Hey! Life is still going great in the MTC. Though it's crazy hard, every hour of every day I learn so much. One hour I'm memorizing the missionary purpose and the first vision in Tongan, then the next hour I'm practicing teaching the plan of Salvation in 30 seconds. Though it was way overwhelming at first, I've grown to love spending my time so productively instead of watching Dame Dolla highlights (okay, okay never mind, that's obviously very productive).

For our Sunday devotional the Nashville Tribute band came and sang some Christian Pop. I LOVED it. Throwing it back to 107.5 driving down Timpview Drive at midnight. I don't know if it was MTC appropriate for sure, but I loved it. 

My Tongan is improving and I feel like I've been getting a lot of vocab down, but the sentence structure is unbelievable.  I'm able to kind of bear my testimony and say prayers. The word of the week is "fakatomala" which means repent, and has been said every time anybody in our district has dropped a pen or done anything remotely wrong. I think that we have a TRC next week which scares the daylights out of me, but we'll see what happens.

My teacher has been showing our district pictures of Tonga and what we are going to be doing which makes me so excited. I cannot wait to get back to the country and people I already love and share the gospel. 

OFA ATU

Malo e lelei from the MTC! Life is really good here. It was a pretty eventful week so I'll kind of go over it. 

For the Devotional on Sunday we watched "The Character of Christ," by Elder Bednar, which was amazing. But what was even more amazing is when he walked in the door right after we watched it. He had a Q and A that was super good. I loved it when he said that charity is not something you do it's something you become. 

My hoa(companion) and I are doing great. We are both forgetful people so we have lost a lot of things, but I've gotten a lot more organized as the week has gone on. Lessons are pretty hard for me. I know what I want to say and right now I can kind of dissect what our investigator is asking, but I don't really know how to say it. I now get so jealous of every English speaking missionary because it would be so nice to be able to speak my mind. But Naselai and I work really well together. He speaks Tongan fluently just not in gospel terms. So he translates for me and I can have him translate back into Tongan what I'm trying to say.

                         E. Naselai (my companion), Elder Wilsoni, E. Poulson & Elder Manu

In other news, Elder Zitzmann in my district had bed bugs in his bed so on Thursday we spent the entire day spraying and washing EVERYTHING and we also had to switch rooms. It was kind of nice though because we all got 100 bucks worth of dry cleaning.

Ball in the MTC has been really fun. There are a couple of good ballers in my zone and my district too. Below is my district is in our Tupenus.  Elder Manu to the right of me is 6'4" and 280 and can move like no 6'4" 280 person has ever moved before. Me, Manu, and his companion to the right of him, Poulsen, have yet to lose. I'm also known as the Kyrie of the MTC right now.

My Tongan is progressing. All the gramatical stuff is so crazy to me, but Poulsen and I have been working hard at memorizing vocab. The word of the week is Tika which means sick.  I'm loving life in the MTC and the spirit that is here. 

Ofa atu,

Elder Wilsoni

P.S.  Shoutout to the Congers and Bollingers for the packages. Congers, I absolutly LOVED THE SHASTA. Kind of a shame I don't have a stove or I would ask for loads of Top.

Hey Everybody!

Life is great here in the MTC. My Companion is Elder Nasilai, and he is a Tongan out of Arkansas. His family is probably the only Tongan family in all of Arkansas. We got off to a crazy start. I went through all the procedural things of getting settled in the MTC then went to my district. But Elder Nasilai was no where to be found. Not till after a meeting and dinner did we finally find each other. Apparently his flight was delayed, and on top of that he got the wrong luggage. So my first day in the MTC I got in a van and drove all the way to SLC airport and back in rush hour traffic. But we bonded and he is a great companion. He plays football and Rugby and is very Tongan both looking and culturally which is funny because he's from Arkansas. 

 

There are two districts of Tongan elders. In my district there are Elder Manu from Bountiful, E. Poulsen from Riverton, E. Fakahu'a from Texas, E. Zitzmann from Vegas and two sisters, Sister Pukari from Papa New Guinea and  Sister Valelahe from Texas. Each Palangi (white person) is partnered with a Poly.  Manu, Nasilai and Fakahu'a are obviously polys and they all know the language. Poulsen, Zitzmann and I are kinda left in the dark because the polys talk a lot in Tongan. Its probably good to be listening to it a lot. I really like the district and it seems like we bonded and became friends fast. As much as I like the MTC, the days are super long. Being super productive for 12-13 hours a day is a big change.

 

The language is hard but I really like it. My favorite part of my day for sure yesterday was class. I love learning Tongan and I feel really good about picking up what I can in the MTC. Honestly I'm probably motivated most so I can know what the polys in my district are saying. My teacher's name is Brother Diel, he is Palangi and he seems like a great teacher. E. Nasilai and I are teaching our first lesson tonight in Tongan which I'm excited for. My favorite word is Fakalakalaka which means progress.

I run into everybody here. If I'm walking around I see somebody probably at least every 45 seconds and I'm not exageratting. It's the Timpview MTC. 

OFA ATU love you all!

Elder Wilson