MTC week 5

Hey Family!!!

Kumusta? I am doing so great! I am very excited to fly to the Philippines on Monday!

Thank you Grandma Winward for fixing my dress--it is perfect! I wore it on Sunday and it looks great! Thank you Mom for the yummy cookies! That postcard is hilarious! So true too, you should see how much the Elders scarf down for every meal. Thank you Grandma Allred for the cookies and the "Greenie" package! So cute!

Happy Anniversary to both Gma and Gpa Winward and Gma and Gpa Allred. Wow!!! I have the BEST grandparents in the whole wide world! Thank you for all of your love and support, and for all of your examples of faith and diligence! I love you!

So, it has been a FANTASTIC week! The language has been going much better lately. The gift of tongues is REAL! I am so excited to learn more from the Filipinos! I think most of my communication problems just come down to lack of vocabulary. But it is truly amazing to reflect and think that the first lesson we gave to "Brother Mancha" was only about 5 minutes long and we had scripted it all and all we could say was "Kumusta" and ask him to read a verse. Now we have a hard time keeping our lessons short enough because there is so much we want to say, and we don't need our notes anymore. Yesterday, we taught "Julius" about baptism and committed him to a date. He asked about the baptismal covenant in Mosiah 18:8-10 so we were able to explain it a little bit. Teaching is getting a lot better! I have learned a lot about keeping the message simple so it is easy to understand. This week we have been learning about commitments and how important they are to discerning the investigators' conversion to Christ. It is great! One of the teachers, Brother Speiser, served in Iloilo for about 5 months, but he got sick and was sent home, so he later finished his mission in Boise. He can speak the language though! He was giving us advice about learning it, and he said that it is super important to pray in the language. I had been doing that a little, but now I always do. It is cool because we are able to learn with the Lord as we struggle to find the words we want to say as we pray. Prayers have to be more simple, but it is really good practice.

We had our last lesson with "Juralyn" on Monday, and it went really well. We had a "member" sit in on it (really Sister Van Slooten), and invite her to come to church. I got to be the "member" and do the same thing for Sister VS and Sister Livingston last Thursday night. It was really cool. I came up with it on the fly...I said I was "Sister Aquino" and that I had converted to the church when I was 18. I testified about how I feel the Spirit at church, and invited "Juralyn" to come with me so she would feel comfortable and welcome there. Basically, we've just tried to meet the "key indicators" as best we can within the role play situation.

Sister Foster and I have been studying PMG ch. 10 and have been learning and applying a lot in our teaching skills. It is important that investigators learn all they can, but it is even more important that we help them to come unto Christ. Teach people, not lessons!

I hope Rachel is having so much fun in DC! I loved it there! It was amazing!

I saw Elder Vuyk when I was hosting on Wednesday.

They moved us to the Marriot Center for Tuesday devotionals. It was so cool to see the wave of missionaries as we left the stadium. And it was even more cool when we all started singing hymns as we returned to the MTC. I love it here! The devotional was really cool. One thing I learned was to always picture the people I talk to "all in white." They all have the potential to return to our Heavenly Father, and it is my job to invite them to take the steps to eternal life.

I am so excited to go to the Philippines! It will be amazing! I love all of you so much and I hope you all have a great week!

Philippians 4:13

Love, Cassie