Week 2!!

Hey Everyone!! Wow this week has been super amazing! Thank you for all the emails and all the dear elders. They really keep me going in this place to feel all the love and all the support of each and every day. So this week we learned a lot about the doctrine. We really dug deep into lesson one and it was awe3some just getting to do that just so I know more about the doctrine for when I want to teach out in the field. Our first investigator, Sister Zabala, ended up being our second teacher! Her name is Sister Ward and she totally speaks English. She's actually from flagstaff. that would have been so nice to be able to talk to her in English more but I'm glad she didn't because it really made us speak in the language more than we were used to. Tagalog is such a crazy language, I thought i would have known that by now listening to you mom, but now that I'm actually learning it I know how crazy it actually is. Once I really get to know more about it though I know it's going to get easier and easier. We have learned a lot about the verb conjugations and stuff and we really focused a lot on more of the grammar this week which helped out so much. It's so much easier to make my own sentences now in Tagalog rather than just try to memorize some from the books and from TALL. TALL is just some computer program that has a bunch of vocab and phrases that we can memorize and learn and it helped but I like doing the vocab and just making my sentences. It's crazy how much I have learned already. Just a week ago we learned how to pray, and now this week I'm praying in front of groups of people with no hesitation at all. Time is flying by here at the MTC. I feel like I've only been here a week. It's crazy to think that it's already been two! I also saw Elder Carter, Elder Urry, Elder Chapman, and elder Farrow and we all got to take pictures together. I think it's so crazy that we were all in here at the same time!  The spirit is what guides us in this work. We are just the instruments in the Lord's hands, it's the spirit that does the converting, not us. So that's all from me, I'm glad I was able to send a lot this week since I didn't have to read a bunch of emails. I love you all and thanks for everything!!

Elder Stephens