Week #9 - Minsan mahirap ang misyon - Hard Week

Hello all!

Wow, this has been a tough week. I am going through a lot of adjustment as far as my health is concerned. When a Filipino family offers you dinner it is extremely rude to say no, so sometimes we get like three dinners and at each one they just keep giving you food and don't stop until they don't have any more prepared. And somehow I am still losing weight due to all the physical activity and fatigue. My companion and I get back at 9 every night and the two of us plan for about an hour, and discuss the needs of the people in San Manuel. Then we finally get to sleep and get back up at 6 and go work out for 30-45 min, and then we prepare for the day. We do personal study from 8-9 then companionship study from 9-10, then language study from 10-11, then we go out and talk to people.

The language is way tough, but I am working hard trying to be patient with myself. but seriously sometimes they walk up and say stuff to me and I have no idea what they are saying. And I want to understand and respond to them so bad I just don't know how. I send most of my time talking to kids because they are a little easier to understand and a little more patient with me haha. But its wierd walking around here. Americans are like famous. Its insane haha.

We have about 15 investigators, and none are progressing at all. We are getting punted (lessons falling through) all the time, and our investigators are not keeping their commitments. One we are teaching has a baptismal date but he keeps skipping church so we have to push it back. anyway ha out of time! I love you all so much!!!

Elder Dahle

MERRY CHRISTMAS - First Skype Home!

 

Week #8 - "Hello po 'der!" - Merry Christmas

Hello!!!!

This has been just absolutely incredible, this place is different than I had ever imagined. My trainer is Elder Skinner, and he is soooo great! I am his 3rd trainee so he definitely knows what he is doing hahaha. My area is San Manuel just north of Urdaneta if you want to look it up haha. The people here are great, I spoke in church this sunday, I bore my testimony and talked about why I decided to serve a mission all in Tagalog! But then I sat down all smug and maybe a little too proud of myself because then the real speakers got up and each gave 20 minute talks in rapid Pangasinan, which is the strangest language ever. Most everyone here speaks tagalog so I can at least kind of communicate. But there is a little village place in the middle of the rice fields in the outskirts of my area, and that is my favorite place to go. All the children there see us walking down the dirt road to their house and they all run out and scream hah "HELLO PO 'DER" because its hard for them to say Elder so most kids call us " 'der" haha or they scream "AMERICANAS" and sometimes they say "hey joe" haha. But I got the Christmas package from my family and in it I got a Plano ng Kaligtasan (plan of happiness) display and I took it to the lesson and we taught them, and whenever the kids would get rowdy and we would lose their attention I would just look and them and wiggle my ears and they would get real quiet and giggle.

I have so much more I want to tell you all but so little time! I will send pictures next week! I love you all!!!! Mahal kita! maligayan pasko!!

Elder Dahle

Mom, I will be able to skype the 26th of Dec. 9:00 am. that will be the time here so you will need to adjust for time difference haha, make sure tori and joey show up, while we are skyping I will have you use your phone to record a couple short 2 min messages for colby and steve etc. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH FAMILY!! MALIGAYAN PASKO! (merry Christmas)

mahal kita,

Elder Dahle

Elder Dahle with President & Sister Monahan

Week # 7 - Arrival in Philippines - It's a Different Planet Here!!!

Kumusta! 

Wow, it is a different planet here. I honestly cant describe it. We leave for our mission areas at 5am tomorrow so another long day of travel. We went prostelyting for a few hours with the manila metro missionaries. We spent all 3 hours in the poor shanties of Manila. The poverty here is shocking, the traffic is absaloutly terrifiying, there are seriously no rules on the road. If you can see, pee and breathe you have a license. We road jeepneys (public trasnport) to get to the area to go finding. The language is about a billion times faster than our teachers made it seem in provo, but I am picking up enough to understand and I am speaking a pretty fair amount. Its very sad and depressing to see some of the living conditions of the people here, but also amazing to see how happy they are regardless. We walked up to this lady and started teaching her, and after less than a minute of me trying to speak with here we were surrounded by some 30+ children screaming to get our attention to give high 5's, show is their yo-yo's. showing off their basketball skills, telling us about their birthdays hahah it was crazy. I know even though many don't have anymore than the clothes on their back and the toy in their hand, they all had the most sincere smiles. No one in the world has a more sincere smile than a Filipino child. 

The small poor neighbohood we were in had so much going on, street vendors cover every possible square inch with their small shops made of aluminum, ply wood, and tarps, no bigger than the inside of my little corolla at home. Stray dogs, cats, and chickens run around seriously everywhere. There is trash all over the streets, because there is no waste system here, they just throw it out in front of their homes. But one of my favorite parts of the atmosphere of the Philippines in the art. There is art EVERYWHERE. Wall murals and graffiti cover the walls of highways, buildings, vehicles. And it all conveys a message of peace and happiness. Right across from the MTC here is a mural that is my favorite and it says in huge letters "ISA ANG ATING DIYOS, ISA ANG ATING LAHI" Which means "one god, one race" and on the other side of that whall it says "Welcome to the Philippines: Miserable place, Miserable people, living in the name of LOVE" Please forward this emails to the people I missed because I didnt have much time. 

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH I will write on my P-day and be on a more regular schedule. Mahal Kita!!! -Elder Dahle

Week #7 - I Made It!!!

Hey!! I made it to the Philippines!!!! It is so beautiful here!! I love it, manila is a crazy city. The driving is the most dangerous and sketchy thing I have ever seen!!!! anyway, I have to leave!!! I love you all sooooo much. Please share this with the rest of family and friends !! Mahal Kita!!! -Elder Dahle

Week #7 - Midweek Message Before Leaving the MTC TOMORROW! - Tagalog - a REALLY funny language!

Kumusta!!!

Well this email is going to be pretty short, because we get half a P-Day today and not much more has happened! But I thought I would use this time to tell you some cool funny stuff about tagalog haha. First of all, Tagalog is a mixture of islander languages that has a tongan sound with a spanish twist. All the words are SO LONG, but its not random, all words have a root, then 5 or 6 prefixes and suffixes that add meaning to the word. For example Magpapaliwanag. -liwanag is light, Magpa- is the verb form, and it is an actor focus causative verb, (or a verb that would be used in a sentence tell about how someone caused and event to happen. In this case "to cause to bring light to " or "explain" haha. The extra -pa- in the middle is for tense, making it future tense, so it is "will cause to bring light to".

Tagalog is also a really funny language, Filipinos don't have a very complicated sense of humor at all. They like really funny goofy jokes haha, for example. Bakit ay hindi kayang pumasok ang ocean(?) sa langit or why couldn't the ocean get in to heaven? Answer: Meron po siya tubig asin!!! (it had salt water) hahah the last two words mean salt water, but if you pronounce is phonetically it is "too big a sin" hahaha and most filipinos at least understand a little english so thats hilarious haha. One of our skype investigators told us that joke and I lost it haha.

"good" in tagalog is Mabuti (mah-booty) and "water" is tubig (too-big) haha so good water is MABUTI TUBIG!!! haha alright Im done, the MTC has ripped my sense of humor to shreds and now is only a pathetic compilation of knock knock jokes and 2nd grade potty humor.

Alright I love you all so much!!! stay classy friends! Mahal Kita!

Elder Dahle

This email was followed by a long rapid-fire email conversation with the boy! He is good, excited to be headed to the Philippines.  He will be calling tomorrow to talk to use one more time while still on US soil! He flies from SLC, Utah to LA to Hong Kong and then on to the Philippines where he will spend about a week at the Manila MTC. He will be traveling with 29 other missionaries to the Philippines and so will not be along on the long journey!

Week # 6 - Pray for the people of the Philippines

Magandang Umaga!

Well, this week has just been crazy haha. After 6 weeks here your sense of humor starts to decline to all but know know jokes. We are going crazy here and everything is kind of building and ready to blow up. As companions we are all 4 of us really getting on each others nerves and we have had to do District Inventory just about every few days to lovingly let out all the built up frustrations. We are really just ready to be out of here.

This week has been rough, and disappointing as far as our investigators are concerned. Our investigator Beronica dropped us:(... That was heart breaking. I didn't think it was going to be that frustrating. She just didn't have the time to keep meeting with us, and we had gotten so close to her and her family. One of our other investigators Andrew, told us the only reason he was listening to us is because he respected us and his Mormon friends, so it was "up to us if we kept teaching him or not" so that was tough. Everything with our investigators seems so superficial. The focus this week has been companionship unity. Which is basically us working on both speaking equally in lessons. And I think that's why our investigators are not real with us and genuine. They don't feel like we are both invested and care about them because only one of us says anything in lessons. I am just having a really hard time getting Elder Tanner to talk in Tagalog. So out teacher pulled us aside and decided to try doing splits and trading Elder Tanner and Hennessey for a lesson.

So Elder Hennessey and I made a lesson plan, and we did a door approach for a brand new investigator named Mae Yao. We went in and got to know her and she is SOOO COOL, we taught the whole first lesson and traded off and committed her to take up the promise made in Moroni 10:2-5 and the second to last paragraph in the introduction of the BOM. We had such a good lesson. We spoke in all Tagalog with no awkward pauses or anything. And Elder Hennessey and I were completely in sync. A number of times she would ask a question in the lesson and both Elder Hennessey and I would open to the same exact scripture and even say the same words at the exact same time. It was way weird and way cool. Elder Hennessey and I walked out of the lesson and discussed and reviewed. And we wondered at first why god hadnt made he and I companions, but came to realize it was because Elder Brown and Elder Tanner need the two of us. They need us to encourage and work with them to help them, learn how to teach in Tagalog.

Anyway, the last thing I want to share is this video put out by the church. It is about Christmas and the true importance of Christmas. I encourage everyone to watch it, and those who have a testimony of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice for us to share it on social media with the hashtag #sharethegift. This is a movement that the missionary effort is starting and if you want to be a part of the work I am doing out here this is a perfect way. If everyone shares it, then maybe people will look at Christmas a little different. Not just locally but globally. I love the videos put out by the church and this one particularly moved me. The music and imagery used is absolutely breath taking. So watch it. Feel the chills travel from the crown of your head to your fingertips. Feel your hair stand up. As if a crowd of people moved to their feet in standing ovation and applause. If you watch it with and open heart and mind I promise you can feel that.

Here is the link, SHARE IT for me. https://www.lds.org/youth/video/share-the-gift?lang=eng

Also, today the Philippines had a category 5 Typhoon hit it! Please pray for the missionaries and the people over there!!!

I love you all soo much!!!

MAHAL KITA!!

Elder Dahle

November/December 2014 Pictures - District/Zone pics at the MTC & Provo Temple

Elder Brown, Elder Hennessey & Elder Tanner