Kumusta pamiliya at priends!
Yes, I spelt it wrong in my last email. Rookie mistake. Also I don't think I know how to say friends yet. So that is just friends in a Pilippino accent hehe. Anyway, well once again there is so much I want to share I don't even know where to start.
Well, I have a cool experience I would like to share with you guys. I had the opportunity to be in the choir for the devotional on Tuesday night. We sang a beautiful rendition on Joseph Smith's First Prayer. Our director, Brother Eggett is amazing. He breaks down every single word and note of the song to be sure that we are telling the story all the way through. Especially with a song like Joseph Smith's First Prayer, it was important for us to paint the picture of the grove and such. A part that I really liked was we went acapella and sang "Joseph," pause "This is my beloved, hear Him." pause "Oh how sweet the word!" This was to make the fact that God was calling Joseph Smith by name that much more significant. And then we paused after hear him because then the narrator comes back in and says oh how sweet the word. I didn't even realize that! I totally imagined Heavenly Father saying oh how sweet my words are haha. But now that the director pointed that out it made so much sense and made telling the story way easier and clearer. Lastly, at the end of the song we sing "For he saw the living God." and then we repeat "Oh how lovely was the morning." in beautiful parts and stuff. But the best part about that was Brother Eggett told us to imagine Joseph Smith walking out of the grove of trees. Still a 14 year old boy. He didn't walk out of the grove suddenly a prophet preaching to everyone he saw. Brother Eggett is like a master at church history and so he described what happened after Joseph left the grove. He went home, leaned up against the fireplace, and placed his head on the wall. His mom came in to the room and asked him what was the matter. He said something along the lines of "Oh nothing. But I know now that I will not join any of these churches that I have been learning about." And then his journey began. This may not seem to significant but it hit me pretty hard during our choir practice. It brought me to tears actually surprise surprise. But it was silly to cry about it. I couldn't help but think that it was the spirit testifying that what I was singing about was true. Joseph Smith did kneel down in the grove of trees and Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ did appear to him. I know this to be true and I am so so grateful that it is.
Okay, before I forget let me recommend that you all watch the General Relief Society Broadcast this Saturday because they have put a Sister Missionary Choir together and I am in it!!! I am soooo excited! We had our first two rehearsals yesterday and today. After the rehearsal yesterday I was just crying like a baby. I don't even know why. I think it was partly because I thought of you guys seeing me and I wouldn't be able to see you and that made me kinds sad. I also thought about how much music has affected my life. I am so glad that I grew up singing especially church songs. I love that whenever I heard the Mormon Tabernacle Choir I think of mom and imagine her crying because that's just how it works. And lastly, I imagined you guys being able to see me sooo ridiculously happy, surrounded by hundreds of other ridiculously happy sisters because we are here doing the Lord's work. We choose to wake up at 6:30 every morning and go to class all day where are brains are fried, learning Tagalog, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Portugese, and the list goes on. I'm sure we all wonder at times why we are doing it. And we all have the same answer. It is because we know that what we are about to do will change multiple lives, all of them for the better. And that makes us so happy. You will be able to see it shine through all of us as we sing on Saturday.
Hmm, a lot about music huh? I guess that can be the theme for the week. But I have a little more to share! We had our first night time class the day before yesterday. It was pretty killer. We already have 3 hours of class in the morning and then an hour or two of personal/companion/language study on top of that. So to sit down for another 3 hours and have more class time is more of a struggle than I even thought it would be. I could barely keep my eyes open! That doesn't even happen to me! But it did. But! It got better for sure. Our teacher is Sister Stockin. She actually just so happens to be our progressive investigator that we taught our first week. I told you guys about Joan didn't I? Well she was our first investigator and she turned out to be our teacher! She is a haole girl but speaks sooo fast she sounds like the natives we listen to on our language programs. The trippiest thing about the language to me right now is that all of the "K"s are soft. So it sounds almost like arabic! Like kumusta po kayo is how are you. She asked that to us during our first discussion with her and I was like huh? Are you speaking Tagalog? haha. But yeah so she is our evening teacher, bless her soul. She gets the worst of us thats for sure. But her lessons are really inspiring. You can tell that she worked realllly hard at personal spiritual study in order to be able to work realllly hard at companion study in order to work reallllly hard at language study and become as good as she is now. And she expects that from all of us. She had us set goals for this coming week. I set mine to be to learn 5 new phrases in Tagalog. When I told her she kinda just looked at me. And then wrote on the board that the ideal would be to learn 30-50 new vocab words a day. And 15 phrases a day. Haha! I almost died. So we set new goals obviously. And then we set our daily goals. And yesterday I learned 40 new vocabulary! I was really proud of myself and I understood now why people get so into setting goals and making lists and stuff. It is such a great feeling to accomplish what you set out to do.
I love you guys! I know this gospel that I am learning more about with each day is true. I know that I am meant to be here right now. Oh yeah, idk if this is sac-religious but I totally get dejavu multiple times a day here. I feel like I know the people already and I feel like I have been in these classrooms. Its so strange! But it obviously means that I am meant to be here. I love all of you guys. Thank you for your Dear Elders! They definitely brighten my week. I will get better at writing you guys back during the week! I miss you all but I pray about you guys every night and it helps me to feel closer to you. Hope you have a great weekend and great week ahead! Ingat po! Take care!
Mahal Kita!
Sister Sawada
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