Eades, Oakley P

Made it to the Philippines! Long couple of travel days but so glad to be here! The first day here was so many emotions. We landed here at 5am and as soon as we stepped off the plane the humidity hit you and you instantly become so sweaty. Some vans picked us up and we went straight to the mission home, had breakfast and some long introduction meetings with all the new missionaries. Then our trainers came in and we ate lunch and then went straight to our area! I'm currently in the Quezon City South area and my trainer is Sister Domingo who is from the Philippines. Luckily she has perfect English. We came to our tiny apartment, and I got upacked for like 30 min and then we went to a lesson. I thought I knew Tagalog but it turns out I don't. I sat in our first lesson with a 19 year old boy named Khiro and sat there like a weird shy person who didn't say a word. I bore the most simple testimony at the end that probably didn't make sense haha. Then we went and knocked on som...

I’m heading to the Philippines tomorrow! I can’t believe this day is already here. Kinda freaking out but also so excited. No offense to the MTC but I am so ready to leave. We had the best last week. We basically did nothing in any of our classes this week cause none of our teachers knew what to teach us so we just played games and messed around all week. Me and my district have been practicing a song all week that we sang in sacrament meeting as well as went around to all the other Tagalog classes and sang to them. It’s a mix of 3 hymns that we sing in Tagalog, I’ll add the recording at the end of this.  Embarrassing moment from this week: Every sunday we have a devotional with the whole MTC that is put on by the MTC presidency. At the devotionals they have a missionary who has been at the MTC for a while give a short talk/testimony. This past sunday we show up to the devotional and Sister Calderwood (the mtc presidents wife) stands up is like “Unfortunately we do not have a testi...

Kumusta! Made it half way through the MTC! Our district had a little ice cream party last week when we hit 4 weeks… 4 more to go!! I’ve been here for a long time but it has actually been so good! I love being a missionary!  Currently there is only one other Tagalog district at the MTC and they leave tomorrow. Its a tradition in the MTC that the older Tagalog district puts on an FHE for the newer Tagalog district right before they leave. So last Friday both of our districts got together for FHE and it was so fun! We started off with a prayer, spiritual thought,and we sang Army of Helaman. That song is so powerful especially when everyone singing is a missionary. The spirit here is always so strong and it is so cool that everyone here is here for the same purpose. After that, we played tons of games that probably would not have been as fun if I wasn’t a missionary but everything seems way funnier when you are a missionary haha. My claim to fame this week was that I won musical chairs...

Hello hello! I don't have hardly anything to write about haha but missionary life is so awesome. I got to the Provo MTC last Wednesday and it's been so good so far! The food is usually mid but sometimes it's half decent so we count our blessings when it's something good haha. Anyway, everyday here is basically the same. Wake up, class, study, lunch, class, study, dinner, class, sleep. But it's so good. We learn so much every day and the spirit is so strong.  We also have started learning Tagalog and wow the gift of tongues is so real. Our Tagalog teacher has been in the hospital cause she broke her back or something so we hadn't had a Tagalog lesson for about a week and we were very behind schedule. So on Friday they tried to cram a week's worth of tutoring into one hour and it was a lot and kinda stressful. But as we've continued to learn its starting to make a little more sense and it's coming together! God is so real and the gift of tongues works ...