Loren's Feb. 23 letter - Part 1 & 2

Here comes the email you've been waiting for - yep:

I just wrote a long email all about the great experiences of the week and the computer just ate it.

Alright. On tuesday nights we have a devotional from a quorum of the seventy/quorum of the twelve, and no one has any idea who it is until 30 min before when it comes on the screen. Well, this week, the 30 minute mark came and went, and everyone was going crazy. There hasn't been an apostle here for 6 weeks. When it came time to sing the prelude hymns, (my very favorite parts of the week) the director stood up and said "Elders, we don't stand for the hymns of Zion. But we do stand for an apostle of the Lord." Half-way through our first hymn, We are All Enlisted - M. Russell Ballard walked in with his wife and everyone stood and sang all the louder. It was quite the experience. He spoke about optimism and it was incredible -- I'll have to write more and the rest of my experiences in another letter. There was a great experience in the RC, and we had a Tagalog - X lesson. Love you all,
Loren

Part II
Alright! They gave me my time back.
Elder Ballard's talk was amazing. He started off by telling us that He and Elder Cook were over all the public affairs for the church, and that in the recent past, they had gone all over the country to big newspapers and magazines, and answered their questions. He said that he'd invited each of them to come on a tour guided by an apostle of the Draper open house temple or any other open house, and that he'd personally answer their questions in response to their questions about why mormons were so secretive. He said that most of the world is "steeped in spiritual darkness", and the way to penetrate that darkness is to carry an optimistic spirit always. (by the way, I'd really love any notes from dad's religion in life talk, and I'm dying for ancestor stories/pioneer stories) He also said that if anyone had been told "wow, you're going to such and such a place. You'll have a great experience, and come back a better man, but, they really don't baptize in that country. If anyone has told you that, if there is nothing else I can do this evening, I'd like to wash that out of your heads. You can find, you can teach, and you can baptize no matter where you're going." He also said "we are in a hurry" more than once. "we are in a hurry to find the children of the house of israel."
He quoted Brigham Young who said "may fire of testimony burn in your bones." It was very inspiring. Afterwards, we had a district meeting, and our district really came together. There are 8 of us, 4 going to Angeles, 4 to Bagio, and we're all very different, but I love all these elders in my district. Elder Thorn is my companion from California, who enjoys singing, used to break-dance, dancing, and singing. He schools us all at 4-square at gym. And volley-ball. Elder Greenlaw rooms with us, he is short, very skinny, and 1/2 Filipino. He's an awesome guy, has no problem getting up at 6 in the morning, and keeps us all excited. His companion is our district leader - Elder Wihongi-Richie -- a convert from New Zealand. He loves rugby, is just over 6 feet, and is by far the buffest of us all. He is very soft-spoken and friendly, has a powerful testimony, and we all respect him very much.
I wonder -- how is the working-out going at home? Because this week, we had what I would call Tagalog - X. The lesson of all language lessons. My mind-muscles are still aching. I'm pretty sure that all language is stored in the same place, becuase I've been coming up with some french out of the blue -- things I didn't know I knew.
One of our teachers - Brother Perry - just came home from Manila a few months ago, and he is still mission-sick. Sometimes he says, "that's really weird in English", and gets - as he puts it "lesson 1 trunky" at times. We really look up to and admire our teachers. Last week we were learning verbs, and Bro Perry acted out every single one and only spoke in Tagalog. With our limited vocabulary, our guesses were hilarious, and he sometimes spent minutes wildly acting out words. We were rolling in the aisles by the end of the 2 hour lesson. We only really spend 3 or 4 hours a day strictly on Tagalog.
There have been really high highs, and really low lows here. This week we learned how to chat in the Referral Center, and it is harder than taking calls. I had my first one with a lady in the UK. In our first chat, she had questions about Joseph Smith, and we went over the first vision. Then we set up a return chat, and all that night that was all I could think about. I desperately wanted to share what I knew, but the second day she really had a hard time with prophets and the nature of the God-head. It turned into a bashing situation, and all I could do was bear my testimony, but it broke my heart. We set up another appointment, and I hoped to commit her to pray and teach her a little more, but something went wrong and she didn't get transferred to me. Just before we gave up, I took one incoming call, and it was incredible. It was a lady from the south, with a mild voice and a rich southern accent. Her sister had just passed away, and she was afraid her mother was about to follow. She said she was looking for a miracle, and she loved her bible and Jesus. I bore my testimony about families, and the gospel, and she said it would be great to have the missionaries over. I'll finish up in a letter.