So the day after my last email was the first time that I ever went
out proselyting. We taught two lessons and I was able to lead the second one. I
felt more ready than I expected, but also way more aware of the amount that I
have to learn still. I don't think that I truly anticipated how hard this would
be; but at the same time I will learn to love it and adjust to the workload of
the field – probably a few weeks into it. Here at the MTC I am surrounded by
many good influences and tons of really nice, good people that build me up
every day; and I will be sad to lose that in the field. One thing here that is
obviously shocking is the circumstances in which people live; I got to see some
of that when we went proselyting, and it is crazy to see how humble these people
are in their circumstances.
We have learned a lot about teaching people and relating to them
this week; you need to really understand where people are at in their lives
temporally, spiritually, and emotionally before you can teach them effectively.
The problem is tho, it is really hard to create that relationship with them if
you can’t speak the language conversationally. That is what I will be struggling
with for a long while tho. I think I will figure it out and try not to worry
about it.
I feel like a ton happened this week and I have little to say about
it. Our batch is now the senior batch and new missionaries have come in. We are
no longer the newest missionaries in the Philippines. My companion and I are
Zone leaders. We have stewardship over all of the language training
missionaries that spend their whole missionary training experience in Manila. It
is really nice to be able to impart advice to them and tell them what they should
and shouldn't worry about – something that I feel our senior batch didn't really
do for us.
Around Christmas time I urge all to remember Christ and what he did
for us all. We owe everything to him and I am realizing that a little more each
day. I try every day to stop thinking about myself and focus on the work ahead
and the reasons I'm doing it. It can be hard to forget ourselves. So, every day
try to do one thing that you can completely say you did for someone else other
than yourself. Jesus watches those acts as you serve your brothers and sisters
and he appreciates them much more than you even know. I get to talk to some
family back home this Christmas and I am very much appreciative of that
opportunity; but, as I am sure it will happen every time, I will wish that I
will have more time.
Today, the Tagalog lesson that I will impart to you all is about
Focus. I won’t delve into it too much because it is useless to try to
understand within a few weeks – let alone a few minutes. But it is in teaching
that I learn better, so suffer me this. Basically focus is something that
exists in Tagalog and it is all about what you want to emphasize in a sentence.
In Tagalog, there are only three tenses: the Past, Present, and Future. The
problem is, you have different types of conjugations for different verbs and
they dictate what you focus on in the sentence. So in English you may say
"We read the book to him" but the problem is, in Tagalog that word
for "Read" could be conjugated three different ways based on if you
wanted to emphasize: WHO was reading, WHAT they were reading, or TO WHOM was
being read. Basically it is really dumb and it makes sentences really hard to
form without thinking a lot about what you want to say.
Anyways thanks for listening to my rambling about everything. I
think I may start prewriting my emails throughout the week so that I can
respond to people individually more and not run over time. Also, I got a camera
so I may try to get pictures up next week.
Love
Elder Faulkner
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