The Missionary Travels of Elder Parker Enger

  Dear friends and family, This week was more or less the same as last week. I could notice by the end of the week that my teachers were using more and more Tagalog when explaining instructions to us (they use some English here and there), and we're expected to use it a bit more than we have, but we're still mainly expected to just use what we know and speak Taglish to the best of our abilities. In my classes, we've continued to memorize phrases for each principle taught in the first lesson, and we've been practicing teaching each individual principle.  So far, I think my smoothest and most clear subject I've practiced teaching in class has been talking about the Book of Mormon, so I hope I can continue to have that confidence and composure when it comes to that topic at least.  We've also been doing more roleplay scenarios in Tagalog to practice meeting people on the street or getting to know them or resolving their concerns. Sometimes I feel a bit awkward as I...

  Mahal kong pamilya at mga kaibigan, This week was the first week in which my classes were completely (mostly) in Tagalog. It wasn't as bad as I was expecting (though our classes are a bit more quiet haha), but it was still interesting. For example, whenever I try to translate something I want to say in my head, any leftover English that I don't know how to say Tagalog immediately is translated into Spanish because I've been in the English-to-Spanish mindset for so long. Sometimes, I even have to stop myself from talking in Spanish to my Tagalog class haha *facepalm*. It's all going well though, and my teachers and tutor say that my Tagalog is coming along nicely. My classes were slightly different this week. Instead of studying the doctrine that we teach and how to better our teaching skills, we've also focused on learning grammatical concepts in Tagalog, how to better develop the gift of tongues, and practicing teaching different principles in Tagalog to the best...