Farewell MTC - Trainers are waiting

Elder Underwood left the MTC Tuesday, August 28. Flying from Salt Lake City to San Francisco to Honolulu. Stayed the night at a hotel. Departed to Majuro Marshall Islands Wednesday, August 29. Because he crossed the international date line - he arrived in Majuro on Thursday, August 30. He was assigned to serve with Elder Mower in Majuro. Elder Mower is from Highland, UT. He has been serving for 1 year and has absolutely loved it. While at the Salt Lake airport, a friend from Carey's work - Stephanie - delivered a water bottle and some treats to Elder Underwood. She was flying out to California the same day - in the same terminal - at the same time. Can't wait for the next 2 years of adventures.

 Elders in the MTC ready to depart to the Marshall Islands

 Missionaries in the Marshall Islands ready to train

 At the airport ready to leave

 Nice to see a familiar face with some treats from mom - thanks Steph!

 They have arrived in the Marshall Islands

 New missionaries with trainers

All the luggage made the flight

 He has arrived!

 Elder Underwood and Elder Mower

The missionaries stopped to talk to other elders they knew - Underwood the photo bomber!

Bouta be on an island

.
Oh, how lovely was the morning!
Radiant beamed the sun above.
Bees were humming, sweet birds singing,
Music ringing thru the grove.
When within the shady woodland
Joseph sought the God of love.

I start my email with these lyrics from Joseph Smith's first prayer in the hymn book. We sang these words in the world wide devotional with D. Todd Christopherson that was broadcasted. My cousin, Dayton, who is in the Mexico MTC, said that he saw me in the choir, which is cool! These words are so powerful and really sets the scene of how it felt when he was there.

On Wednesday, it was our teacher's birthday. We threw him a surprise party - sorta. Our other teacher taught us a Marshallese happy birthday song and we sang it to him accompanies by the uke. Since we don't have a piano in our classroom, our teacher plays his uke with the hymns, in the Marshallese hymn book, there are chords so you can accompany it with the uke. It is so fun to sing.

We did our last TRC yesterday where we skyped a member in the islands and taught him a lesson. It is so fun! We got our flight plans last week and we leave Tuesday morning, we fly to San Francisco then to Honolulu then to Majel. We are all stocked! Stay tuned for the first episode of Elder Underwood vs. wild!

--
Elder Underwood

Almost the Marshalls

The MTC goes slow and then all of a sudden you are about to leave and then it slows down.
This week wasn't too eventful. We started with TRC which is teaching someone for 20 minutes in your mission language. We also taught someone over skype that is in the islands currently. That went well. It is crazy to see how much Marshallese I know already.

We had a great lesson taught by our teacher. I would encourage everyone to watch "The Hope of God's Light" and "The Will of God" on lds.org. They are incredible.

This past Sunday was the first Sunday coordinating the priesthood meeting. It went well and the branch president complimented us as the most organized meeting he has ever seen. I performed "The Manner Of Men" on the piano in a devotional. It was awesome.

We taught a lesson on the floor with no shoes just like we will in the Marshalls. I have participated in choir every week and we learn a lot of stories about how the songs came to pass. We learned a Marshallese birthday song, so if you want me to sing it to you just give me an email and I will be sure to send you an exclusive musical number.

That's all for this week, by next week I will be leaving in a few days!!

--
Elder Underwood

New elders arrive

This week started out with zone 14 singing farewell to all the elders going to Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, Kiribati, and Hawaii. We stood outside and did it and you could hear it throughout the whole MTC. We had quite the audience.

I had to say goodbye to my mom, the zone mom, which was actually Elder Ortiz. He was the priesthood coordinator. I am going to miss him. Then my comp and I got called to that calling so now we are the zone moms. It is crazy how close you can get to people in 3 weeks.

Elder Smith got up to bare his testimony, he talked about he is fluent in Spanish so he thought he would go Spanish speaking. He got his call to Samoa; although he wasn't upset he always thought he needed to teach people with the gift of knowing Spanish. Having faith he brought a Spanish Book of Mormon and some other Spanish teaching tools. His visa got delayed so he got sent to Washington DC for a transfer. What he didn't realize is that mission is huge for Spanish. He was so grateful. It was a great testimony that God knows each of us and we all have a plan.

On Tuesday, we got back to the residence and for some reason I felt like I shouldn't change out of my proselyting clothes. You know me - I am kinda always like whatever. But then as I walked into our district in the other room they were all talking and Elder Lunt has asthma and is struggling because all of the fires and smoke in the valley. Only his companion and I were still in proselyting clothes. Although a few of them could have changed really quickly; it was a great testament that you always need to be ready spiritually to give blessings or invite unto Christ. I got to participate in a priesthood blessing and the next day he was completely fine. It was a testimony builder of priesthood power.

We initiated the new elders and I was one of the intimidators. We did the Baafa thing like they did to us, but then they told an elder "you will not speak! or we will feed you to lalo papa" then they started chanting lalo papa, and I jumped over everyone out of no where and scared the crap out of some people. It was awesome. Everyone calls me lalo papa, which means Underwood in Tongan, but it sounds cool haha.

Lokwe ippami,
Elder Underwood

Familiar Faces

It is always wonderful to see a familiar face in the MTC. Sister Makylee Scherschligt called to serve in Norway.

It feels like I have been out for a century ....

It also feels like I just got here. 

     It was a good week this week. The longer you are here the more monotonous the schedule gets. Not much changes because we do the same things every day. 

     I have said this a lot but my zone is the best! We sing these pacific island farewell songs every time someone leaves. It is so powerful and although the polys are really big and scary they are the nicest people I have ever met. In a picture below it shows one of the polys pair of pants. I can almost fit my whole body in them. I can fit both my legs in one leg hole. 

     We have TRC today. We are teaching a full lesson in Marshallese almost every day. It is hard. My comp and I were teaching about Heavenly Father, we decided to share Moses 1:39. Our investigator was confused because that scripture was in the Pearl of Great Price, but he knew Moses was in the bible. He was confused and we didn’t know how to explain it. We asked the Lord for help to be able to help him understand. We were able to use what we knew in order to help him. I testify that Christ lives and he helps us every day and all we need to do is ask. 

     The Marshallese elder is in a picture below and he is amazing. He always comes to our room and bares his testimony for about an hour in English and helps us with Marshallese. The language is hard, but it is super specific and a lot of back story from words. For example apostasy is Bun jan 

tomak, which literally translates to: fall from faith. 

     The MTC is awesome and I am always spiritually uplifted. 60 elders from our zone are leaving next week and we will be receiving 60 new guys. There will be new zone leaders called and everyone is saying it will be someone else, we will see on Sunday. Our teacher talks more and more about the islands and I can’t wait to get there but also enjoying my time here.

--
Elder Cole Underwood