Michael ended up giving a 5 minute talk in sacrament meeting in Tagalog. I remember having to do that in Korean when I was in the Missionary Training Center. I am absolutely certain he did much better than I did. I managed to speak for 5 minutes and only utter two or three intelligible words. One of those was "Amen" which sounds a lot like "Amen" in Korean. I'll let Michael do the talking now...
Ano ang nangyayari na mga tao?!
That's how we/I decided was the right way to literally say what's up/what's happening? Kinda a mouthful so....I don't say it much, I stick to English for that phrase. But most everything else is Tagalog here its sick! (good sick not bad). Like I kinda feel like I have the ability to figure out a way to say whatever I want to say in English in Tagalog but it just takes me a while to formulate it or re-word it to my ability its soooo amazing how far we've come in a few short weeks.
Well on Sunday...well okay you probably need background info. Every week all of us have to prepare a talk on a certain subject that's five minutes long (practice for the field I guess), and we dont know who's speaking until it is announced in Sacrament meeting. So on Sunday I had prepared my talk in all Tagalog (and so did most of my district) and it was the first time any of us had done so even though we're supposed to have been doing it for a couple weeks now.
So I prepared in Tagalog and I was like I'm goin be ticked if I don't speak because I had a talk and it was in Tagalog so even better! And sure enough I was called upon to speak. And...I don't know it went okay I guess. But like the first speaker spoke in Tagalog and I guess he used 2 Nephi 31:20 at some point I didnt here probably cuz I was going over my talk. And then the sister that spoke before me stole part of my quote I found from Elder Uchtdorf and also used 2 Nephi 31:20. I was pretty nervous for whatever reason and I felt like I stumbled over a lot of my Tagalog but everyone said they enjoyed it and that I did good. But I think they were just being nice so who knows.
Sunday night we had a pretty good fireside from Brother Heaton and he talked about repentance, but more specifically on why repentance has such a bad connotation. In the ancient languages of like Latin and Hebrew or somethin repentance means to turn; to turn away from sin and turn towards God. So it was pretty interesting I liked it. Because I definitely don't think positively of like repentance in general. In Preach My Gospel it says "you will come to find great joy in repenting daily." So that's like super interesting. Another thing he pointed it was that Christ suffered for our sins so that we dont have to. We only suffer for our sins when we refuse to repent of them so that was a good talk.
This week has been good. YESTERDAY WE GOT OUR TRAVEL PLANS! On Monday the 25th at 6:30 we leave the MTC for a flight out of SLC at 9:55. Then we land in San Fran at 10:55 their time and fly out again at 1:20 AM. We then land in Hong Kong at 6:25 AM their time and fly out again at 9:10 AM to make it to MANILA! Sooo pumped! So yeah that definitely made our week/day! So yeah if you're sending me anything get on that because unless its dearelder it generally takes about 4 days to get from Illinois to Utah so yeah.. But so pumped! Also yesterday we had TRC and our "investigator" was a guy that had like literally just gotten home (you could pretty much tell) and so he spoke really good Tagalog. And like its always comforting to me to go to TRC and teach people that know Tagalog really well and have them actually understand me because that means I'm not butchering it too bad..haha Because when we all talk to each other, we're all on the same level so I'm always concerned if actual Tagalog speakers would understand me. So yeah that went well and Tagalog is coming along and yeah everythings goin good!
One more email (I think) till I'm in the PHILIPPINES!
Love,
Elder Michael Gadberry
No comments:
Post a Comment