Pics!!

((I forgot to add the photos of her district - the Lehi District))

hat she sent us))

I'm Official...

((When Sister Jones flew out of Salt Lake City headed to the Manila Missionary Training Center she had not yet received her tags.  She felt disappointed that she would have to travel without them.  She received them as she reported to the MTC on July 5.  When asked about it and what they said the following statement was her response. By the way "Sister" in Tagalog is Kapatid na babae!!))

My tag says Sister Jones and I love it! Getting the tag was the best thing. 

 

The sister I met on Facebook did actually turn out to be my companion! So we're Sister Jensen and Sister Jones and people here love calling us the Sister J's. I love my companion, we have a ton in common, such as she also loves Singin' in the Rain, Great Gatsby, and Fantastic Mr. Fox and that's really all I need to know about a person to like them! But seriously she's really sweet and I think we work well together. In the last couple days I've come out of my shell a lot more and gotten to know more people. I loooove the Australian sisters here. They're all so nice and super funny.We always sit with them at meals and one of them named Sister Borg, who is the sweetest thing, teaches a way intense work-out class during gym and it's awesome. All the Tongans just speak in Tongan to each other so we don't know what they are laughing about most of the time.

  

I can't believe it's only been a week here. I feel like it's already been 18 months!!The MTC the first few days was probably the worst place on the planet. Haha.  I have had way too much weird food here. When we just had regular cereal for breakfast I almost cried for joy. We have rice every single meal and lots of weird stuff. Being here eating filipino food has made me seriously consider becoming a vegetarian for the rest of my mission. We had breaded fried fish one day and I smothered it with vinegar and I was so happy. One day we had these vegetable pancake things for dinner that were super tasty. The veggies and soups and fruit are always good, but the meat is way scary 75% of the time. Yesterday I ate a fried fish with the head, eyes, and skin all intact. I'm pretty proud of myself. Once you dug around a bit for the actual meat it was pretty good. The Tang (do you know what Tang is?) here is unbelievably good. It's my favorite thing here by far. (I miss your cooking quite a lot!!) ((I did not put that there)) 

Tagalog is kicking my butt. The grammar is tricky and all the words sound the same, but I know I'll get it eventually. The very first full day we had here,after having like 2 language classes, they made us teach an investigator named Brother Jay who wouldn't speak any English to us. It was awful and I just wanted to quit right there. After the first lesson my kasama ((companion)) and I started writing out a full script in Tagalog of what we would say and it went much better.  We always made sure to testify and pray for him. We taught him every day and on the fifth lesson (yesterday) we invited him to be baptized on August 10 and he said yes!! Holla! After that lesson we had a 'first investigator review' and guess who our teacher was? Brother Jay! I knew he worked for the MTC, I just didn't know he would be our teacher, so it was awkward at first, but he gave us really good feedback.  We start teaching two new investigators today. All in Tagalog. Our teacher speaks half in Tagalog and half in English, so it's not too bad. It's pretty similar to the way they taught us in Italy, we just only learn gospel vocabulary. ha. It took about 3 days to get over jetlag, we just had to be really good about going to bed on time and not taking naps and it wasn't too bad.  

In classes we learn the language with our teacher and with a computer program. We also talk a lot about how to teach and what our purpose is, and it's really helpful. It's been good to learn that we can't teach according to what we as missionaries want to say, we have to teach according to what the investigators need. I'm so excited to actually teach, I just need to learn this language!!! I think all the time "this would be 8 million times easier in English". A stateside call is looking real nice right about now.

So we had a devotional with a member of the 8th quorum of the seventy on Tuesday (which was great), and we were going to have an MTC choir and guess who they called to be the choir director? Sister Jones! Haha I was trying to channel all my inner Sister Emmer to lead the choir (which included everyone there). We sang 'We Are All Enlisted" and since I think it's part of Filipino/Tongan culture to sing super loud it sounded great. There are maybe 18 missionaries here out of over a hundred that are American, so it's interesting to be the minority. Ha.

 

Oh I forgot to mention that my kasama and I are "Sister Training Leaders" for the group of missionaries learning Tagalog that came in the same day as us. I'm still not really sure what that means.

 

The best part of the MTC is all the wonderful missionaries I'm meeting, and the activities we do that help us feel the spirit. On Sunday we watched the Joseph Smith movie and I've never felt it so much! The best part of my week was when we went to the temple on Wednesday. It hit me while I was there that I was actually in Manila! The ordinance rooms there are like the Jordan River Temple, but they only hold 30 people tops. My kasama and I got to be escorts for two filipina sisters who were getting their endowment, which was a really neat experience. When we came out to the lobby we saw the cutest little girl waiting to be sealed to her family, and it reminded me why I'm here and how I can help people.

The Journey Begins.. no really The Journey Begins...

((Ok, so here is the Disclaimer... This is Raeleigh's Mom.  I told her I would update her blog with stuff from her emails and letters if it was appropriate.  Unless there is a double Parenthesis, these are her words.  ((double Parenthesis)) = Mom, single or no parenthesis = Raeleigh. Hope you all enjoy.))

 I'm in the Philippines!! It still feels very surreal, even though I can see the temple ((Manila)) across the street. I traveled over with two other sisters and four elders. I lost my waterbottle in Seattle ((the $90 one with the filter doodad, and the laser light bug zapper)) but no worries, I think they give us a new one here. On the flight to Japan we got moved to an exit row, which was super nice. I also had a window seat on the way to Japan, and it was SO GREEN, I thought "maybe going to Japan wouldn't be so bad after all!". When we got to Japan we pretty much had to run to our next flight, so no time for sushi :( I think I must have been super hungry because I thought the airplane food was delightful. When we got to the Philippines I felt like I couldn't breathe because of the humidity! It was raining (of course) and we all packed into a shuttle to go to the airport hotel. I know you looked it up on-line, and we were in the little huts they show on-line (I think).   

((photo from the Manila Airport Hotel Web site))

 The sisters stayed in one and the elders stayed in the other. There was a really scary monkey that was chained to a pole, and it would jump at you whenever you walked past. I'm pretty sure if it wasn't on a chain it would have killed us all. We also got to see a gigantic cockroach and a little spider that ran too fast for me to smash, which was.... fun... Also the rumors about toilet paper are true, so we just used our hands. Just kidding... we used kleen-exes. TMI? I didn't want to dig out the little roll of toilet paper I had. The hotel was air-conditioned, which was super nice, and I slept really well for the 5 hours I got to sleep!

 

This morning we found out that all the other huts were full of missionaries too! There are a couple missionaries from Australia and New Zealand and a bunch from Tonga. At breakfast I had eggs and bacon and toast with delicious "juice" aka Tang. Yum yum.  The drive to Manila was ...hectic*. I saw a ton of Jeep-neys in the flesh and my life flashed before my eyes at least thrice.  The people here be cray cray drivers.   

((photo from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints official Web page.  LDS.org))

Apparently the group I'm with is a test group for the Philippines Missionary Training Center [MTC]. This is the first group of not-natives they're having at this MTC, so we'll see how the roll of guinea pig fits me. ((Apparently prior to Raeleigh's group the stay at this MTC was just 2 weeks, Raeleigh is scheduled to be there for 6 weeks to learn Tagalog)).

I finally got my name-tag!! It looks great :) They gave me 2 MORE immunizations, and I'll get another one next week. Hurray... they are not quite as gentle here as they are in the good ol' states. They also x-rayed us, checked out our teeth, gave us lots of vitamins that we take every day, and gave us a pill to keep the parasites away! Apparently one of the vitamins makes you drowsy, so I'll be hopeless on that. Whenever I tell people here that I'm in the Manila mission they have kind of a weird reaction that I don't know how to interpret, and they tell me I'm lucky that I get to go to the temple about once a month! I'm excited about that. The temple here is beautiful, and we got to it right as the sun was rising, which was really great. I haven't met my companion yet, they've just had us running around getting all the check-in stuff done.

 

I feel at peace that this is where I'm supposed to be. Well most of the time I feel that way. I'm super nervous about the language and how different this place is, but I think it'll all be alright. The Missionary Training Center is beautiful, and it's green wherever there aren't buildings.