Thursday, March 23, 2017

6 more days...!! Tara na sa Pilipinas!!

'Musta!!!

February 22nd is coming up so fast!! I cannot even believe how fast these past 5 weeks have gone! It's going to be hard to leave a place where I have learned so much because the MTC has become a sacred place for me. Heavenly Father helped me learn more about my potential here and helped me learn more about serving others. I love my companions, my district, my zone, my teachers... but I'M SO EXCITED FOR THE PHILIPPINES! SO EXCITED!

We take off from SLC at 7:00 pm, then from there to LA then Hong Kong (!!!) and then Manila. I'll be spending 5ish days at the Manila MTC, going to the temple, and then teaching our first actual lessons and tracting for the first time in Manila! Manila is the most crowded city in the world (13 million people) and my teachers admitted that our first tracting might be kinda rough. People are so poor and the alleyways are just filled with people that hardly have clothes or food and they just stare at you. A few days I would have told you I was terrified, but.....

Tuesday night Elder Ballard came and spoke to the MTC. It was absolutely amazing, so that's going to be my spiritual thought for today. He literally just laid out for us the SECRET TO A SUCCESSFUL LIFE which includes BECOMING A SUCCESSFUL MISSIONARY. It pushed away all my fears and doubts about myself. God gave us agency in this life to choose who we want to be. We can decide RIGHT NOW what we want to do and how to accomplish it. I can jump out of bed and decide to be a righteous, obedient, loving, enthusiastic, selfless missionary every morning. Attitude determines how our lives will go. BUT the difference between dreams and reality.... is acting in faith in Jesus Christ. ACTING! HARD WORK! Elder Ballard said "The privilege of work is a gift, the power to work is a blessing, and the love to work is SUCCESS. There is no substitute for productive work. Dreams become reality, lift us from mediocrity. If you can pray on your knees every night and honestly say: "Heavenly Father, I did the best I could today," then Heavenly Father will, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, magnify our efforts and shape us to our potential. We can do nothing without Jesus Christ because we are fallen and we make mistakes and we owe everything we have to Him. BUT when we rely on Him and act with the faith that He will help us reach our MAXIMUM POTENTIAL, which is exaltation someday, He will help us become more than we ever could have imagined. I owe everything I am now to my Savior, and I am so grateful that He is a loving Heavenly Father who wants us to have agency and choose what we want to become. He wants us to choose Him because he can makes us our very best-- like Him!!! I HAVE POTENTIAL to be a leader, a traveler, a doctor, a student, a MISSIONARY. And I know you all have limitless potential too!!!

Mahal ko po kayo!!! (Love you all!)

Tagalog word of the week:
 Magpakumbaba (Humble)

Oh! Side note! They speak a different dialect in my mission almost COMPLETELY different from Tagalog called Ilikano.... so I just learned that I have to learn another language. Trilingual! I will just have to pick it up in the field!







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