I lack time to fully process everything that is going on and sometimes I feel like I'm not very important or influential. I realize like that verse in Alma 34:32-34, that anything great or beautiful or miraculous that has ever happened, started out as something small.
We had a very interesting lesson last night. We taught a first lesson to a man who wasn't very fluent in Tagalog. He speaks Kapangpangan and the church members who were with us, basically had to translate what he was saying into Tagalog for us. It was a very weird feeling to be watching someone talk and then hearing the translation from someone else. We sat on broken and borrowed chairs There are over 80 dialects spoken in the Philippines and they are basically separated by geographical areas. People learn Tagalog in school, as that is a national language. But, in their homes or families, they'll speak their dialect from their area, so sometimes it's hard to people to express themselves in Tagalog as they don't speak it everyday.
As far as the language is concerned, my understanding is much better than my speaking. Speaking is a bit slower for me. I am conversational, but not yet able to discuss deeper things...
I was feeling overburdened with everyone's problems towards the end of this week. We taught a lesson to a recent convert who was baptized 6 months ago. He wasn't able to come to church the past two weeks because his family wouldn't have had food. He sells ice cream on his bike and is supporting his sister's family as well as himself. It's easy to run in circles with questions like, "Why wasn't I born into a situation like this?" "Why was I born in America?" I feel burdened with hearing everyone's else problems, that people so often load on us. Mosiah 18:8-10 talks about the baptismal covenant. Maybe I am able to better understand that covenant here on my mission.
I feel like I'm living two cultures-retaining my identity and trying to be Filipino. I realized a long time ago, that there are things in my personality that would hinder me from being a successful missionary, here in the Philippines, as the culture is so, so different from America- ideas about family, ideas about food, the culture of food, ideas of what is rude-what is polite, the indirectness of the language itself, etc. It's been interesting for me to learn to respect their ideas about things. It's also been a struggle. I've learned submissiveness, which is not really a character trait that I understood very well before my mission.
On the other hand, I have never valued my citizenship so much in my entire life. I found myself becoming cynical at times before my mission about problems in America. I was telling Sister T the other day, that the fact that most Americans have food, safety, and a clean environment is more than what most have here. America is a blessed country, despite the problems that we have.
Ever learning and ever yours,
Sister Vickers