The First Letter

Kumusta pamilya!! So today is half pday for us, so we get to write to our parentals. Oh my heaven's I feel like I have so much to catch you up on and I only have 30 minutes so here we go. First of all, I'm loving the MTC!! Call me a nerd, but I honestly don't mind all the studying. I'm glad that my last semester was as ridiculously busy as it was though, because otherwise I'd probably be going stir crazy. We sit in the same room for about 7-8 hours a day and do language study and then lessons from preach my gospel. It's awesome though.

So my campanion is Sister Iosafa (said like Yo-safa) and she's from bountiful Utah. She went to Viewmont highschool though and when I found that out i just had to laugh because i don't know what it is, but I just seem to be surrounded by viewmontians all of the time. Ha, I don't mind though because some of them are my absolute favorite people. She's a sweetheart though, honestly, like to the core she's has the sweetest heart ever. She's just very thoughtful and kind to other people. But she still has a strong side to her and actually has a personality.  But yeah, she's awesome. I think we're going to get along just great.But yeah, she's awesome. I think we're going to get along just great. She's also active. She loves volleyball and basketball, and yoga and she's totally cool with doing things at gym time and even said she'd be ok waking up for the classes at 6 in the morning. i think we're going to start going to those next week. So when we go to the gym, she plays vball with the elders while I run and then I go down for the last half and play with them. I must say, gym time is the best. It's funny though, you HAVE to stay the entire hour. you don't have a choice. you check in when you get there and then you can't leave until the whole hour is up. I think it's hilarious, but I'm really glad.  

Lets see, my district is awesome! The elders are just so funny. There's ten of us total and sister Iosefa and I are the only girls in the district.We're all from Utah except for one elder who's from Canada.  All of us are going to Quezon City which i guess is rare for an entire district to be going to the exact same mission but we're all headed there. and there's also another district that came in the same day as us that's also going to Quezon City and leaves the same time as us to that's abouit 20 missionaries total that will be heading over there the same time. I guess it's because they're actually splitting the mission. They're making a Quezon City north or west or something and just a Quezon City and i guess we're going to be in the plain Quezon city on. I think. I'm not sure yet. But practically with 20 missionaries all going to the same place the same day, we're going to take the mission by storm :) The language is going. actually pretty well. The very first day they sat us down in the room and for 2 hours just talked to us and taught us Tagalog. We learned how to say where we're from, good afternoon, our mission, you know, just the basics. It was honestly like Spanish 1010 all over again sitting there trying to intake everything. Except with this one, none of us knew a thing that was going on so it ended up being like a really bad game of cherades. Haha. Too funny. They don't speak english to us during our language lessons at all. We basically get to guess what they're saying and then figure it out. so far we've learned the basics and how to bear our testimony. For only being here 3 days though, we're learned so much. I can honestly say it is the gift of tongues. and i don't say that lightly either. I can remember things SO easy and pick up on the grammer and figure things out so much quicker than I ever did with spanish. It's absolutely incredible. And it happens for so many people like that here too. Everywhere you go, you heave all these different languages because everyone's speaking so well. The district next to us has only been here 3 weeks and they can understand so much. I think we can do that too. We just need to work our butts off and we can get there too. It's awesome though. If I could give you a visual of what I think the language sound like, just picture a ping pong ball bouncing around. Haha. I feel like that's my tongue. one of my favorite words so far is mapagmahal (you say it like, mah-pahg-mah-hall) but really fast. You should get online and listen what it sounds like. It's sweet.

Let's see, what else....tell Ryan that he should definitely go to school before he goes on a mission. There's a difference. The ones that have gone to college just have a better attention span, easier to talk to, more confidence in their abilities. It's a good thing. I've ran into quite a few people I know here. I saw Liz the very first day and we got to talk for just a bit. And then even more ironic, on the first day in the check in line there was a girl behind me that looked so familiar and I looked at her tag and it said sister mecham and then it dawned on me, she's from Logan and she was roommates with Ang, one of chanae's friends and she performed all the time at USU. She's incredible too. She's the one I actually have in my Itunes. Ha, it was fun to talk to her for a bit. She's headed to Korea. Can i just say, I'll talke Tagalog over korean, or japanese or chines ANY day.

oh yeah! This one's for you mom. so I met my branch president the other night and then we had interviews after and the first thing he asks me in the interview was, "what is your mom like" and so I told him how awesome you are and how you always sing to us stuff and he says, Sister Weller, you need to know that you have a charisma about you and a spirit about you that is contagious. I having a feeling that comes from your mother and you need to thank her because it's sets you apart from the other people here. And he's right, it is because of you mom. You always told us to follow our hearts and gave us so much confidence in ourselves. So thanks mom :)

And Dad, Happy Father's Day!! I wish I could give you a hug, but I'll be thinking of you all day so consider yourself hugged to use chase's phrasing :) Also, I hear DearElder is the best way to go with sending mail. It's quick and also, since we only have 30 minutes, then you don't have to spend all of the time reading emails because you can read them anytime. Also mom, I just thought of this today, but when you check my email, will you look for the one that's supposed to be the gas bill and pay that from my account. it's got to be due soon. anyway, LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!! I'll talk to you soon! Mahal Kita!!