Hello Iloilo!

Kamusta Pamilya

Hello everyone! It has been kind of a crazy week of traveling, but I have now arrived Iloilo! I am so excited to finally be where I have been called! It is so beautiful here, I can't believe I am here. I do not have much time to email right now so I will tell you all about my adventures later on. I am excited to be here. Today we just arrived and do paper work and interview the president, but tomorrow we meet our trainers and the real work begins.

I love you all so much!!

Elder Degen

President and Sister Cruz

New Missionaries!

Hello, Manila!

Kamusta kamo!!

Wow it has been a long few days of traveling, but I have arrived safe and sound, and I am here at the Manila MTC and it is absolutely amazing! I am glad that most of the traveling is over. The airplane food was just okay, we had some weird stuff on the plane.  It was so awesome to talk to all of you on the phone yesterday or a few days ago, whenever that was, I don't know what time is anymore. Right now its 5pm on Friday the 22nd. So that song that starts with "do you remember the 21st night of September, is perfect because I literally don't remember it because its like it never happened. We took off on the 20th and landed on the 22nd, haha crazy! 

Well when we landed today the humidity hit me pretty hard, but I feel like I'm already getting used to it, which is good because I better get used to it, because thats how its going to be for a while. After we landed and went through customs and everything, we filled out some paperwork, then we hopped on a bus to go to the Manila MTC. The drive to the manila mtc took a while, probably about an hour. During the drive we drove through quezon city, it is amazing. The ride to the mtc was awesome, I can already tell I'm going to love it here in the Philippines. After we arrived at the MTC we left our bags in this little pavilion thing by the front gate and went straight to lunch. And to be honest when I looked at what was for lunch I was a little scared, it didn't look good, but when I ate it, It was soo good! We had rice(of course), chicken, noodles, and some other things that I don't really know what they were, but they were great. After that we had a little greeting devotional with president Carlos, the president of the mtc. President Carlos is awesome, he is so funny. We found out that  we are going to the Manila temple tomorrow and we are also going on splits with elders in quezon city, where they speak tagalog, which I do not speak, so i will have to tell you how that goes haha. 

Well thats about all I have time for and I won't be able to email until my first pday in the field so, I don't know when the next time i email will be. 

I love you all so much and I am so excited for this opportunity to serve in the Philippines!   ​

Elder Degen

E-mail dated 9/14/17

Kamusta kamo? 

It is so crazy that I have been here for 5 weeks! It has been another great week and it flew by!! 

It was great to hear from everybody again this week! I loved everything I heard about what went on this week and especially the game! We could hardly hear any cheering on saturday so I knew that was a good sign, but of course I already knew the Utes would win!! (Like always) So on saturday's we have our study times at night, so we studied on the roof of one of the new buildings and watched the sunset and tried to hear anything from the game, but the only time we heard stuff was when it started, then after that it was really quiet because it was only 3-0 until we went back to our residences. It was so hard to be so close to it, but not be able to know what was going on!! It will be a lot easier to not worry about any of this stuff when I'm in the Philippines. 

Speaking of going to the Philippines...we got our travel plans last friday!! Once we got our travel plans, everything became more real. It was like wow, they actually are going to let us out of this place...haha just kidding! But, it did get really real, its crazy that in less than a week we will be on an airplane to the Philippines!! 

So our travel plans go like this: 

We leave the MTC at 2pm to go the the SLC airport on the 20th 

We don't fly out of SLC until 7:11 to go to LA 

We arrive in LA 8:20 pm 

Then we fly out of LA at 12:55 am to go to Hong kong 

We arrive in Hong Kong at 6:45 am the next day (so the 22nd) 

Then we fly out to Manila at 9am and arrive at 11:20 am 

So basically 2 whole days of traveling!! sorry that was kind of a weird way to explain it, but I have a picture of the travel plans that i might just send. And I did find out that I can call from the airport, so that would be great if you could send me a card ( one with a lot of minutes preferably ) so I can call you guys, since I will be spending a lot of time at the airport! I am so excited to be able to talk to you guys! So keep your phone close between like 3-7 on the 20th!! I am so excited to go the the Philippines and I can't believe that it is already almost time to go! 

So after we got our travel plans we all more excited to go to the Philippines, but also more nervous because of our inability to speak Ilonggo very good! But, our teachers are amazing, they must have sensed or probably have felt exactly how we feel and prepared an awesome lesson! We had a couple of lessons this past week about relying on the spirit and it was exactly what I needed to hear at the time! We talked about how much we have already been relying on the spirit in the MTC and I have talked about that a lot, but I know for a fact that i could not teach or convert anybody if it weren't for the spirit! We read a scripture in 2 Nephi 33:1, it talked about how even though we may not be mighty in speaking the language, the spirit will carry our message to the hearts of the people! That scripture was exactly what I needed to hear, it comforted me so much! sure, its still scary to be going 7,000 miles away and speaking a language that i hardly even know, but I know for a fact I am not alone and I am so grateful for that knowledge!!! I truly love feeling the spirit and I have never felt it more than I do at this point in my life! I am so excited to go and share that great feeling with the filipinos. 

Also this week we taught our last lesson with our pretend investigator Benji. It was weird, because he was the first person we taught when we arrived at the MTC and it is crazy how far we have come! I love my teachers here at the MTC (Bro Mariano, Bro Adamson, Bro. Shumway). I will send a picture with all of them next week! 

Well thanks for all of the emails and love!!  

Palangga ta ka! 

Halong! 

Elder Degen 

E-mail dated 9/7/17

Wow apat nga semena (week 4)! I honestly can't believe that it has already been four weeks! It has been a fast and amazing 4 weeks here at the MTC!

Kamusta Kamo? (How are all of you?)

It has been another great week!

We had the awesome opportunity to help the new missionaries yesterday. So what we would do was help them get there luggage out of their car take some pictures of them and their family and then we would take them to get their name tag and all their other stuff. After that we would take them to drop their things off at their residence and then show them to their classroom. It was such an awesome experience because I know exactly how they felt 4 weeks ago. And I guess I should clear something up, Elder Wasden isn't my companion, haha, he is just an awesome Elder in my district and in my room. We get along really good and he was just helping the same Elder as I was so that is why we took that picture together. My companion is still Elder Moore, we share a room with Elder Wasden and Elder Wallace though. 

It was so great to hear from all of you this week!! I love getting emails from you guys.I also really appreciated the dear elders about the game and the newspaper clipping about the game. I would love it if you could do that every week!  It was great to hear about the Utes game and the St george trip! It sounds like you guys had an awesome week as did I. And I am glad you guys played spikeball, I played that all the time with my friends back home. I actually played it a couple of times this week at the MTC, it was awesome. Me and Elder Stauffer (from a different district, but speaking ilonggo and we are in the same zone and residence) dominated the other Elders in spikeball and are now know as the spikeball champions! okay well self proclaimed spikeball champions haha! 

So I guess I will give you a rundown of a typical day here at the MTC. 

6:30 wake up,shower,get ready

7:15 Breakfast (the breakfast is actually really good) 

8-10 Personal and companion study (we study over at the nice new buildings in these music rooms, it is so nice)

10-11 Exercise time (we usually play basketball,4 square,or spikeball)

11-11:45 get ready again (shower) 

11:45-12:45 Language study (recently we have been working on memorizing the first vision and I am so close to having it down)

12;45-1:25 Lunch 

1:30-4:30 Class (Usually teach one of our "progressing investigators"(which is just one of our teachers))

5:15-6 Dinner 

6:30-9 Class (unless its a tuesday,then we have a devotional) 

9-10:30 go back to residence, get ready for bed,write in journal, study, ect. 

10:30 bed 

Thats about as exact as I can get. Thats the schedule that I write in my planner everyday. We are always so busy, but it is great! 

To answer some of your questions, I surprisingly did not get any comments about wearing my Utah shorts, haha it is awesome. I heard about how bad BYU is, haha that is great!!! A few other Elders in my district are BYU fans and we have fun joking around. Oh and your other question about calling at the airport,I'm not sure about that yet. I have heard that you do get call from the airport from other Elders, like Elder Horton said he gets to call (he left on monday),but I don't know if I do for sure yet. I will let you know. I get my travel plans tomorrow, so I bet that a lot of my questions will be answered tomorrow and I will let you know in the e-mail next week. It is so crazy to think that in 13 days I will be on my way to the Philippines. I am so excited and nervous at the same time! I am so excited to go and see the Philippines and meet some amazing people, but I am also very nervous because of the language. I have improved a lot and my teachers understand what I'm saying in the lessons, but thats because they speak English and Ilonggo and they understand what I'm trying to say. But I know that if I am patient I will be given success,it has been promised in the scriptures(Alma 26:27, I think, I may have switched the numbers) I am so excited though, all of my teachers served their missions in the Philippines (obviously thats how they learned ilonggo) and they have told so many stories and showed us pictures of how awesome the Philippines is. So 2 of my teachers served in Bacolod and the other one served in Iloilo. Bacolod and Iloilo are the only missions in the world to learn ilonggo, which is pretty awesome. So there are only basically 2 islands in the whole world that speak the language I am learning, which is really cool. Sure my language is going to be useless when I get back, but it is going to be awesome and it already has been awesome to learn! 

I would like to share a few experiences that I have had this week. On Saturday we were having an investigator review, which is where we talk about how our teaching is going, how the MTC is and really about everything. It is just me, Elder Moore and our teacher Brother Mariano. And we got talking about how our teachers knows that we don't have perfect Ilonggo,but he said that he can really feel the spirit in our lessons, which is awesome. It was really a great experience for me. I know that even if we can't speak the language that well at all, the spirit can still get our message across and I  learned that, that is what the gift of tongues is. The gift of tongues isn't the ability to be able to learn and speak the language with ease, it IS the ability to get our message across through the spirit. Also in this investigator review meeting we talked about why we serve missions and earlier that day I was reading in Alma and I decided to share a scripture that I read in Alma 36:24. The scripture basically says that Ammon wanted others to feel of the exceedingly great joy that the gospel brings, so thats why he shared it. And when i read this scripture with my companion and my teacher, I started to cry because that is why I am serving a mission. I want others to feel of the exceedingly great joy this gospel has brought me. Another awesome experience I had this week was, we were teaching one of our investigators about keeping the sabbath day holy and our investigator expressed to us that he couldn't because his Dad left and he has to work on Sunday's to be able to feed his family. Even though this was just one of my teachers saying this, they told us that this happens a lot in the Philippines. As he expressed these concerns a scripture came to my mind 1 nephi 3:7 (which was not in our lesson plan, but I shared it anyway) and I testified that God doesn't give a commandment unless there is a way to accomplish it, and our "investigator" said that he would keep the Sabbath Day Holy. It was an awesome experience! Okay I have one more cool experience this week. So on Sunday nights after devotionals we get to go watch a video of previous talks and this week we watched "missions are forever" by Elder Holland. This talk really changed my perspective on a lot of things about a mission. The thing that stood out most to me was the part that he talked about how we are representatives of Jesus Christ and nothing was easy for him so why should a mission be easy for us. wow. It really changed my perspective, missions are suppose to be hard. I am so grateful for that talk and the opportunity I have to be a missionary! 

Well Thanks for all the Emails! You guys are the Best!! I love you all!!! 

Have a great week! Palangga ta ka! 

Halong! 

-Elder Degen 

View from MTC Building

Cool Socks!

High School Friends

E-mail dated 8/31/17

Kamusta Everyone!!! 

WOW its been 3 weeks in the MTC already, thats crazy!! It seems like it has gone by so fast and yet it feels like I have been here for so long. Like I said before, the days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days, but I am so blessed to be here right now. Sometimes it is hard when all the days seem the same, or at least very similar, but I am trying to remember how blessed I am to be here everyday. It is a truly amazing place. Thousands of 18 and 19 year old kids give up 2 years out of there lives, learn a new language (some) and travel to a place that they have never been before. But, we all do this for a reason and that reason is, we have something so amazing, so awesome, and so great that we want to share it with the whole world. In Matthew it says, "Go ye therefore and teach ALL nations and Baptizing them ALL in the name of the Father and the Son" (not direct quote, sorry). It takes a lot of faith, but we are definitley not alone. We have so many resources, pray and scripture study has helped me so much. I have prayed for strength and help, then I read the Book of Mormon and I always feel so much better. If you guys aren't reading the Book of Mormon everyday, I would recommend and encourage you to do so! These last 3 weeks I have realized how important the Book of Mormon is, along with the spirit it is the biggest tool in our conversion and our investigators conversion. The Book of Mormon means more to me now than it ever has before. I know it is true. Kabalo ako nga matuod ang Libro ni Mormon! 

It has been a great week here at the MTC! Not easy for sure, but still great!

There were a lot of changes during this last week. More than half of our zone left for the philippines! It was kind of sad, we got pretty close to those guys, but I know that they are going to be awesome missionaries. The ones that left were all speaking cebuano (there isnt enough people learning Ilonggo to create an Ilonggo zone) and before they left we did this zone activity where we sang a hymn, half of us sang in Ilonggo and the other half of the zone sang in cebuano. It was such a cool experience. The spirit was so strong, even though I didn't know any of what they were singing or basically anything I was singing either. The spirit is what teaches us and helps us and others improve, not having perfect language is okay, as long as the spirit is there. So along with all of them leaving, we got new Zone and District leaders. On Sunday I was made District Leader. I love my district so much and I am excited to be with them for 3 more weeks. I was kind of overwhelmed when I found out, but my branch president assured me that the only reason I was called was because the Lord wanted me. I am looking forward to improving as a missionary and Improving as a district. 

Another crazy thing that happened this week was from monday at 5pm to tuesday at 5pm we did what we call an "English Fast", we went a full 24 hours without speaking English. We only spoke Ilonggo for a whole day, it was crazy. It was so hard to communicate, but I feel like we learned a lot about what we need to learn and what we already know. I realized that I do not know how to say much outside of gospel topics. It was a long 24 hours! It helped though. After we did this for a whole day, we caught ourselves talking a lot more Ilonggo throughout regular days, which is really good because it is something that our teachers encourage us to do as much as possible and doing that english fast helped us learn how to communicate better. We are getting better, but I'm pretty sure I'm still using the grammar very wrong. The grammar has been a hard thing to get adjusted to, you are suppose to always put the verb first, it is weird! So like the sentence kabalo ako nga matuod ang Libro ni Mormon translates into know I that true the Book of Mormon. It is weird. I feel like I have improved, but I can still work harder and get better. 

Yesterday we had an awesome night class, and I am super glad that we did because i had not been feeling well and it made my day a lot better. So last night both Ilonggo districts went over to T3 (one of the new buildings) and looked at the painting of Christ talking to his disciples. We had a really deep talk about how we are representatives of Christ right now. We talked about how important our calling is and the weight of our calling is. The worth of souls is great in the sight of God and we have a responsibility to bring them closer to Jesus Christ. The teachers talked to us about how they have kinda felt a sense of casualness among both districts. They challenged us to make the most out of these last 3 weeks because there are people in the Philippines waiting for this message. It was such an amzing experience. I have the best teachers; Brother Mariano, Brother Adamson and Brother Shumway. I have learned so much from them. As I have got into a routine in the Mtc I have kinda got relaxed and I am so glad for that wake up call yesterday. There is a Utah Football quote that says "All in or in the way!" and that is what I am going to try my best to do is be all in. 

It was so great to hear about everything that has been going on this week. It sounds like you guys have had an awesome week! Please continue to update me on everything going on! Cheer super loud for me today! Go Utes!!!!!! Hope you all have a great week!

Palangga ta ka! (I love you) 

Halong 

Elder Degen 

Elder Horton (friend from school) and Elder Degen

Sporting his Utes attire in Provo