Ano ang mabuti sa barangay?! (What's good in the hood)

  

     Just 20 days left!! So crazy how fast it's gone by. It goes by a bit faster now, especially on Sundays cause i'm busy with my leadership meetings now.
     Well let's see what happened this week... My companion and I blessed the sacrament in Tagalog on Sunday and in two weeks my district is singing in sacrament and we're gonna do Joseph Smith's First Prayer in Tagalog but in the "Come Thou Fount" tune. Naks. Tuesday Neil L. Anderson of the Twelve came and spoke at our fireside. It's so amazing hearing from an apostle about missionary work now that it really applies to me more than ever. I gave my first blessing to a sister in my district who was sick. Oh yeah, Conner (Cope) and Spencer (Donaldson) are here now! I see Spencer ALL the time. So fun. And Elder Conbear lives just the floor under me, so I get to see him all the time too.
     For TRC wednesday (TRC is when people come volunteer to be taught by the missionaries) Kyle N. came so my teacher Brother Langer had me teach Kyle. haha it was so sick. You'll have to get Jesse to come with Kyle next time and I can teach them both.
     Well the past couple days have been interesting. My companion has had some knee problems in the past and his knee has been hurting again lately so we've been at the doctors a lot. I should've told you guys so everyone could come visit. I was at the orthopedic office down in Provo for like 6 hours yesterday in the waiting room. But yeah kinda sucks, he's getting ACL surgery next Tuesday and so he'll have to stay at the MTC a bit longer and won't get to fly out with us. Poor guy. It was so weird being outside the MTC for the first time though. It was fun being outside in my missionary clothes though cause everyone was talking to me about where I'm from, where I'm going and all that. Got my first little taste of doing missionary work with the outside world. I even brought a couple Restoration pamphlets just in case I'd be able to teach someone while I was in the waiting room. Oh well, next time.

     That really is about it. Oh last Thursday-ish, my teacher Brother Langer asked me to be his companion and help him do a demonstration of "how to begin teaching" to a sister in my district who role played as an investigator. We taught in front of my district and for a couple other teaches as well. It was pretty naks gettin' to help prepare a lesson with someone who has already been on a mission. Pretty rough having to do it all in Tagalog still, but it wasn't too bad. The language is starting to come a lot easier now too. It's still super rough, but I can at least say what I want for the most part. I have a hard time thinking of what I wanna say and then translating all in my head and saying it in Tagalog, especially since the grammer and sentence structure doesn't translate directly over. It's getting better though. If I have stuff written down in English I can say in Tagalog pretty well. Only 3 more weeks to get fluent! No biggie.

     Yeah hopefully you guys are getting all these emails. Just reply back to them real quick so I can make sure you're getting them all. Should be one from each week now. The emailing here's a pain in the butt sometimes. I wrote a bunch of letters yesterday and I'll do some more today and send them out.

     Keep writting and sending me stuff!! only a few days left of that now. I'll be looking forward to my tall tee ;)

Mahal na mahal ko kayo!!

-Elder Peter Nicholas Molnar

MTC Pix 2

A few comments from a personal letter to Mom:

     Honestly, it was only hard the first few weeks, just still being in Provo, basically home, but I couldn't leave.  Now it's just funny how I really could walk home and say "Whattup?" real quick, and no one would know.  Ha!  Pathetic.  Nah, I'm doing way good though.  Especially as the new DL.
     I'm not too worried about you guys. I pray for you all every night, but we're all in good hands, especially right now.

     Instead of getting you a lame card for your birthday, I decided to give you my notes from our devotional last night. Elder Neil L. Anderson spoke, and it was amazing.  So I figured, what better present, than seeing how God talks to the missionaries, and not only missionaries, but your son.  Remember:

"What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled, whether by mine own voice or by the voice of my servants, it is the same."
Doctrine & Covenants 1:38

Welcoming Elder Kyle Cross

With Elder Trey Valdez

OHS Elders (I think - help me out here)

Sister Hadley and Sister Mower

Banana Saturdays

Elder Poe-Laulu

With Elder Mitchell and  Elder Moulton

With Elder Sam Grover

Toga Tuesday

OHS Missionaries

Study space and photo of the bois

First Lava Lava

Sister Baravilala

Got taught by Elder Molnar tonight (8/22/12) at the MTC!! His doing great with his Tagalog!!

Kyle Celis Navarrete

Yooooooooo!

Only 27 days left till I'm outta here!! Ah I'm so excited to finally be in the Philies. Oh and can't wait for Spencer and Conner to get here tomorrow. The kids in the room next to me just left for Nicaragua so I'm crossin' my fingers that me and Con bear will be neighbors. Oh and we're getting 76 new missionaries coming in tomorrow who are going to the Philippines. It's gonna be a freakin' party out there.

What else? Well guess who has beautiful hair and a golden ripped bod and just got called as District Leader... ah I probably made that too easy, buuuuut.. this guy!! Yup. Now I getta be the mailman for my district. ha! It'll be fun though. All I really do is go to meetings, conduct class and stuff and get the mail. Not too bad. Last week we found a giant wasp nest in a tree the size of a soccer ball. We all gathered around and threw a rock at it and dropped it. Funniest thing ever. Too bad no one got stung though.

Well everything's going good. The language is coming along. I'm hoping I'll be fairly fluent before I leave here in four weeks. I can finally teach our 20-30 lessons to investigators without using notes to translate, so that's good. Oh and my district is doing a musical number for sacrament in a couple weeks before we go. We're doing my new favorite hymn, Joseph Smith's First Prayer, it'll be all in Tagalog and we sing it in the tune of Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing. Sickest thing ever.

Hmm.. That's really about it.

Alam ko po na totoo po ang Simbahan ni JesuCristo ng mga Banal sa mga Huling Araw. Nagpapasalamat po ako para sa Aklat ni Mormon at ipinanumbalik ng ebanheylo ni Jesucristo sa mundo. Alam ko po na may buhay mga propeta sa mundo sa atin ngyon. Mahalaga po ang panalangin araw araw sa patnubay. Alam ko po na mahalaga sa buhay na walang-hanggan po ang pananampalataya at pagsisisi na pamamagitan ng pagbabayad-sala ni JesuCristo. Nagpapasalamat po ako na naglilingkod na Tagapagligtas ko at Diyos pinakamakapangyarihan at nagpapasalamat po ako misyonero po ako sa kanila. Excited po ako sa magtuturo ang mga tao sa Pilipinas. Alam ko po na mapagmahal po ang Diyos. Mahal ko ang Diyos at mahal ko kayo. Sa pangalan ni JesuCristo, Amen.

(Translation, sorry for the butchered Tagalog. I don't have any notes on me. Good thing none of you know the difference!)

"I know the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is true. I'm grateful for the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth. I know that we have living prophets on the earth for us today. It's important to pray everyday for guidance. I know that faith and repentance through the atonement of Jesus Christ is important to have eternal life. I'm thankful to be serving my Savior and God almighty, and I'm thankful I am a missionary for them. I'm excited to be teach the people of the Philippines. I know that God is loving. I love God and I love you all. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

Mahal,
Elder Peter Nicholas Molnar

Countdown to D-day

Peter's mom here! I just want to acknowledge that he has now passed the halfway mark of his time in the MTC. He is so excited to be moving on to serve the people in the Philippines. We are all so excited for him as well.

To all his friends, he is anxiously awaiting your arrival. Elder Donaldson and Elder Cope, I believe, arrive this week. Be prepared! You won't have much time with him Jesse, but I know that he is missing you (all of you) very much. You have been a great blessing in each others lives. We are so proud of your choice to serve. Many blessings!

Next week, we welcome home Elder Alex Crist. I hope you all have had the opportunity to read his very profound final letter home...alexcrist.blogspot.com

You raise us up - all of you!

Love,
Momma Molnar

What's good pamilya ko?!

Thanks for the Baklava! Everyone, especially Bro Ward, loved it. Anyways, just got back from the temple. Another sick sesh, as always. I think I found the picture of Lazarus with Aunt Irene and Brock in it.

K, let's see. So these past couple nights some kids from our district had their roomate, Elder Anker Peet, (sickest name ever), head off to Peru so their room's been pretty empty. So we've been sneakin over to have slumber parties every night. yup! I always sing One Direction at the top of my lungs when I'm showering, so I hope the bois are proud. Tie trading is pretty fun here too so if you find any cheap, ugly, crazy lookin ties, feel free to send me some.

Some spiritual-ish that's happened lately, our district role played as investigators of people we know in our lives, who aren't mormon or active, and for an hour or so, me, a couple other kids and my teacher Brother Ward taught my companion and it was so sick. We spent the whole time getting to know him and setting the stage for the spirit to be able to be around before we start teaching. I'm finally starting to realize what the real purpose of being a missionary is. It says in Preach My Gospel,to teach people, not lessons. I'm finally starting to realize, as a missionary, we need to focus more on getting to know the investigator and their needs, rather than just throwin' down some dope lessons and commitments. So, now me and my kasama have been getting to know our investigators more so we can focus on their needs and why they're listening to the missionaries.

Another thing I realized last night.. We were practicing teaching eachother while we role played as investigators,and practiced introducing the Aklat Ni Mormon, showing what it is and how to use it and challenge our investigators to read and pray about it. After a minute my teacher had me come up in front of the class and had me role play with another teacher and teach him about the Book of Mormon, and challenge him to read it. I remembered a little quote I made up, "You always get the best advice from yourself," meaning many of us are too prideful to listen to what other people advise you to do, but you will listen to yourself. I used that principle in my lesson and focused more on asking specific questions to get him thinking and answer his own questions. You can only get so far from telling someone about what you believe and by bearing your testimony, you gotta get you're investigators thinking for themselves and getting them to gain a desire to find out more for themselves. The Book of Mormon really is our biggest tool for conversion. Even a bigger tool than me. Haha.

Sunday, our zone had a fast to be able to "teach with the power of God". It's definitely hard staying focused and productive when you're sitting in a classroom for 9 hours everyday, but I have been learning so much and it's so much fun. Tagalog is coming along pretty good. I can understand a lot and say what I want in a conversation. Although it takes me forever cause of all the rules. Grammar and sentence structure changes a lot and there's different rules for placing an "ang" "ng" or "sa" before certain words to show who the actor, object and location of your sentence are. And different rules change for where the verb goes, the subject, and all that. I dunno, so confusing sometimes, but so much fun. Absolutely love it.

Well I'm out of time.
Mahal Kita, Kita kits!

What's good in the hood err' body?!

I swear, I don't even know what happens here anymore. I feel like I've been here forever and yet it's only been three weeks. But hey, only 6 weeks left till da Philis!!

Hmm.. well last week for Toga Tuesday was probably one of the funniest things ever. We got our bed sheets and made togas for ourselves, put leaves behind our ears and carried a mattress on our shoulders with my buddy Elder Miles on top. Hahah, it was the best. we walked around our residence just waving at everyone while a kid walked in front of us and threw packing peanuts on the ground. Pictures will be there shortly. What else? Tell the bois to keep practicing volleyball and basketball to get ready for here. Gym time is so sick here.

It's so fun. every week more kids I know come in so it really is a freakin party here. I see Taylor, Lane, Kyle, Curtis, Brannon and all them, all the time. Not to mention Liz's boifriend Elder Dahlberg. I, no joke see the kid at every meal I eat, and pretty much everywhere I go. Haha, it's ridiculous. Ha, cool cat though.

Freak what else? the MTC is just a blur these days. We started teaching both my teachers now. Brother Langer role plays as this way strong Catholic who he met on his mission, so trying to teach him why he needs our church all in Tagalog is pretty dang hard. The first lesson he barely let us say a prayer before we left after a half hour lesson. We're gettin a lot better though. Tagalog is sick. They keep telling us to SYL allllllllll the time. (Speak your language). Kinda hard when you've only been learning the language for 3 weeks. I'm sure you can imagine how interesting our conversations are. Oh, and brother ward is the dopest kid ever. he knows all the Soper's cause his brother's the kid who married Haley. Fun little fact of the day.

Welp, I wish I knew what else to talk about, but I'm sure there's enough of a novel to read with both these letters now, so enjoy!

I'll write everyone back today too through actual letters so get stoked.

Thanks for all the letters and packages. I'm so freakin spoiled. love it! Don't stop now! only 6 weeks left :)

Mahal kita everyone! totoo po ang simahan!

-Elder Philippine-Peter/Model-Molnar

p.s. I finally butt kissed enough to the Samoan sisters in my district to get them to give me a free lava lava. Be expecting more pictures soon!

Magandang Umaga err' body!! only 49 days left at the MTC!!!

(Lost email from 7/30/12)
Welp, just got back from the temple for the first time now that it's finally open again. So sick going with all my fellow missionaries. Yeah everyone is so right about how time starts to fly after a while. I don't even know what happens anymore.

Let's see, my investigator we were teaching Luis, turned out to be a teacher here at the MTC. Surprise surprise. Oh well, now I don't feel bad after he told us no to challenging him to baptism three out of the four times we taught him. Eh, actually, rejection is pretty easy when you can hardly understand what your investigator is saying to you. But yeah, my legit teacher, Bro Ward, just got back from his honeymoon so we'll start teaching him and my other teacher Bro Langer now. All in Tagalog of course.Oh and I said the opening prayer in sacrament in Tagalog on Sunday. Pretty
cool.

I love how spiritual it is here. It's cool seeing a thug like me get stoked for a good hymn or a good speaker at our firesides. Robert P. Swensen spoke to us Sunday. Here's a couple sick quotes I liked. "Not one of you were called on a mission to fail." and "Be humble enough to learn from others." It really is so sick here. It's just too easy to feel the spirit here so strong.

Aight, well it's P-day so I gotta go party. Duh! Thanks so much to everyone for all the packages and letters. You have no idea how much I love them. If anyone wants to send me a banana tie I'll love you forever!

Alam po ko na totoo ang simbahan ni Jesucristo ng mga Banal sa mga Huling Araw

MTC Pics Have Arrived!

Me and my compadre

Eatin' with Tay

Studying

My district

Chalk Fam

MTC Pictures

Elder Peter Molnar, Elder Taylor Moulton, Elder Lane Mitchell

While we are diligently searching for Elder Molnar's missing photos, we have borrowed one from Elder Moulton's blog. We are hopeful that the awesome postal workers in Orem and Provo will be able to find them.