This week was so much harder for me! I've had a lot of experiences that just humbled me and made me realize that I am so weak!! So we finished teaching our investigator a couple days ago and she agreed to be baptized! haha and then the next day, she became our teacher in class! I swear, we are lied to so much here! Everyone was like, "Oh ya, they're a real investigator!" Heck no they aren't! They are secretly teachers who are evaluating you! Oh well, it's still a great experience! One of the hardest things for me is to plan lessons with my companion. I love her so much but we have opposite teaching styles. I'm all about making the lesson simple yet meaningful, so the investigators can understand what you're talking about. She's all about going deeper, expressing herself, etc, etc, etc. So that's been such a struggle for me. Also because we both have dominant personalities it's a little challenging. But because she is that way, she has taught me so much. I have learned to be more expressive with my testimony. Now, we have two investigators.... so excited. And one of them is our teacher Brother Kaka. When everyone heard he was going to be our investigator, we all groaned haha. Yesterday was probably the hardest day for me. We had to teach a baptismal lesson in English to each other. I was assigned to Brother Kaka... of course. He is so hard on me!! And he is so intimidating. He started out by teaching me the lesson and then he wanted me to do it in Tagalog! I was like, I thought we were only teaching in English!! So I started teaching, and I just kept blanking out because I wouldn't know what direction I wanted to go. And he wouldn't help me! He just kept waiting and waiting. It was the worst! So after he could tell I was struggling, he took me in the hall and we walked around while I had to teach it again to him. Oh man, let me tell you I was so close to crying in front of him. Although the experience was rough, I learned so much about myself and my weaknesses. I was able to take his advice and now I'm working on it! I think the reason why he was so hard was because our investigator/teacher reports back to him on how we did and she said that I did really well. So he told me that he expected the best out of me! Ahhhhhh it was rough!! Right after, during Elder Perry's funeral, I just started crying. First time I cried in the MTC! haha. But thankfully, my roommate is super comforting. She is da best! But let me just tell you I don't let Brother Kaka get away with bossing me around all the time. So he was teaching us conjugations and there is a root of every word. For example basa is to read. But he told us you would never just say basa. You would say magbasa- read or magbabasa-you will read, etc. So like a second later I caught him saying basa to us, and I called him out on it! Boom! Revenge!!
The language is coming really well! Things are starting to click. By no means am I good, and I'm struggling a ton, but I love learning Tagalog! I have really felt like this is my language!!! I was meant to speak it! haha. Brother Kaka says that I'm really advanced and that I will be able to be pretty functional when I get out of the Provo MTC! haha. So one of the other girls in my district, Sister Porter, is exactly like me. We progress really fast, pronunciation comes easy to us, and we just want to keep going and going. But both of our companions are a little different. My companion is okay at the language. Her pronunciation is okay but I have to help her with a ton of things. Sister Porter's companion is the same. During language study, all we do is help our companions out. It's so hard because we both want to keep going and going but we feel like we are being dragged down. But then we listened to a talk by Elder Bednar about the characteristics of Christ. He simply stated that this mission is not about you so get over yourself! That was such a good message for me. So now, I'm just going along and doing everything I can to help my companion out and it's been working out great!
So everyone in my room except Sister Esplin is going to Cauayan! Can you believe it!! But really though. Five white girls going to Cauayan at the same time! Super weird. Sister Esplin is going to Bagio. By herself! I would be freaking out if I was her! haha. Haha one night we were all trying to guess each others first names. Everyone was laughing so hard. We were trying to guess Sister Esplin's name and then she said it was Amanda. I was like what?! You look nothing like an Amanda! Haha it was so funny. So Sister Esplin goes to BYUI and its been so fun just talking about it. Every kid I see here that goes to BYUI she knows too! It's so weird. Like this guy came up to me yesterday and she was like hey I know him too! Haha. I've seen Kenzie, Lindsay's roommate and I saw Hailey Chatlin yesterday so that was fun! I get to see Lindsay and Holli all the time!! Holli and her companion seem to really work well together!! Thank everyone for the packages for me mom!! It's so nice to get a package or a dear elder letter here!!! Pam has sent me two packages!! She is so sweet! OMG I haven't seen Tyler yet and I'm kinda going crazy! My building is 3M! Does he teach in 18M? Oh and the Millers sent such a nice package. I almost cried when I saw those cheeze its. That's another thing. We are starving over here. We have dinner at 5:30, sometimes 4:30 and then that's it. And usually it's gross so I don't eat much anyway! So send food please!! And healthy food! Okay who sent the waffle donuts? I don’t know who sent them but the thought was really sweet!!!!
Okay well that's about it! I hope you all have a wonderful week!! Love, Sister Dunn
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