put the thing that is verbing, then you put the thing that's being verbed, and then you put where it happened, or to who the whole thing is happening. Like I teach math to my brother becomes: teach(V) I(A) math(O) to my brother(L/R). It's always the same structure, but sometimes weird things happen. Also, there is a concept of focus. The entire sentence can look different but have the same English translation just because of focus. Ng, ang and sa have no word equivalent in English. They simply are the non-focus marker (to mark things that aren't the focus of the sentence), the focus marker (to mark the thing that is the focus of the sentence) and the location marker (to mark the location, unless the location is the focus, in which case you use ang for it) so "I teach math to my brother" could be "Nagtuturo ang 'me' ng 'math' sa 'my brother'" or it could be "Itinuturo ng 'me' ang 'math' sa 'my brother'" or it could be "'location conjugation of teach' ng 'me' ng 'math' ang 'my brother'" and they all mean "I teach math to my brother" but they all mean something different as well. Confusing....
I'll send another email....
Oh how I hope that I hear from you before I have to get off.
So anyway.
P-day schedules change all the time.... which is why my email is so much earlier this time.
Next week, my P-day will be Thursday instead of Friday, so be aware of that, but I can't guarantee when it'll be in the day, only that it will be before 3:00 pm my time.
Not much else happened this week though. All pretty steady. My investigators, our investigators, are progressing, as I assume they are supposed to, but it's also slow going. Definitely get lost sometimes on what we are supposed to do.
I seek constantly for the Spirit. I tell you, there is no more amazing feeling than when you realize that you just got inspiration from the Spirit. You just thought of something you never would of thought of, or just understood something you never would have understood.
The only thing I need to work on, honestly, is that I need to love my investigators. It's tough, because they are only half real. They are based off of real people, pero they are still your teachers. It's sometimes hard to feel as though they are investigators and not mga guro.
But anyways.
I got stuff from the distribution center and Rustans again. I got another Tagalog Bible because my first one disappeared. I'm sure whoever has it doesn't know it's mine, but I kind of wish I had gotten it back. No biggy though, each one costs less than 2 dollars, so it wasn't really a financial loss.
Then I decided to get a mini hymnbook, one that I can take with me to places more easily. What threw me for a loop was the fact that that cost OVER FIVE TIMES THE AMOUNT OF THE BIBLE!
But whatever.
So yeah. that's...what I got for you...
send me some poems or songs if you would.
And some actual emails... other than...a comic...
I miss you.
If I can, I will check the email again today. I really hope that there is something there for me to read...
I found out that though I hate most Cheetos, I actually like the jalapeno ones... so that was weird.
I don't know if I told you about this, but in Australia there is a cookie called a Timtam. It's a brand, like Oreos. They are actually really good, but I would like them more in dark chocolate, and the only ones they have here are milk chocolate. Still, I was surprised. Think a piece of chocolate, sandwiched by two chocolate cookies, and covered in chocolate. that's basically what it is, but it doesn't taste as overpowering as it sounds. Very tasty.
Food here has reached an unfortunate monotony. I can tell you that dinner will be: 1. rice 2. some sort of vegetable mixture 3. some sort of meat in sauce and 4. some sort of sweet thing for desert, with a little fruit on the side, either apple, pear, banana, orange, pineapple, or melon. There may or may not be soup, but it'll be watery, not creamy. It's always savory soup, you know, has lots of flavor, but even their cream of mushroom soup wouldn't hold form...
So yeah, I kind of wish they would give us another fried fish, but so far, not happening...
What else can I say? I got the scripture masteries from one of my district mates, so I'm marking them in my scriptures in highlighter to make sure they stand out. That's a fun process... make one highlighter line, dab it with a paper napkin, make another highlighter line, dab it with the paper napkin. You know, so it doesn't leak through...
Anyways.
Almost out of time. I would send Lala stuff, (again, through your email!) pero I don't know what the heck a crocidolite is... I hope it's not Spanish I should remember but don't...
In terms of the life here, just share with her the emails I sent you. I didn't need them to be only for you three. You can send any of them to her...or anyone for that matter, I think.
Once again, I miss you. Wish I would have had some stuff waiting for me, but, maybe next week, yeah?
...
Please?
Wow!
Thanks for emailing me!
Great stuff.
So much happier.
Nikolai will depress me if he doesn't send anything this week either... Seriously, you and Papa are fine, but you just... don't satisfy...
I'm emailing you with as much as I can... so here goes.
Learning more Tagalog... I can actually sort of make sentences now, like I'm getting it, but I still need to work at it. I also need to learn more vocab.
I've got the invitation to baptism, the first vision, and 1 Nephi 3:7 down in Tagalog... here goes:
Susundan mo ba ang halimbawa ni Jesucristo sa pamamagitan ng pagpapabinyag sa isang taong may taglay ng awtoridad ng priesthood ng Diyos? Magdaraos kami ng serbisyo ng binyag sa (date).
Ihahanda mo ba ang sarili mo na mabinyagan sa petsang iyon?
Acko ay nakakita ng isang haligi ng liwanag na tamang-tama sa tapat ng aking ulo, higit pa sa liwanag ng araw, na dahan-dahang bumaba hanggang sa ito ay pumalibot sa akin...
Nang tumuon sa akin ang liwanag, nakakita ako ng dalawang katauhan, na ang liwanag at kaluwalhatian ay hindi kayang maisalarawan, nakatayo sa hangin sa itaas ko. ang isa sa kanila ay nagsalita sa akin, tinatawag ako sa aking pangalan, at nagsabi, itinuturo ang isa--ito ang aking pinakamamahal na anak. Pakinggan Siya.
At ito ay nangyari na, na ako, si Nephi, ay nangusap sa aking ama: Hahayo ako at gagawin ang mga bagay na ipinag-uutos ng Panginoon, sapagkat nalalaman ko na ang Panginoon ay hindi magbibigay ng mga kautusan sa mga anak ng tao, maliban sa Siya ay maghahanda ng paraan para sa kanila upang kanilang maisagawa ang bagay na Kanyang ipinag-uutos sa kanila.
Those were, in order, invitation to baptism, the first vision as written in the restoration pamphlet, and 1 Nephi 3:7. See if you can figure out any words and send me back what you come up with.
This week I also got sicker. It affected me. I let it affect me.
My demeanor depreciated, my attitude depreciated, my study depreciated...
not good.
But I feel better now.
I had an immensely spiritual experience, but it was so good, I don't feel comfortable sharing the details...
suffice it to say, that even though I and a few other missionaries weren't in the temple, we felt the Spirit as strongly as if we were. Really crazy.
Like I said, I'm understanding the language somewhat. For instance, the main grammatical structure of Tagalog is: VAOL. Verb, Actor, Object, Location/receiver. Meaning, that first you put the verb, then you put the thing that is verbing, then you put the thing that's being verbed, and then you put where it happened, or to who the whole thing is happening. Like I teach math to my brother becomes: teach(V) I(A) math(O) to my brother(L/R). It's always the same structure, but sometimes weird things happen. Also, there is a concept of focus. The entire sentence can look different but have the same English translation just because of focus. Ng, ang and sa have no word equivalent in English. They simply are the non-focus marker (to mark things that aren't the focus of the sentence), the focus marker (to mark the thing that is the focus of the sentence) and the location marker (to mark the location, unless the location is the focus, in which case you use ang for it) so "I teach math to my brother" could be "Nagtuturo ang 'me' ng 'math' sa 'my brother'" or it could be "Itinuturo ng 'me' ang 'math' sa 'my brother'" or it could be "'location conjugation of teach' ng 'me' ng 'math' ang 'my brother'" and they all mean "I teach math to my brother" but they all mean something different as well. Confusing....
I'll send another email....
Oh how I hope that I hear from you before I have to get off.
So anyway.
P-day schedules change all the time.... which is why my email is so much earlier this time.
Next week, my P-day will be Thursday instead of Friday, so be aware of that, but I can't guarantee when it'll be in the day, only that it will be before 3:00 pm my time.
Not much else happened this week though. All pretty steady. My investigators, our investigators, are progressing, as I assume they are supposed to, but it's also slow going. Definitely get lost sometimes on what we are supposed to do.
I seek constantly for the Spirit. I tell you, there is no more amazing feeling than when you realize that you just got inspiration from the Spirit. You just thought of something you never would of thought of, or just understood something you never would have understood.
The only thing I need to work on, honestly, is that I need to love my investigators. It's tough, because they are only half real. They are based off of real people, pero they are still your teachers. It's sometimes hard to feel as though they are investigators and not mga guro.
But anyways.
I got stuff from the distribution center and Rustans again. I got another Tagalog Bible because my first one disappeared. I'm sure whoever has it doesn't know it's mine, but I kind of wish I had gotten it back. No biggy though, each one costs less than 2 dollars, so it wasn't really a financial loss.
Then I decided to get a mini hymnbook, one that I can take with me to places more easily. What threw me for a loop was the fact that that cost OVER FIVE TIMES THE AMOUNT OF THE BIBLE!
But whatever.
So yeah. that's...what I got for you...
send me some poems or songs if you would.
And some actual emails... other than...a comic...
I miss you.
If I can, I will check the email again today. I really hope that there is something there for me to read...
I found out that though I hate most Cheetos, I actually like the jalapeno ones... so that was weird.
I don't know if I told you about this, but in Australia there is a cookie called a Timtam. It's a brand, like Oreos. They are actually really good, but I would like them more in dark chocolate, and the only ones they have here are milk chocolate. Still, I was surprised. Think a piece of chocolate, sandwiched by two chocolate cookies, and covered in chocolate. that's basically what it is, but it doesn't taste as overpowering as it sounds. Very tasty.
Food here has reached an unfortunate monotony. I can tell you that dinner will be: 1. rice 2. some sort of vegetable mixture 3. some sort of meat in sauce and 4. some sort of sweet thing for desert, with a little fruit on the side, either apple, pear, banana, orange, pineapple, or melon. There may or may not be soup, but it'll be watery, not creamy. It's always savory soup, you know, has lots of flavor, but even their cream of mushroom soup wouldn't hold form...
So yeah, I kind of wish they would give us another fried fish, but so far, not happening...
What else can I say? I got the scripture masteries from one of my district mates, so I'm marking them in my scriptures in highlighter to make sure they stand out. That's a fun process... make one highlighter line, dab it with a paper napkin, make another highlighter line, dab it with the paper napkin. You know, so it doesn't leak through...
Anyways.
Almost out of time. I would send Lala stuff, (again, through your email!) pero I don't know what the heck a crocidolite is... I hope it's not Spanish I should remember but don't...
In terms of the life here, just share with her the emails I sent you. I didn't need them to be only for you three. You can send any of them to her...or anyone for that matter, I think.
Once again, I miss you. Wish I would have had some stuff waiting for me, but, maybe next week, yeah?
...
Please?
Wow!
Thanks for emailing me!
Great stuff.
So much happier.
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