Week 6!

Time here has FLOWN BY! To think I’ll be flying to the Philippines in 3 days and arriving in 5 days is insane(traveling is gonna suck because I’m gonna time travel two days ahead! I leave the 12th and get there the 14th hahaha) My first few days here I would look at our schedule and flip to week 6 and say, “Pshhh I’m never gonna get there!” And look where I’m at now, at the end of week 6. Inconceivable!

Friday: In the evening for rec. time the gym was like empty, and usually it’s packed because there are 2,500 missionaries here so it was so nice not having to wait in line to play. But while Elder Young and I were playing volleyball we met two awesome Sisters(Shulson and Anderson) who were super funny and awesome and they just made rec time super fun.

Saturday: Today we had our 3rd to last TIP. The teachers are encouraging us now to build our own sentences rather than go off our memorized ones or follow a script while we are teaching. We can all do it but it takes so long because first sentences in Bisaya are structured differently than English sentences. So for instance, ‘I want to go to their house with you.’ In Bisaya it’s, ‘Want I go with you to their house.’ It’s so complicated and so tough to think of the words in Bisaya AND THEN form it to their structure. But I felt like I did pretty darn well and our teacher said that we have really improved in the language.

Sunday: Another fast Sunday here and lemme tell me, this was one of the longest days of my life. I think I’ve said it before but Im pretty sure the branch presidencies just make up random classes/activities for us so we won’t have free time. Church, priesthood (Elder Fleischel and I had the lesson today on the Plan of Salvation), district review, mission conference, mission conference review, then we had another random meeting talking about obedience and faith but it was actually kinda cool but we spent 1 hour just talking about that hahaha. Then all the missionaries in our zone with a calling had a meeting and then it was finally time to eat. 

Monday: We had our last TRC today. It’s crazy being able to talk in another language that I started learning a month ago. I can actually understand others and my brain is starting to actually understand Bisaya rather than in high school I just had Spanish words memorized and when I heard it my brain would convert it to English. But my brain actually understands Bisaya so I don’t need to convert them to English. That was probably really confusing but it’s really hard to explain.

Tuesday: Dili maayo(no good), being here 5 weeks I’ve gotten comfortable here and so my old hyper, outgoing, and curious self is coming out. I won’t go into too much detail but I probably did something that missionaries aren’t supposed to do but it was all in good fun and nothing bad happened but the old Kasden is forming in me again hahaha. Don’t worry, my teachers and district laughed about it but Sis. Cragun talked to me about it lol.

Wednesday: We had our second to last TIP today and Elder Fleischel and I taught about baptism. It went amazing. I only prepared one line to say, “Nagaluto kami pagpabunyag pinaagi pagpauslob, mora kita maluhason sa atong mga sala.” But other than that I winged the whole 20min lesson and at the end I bore my testimony and oh wowza was the spirit present. It’s just crazy being able to sincerely bear my testimony in Bisaya. 

Thursday: Today was Sister Cragun’s last day teaching us!:( She is headed out of town for the weekend and we all leave Monday morning. We also had our final LSA test. It’s like 15 questions with a prompt and we have around 2min to respond to it only in Bisaya. They are pretty difficult but it was really fun.

Before I came out, I never thought I would have rough days on my mission. Obviously I knew I would have tough days physically but I felt like I was so prepared emotionally that I wouldn’t have tough days mentally. Oh how I was wrong. I always try to be as happy as I can because my mindset is ‘why be sad when I can be happy?’ But just from feeling left behind in the language, comparing myself to other missionaries, or just feeling unprepared, I psych myself out and I start feeling unworthy. Whenever that hits I just say a prayer. Prayer has become my favorite thing in the world. My testimony has been strengthened so much from praying. Every time I pray and ask god to help me with my emotions, within an hour I’m happy Kasden again and I have my missionary purpose in my mind again. Prayer is the greatest thing ever. It lets us communicate with our loving Heavenly Father and ask of him to bless us with whatever we want. I’m not even close to being worthy of the blessings he gives me but he still blesses me more than I could ever deserve. I just want to challenge you all to pray more often. Pray to God for help, I KNOW that he will answer at the right time and if you think you aren’t getting an answer, grab a Book of Mormon, flip to Mosiah 4:9, and read it! 

I love everyone of you and hope you all are doing maayo g’yud!!! (Maayo is good. Maayo kaayo is very good. Maayo g’yud is like, couldn’t be happier)

Love, Elder Kasden Grasse

Our district with Sister Cragun (one of our three main teachers)

My cousin, Elder Yost, and I