Week 5: Last Week of Online MTC

Best District Ever!

Kamusta kamo??

This was my last full week of the online MTC and it was honestly so great. So many great experiences and so many great times with my district. We're actually having 2 more days of class on Monday and Tuesday because there isn't another district of missionaries being taught Hiligaynon after us. The teachers basically get a 6 week break haha joke lang. But Monday and Tuesday won't be with my whole district because Sister Toilolo leaves for her reassignment on Monday. It'll be just the elders for the last 2 days so we'll see how that goes haha. 

It really has been so much fun becoming such good friends with everyone in my district. We get along so well and we mess around so much in class and it is so fun. I don't think I ever reached a point during online MTC where I didn't want to go to class because my teachers and my district are so fun to be around. I know a lot of my other friends that have done online MTC liked doing Zoom calls outside of class to just hang out with their district, but I thought we never really needed to because we had so much fun in class anyway. 

That's not to say all we do is have fun all day (even though we do, joke lang). We continue to work on learning the coolest language ever. It is so fun to see everyone else in my district improving at Hiligaynon. We've pretty much gotten to the point where we can joke around in Hiligaynon too. It's fun to be sarcastic in the language because the teachers think it's really funny too. Not that I'm learning Hiligaynon to mess around with people, but my teachers do tell us all the time how much the Filipinos like to joke around. This week got me so excited to finally go to the Philippines someday. Anyway, we were learning the baptismal invitation one day this week, which is "Will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the authority of the priesthood of God?" The part with "someone holding the authority" in Hiligaynon is "isa ka nga nagakapyot sang awtoridad," but when Brother Cobabe wrote it out he put "sanD awtoridad" instead of "sanG awtoridad." Once we all noticed it we all started laughing about it, and then Brother Cobabe said, "Will you be baptized by someone holding sand?" Then we all kinda lost our minds laughing at that. The best part was that it really wasn't that funny, but we all really thought it was at the time. I think maybe my sense of humor has been dulled by the countless hours on Zoom. At the same time, one could argue it has become more sanctified (joke lang).

Kahoot update for the week: my companions and I did a clean sweeping of the podium, putting Brother Cobabe in 4th. Myself in 3rd, Elder McBride in 2nd, and Elder Rydalch claiming 1st. My mom even took me to Chick-fil-a to celebrate.

Another funny story: During our last class as a full district on Friday, I legit was thinking to myself "Wouldn't that be so sick if Brother Mariano came back for our last class? That'd be like the finale of The Office when Michael comes back." For our activity at the end of class we taught some Filipino people that speak Hiligaynon that all joined on our Zoom call, and Brother Mariano was one of them!! I saw him in our Zoom meeting and I said, "Wow this is just like the finale of The Office!" I don't think anyone else got it, but it was still super awesome to get to see him and talk to him again.

But seriously, online MTC has been so great. It has been so cool getting to share with my family everything I am learning. My testimony has grown a TON during the online MTC. My conviction in the truthfulness of the Church has grown so much, as well as my testimony of Joseph Smith. My love for the scriptures has also grown, as well as my appreciation for the Book of Mormon. I know that it has real power to change our lives for the better. All you have to do is read it, and give it a real chance for you to believe it. I promise that as you do so, you will come to know it is true, just as countless members of our faith have done too. I have become more and more excited to go be a missionary in the field as the weeks have passed. Moses 1:39 says, "This is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." The Lord's every thought and deed even now is concerned with His work of bringing immortality and eternal life to all who choose to accept the gospel. 100% of His time is devoted to helping us, and even though I'll never be fully ready for what I will experience in Orem, Utah and in Bacolod, Philippines, I am ready to devote 100% of my time to this work.

Anyway, I don't start my reassignment in the Orem Utah mission until October 6th, so I don't think I'll be sending weekly emails between now and then. However, I am giving a farewell talk for my home ward over Zoom tomorrow (Sunday, September 20th) at 7 pm (CA time). You are all welcome to join the call and hear more about my experiences with online MTC and about my decision to serve a mission. You can join the call at: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7285846038  Meeting ID: 728 584 6038   

Thank you all so much for reading my emails every week haha. Palangga ta kamo!!

Elder Snyder

Week 4: Some New Best Friends

Some Pics from the 9/11 Memorial in Malibu

Kamusta kamo??

Another great week at the online MTC! My district has seriously become some of my best friends. We mess around with each other so much in class and it is so fun. Even the teachers like to make fun of us too, and it all just makes the whole class go by fast because we're having so much fun. We focus when we need to though, so we still feel the Spirit a lot and have a lot of spiritual discussions. I have been able to learn so much about being a missionary, and a lot about myself in the last couple of weeks. I've gained a better understanding of what the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon mean to me in my life, and how important it is that we share this message and invite others to come unto Christ! 

Hiligaynon is coming along well too. We are continuing to learn different grammar principles, and lots of it has to do with what the focus of the sentence is. In English you can change the focus of a sentence just with tone or slightly reordering things, but in Hiligaynon to change the focus you have to conjugate the verb differently and then order the sentence a new way too. It takes a lot of getting used to because we don't really have something like it in English, but that's what makes it cool I guess. There are lots of moments where I hear a particular word or phrase in Hiligaynon and it just makes me think to myself, "I love Hiligaynon." My teachers say the whole language is about the flow of how everything sounds, so the natives like to change a lot of stuff just so it sounds better. They say we just learn it when we get there haha. 

One nice thing about the online MTC is that we get to do some activities that we wouldn't be able to do in the real MTC. Like playing Kahoot! We've played Kahoot twice so far and it seriously makes my day. I'm normally not a very competitive person, but with Kahoot something just comes over me, and I bring the fire. All the questions are like, "What is the correct way to say *some phrase* in Hiligaynon?" and all the answers are very similar so you have to be very careful with what you choose. The first time we played, Brother Cobabe, who is one of our teachers, played with us missionaries and he won. It was super funny, but we made fun of him so much because he missed one question. Elder Rydalch kept saying, "Wow, imagine being fluent in Hiligaynon and missing one question." 

Anyway, when we played Kahoot again this week, the stakes were high and things were getting intense. I had just pulled into 3rd place, behind Elder McBride and Brother Cobabe, with only 2 questions left. The first one was worth double points, and I answered correctly, passing Elder McBride and only 200 points behind Brother Cobabe. The next one was also worth double points, so it had all come down to this one question. After answering, the screen went dark, and then, I emerged victorious over Brother Cobabe with a first place finish off the final question. I seriously was so hyped I was jumping around my room yelling "LET'S GOOOO," even though no one on the Zoom call could see me because my camera was off. 

So yeah, that was basically the most exciting thing that happened this week.

Pday was fun this week too. Every year for 9/11, Pepperdine University does a cool memorial where they set up an American flag for every person who died in 9/11, so we went down to Malibu to see it. It was actually super cool because there were thousands of flags set up on the fields there. They even had some international flags for people who weren't American that died in 9/11. I found a flag there from the Philippines too. It is a really cool memorial and I'm glad they still did it this year despite coronavirus and stuff. Another cool thing from this week was that the elders in our ward came over one night and they were going to just practice teaching the Restoration to my family, and they had me teach part of the lesson too. It was a really cool experience and it made me excited to be a missionary in the field. 

Anyway, that was basically my week. It's crazy to think I only have a week and a half more of online MTC. Then I've got two more weeks between then and starting my reassignment in Orem, Utah. In that time I'll probably just hit up the elders here and see if they have stuff I can help them with, but I am getting excited to be an in-field missionary soon!  

Also, quick shoutout to Sister Toilolo, the solo sister in my district, because she is a beast. She can invite the Spirit into a discussion like no one else. She has done the whole online MTC without an actual companion, and she puts up with 5 other elders all day every day. Naturally, she is all the teacher's class favorite, but rightfully so haha. Us elders can get a little rowdy at times. Yes, even on Zoom.

 

Palangga ta kamo! Nahidlaw sa inyo! Baby hearts!

Elder Snyder

Found a Philippines flag

Week 3: Home MTC Still Going Strong

Hike with my brother Matthew...peep the LA Rams training facility in the back

Kamusta kamo??

Hope everyone has been having a great week. It's crazy to think I'm pretty much halfway done with online MTC. 

We had to say goodbye to one of our teachers this week, Brother Mariano, which was pretty sad honestly. He has been teaching Hiligaynon at the MTC for a long time, and he even taught some of my other teachers when they were in the MTC. He was actually born in the Philippines and grew up speaking Cebuano, then his family joined the church and moved to Florida when he was 10. A few years later, he got his mission call to the Philippines speaking Hiligaynon! He has an amazing testimony and was a super funny and awesome teacher. We all learned so much from him. Nagahidlaw gid kami sa iya (we miss him very much)! 

But since Brother Mariano left, now we have 2 new teachers! Sister Zollinger and Sister Ventura are both awesome teachers and I'm excited to work with them in the coming weeks. Now we have 5 teachers and there are only 6 of us missionaries, but I think that's pretty cool. 

Anyway, we started learning some new grammar principles in Hiligaynon. It's interesting because Hiligaynon isn't formatted like English like at all, so some of the different grammar principles we practice don't directly translate into English. I honestly think it's super cool, but it will take some getting used to. Hiligaynon is such a cool language though, and the more I learn it, the more I like it. It's only spoken on two little islands in the whole world and I feel honored to get to be a part of it someday. We got to practice teaching the first lesson in Hiligaynon to some other missionaries this week too. They all spoke Hiligaynon because they were in all Bacolod for a while before coming home to be reassigned. It was really cool, they just joined our Zoom call and we gave them a mini lesson and shared a scripture with them too. Afterward we just got to talk to them about how being reassigned has been and how they keep up their language skills while they are reassigned. The coolest thing was that I had some random connection to all of them. Either I knew someone who is going to their reassigned mission, or I knew someone serving in their hometown, or I knew someone that was in the MTC with them. 

So on Brother Mariano's last day he shared some cool stories from his mission and he showed us some pictures from his mission. In one of the pictures, he and his companion were standing with a family they were teaching, and Brother Mariano was the tallest in the picture. Brother Mariano is 5'6", which he said is a pretty average height in the Philippines. It made me realize how much taller I will be than most people in the Philippines. So even if the people in the Philippines don't want to talk to the missionaries, they'll still always look up to me! Hahaha, joke lang (that's how the Filipinos say "just kidding"). But I hear the Filipinos really like basketball, so I guess I will just have to disappoint them all when they ask me if I play haha. 

Anyway, this week has been amazing and I am continuing to love the online MTC. My district and my teachers and I continue to joke around with each other all the time and it makes being on Zoom for almost 7 hours a day fun. I know that everything going on in the world right now is part of God's plan, and that serving a mission right now is part of His plan for me. I am continually grateful for the hope that the Lord's plan can provide for us, and it makes me so happy to have the opportunity to share this with people for the next 2 years. I would like to invite you all to read one of the best conference talks ever (in my opinion). "Sunday Will Come," by Joseph B. Wirthlin, from the October 2006 General Conference, offers such a glorious message of hope and always comforts me when I start worrying about things in the world. Sunday always comes!

Palangga GID ta kamo!!

Elder Snyder