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
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