4th letter

Kumusta po kayo pamilya ko.

So. I'll handle those questions first.
1. Send one of grandpa's long dress coats if you can find them, if not then maybe that black coat but that might be a bit big, same with the grey one. Despite me gaining mad poundage here. The food is not designed for any type of weight control. I got Callie's sweater, and thanked her for it I think. If not, thanks again callie it's very nice. Hopefully you bought it at TJ MAXX tho. It was a Perry Ellis, which is like half of tj maxx sweaters.

2. I still haven't tried that contact, I'm sorry. I'll try it soon- I just have been trying to make these last, ya know. But I'll try that one and let you know. But a month with the same pair and I only wear them 1/2 a day at most, and they work fine- so that's all good.

3. Yes. Lights. Very soon. Please. Multi Colored ones.

4. No. More. Sweets. Thank you very very much, but I am done with this weight gain, haha. My roommates love em, but even they have stopped takig them all the time. So also thank callie for the odwalla's but no more drinks either. Feel free to send those crystal light and hi-c and kool aid packets tho to make individual drinks. You'll save me some coin with that. But yeah, no more cookies please. Even granola is kind of iffy on the healthy side.. there's so much brown sugar and stuff in that. I don't know what would be healthy, but if you can think of it you can send it.


So. This week has gone by a lot quicker than past weeks, but still my head is near it's capacity with this language, haha. I can't really write anything reflective of what I know. But I can tell you that in our last TA (the fake investigator thing we do on Thursday nights) I could understand pretty much everything the guy had to say.. which is kind of silly seeing as it was only after 3 weeks in here. So I really cannot imagine what I'll have learned after 5 more weeks.. but I am stoked to get to the Philippines. The district above us just got their flight plans and they leave in 2 weeks, so we'll be right after them. That two weeks will go by so quick too. Saturday afternoon to Wednesday blows by in a second. No classes after 4 on saturday, so that's all studying. Then sunday is just church and studying, then monday is temple and studying then an easy class at night. Then Tuesday is class in the afternoon then devotional at night. Oh and Fireside and movie on Sundays too. so it honestly feels like a 3 or 4 day weekend, almost. The only long days are Wed, Th, Friday. But even that's not all that bad. Things with my companion go up and down so often, that every day is unpredictable. It's just kind of hilarious that they literally picked the one person who is my dimensional opposite. Like in every single aspect. Even opposite sides of the country. So we have opposing views on almost every single subject, and he's dealing with personal things at home so that distracts him a lot.... Not much to say really, but it has made the MTC a very big challenge dealing with all that on top of studies. I love it here though, for the most part. And for some reason have picked up a big liking of volleyball.. and have gotten pretty good (obviously). And I see Tanner's friend Collin everywhere I turn so that's fun to always have a familiar face.

Our district is awesome too, we've come so close together but Mom you said you wanted spiritual so I'll give you as much as I think I should write. The past 24 hours have been some of the most spiritually intense moments and events of my life. We have an Elder in our district that is fighting some emotional issues that are hard to describe, and the emotions he's told us just seem absolutely horrible. Mom, there is a very real presence of the Adversary here in the MTC and he comes into people's lives here and it is scary. They don't reflect it, but I could see it on my friends face and the way he was describing his thoughts and it was heartbreaking. I don't think I should tell you in detail the events that took place, nothing out of the ordinary to be honest. But it's almost breathtaking of how real the spirit is. Me and and the Elder's I was with should not have been where we were last night, we should not have made the decisions we did, and it was odd that we made them. Now, I know you're reading these words and thinking that I mean negatively "should not" but what I'm saying is that 9/10 times we would never have chosen to go a certain way we did, which means that that 1/10 chance we had last night was absolutely startling what took place after. This is all confusing, and maybe I'll explain more in detail some other time but last night was crazy. I heard me and the Elders around me say things to comfort our friend that I KNOW did not come from us. Just too many events took place last night that were concrete evidence of another force acting through us. And You and I and everyone else knows exactly what that was. Again, I didn't even write about this in my journal in depth because I don't think writing it down would be a good idea, but going to the temple today just solidified everything that I felt last night.. it's weird. Ha.

So there ya go, that's your spiritual news for the next 23 months. Things like that don't happen all the time, but I'll tell you that at about 6:00 yesterday this Elder was 100% positive he was packing up and leaving. He was done. By the time 10:00 rolled around we had no doubt in our minds that he is staying. That is missionary work.

Mahal Kita, pamilya ko.

Elder White