MTC Part 2: Philippines edition

Hello from the Philippines, I have arrived safe and sound in the Philippines, and I'm currently at the Manlia MTC. This past week and a half has been pretty crazy, bit it's been good, and I can't wait to begin this next chapter of my mission. Last Tuesday was my final day in San Jose, very exciting. I had my last district council, and plenty of tears were shed, as you might expect from my very expressive nature haha. We then got some lunch and helped assemble a generator for one of the inactive Tagalog members. The instructions kept contradicting each other, so that was fun haha, but we eventually got it all figured out. We then had a lesson with Elise and Elder Maughan (Elder Bundy's trainee, also Tagalog missionary) and his trainee, Elder Eliason, since Elder Maughan was with Elder Bundy a lot as they taught Elise before he was transfered. It was good, but close to the end of the lesson, Elder Bundy realized that I had to be at the mission office in 15 minutes, so we quickly said goodbye and let Elder Maughan finish up the lesson (he called us later and said she wanted to move up her baptism to either this week or the next, exciting haha). On our way to the MO, we called May so that I could say goodbye, and then I weighed/adjusted my suitcases at the MO. After saying goodbye to Elder Bundy, President drove me to his house to have dinner with him, his wife, and their son, and I slept over there. Last Wednesday was the big day haha. Sister Smith drove me to the MO, and then a couple of the Elders there drove me to the UPS store to mail my suit and a couple of my jackets since I won't need those anymore lol. I then did some final checks on my luggage and hung out until Elder Killpack (senior missionary, vehicle coordinator) drove me to the airport. He thankfully went with me up until the security checkpoint to make sure everything went ok, and then I was on my own for the first time in a while haha. I got some Chick-fil-A for what might be the last time haha, and then I began my first flight to LAX. It was only about an hour or so, it was pretty quick. After landing in LAX, I got on a shuttle to go to the international terminal, and when u got to the gate....no one was there lol. I was several hours early to the flight's departure, so it makes sense, but it was still a little worrisome. Eventually, some other missionaries and passengers came, and one of my MTC companions, who was coming on the same flight, finally arrived right as we were boarding, he barely made it haha. The flight itself was very long, between 15 and 16 hours haha. Not the greatest experience of my life lol, but at least I got here alright. After leaving the US on Wednesday evening, we arrived in the Philippines on Friday morning, it's crazy how the time difference works like that haha. We filled out some paperwork on the plane for customs, and then we waited in line for our covid tests/paperwork to be checked again (making it the third time all that paperwork had to be checked since preparing to board the plane at LAX lol). There were some military personnel there supervising and directing everyone, and to be honest, the army is a little less intimidating when you're taller than all of them lol. They could beat the crap out of me, but still haha. We then got on a bus to the MTC, and the fun began. The missionaries there were beginning or finishing up their morning exercises, to the astonishment to all of us with crazy jet lag haha, and we all were introduced to the mission president, organized into our districts/companions, and settled into our rooms. During that, they realized that they forgot to assign district leaders, so they said whoever was at the top of each alphabetically organized list for each district is the district leader; lucky me for having a last name beginning with an E haha. My companion is Elder Harrison, and we're rooming with another companionship, Elder Herrmann and Elder Decker (Elder Decker is the only one of us 4 not going to Cauayan lol). There are 10 Elders total in my district (including myself), and we're all learning Tagalog except for 1 Elder (he's learning a different dialect). After we had time to shower/get ready, ate lunch, and got to briefly message our families, we went to our first Tagalog class. It's honestly a bit of a blur, we were all exhausted all day haha. After class, we had more time to settle in and unpack, and since there was still some time before dinner, we all took a nap lol. We eventually had to take a language self-assessment, and then we met as a district to hang out, get to know each other, and discuss Christlike attributes. One Elder kept falling asleep haha, and once we finished with that, we were finally able to go to bed. On Saturday morning, our district played some basketball with another district of those that came in with us, and then we began our first full day of classes. The morning class with Brother Flores is from 9:30 to 11:45am, his grammar instruction is from 12:15 to 1:00pm, and the afternoon class with Sister Bigtas is from 2:45 to 5:45pm (with lunch and a couple times to study/break in between). They classes are good, they make me grateful that I at least had a few weeks in the Tagalog group to prepare myself as much as possible haha. In both our morning and afternoon classes, each companionship did a practice teaching visit with someone over Messenger, which went...alright haha. It's one of those rare times when I feel like I'm talking most of the time and/or too much because I'm a little more comfortable in the language. I'm actually feeling like I've been talking a bit more since I got here, it's interesting. After dinner, we had a MTC Presidency workshop on 2 Nephi, which was alright, and then we went to bed. Sunday was a pretty booked day. My companion and I went to Branch Council, where the leaders of our branch (i.e. the district leaders, zone leaders, sister training leaders, members of the MTC Presidency) meet together to discuss the needs of the missionaries in the branch and our various districts. It was alright, but I didn't really know what to do or say since we just got there two days ago haha, and we'll only be here for three or four more days, so I didn't really have any concerns or things to report on. We then had sacrament and had a good district discussion for Sunday School afterwards about recognizing/understanding the Spirit. After lunch, we had a Filipino Culture Orientation, which was good. After that, we had an MTC Presidency devotional about the temple, followed by another devotional from Elder Holland (it was a recording from 2019) about our missionary purpose. We then had some dinner and walked to the temple just across the street. We went through a tunnel under the street from the MTC to the temple, which was pretty cool, and we were able to take some pictures and hang out for a few minutes. We then had yet another devotional (very exciting Sunday lol) about repentance, and after that, our district met to have a quick devotional review. Monday was just a normal day of classes/workshops. We had our morning/afternoon classes, and we practiced teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in Tagalog. At the end of our morning class, we practiced shopping in a market (or "palengke"), which was fun haha. For dinner, they served everyone's favorite: balut! It was fun watching everyone try it lol; one of the Elders in another district spit it out and went straight to the bathroom haha, definitely one of the more wild meals we've had. We then had a devotional on the missionary standards, and for our "FHE", we did some reverse charades in our districts, and that was it for the night. On Tuesday, we had our last Tagalog class for the week, so it was fun but sad saying goodbye to our teachers that we had for less than a week haha. After lunch, we had a medical orientation, where they went over normal hygiene maintenance/keeping yourself healthy, as well as a couple health concerns specific to the Philippines and its climate (like mosquitoes, dehydration, protecting against infections, all that fun stuff I get to worry about now haha). We then had a devotional with a member of the Area Seventy (I forgot his name) which was good. We sang a little arrangement of "I Know My Redeemer Lives", which is a hymn I really like, which is a hymn I really like, and after the devotional, we had some dinner and got ready for the evening. I hope you all are doing fantastic, whether you're doing great or not, I hope you're continuing to trust in God and follow His commandments, they truly are a blessing and will bring you happiness. I leave the MTC to head to the Cauayan Philippines Mission either tomorrow (my Thursday) or Friday, so that should be exciting. See you all next time, -Elder Enger P.S. Below are some pictures of the Manila temple, the tunnel leading to it, me and Elder Harrison, our batch coming to the Philippines, and the Elders in my district before and after coming to the MTC.

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