MTC Week 2

Hi Mom, Dad, Taylor, Cami, Hudson and Zoey!

Happy New Years! Two weeks already in the books. It's been so crazy and so fast already. Pretty amazing actually.

I am in fact getting your DearElder letters! They're fantastic and I love them. Thanks so much, it's so nice to get letters in the mailbox. Sorry I haven't mentioned that yet. I like reading them, and I'm sorry I don't get to email my replies more than once a week.

I did get the Olson's Christmas package, it was great. I love the water bottle, and I always have it with me. It's so convenient and super awesome. I'm looking forward to your package too, thanks again!

I'm so jealous you guys get to spend more time with my friends than I do now. (Dallin's friends dropped by and I sent him a picture of everyone on the couch.)  I love those kids, I'm glad you got to see them. Also, Ev, decent flex; you're huge. I also am jealous that you got to see the cousins! It looks like you guys had so much fun. Skiing looked like a blast, Cami sent me a few pictures of that adventure (thanks Cam!). Dad I'm sorry you couldn't go, but it probably was for the best for your knee. Also glad to hear you're enjoying being a bishop, it's a good thing and you can totally handle it. I'm glad all you guys had fun catching up with the Olsons and the Meises, that's fun. Have fun going back to school and work today, I would probably take a day of high school classes over a day of language training any day!

Here's some answers to your questions:

Language: I'll try and summarize my knowledge so far. Basically, the language has no "rules" - literally. Sentence structure is just more of a guideline, and you can mix things up however you please to best fit the context. The recommended sentence structure is Personal Pronoun + Verb + Subject, but anything other than a super basic sentence gets really messy. Verbs are not conjugated to the subject; they're conjugated to the direct object of the sentence. Spanish is an absolute detriment in that sense. Moreover, tenses are determined by one word in the beginning of a sentence, like, "Ngke" which implies past tense, or "Na" which implies future. After that word is stated, the tense is "implied" and then the sentences just work like you were talking in present tense, no contextual clues or anything. It makes it tough. For example, "Joseph Smith Prays" and "Joseph Smith Prayed" are the exact same sentence. E (third person singular personal pronoun) tataro (pray/prayed/prayer/will pray) Iotebwa Timiti (Joseph Smith - there are no j's, p's, h's or s's or a whole bunch of other letters so it's a pain to write names like that!). It's hard. But, I'm getting it, slowly and steadily. Memorization and such is a huge help. I can bear my testimony and pray simply in Kiribati. I also have been teaching lessons in Kiribati since day one, and on Saturday we're never again allowed to use notes when we teach, so that'll sort of force some growth there I guess.  I'm sure I know more than that paragraph let on, it's just super hard to describe. MY english is also being negatively affected, all my structure is flipped and broken sounding. I basically can't communicate effectively in any language right now (except for SPANISH - super weird and useless right now). 

Anyways. Yes, there are only four of us in our class. Myself and my companion Elder Davis, and then the companionship of Elder Mattison and Elder McCormick. No sisters in our district. We all get along great though, and we are all roommates. Some other friends from the zone include Elders Buckingham (from Hawaii), Fogamomi (from Orem - he went to Mountainview), Vaitu'u (from Tonga) and Hix (from Wyoming). It's a pretty solid core of friends. Our whole zone sits together at meals, which is fun.

Culture is funny. The weirdest interesting fact we have heard is that there are no "bad words" to the Kiribati people. Like, if you were to say poop, you're also saying c***, and you're also swearing... so they only have one word, and it's sometimes swearing and it's sometimes just saying poop. Way confusing. Especially when you're trying to tell the teacher you need to use the restroom. Elder Mattison tried to say he needed to leave to go to the bathroom, but he ended up producing like the most vulgar phrase in the language... so there's that.

Our most recent devotional was about resolutions - surprise surprise. But it was a really cool perspective because the Elder (whose name I neglected to right down, I feel terrible) talked about the fact that any spiritual resolution which we make, even if we only keep it for a day, or a week, or a month, makes us better. So we should never be worried about "failing" a spiritual resolution which is ambitious. It was encouraging and unique in perspective.  He also encouraged us to take a look at our 2013 in review and see the Hand of the Lord where we can. I'll try and do that in another email later today.

My laundry is done now! I have to go fold it, then I'll go back to the classroom and send some more emails!

Love you all, you're supportive and awesome. Thanks again!

Elder Dallin Seguine