Week 1 MTC- June 21,2016

KUMUSTA KA!!! <--Can you tell that I've been learning a foreign language for a whole week?? Hi hi hi, love and miss you all so much but having SO much fun at the MTC! (also I feel like I didn't make this super clear to everyone- but I'm in Utah right now learning Hiligaynon/Ilonggo for the next 6 weeks before I fly out to Manila and then Bacolod in 6 weeks... So not in the Philippines right now, but still having a lot of fun)... p.s this might be super long and annoying so sorry in advance, I promise they'll be shorter in the future but so much has happened and Raineyg123 herself asked for a full description of my first few days... sorry:)

I LOVE MY DISTRICT/ZONE

My kaupod (companion) Sister Fawcett is the greatest! Haha we are super different and have kind of opposite personalities but we work together great and I love her so much already. She's crazy smart and dedicated and last year worked 2 jobs while getting her associates degree at Weber State. I low key drive her nuts because I stop to talk to people like every 2 seconds and she has to come with me everywhere I go (Literally everyone from BYU is here and I've run into SO many people that I love, it's so so much fun), I'm working hard on not being the annoying companion, but pretty sure I am. oops. Our first fight was on Saturday when we were memorizing vocab and she was quizzing me on translating english into Ilonggo and she said "all of us" and I said "Kita" and then she said "know" and I thought she was saying I was wrong so I kept saying "kita" and she kept saying "know" and we went back and forth until I spun on her because I was so mad and was about to punch her in the face and then she pointed to the word in her book and we finally understood what was going on and laughed for like 5 minutes. We're the only sisters in our district but there are also 7 elders, one is from Connecticut, one is from South Carolina, one is from Canada (but was born in the Philippines), and the rest are from Utah. All except one just graduated from high school literally a week before they came to the MTC and I love them all so much. Sometimes they're annoying 18 year old boys but most of the time they're super sweet and have such strong testimonies and are so obedient and we've all become such good friends in the past 5 days. Half of the people in our district are going to Bacolod, the other half are going to IloIlo, but we're all learning Hiligaynon/Ilonggo. The other half of our zone is a district of 2 elders and 2 sisters that are learning Cebuano and going to Cebu. The sisters are from Australia and Kiribati and one of the elders is from Guam and the other is from California. They're the best and so fun to hang out with, plus they tell us how to do everything so that's cool.

HILIGAYNON/ILONGGO

I AM LOW KEY IN LOVE WITH THIS LANGUAGE. Learning it is BUDLAY (budlay=hard, fun fact- ay sounds like eye so on the first day we all thought he was saying Budlight and were super confused for a while until one of the Elders asked and they explained it to us. We have 2 3 hour language classes every day except Sunday and it's like a giant game of charades because our teachers aren't allowed to speak to us in English. Gift of tongues is so real I can't even explain it. On Friday, after just 2 classes We all had to teach a 20 minute lesson with our companions without any notes. IT WAS SO HARD. But so cool that we were semi-able to teach a lesson and communicate with someone. We've taught 2 more lessons to the same guy since we've been here and they just keep getting better and better as we learn more words/phrases and are better able to work together and feel the spirit. We also had a testimony meeting on Friday with our district and we all bore our testimonies 100% in Ilonggo which was SO cool. I am so impressed with the improvements that all of the elders and sisters in my district have made in less than a week. It blows my mind, can't wait to keep learning the next 6 weeks.

Fun facts about Ilonggo (Because no one has ever heard of it and I'm sure you're all wondering:)

-All ilonggo before 1600, LOTS of spanish influence after 1600, all new words after 1900 are in English (like skype, computer, etc)

-Everything sounds so funny and I LOVE it! So many k's, n's, m's, and p's in places where they shouldn't be... but good news is that there aren't really any silent letters so you literally just pronounce everything that you see even though the words are crazy long

-the words "the" and "is" don't exist... so that's cool. If you want to say I'm happy, you literally just say "malipay ako- happy I" keeping it simple, I like it

-We just started learning grammar yesterday and it is WEIRD. You have to arrange sentences verb-subject-object-location/receiver AND THEN use words like ang and sang and sa to explain the focus and nonfocus, etc. Plot twist- if you mix up sang and ang you can change a sentence like "The people killed the Savior" to "Savior killed the people" OR "We believe in Joseph Smith" to "Joseph Smith believes in us"... we were all freaking out but our teachers told us it was okay because 99% of the time people will be able to kind of understand even if we mess up a ton... so the goal is to just avoid that other 1%

I LOVE THE MTC

The spirit here is so strong it's crazy. I'm so busy (we leave our apartments before 7am and don't get back until 9:30pm or later) and so tired and lowkey stressed about learning this language, but I'm so so happy and excited for the next 18 months it's unreal. Even though our schedule is PACKED we get an hour of exercise in the morning which is awesome, I run 3 miles on the track while memorizing stuff with flashcards and then I spend the rest of the time wrecking the elders in knockout and four square) I'm running out of time and I'm so so sad because I have SO much I want to tell everyone, but just know that I'm having fun and loving every second of it. PLUS thanks for all of the emails and dear elders, they make me SO happy! (if you go to dearelder.com you can send me an email that will be delivered THAT day, so I don't have to wait until Tuesday to respond) Love you all so so much, let me know how you're doing, hope everyone is well, sending all my love<3

Kabalo ako nga palangga kita sang Diyos kga Kabalo ako nga ginpadala sang Diyos ang Jesucristo sa aton kag nga paagi kay Jesucristo makbalik kita sang Diyos. Kabalo ako nga manluluwas namon kay Jesucristo. Kabalo ako nga matuod si Libro ni Mormon ka nagapasalamat ako para kay Joseph Smith para sa pagnamubalik. Sa ngalan ni Jesucristo, amen  (I know that God loves all of us and I know that God sent Jesus Christ to all of us and that through Jesus Christ we can all return to God. I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior. I know the Book of Mormon is true and I am grateful for Joseph Smith and the restoration. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen)

NAGAPASALAMAT AKO PARA SA NINYOS<3 (So grateful for all of you!!)

^proof that I'm actually learning something, all from memory... promise I know more, but out of time. LOVE YOU ALL

also @byu kids coming to the MTC, brace yourself for cannon center round 2 (except maybe a little worse? it's okay though, sometimes they give us pizza or chikfila) can't wait to see all of you!

-Sister Rainey

sarah.rainey@myldsmail.net

Sister Rainey 

AUG03 PHI-BAC

2005 N 900 E Unit 36

Provo UT 84602 

^use that for dearelder