Semana Duha, Matuod ang Ebanghelyo! (Week 2, The Gospel is True!)
Another week has come and gone, and I can't believe it! Like I said before the days go by so slowly, but somehow the weeks just fly by! This has been another good week. We learned more this week about sentence structure. Everything is so weird, and i'm sure Eric can agree that other languages say things in weird orders! They taught us VAOL. Which stands for Verb - Actor - Object - Location/Recipient. Thats how you put together a sentence in Ilonggo. Or there is also Describer + Subject. So instead of "I'm tired", it's "Tired I" or "Kapoy ako". Its pretty crazy. It takes so long to put together a sentence in my head. When we try to teach now we still practice memorizing sentences from our language book, but at the same time we try to just learn as much vocab as possible so we can understand and try to carry on a normal conversation. Probably the most confusing part about the language is the fact that verbs can be conjugated differently depending on the 'Focus' of the sentence.
Let's take the sentence "Joseph Smith read the Bible." The verb for the sentence is read, so 'basa'.
If I want to focus on Joseph Smith, I would say : Nagabasa si Joseph Smith sa Biblia.
If I want to focus on the Bible, I would say: Ginbasa ni Joseph Smith ang Biblia.
Pretty sure that's right haha but I don't want to take to much time trying to figure it out. It's just super confusing because as you can tell the verb is a bit different. I'm sure they'll figure it out if you always spoke in Actor focus, but who knows.
We got a new teacher this week. She was our first investigator. She's a lot tougher on us than our other teacher. They both still teach us it just varies on the day and time of day. Our first teacher, Brother Hong is pretty relaxed and speaks in English when we get confused and need help. Our other teacher, Sister McDonald rarely speaks English and makes us try to say everything in Ilonggo. Yesterday I had my first taste of frustration. I was halfway through givign a spiritual thought standing in front of the class when she decided to say "Ginahambal sa Ilonggo." (Speak in Ilonggo) I lost all train of thought as to what I was saying even in English. I could sense my face turning all red and I had no idea what to say. Needless to say I pretty much just finished up. Sa ngalan ni JesuCristo, Amen. Ha I got that part down. I was kind frustrated for the next 3 hours of class. So glad today is p-day and I get to relax and we even get the night off because of the 4th of July! I'm not exactly sure what we get to do, but I believe we get to participate in watching fireworks somehow! I'm kind of excited for that!
I'm still doing well and having a great time! Like I said I've only felt frustrated once, so thats pretty good for 2 weeks I think! I miss you guys, but getting your e-mails and your dearelder letters always brightens my day! With so many sisters, our mailbox is always full, so its nice to see something addressed to an Elder in there! :) Another week down! Hope to hear from you all soon!
Palangga ko kamo! (I love you(plural.)!) I hope I translated that correctly. I guess I'll find out! haha
-Elder Walters
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