Week #4 at the MTC and just counting down!

Kumusta pamilya ko!

Thank you for the package! 

yay more treats!

We're all trying to eat all the food.

 The chips exploded in the box but it's all good. Also, I kinna need my right eye contacts. I only got the left.

the package with all the treats, the sweets, the chips, and Elder Del Rosario is happy!

So this week, we received our travel plans! It's about time. I think most of us are going crazy in the MTC. We all keep saying we want out and how we want to go to the Philippines already. So here's the breakdown of the week.

Tuesday: Got a package from the Johnson family! They sent me Jesus the Christ. Can you please thank them for me?

Wednesday: The new missionaries came in today. We had to do orientation since were zone leaders. I also made a message in a bottle for fun.

 As for TRC, we basically hometeach a member. Our goal was to encourage to seek revelation through reading the book of mormon. We taught him the first lesson in Tagalog. Thankfully I was able to get my message across. So on his review, we basically succeeded.

Thursday: Valentine's day. The sisters decided to decorate our door with hearts. Theres pictures of it. 

Sister's gave our door a 'heart-attack'

They gave us all candies so it was a pretty good valentine's day. We got a great district. At night, the elders got together and bought these mexican drinks and we had to eat all these cookies that everyone kept sending so we could get rid of them. 

mexican drinks non-alcoholic of course!

 Most of the elders got sick from the sugar overload that Elder Williams pretty much... got really sick.

Friday: My kasama was gone for the morning so I was basically walang kasama para sa umaga. So I was just went into a threesome with Elder Castillo and Elder Erickson for the day. We sang sister Wilson "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" as a quartet. It was really cool. When we left, apparently she said "I love those guys they're so stupid!"

Saturday: We celebrated Elder Johnson's birthday. There was cake and everything. Unfortunately I don't have any photos. My battery died.

Sunday: We decided to finally join choir. It's great. I don't know why we decided to join our last week. The good thing though is that it guarantees us a seat for tonight at the devotional. It's going to be so packed. The choir director was telling us that its the biggest choir he's ever conducted. This has got to be because of the thousands of missionaries coming.

Monday: So in the morning, we were practicing extending and following up on commitments. I pretended to forget about the commitment I made that I would stop smoking and then Elder Larson looked so disappointed that he told me straight "Mahalaha po pamily... binyag?" It was like I got slapped in the face by the Spirit. That was really cool. Then later, there were deer in the MTC campus right beside our residence. Elder Hanohano tried to catch the deer.

Well, that's pretty much all the excitement for the week. I've been just finding all the interesting things to write down from my journal. Next tuesday, you'll be getting a phonecall from me when I get to the airport. I may call from LA, especially since everyone will be home. Our flight plan is from SLC to LA then from LA straight to Philippines. My companion keeps telling me Philippine Airlines sucks. He's a survivor, not a passenger. (That's what he just told me) Totoong kuwento.

Paki-sabi po kayo sa mama at sa papa na magdala sila ng mga kuwento tungkol ang buhay nila sa Pilipinas. Nagtuturo po kayo sa kanila na gawin ang dearelder. Gusto ko pong marinig mula sa kanila at siguro, makakapagsulat po sila sa Tagalog.

Okay so that's enough Tagalog for one day. Anyways, I hope to hear from you all soon. Send me as much dearelders as you all can. It's my last week here too. Tell my friends too. Thanks! I love you all. And thanks for all the photos! Especially all that food. I had to share the polvoron around. It was hard since I love it so much but I figure I'll be getting a ton in the Philippines. Oh and by the way, Vigan is in my mission area. So who knows, I may run into uncle Willy one day or even my cousins. Anyways, take care everyone!

Love,

Elder Morales

Week #3 At the MTC!

So yeah, I went to the temple today.
We get up at 4:30 to do laundry so that explains why I sent pictures that early.

4:30 am...too early for laundry?

my banana

 Brother Collette still works here. I told him to try and teach our in-field orientation.

the famous Elder Collete who served his mission in Montreal years ago, taught me how to play the church organ.

  I'm now realizing that we got approximately 2 and a half weeks left at the MTC and it's kind of crazy thinking about it. It's getting so busy here especially because of President Monson's revelation for younger missionaries. The lines at the cafeteria are "constipated" (Elder Risenmay's way of saying blocked-up). It's totally true. We gotta wake up at 6 just to take a shower. Well at least I do. I don't like waiting for the showers and on top of that, by 6:30, we got no hot water so it's like taking a shower with ice!

So this week has been slightly interesting. This monday, our zone leaders are finally going to Laoag so on Sunday, we had to call new zone leaders. I kept making jokes that it would be Elder Risenmay and Elder Larson, or Elder Erikson and Elder Castillo, figuring that since Elder del Rosario was newly called as District Leader that we would in no way be called as zone leaders. And I was totally wrong!

President Anderson, our branch president, stopped us on the stairs on the way to lunch and told us he's calling us as the new zone leaders. I know its nothing like a real zone leader in the field, but its going to be a good experience. Right now, it just means more meetings and more meetings. For the next few days, me and Elder del Rosario are going to have to greet all the new missionaries coming in and welcome them and give them the whole break down and tour of the MTC.


So last week, for practice, we had to teach the 2nd lesson to another companionship in another branch and pretend they were investigators. We had to teach purely in Tagalog. Well everything we teach is only in Tagalog. So after we taught them the lesson, we had to switch. So I took on the role as an old filipino man. Everyone in my district calls me lolo now because I imitate old people really well like with doing mano and well.. old people maneurisms. So as they were teaching us, they asked lolo "What do you think happens after this life?" so I basically told them "Uhhh... Hindi ko alam... kasi Atheist ako... kaya... YOLO!" And the two missionaries and my companion couldn't stop laughing. (Maybe only Jordan and Alex will understand that one). Also, last week, all the elders decided to get our names engraved in our Tagalog triple combinations. We didn't think that through at all because we all didn't have scriptures for our lessons for about 3 days. So that's as funny as it gets.

 

Okay, so tell dad when the all the new missionaries come in that he should look out for my jacket. I found missionaries who will be serving in the Montreal Quebec Mission so I donated my jacket to a missionary who felt he didn't need to buy one and that he should save his money for something important. I'm happy that I could help him out.

my oreo cookie

 

Other than all those interesting little things, there's not much that really goes on in the MTC. I'll have better stories while I'm in the Philippines. I figure I'll just take lots of photos for the time being. I've been eating so much here that I didn't gain any weight. Weird huh? Oh well, keep writing me. It's better you all send me Dear Elders that way I can have a nice long email to send you guys. Oh and for the Balikbayan box, talk to my friend Felipe from the YSA, he really wants to do it too.

 

As for my Tagalog, I'm finding its coming along really well. Nakakagamit ako ng sentences pero short lang at maraming Taglish. I finally learnt the first vision in tagalog. Took one whole day memorizing it. It was fun. Anyways, tell my brothers to write me (DearElders, I only check my emails weekly)! I miss and love you all! Take care!

 

Love,

Elder Morales

Pls. Write to me! NEW ADDRESS

First Name Last Name Address Apt/Suite    ST  AL AK AS AZ AR CA CO CT DE DC FM FL GA GU HI ID IL IN IA KS KY LA ME MH MD MA MI MN MS MO MT NE NV NH NJ NM NY NC ND MP OH OK OR PW PA PR RI SC SD TN TX UT VT VI VA WA WI WV WY N/A    City State Zipcode   Elder Sister President Hermana (No Title)     Title First Name Last Name    MTC Box # Mission Code or Mission (optional) Estimated MTC Departure Date

While in the Philippines, the steps below are...

STEP #1
Go to www.DearElder.com

STEP#2
Go to left menus and click on Laoag Mission (Free)

STEP#3
Just write your name on the left hand of the envelope so i know who you are
and address to me. They place it in envelopes and I receive it daily.

(not sure if this step still applies)

Elder Jomar Morales

MTC Box# 158  

leave the Mission Code Blank

MTC Departure Date is 0226

And just write away it's free!

If in case you cannot use this mail, you may write to me directly in my personal/family only email...
jomar.morales@myldsmail.net


Thank you and looking forward to hearing from you.
God speed!

Elder Morales

Week 2: Chris Reporting from the MTC

Hello everyone!!!

Ok so I think I'm finally get tired of cafeteria food.

I can't wait to get to the philippines and eat lots of kanin. We keep talking about filipino food. It doesn't help that it's in the back of the dictionary describing every meal and dessert. So hopefully you get all those pictures. Unfortunately I could only send 2 at a time. I think I'll just send the SD card or something like that. It's more efficient. I guess I'll have to buy another one. Anyways, I'm happy to hear Esa stayed at church the whole time. How did she do? And how is she by the way? How are all of you too? There's really not much excitement at the MTC. It's basically classes every day, twice a day, for three hours. But its good. They teach us how to do planning, language planning, and progressive investigator. Progressive investigator is basically teaching one of the teachers and pretending that they are a real investigator. It's really interesting.

We have to teach them purely in Tagalog so that makes it even more interesting. We have this phrasebook for the lessons in Tagalog but I try not to use it. I try to translate what I want to say myself down on paper. It's really helpful I find.

Anyways, I just realized I'm halfway through my MTC time here. I only got three weeks left until were kicked out and shipped to the Philippines. I really can't wait!!!

So in my district, my kasama became the new district leader so now I gotta follow him to get the mail and do other things.

ME and Elder Del Rosario

As a district, we enjoy singing lots of hymns. All acapella. I'm pretty sure you would love to hear that. It's really cool. Oddly enough, they already got me playing piano here more frequently. I guess I really can't escape it. Oh! We also have firesides and devotionals often. The tuesday night devotionals usually have someone from the seventy or twelve so I'm really curious who we have tonight. I really wish Holland came back here. He's super intense with his talks.

Sorry I don't have much interesting stories this week. The days are all pretty much the same. Basically we just wake up, shower, eat, class, eat, class, eat, sleep.

That's the MTC life. Oh so for my contact lenses, my prescription is at le lunetier. It's under the last name Altares, Jomar. And my sunglasses should be in my room. Oh and please send me a copy of Jesus the Christ. I may also need money transferred to my chequing account in case I need to make purchases at the bookstore.

Actually, we usually have breakfast at the temple every Tuesday morning since the cafeteria is closed after we leave the temple so I need money for that.

Tuesdays Temple trips

Anyways, I'll probably write letters home if anything. 30 minutes is not enough. Take care everyone. I love you guys!

Elder Morales