I cant believe it's already week 2!

So, I hope that you did get my letter that I sent last Monday. I enjoyed getting your letters during the week. I thought it was funny that they were addressed by Mom, except the ones that Dad sent.

This week has been pretty awesome! Christmas was really good. L. Tom Perry came and spoke to us in the morning, and Greg Olsen spoke at the evening fireside. Both were really good. My district is awesome! We try to do things together more often than the other districts do. As you know from my letter last week we are the only district in our branch, but we get two new districts next week (January 6). This email is gonna be pretty short, we only have 30 minutes to write our email, so I'll send you a letter too.

Mom is right, we can't listen to music in the MTC, but when we get to the field we can. They sell MoTab in the bookstore here too, so I'm gonna buy a couple more before I leave. They have the Hymns on CD too and I'm gonna get that. I bought myself some new scriptures on Saturday and had my name put on them. They were finished today and they're pretty sweet.

Natalie, you could wait until I get home to help you with your tech problems, but you should probably find a quicker solution.

Elder White has been doing much better, oh I dont think I told you that he threw up multiple times everyday for the first 9 days here. But he has now gone five whole days without throwing up!

The language is fantastic! It's coming to me really fast and I'm getting and understanding it. Everyone else seemed to notice that before I did because they come to me with questions. I try my best to help, but some times they ask about things we've barely covered and I don't really know about it.  A lot of the words are similar to Spanish, example, pamilya is family. Paborito is favorite. It's just an awesome language. Like in other languages names just stay the same, so Natalie is still just Natalie. The Tagalog that was at the end of my last letter was my testimony. Yeah, learned that on day two! But back then it was just memorized, now I understand why it is the way it is!

Whoa, the first couple of days seemed to take forever! I cant believe it's already week 2!  I'm doing laundry right now. It's really warm in the laundry room, and smells of detergent everywhere, it's nice though. I'm ready to get back to work! I like P-day, but I'm glad it only comes once a week. Since the temple is closed for the next week and a half for cleaning we just sit around during our temple time, I got a lot of reading done though. Well, I think that's all I've got for now, if I think of more I'll send a letter!
Elder Phelps

First P-Day, First Letter

Hey everyone!

So it's Monday. P-day. And the email server isn't working! So you're gonna have to suffer my handwriting this week. Just as a point of business, I will not be calling on Christmas, they're not letting us. But we will have time to email. I was glad to get your letter today, first one for me! Happy to hear life is good for you all.

Wednesday was crazy! I was so nervous and jittery all day but I calmed down Thursday and it's been great since. So, all the other districts that would be in our branch left for the field last Monday (14th) so our district is the only one in our branch until we get two new districts January 6th. That made our sacrament meeting very small, but we were still in a big room.

The food here has been pretty good, much better than scout camp food. Nothing really specific, but it's all been good. They gave us a whole bunch of language books, and we haven't really used them. I brought the "Conversational Tagalog" back to my room and I've been reading a bit of that. It certainly helps me understand the structure and stuff of the language.

Today we went to the bookstore. I got a note pad, a Tagalog hymn book (we sing the hymns in Tagalog in class), and a small white board. The white board really helps. When we've had free language study time, I'd write my prayer and testimony on the board in class, and that has really helped. I can pray in Tagalog with few mistakes. So I wanted a board with me in my room so that I can practice there too.

Okay, this part is mostly for mom because she said she wanted to hear about this stuff. Elder White is my companion. He's from Ogden. He's pretty cool and we get along really well. Elder Heaton and Elder Gowey are in our room with us. Elder Heaton is from SL and went to Olympus High. Elder Gowey is from Mesa AZ. Elders Baucom, Hansen, Davis, and Herrick are in the room next to ours and they make up the rest of the elders in our district. We also have two sisters, Sister Hinckley and Sister Whitehead.

It's been great here. I want to get back to work! Oh! We ran into Sister Smart (Elizabeth Smart) yesterday on our temple walk after sacrament meeting. We just all said "Hi" and moved on. Oh, you guys should use DearElder.com OK, 'cause I have limited computer time when it's working. Real letters are great too! Letters are like gold in this place.

Naramdaman ko na totoo ang Simbahan.

Isa anahan ko na walang haggan ang pamilya.

Pinaniniwalaan ko na totoong propeta si Thomas S. Monson.

Pinaniniwalaan ko na ipinanumbalk ang ebanghelyo ni

JesuCristo.

Pinaniniwalaan ko na totoong ebanghelyo ito.

Saipanyalan ni JesuCristo, amen

Sincerely,

Jordan Phelps

And in the beginning....

We dropped off Jordan at the Provo MTC on Wednesday along with what seemed like thousands of missionaries. Seeing the other moms as we drove to the curb, Kristeen asked Jordan if he would be offended if she didn't cry like the others. We figured we got all our tears out the night before at his setting apart. As we pulled up, several elders were there to take Jordan's luggage and check for his immunization records. One final hug, one final unexpected cry, and the elders whisked him off. He disappeared in the sea of dark suit coats.