WOW... so much has happened.

I don't even know where to start.  I'll start back at when we started at the Provo MTC. We rode the Frontrunner up to Salt Lake, and then we took Trax to the airport.  That was an adventure trying to navigate all that with 3 suitcases! We got to the airport safely, and then weighed our bags.  This was such a stressful moment, because I didn't want to have to pay the overweight fees! Luckily, the lady was nice and just had me remove a few things to make my bags close enough to where they needed to be. After receiving our tickets, we went through security and then had about 2 hours to sit around before boarding.  I got to call my family, and that was so fantastic! They also have Smash Burger at the airport, so that was super nummy! ^.^ We then boarded for a short flight to Portland where we were going to connect to fly to Japan.  

The flight to Japan was actually quite enjoyable! It went by really fast, plus I had 2 seats all to myself.  So I had leg room out the YANG! :) There was one thing, however, on that flight that was pretty intense.  About 4-5 hours in, we had just flown over Alaska and all the power went out in the plane.  All the TV's turned off, and all the lights.  The plane itself was still flying fine, but there was a short.  The Captain made an announcement and said that they were trying to troubleshoot the problem, and then he shortly made another announcement that one of the wings Automatic controls had failed, but it still worked fine.  He said that they were going to contact Headquarters and see if they wanted us to make an emergency landing or if it was ok to keep going.  Luckily, about 30 minutes later, they got the OK to keep flying. CRAZY! After landing in Tokyo, I had so many memories flood my mind, of when we lived there as a family.  Good times! I got myself a Pocari Sweat, and ate some McDonald's! :) We then boarded the plane to fly to Manila, from Tokyo.  It was close to a 4 hour flight, and since it was getting late, we just slept for most of the flight.  Near the end of the flight, however, we flew into the middle of a Storm.  We dropped about 300 feet, and the turbulence was so scary, but we landed safely. After waiting in the foreign Passport line for nearly 2 hours, we then went and met up with the Church Travel people, who were there to pick us up and bring us to the Hotel that we would be staying at for 5 days! The Hotel was so nice! What a blessing! ;)

We spent 5 days in Manila, and while there, we went proselyting with the Manila missionaries!.. The first day there! That was kind of intimidating, but I had a blast! We placed 2 Book of Mormons, and 3 pamphlets! The driving here is so scary.. There are "suggestions," that no one follows at all.  You just have to trust the driver that they will do what they think is the best thing. Hah!  Manila reminded me of a ghetto version of Downtown L.A... haha. After spending time in California over the past year, it wasn't as much of a shock with everything that I saw.

After the 5 days were over, we left the Hotel early in the morning, and those of us who were leaving for Cauayan, headed to the airport.  We boarded a plane, and it was literally the shortest flight ever.  By the time we had reached our cruising altitude, we were already making our descent.  When we landed, and pulled up to the "Airport," it was so small, that they can only fit one plane, and they didn't even have a luggage track thing.  They just brought it all in by the waiting area, where we picked it up.  We met our mission president and his wife, and that was awesome! I felt like I have known them for a while, and that was nice. We drove to the mission home, and there we had a short introduction to what we were going to be doing.  We were told that we would be meeting our trainers in less than 4 hours! That was nerve wracking.

President & Sister Rahlf

My trainer, Elder Abadines

So the time came to meet our trainers, and I was the first one called! My Trainer's name is Elder Abadines.  He is a great elder.  He is a hard worker, he is a native Filipino, and is probably 5'1". I really feel like a giant here, and every time we talk to people, the first thing they say about me is that I am so tall. Haha. It's so funny, but I love it!

The language sounds like gibberish right now.. but I am trying my hardest to push through and learn it.  I know that it won't just come to me.  I have to work hard and then the Lord will make up the rest.  Our investigators that we have been teaching are almost all kids! It is amazing to see how receptive the kids are here, and how much they understand and are willing to be baptized.  

My apartment is very... different.  It is really small, and the bathroom is.. um... nasty. Haha. It is a tiny toilet, and they don't use toilet paper here!.. So fun. And my shower every day is with a bucket of water and a ladle.  That isn't so bad.. but it is going to take some getting used to. I am striving to love the people that I am serving, and I hope and pray that I can continue to learn and grow here. 

Kumusta! (Final email from the MTC)

I can't believe the time has come! I am headed off, to live in the Philippines, and do the Lords work! The 6ish weeks that I've been here at the MTC have been both the longest, yet fastest weeks of my life! I have learned so much and grown so much. It is amazing how quickly I have been able to learn the language.. though I yet have so much to learn, when I apply myself and work hard at it everyday! It is definitely a great lesson that I am learning and will be applying the rest of my life!

I am looking forward to the opportunity I have to try and place my first Book of Mormon at the airport tomorrow! Our whole district is going to be passing out as many Aklat ni Mormons and pass-along cards as we can! It'll be fun!

The next email that I'll be sending out will be from the Philippines!.. CRAZY!! But I am excited! Thank you all for the love and support and prayers!.. And food ^.^

Love you all!

Stay True!

Elder Walstad

Tanner and his companion forgot they weren't supposed to wear P Day clothes today!

Final Week in the M of the T of the C!

This letter is from September 13, 2014... Just about caught up!

Hello Everybody!!!

I can't believe that this moment has really come!  I am seriously going to be leaving Utah and living in the Philippines in 5 days! :O haha.  Cray cray! I would like to thank everyone for all of the wonderful love and support that you have shown.  Either through mail, packages, letters, emails, etc. :)  It has helped make this experience quite bearable 

So this week, there wasn't too much that happened.  We did a lot of Language study, and we had a lot of assessments for our language.  Seeing where I have come from in just 6 weeks, it is quite amazing.  I have such a strong testimony of the Gift of Tongues! Also that through the Lord, anything is possible! It becomes quite frustrating sometimes.. especially when we skyped with natives this week! I feel like I don't really know the language when I hear the natives, and I have no clue what they said, and I am wondering "Are they speaking the same language that I'm learning right now?" haha.  Anyways.. I have definitely had a dramatic improvement and I know that as I continue to learn and work hard, I will become a very effective tool in the Lords hands to bring back his children in the Philippines!

We had a speaker this Tuesday, and it was a member of the 70! And he looked exactly like Mace Windew!.. (However you spell his name ^.^) It was so awesome!  He talked a lot about how we need to remember.  He said the word remember probably 20+ times.  He really emphasized that we need to remember that we have a divine potential, and we all need to be working towards that.  We need to really work hard to make sure that we are doing the best we can in this life, and always striving to become the best person that we can be, so that when the times comes, we can Stand before God, knowing that we gave it our best, and through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, we can live with our Father in Heaven again.

Elder Olson and I taught our 2 "investigators" this week, and both of them are getting baptized!! It is amazing to see the growth of the investigators, and how much they really want to learn.  Of course it is just our teachers, and it isn't quite as how it will be in the field, but it is amazing to feel the spirit take over in the lesson, and when I get a prompting, to go off that, and then the investigator has a question answered that he never even said out loud! I love it!

We also had In Field Orientation Yesterday.  That was pretty awesome! We learned a lot of really great lessons, and we got really good advice on how to be the best missionary we can be.  There was A LOT of emphasis on working with the members, and how important it is.  I am so excited to go and work with all of the members! There will probably be very few times when I will go out tracting and streeting because we will have so much work to do with working with all the members.

I really feel that I have been blessed to be learning so much, and I am so grateful for all of the wonderful teachers we have here.  I feel like I have been prepared quite well for the field, and I don't think that I could learn much more being here at the MTC. I know that learning by immersion, I will hopefully have the language down, and feel comfortable in the language in a few months! ^.^

I love you all so much! And thank you for all the prayers.  I can feel them everyday!

Stay True!

Elder Walstad

Tanner with Elder Strader (going to the Philippines, San Pablo mission)

Konichiwa!... Oh wait, wrong language.

Kumusta Y'all! This week has been pretty fantastic! We had some amazing speakers for our devotionals this week, and I feel like I have really been growing.  The language has been having its ups and downs, of course, but I feel that overall I am really improving!  I have also finally got over this super annoying cold! I am just trying to kick this cough before I leave here! Speaking of which, I got my Travel Itinerary last night, and holy crap.  It hit me how real this is.  I am really out here serving a mission and I am really going to be living in the Philippines for nearly 2 years!  We leave and have a straight flight to Japan, from SLC!  They must have brought that flight back, so that will be really nice!  We leave about  11:00 that morning and we land in Japan about 5:00 P.M... I'm not sure what time it will be here, but I am going to be calling when I am at the SLC airport, Narita Airport, and hopefully I can call you when I land in Manila.

So, Sunday was so great!  The guy who spoke to us.. I cannot remember his name, but it was super weird!  He talked to us about study journals and really trying to learn how the spirit talks to us and how we receive personal revelation and then acting on those promptings.  He told us a bunch of stories from when he was a mission president, and how he had a lot of missionaries who kept study journals and they had learned how to recognize the spirit, and that when the spirit would tell them to go down a random dirt path in the middle of nowhere, there was a reason.  Or if they were to go tracking in a neighborhood where no one was home, and right when they were leaving, someone came home from a jog and told them that she was ready to be baptized.  Some crazy awesome stories, and I have really been trying to focus on how the spirit talks to me and how I receive personal revelation.  I have been trying to act on those promptings as much as I can.  Especially when teaching.  It is amazing when we are teaching a lesson and then a thought pops into my head to say something that doesn't really have to do with what we are talking to them about, and when I say it, they light up and they really seem to understand what we are saying.  

Tuesday's devotional was really amazing too.  We had a member from the 70 talk to us, and he gave such a powerful talk.  He told us that we need to be focusing more on the members, and the recent converts, and we need to make the Temple the end goal.  Not just baptism.  We need to still teach the converts and make sure that we stay in communication with them so that they feel like they are loved, and they feel like they made the right choice joining the church.  A lot of inactive members are inactive because they haven't been welcomed into their wards, or the missionaries had stopped teaching them once they got baptized.  This didn't really make sense to me, how missionaries could do this, but it made me want to go to the Philippines, find those less active members, and help bring them back, and hopefully bring them to the temple!

We hosted on Wednesday again, and that was really awesome! There were a lot of stateside missionaries that day, and whats funny is all those missionaries who came in this last week leave before we do.  Hosting has helped me realize how far I have come since I got here.. Even if it has only been 6ish weeks.  As annoying as the MTC can be, I have come to really be grateful for the MTC and the chance that I have had to learn as much as I have learned here.  Being thrown out into the field, I feel that I would not have learned as much as I have learned here as quickly as I have.

We skyped with members in the Philippines on Thursday... That was so scary.  My companion and I had so many blanks, that it seems that there were more pauses than actual conversing.  Haha.  Oh so fun!.. :P  I really learned a lot from that though.  Especially after talking to our teacher.  He told us that it is totally normal for that to happen, and that we need to be ok with silence, and that we need to slow down, and really think about what we need/want to say, and it's ok if we aren't talking as fast as the natives at first.  That will come with time.  As long as we can somewhat understand what is being said, and we can somewhat tell the people what we are thinking, then we have succeeded. That helped a lot.

I can't believe that I only have 1 more full week here!  Time is really flying, and I am going to be taking full advantage of this week, to make sure that I can learn as much as I can, so that when I get to the field, I don't have any regrets.  ^.^  

The gospel is true.  EVERYTHING IS AWESOME!

Stay True,

Elder Walstad

My district in class

Time goes by... so quickly...

Letter written August 30, 2014:

Time is starting to fly by! I am now realizing that I need to take full advantage of the time I DO have here at the MTC, so that when I get out into the field, it isn't a complete shock... Even though I know it is going to be a big shock.  The language is coming slowly.. But now that I am over this annoying sickness, I will be able to focus more on learning the language! So I am excited for that!  

We have been teaching 2 investigators this week.  (Our teachers)  Mario and Daryl.  They started out pretty rough.. but we are starting to have quite amazing lessons.  We have stopped bringing in notes and just using what we have in our brains :) I am really starting to enjoy it!.. The only problem is that I don't usually understand what they are saying.  Haha.  I look forward to that day where I can understand what they are saying and then I will be able to answer their questions in an effective way. 

Sunday was really good this week!  We had an awesome devotional by the Manager of the Missionaries.  He told a hilarious story.  When he was in the high counsel, he went out to the hall to get a drink, and there was a tall drinking fountain, and a smaller drinking fountain.  He was drinking out of the tall drinking fountain, and as he was finishing, a little boy came up to the smaller one and pressed the button to start drinking.  The guy looked down the hall both ways, and then right before the little boy went in for a drink, he pressed his button and it sprayed the kid in the face.  The kid had no idea, so he wiped his face off and tried again.  The guy did this 7 more times.. haha.  SO HILELILA! He said that the kid didn't even notice that it was him who was pressing the button making it impossible to get a drink of water.  He compared this to how Satan presses our buttons, and sometimes we don't even notice it.  We need to be aware of this, and make sure that we don't allow Satan to press our buttons, and to be in control of ourselves.  So great!

Tuesday's devotional was really good too.  It was a member of the seventy, Brother Martino.  He talked about how on our missions, we need to learn how to work the hardest we have ever worked, otherwise we won't have a fulfilling mission.  It was so great :) 

The rest of the week was really good... Besides the fact that we have been working on getting over this annoying sickness.  We hosted the new missionaries on Wednesday, and that was SO fun! It was kind of sad having to be the one taking the children away from their parents, but it was so great being the one telling the missionary that it was going to be ok, and that they were going to have such an amazing time here.  It was so fun, and I was so happy that we got to do it.. and then we got a letter the next day asking if we would do it again! So we are going to be hosting on Wednesday again! I am SO SO SO excited! :D

One thing that I have really liked studying is both Spiritual gifts, and Christlike Attributes.  They are so amazing.  It is interesting to see what attributes that I have, and the ones that I am lacking, and then understanding how I can become better.  I am going to be taking advantage of these next 2 years to make sure that I can grow in all the aspects of those attributes, so that I can become the best man that God wants me to become.

I love you all, and I am so grateful to have such an amazing support force behind me!  

Stay True!

Elder Walstad 

Week... 3, I think?

Letter written August 23, 2014

This experience in the MTC is starting to fly by!  It is so crazy how, when I put 100% into the work, and focus on studying the language/gospel, the time goes by so quick, and then before I know it, I'm gonna be out in the field!  I also found out that I am going to be spending about 5 days in the Manila MTC... Hmm.  It's super annoying, but whatevs.  

So the devotional we had this Sunday was pretty great!  Jenny Oaks Baker came and put on a show for us!! IT was SO powerful! And Since I get front row seats, it was so awesome being so close up!  I also got to meet her after, and I asked her if she knew the Monsons, and that my parents are friends with them :)  It was pretty much awesome as heck.  And then I took a picture with her! SO COOL!  It is amazing how strong the spirit can communicate with us through music!  Especially since we have been music deprived here, it was so amazing to sit and listen to good, uplifting music!  

Tanner, Elder Olson, with Jenny Oaks Baker

The Tuesday devotional was pretty good too.  It was the General Young Womens President who came and talked to us.  She told us a bunch of stories of her kids missions, and she gave a bunch of really good tips on how to be an effective missionary.  There was a very common tip of "Give all that you can, and the Lord will make up the rest."  It is so true!  I am actually quite amazed at how far I am with Tagaglog.  It is still super confusing, and makes my brain hurt, but when I sit back and realize how much I can really say, and how much I can understand, and I have only been here for 3ish weeks.. Amazing.  It is definitely the Gift of Tongues at work.  

I have been trying to stay focused and learn the language, but they have started to teach us all of the grammer principles, and conjugations, and every other confusing thing, so now my brain is trying to comprehend the first thing they taught us, meanwhile they are teaching us the 8th, or 9th thing.  I have had a thought about that though.  We read, and are taught that the Lord  cannot draw from a dry well.  I have thought how true that is, and how much of a blessing it will be when I am teaching someone one day, and he gives me the words to say in the correct order, but yet I didn't know I knew that!  Some really cool things goin down in this hizouse! ;)

I also got pretty sick this weekend.  I went to the Doctor today, and was tested for Strep and Mono! :O  Thankfully it was neither of those, so we just had to go to the pharmacy and pick up an antibiotic so that I can kill this off quick ^.^  We also got to drive in a shuttle, so that was so cool!! It felt really weird driving down by Panda, and Provo high.  I didn't think I would be seeing down there for 2 years.  That was fun :)

Love you all, and I L O V E all the letters and packages you send me! Keep 'em comin' ;) It is so funny.. I get something pretty much everyday, so I have made a name for myself :)  It's awesome.

Love you all, and I'll talk to you guys next week! :)

Stay True,

Elder Walstad 

Kumusta Pamilya at mga Kaibigan!!

This letter was written August 16, 2014:

Hello everybody!! If you're wondering, the title of my email is "Hello Family and friends!"  I have been trying to use the words I know.. which isn't a lot, but I'm working on it!  This week has been pretty great! I have been learning a lot with the language and the gospel/personal study.  This week has flown by, which is a good thing, I think.  It means that I have really been into the work and been trying to not linger over thoughts of home and friends.  

At the beginning of the week, we continued teaching Patricio.  He was becoming quite interested in Gods plan for him and how it can help him to see his wife again.  We explained to him that through the atonement and with the help of Jesus Christ, he can return to heaven and that he can be sealed with his wife for eternity.  He seemed to really grasp on to that concept which made it easier for us. On Monday, we taught him about the plan of happiness.  Tuesday we taught him about the commandments, and how there are certain expectations that we have to reach in order to take full advantage of the Plan that God has for us.  On Wednesday, our last day, we taught him in more depth about certain expectations/commandments - Baptism to be exact.  We told him that in order to return to God, we need to be baptized, and then we are cleansed of all our sins that we become pure, and then through Jesus Christs atonement, we can continue to live the best life that we can. We challenged him to baptism, and he accepted!!!! It was so amazing.  The spirit was so strong, and we knew that he was really intrigued.  He asked us the perfect question afterwards - "How can I best prepare?"  So we took this op[opportunity to tell him to read the Book of Mormon (Aklat ni Mormon) and to pray about it to see if it was true.  It was such an amazing experience.  And, during our last lesson on Wednesday, Elder Olson and I decided that we weren't going to bring in any notes or journals, and just use what we had in our brains.  It turned out being the best decision we ever made.  Even though it was difficult at times, especially when he would ask us questions and we had no idea what he was saying, we were able to testify and tell him that through Christ and the Aklat ni Mormon, he can be blessed.  It was so amazing, and it got me insanely pumped to go out into the field and start teaching!!! I even said a prayer and said "If you give me the language right now, I will go out and work so hard in the field."  I was so ready! haha.

Elder Olson and I have been getting closer, and we have become good friends!  It is so nice having such an amazing companion who wants to work hard and do a good job.  He is also willing to have fun, so that is nice.  I always have the quote running through my mind "Don't lose the work in the fun, but don't lose the fun in the work."  It is so true.  If you don't have any fun, than eventually you become bored and you don't want to do anything. 

I also appreciate all of those wonderful letters and packages you have all been sending me!  It gives me something to look forward to everyday! "Mail Time!"  I love it when my DL comes over to me and gives me slips for packages!  I feel very blessed and humbled to have such an amazing support back home.  I don't know what I would do without you all!  I am so very grateful for this amazing opportunity to be out here serving the Lord, and bringing back his children to live with him for eternity.  

Also, this week.  During my personal study on Wednesday, I had this amazing feeling.  While I was reading the Book of Mormon, I had this sense of "Hunger and Thirst," like I couldn't get enough!  I felt like I just wanted to sit there all day and study the scriptures!  And then during companion study, we were going through the spirit section in the Preach my Gospel, and we were reading the gifts of the spirit, and that has always been an interesting topic to me, so when we sat down and went over that, it made me feel like I wanted to learn as much as I could possibly learn from that.  It has been so amazing, and it makes me so happy, and it makes me really excited to go out and share this happiness with everyone in Cauayan!  

Thank you all, and you can send me as many packages/letters you want :)  They are incredibly helpful, and its like I said earlier, it gives me something to look forward too! Plus, it allows for more communication than just once a week.  If you have any questions, ask away! 

Love you all, and I'll talk to you soon!

Stay True!

Elder Walstad 

This is where I'm going!

Studying

First letter from the MTC!

This letter was written on August 9, 2014.  We're just a little behind getting Tanner's letter and photos posted.

This week so far has been a gigantic emotional roller coaster of ups and downs.  There have been a few more drops that there have been climbs, but the drops are started to even out.  I have been learning a ton of new things, as well as strengthening the knowledge of the things I do know.  The MTC is probably going to be one of the hardest things I do, since I am just down the road from my house.  I have looked up the street many times, and had the thoughts "I could just walk home right now."  I know that if I did that though, my parents would just turn my right back around and it would do no good.  

This language is supes weird!  It is actually quite simple, but there are so many things to learn that it makes it really complicated at times.  A lot of the words that we learn are twice, and sometimes three times as long as normal.  For example: Pananampalataya is Faith... I mean seriously!? I now have that word down though, so it's starting to come to me.. slowly ;) I kind of know how to pray now, and I think today we are going to start learning how to say our testimonies.

We taught our first investigator yesterday.  His name is Patricio.  He is interested in the church, but has some difficulties understanding certain things.  Such as, his wife passed away recently and he doesn't know whether to be angry with God, or try and get to know him better.  My companion, Elder Olson, and I, went through some ideas of what we could teach him, and we came up with the idea of telling him the plan of happiness... In the best way we could.  We explained to him that God wants us to be happy and that he can see his wife again after death.  We also prayed with him and we asked that he would be blessed to have faith that what we said was true.  We teach him again later tonight.  We have decided to teach him about the atonement and how that can make him clean so that he can have the opportunity to see his wife again.  He also mentioned that he has family problems, and in my personal study I have been finding that the atonement can heal families, no matter the problems.  One of the elders in my district said that he picked up that Patricio said that one of his family members is sick, so we will have to make sure that is true, and that the elder didn't just make it up. 

These few days that I have been here have gone by. really. slow.  But I have seen 2 of my friends in here, and that definitely makes a HUGE difference.  Being able to talk to them and compare experiences and helping lift each other up in times of difficulties.  

I found out that the area that I am serving, Cauayan, has a lot of English.. but a lot of the people don't really speak Tagalog.  So that'll be fun.  Learning a language that I will possibly not use very often.  

Thank you for all the love and support that you all give me.  It means a lot, and I can definitely feel the prayers strengthening me in times of heartache and struggle.  Send me tons of packages and letters!! I can receive mail twice a day, morning and evening.  

Love you all, and talk to you very soon!

Elder Walstad   

The District

Me with my companion, Elder Olson

Elder Tanner Walstad

This blog was created for Elder Tanner Walstad.  He was called to serve in the Philippines, Cauayan mission.  His service began when he entered the Provo MTC on August 6, 2014!  We will do our best to keep this blog updated with Tanner's letters and photos.  We are so excited to watch Tanner learn and grow throughout his mission!