Kumusta po Kayo?????? How goes the battle?  Its going good here.  I got a reality check when i realized that i only have two more weeks here.   We are so spoiled here.  Like we get to speak english and we get lots of food and we get showers and we get mail almost instantly.  The list goes on and on.  The district older than us left this morning at 4:30 and its so sad.  It feels so empty without them. We had our testimony meeting in the room where you can see the temple again.  I hate saying goodbye but i know they are doing good things so i cant complain.  Our zone is just our district now.  We get three new elders and one new sister on Wednesday!! im way excited.  We didnt get to host last wednesday cause we had to go to this class.  It was to help train mission presidents and they had to teach a class and we were volunteered.  It was a really good lesson and theyre going to be great mission presidents but i really really want to host this week.  

     Our Branch presidency is seriously the best ever!!!  Like basically our zone is the best zone in the MTC.  It is way tiny so we are all way close and we all get along really well.  Well for the most part.  There are arguments but we get over it and move on.  We were dying for some real world food so we asked them to bring us some.  Of course its against the rules to bring food in so he bought it and put in in individual ziplock bags so they could smell it.  Then he put them all in his briefcase and snuck them in.  It was the coolest thing ever!  Hes a doctor so he said that it was our prescription for homesickness haha.  I always seem to get lucky with leaders.  They are always legit and bring us good food hah.  We are so spoiled.  They all love to talk and just tell us stories all the time.  President Howard tells the same stories over and over again.  Brother Christopherson tells us stories about all the couples he has set up and all the advice he gives them.  Hes my favorite.  he told me who he would set all of us Sisters up with.  He did a pretty good job but i think me and chey can do better.  I dont know.  He has a lot of success stories so i trust his judgement haha.

    So mom your DoTerra officially doesnt work.  Ive used it every day since ive been here but this week i got sick :(  like my throat has hurt soooooo bad all week long and im losing my voice.  The work must go on though!!!  GUESS WHAT?!  I memorized the First Vision in Tagalog!  Its probably the coolest thing ive ever done.  Cause on Sunday we watched the Joseph Smith movie and during the First Vision scene i was able to say it in Tagalog and you could just feel the spirit like no other.  And its just a confirmation to me that the church is true.  No questions asked.

     So Linggo-linggo (every sunday)  we get to go to Music and the Spoken Word before relief society. Its pretty cool cause i get to look for randy every single sunday.  And i see him and its cool cause i know him.  Lets see we got called as sister training leaders which is cool but its a lot less cool when you know that were the only sisters in our zone and theres only one sister coming in this next week to train.  Shes going to have a whole ton of training haha.  My letter writing time has been super short this week.  I hope i will have more time this next week.  But thanks to all of you who sent me letters.  I love it!

    This week i was thinking a lot about home because everyone asks me about it.  They are so intrigued about me and my country life.  It cracks me up.  Any way so i was thinking of you might be a redneck.  and then i though you might be at the mtc if......

       You go to bed at 10:30 on weekends and your happy to do it

        The love story in legacy gets everyone ohhhing and wishing it was them.

        You arent quite sure what a phone is anymore

        Letters are better than gold.

        You know what page 33 says

 Ok they really probably arent that funny but to me they are so true.  its so weird.  Were very settled here and its going to be crazy to pack up and leave in two weeks.  I feel like im going to be sending a lot of stuff home.  Im so excited to go you have no idea.  I hope all is well at  home.  You guys are all so awesome!!!!  Mahal kita!

   SISTER VAN TASSELL

Well week three has come and maybe gone?  who knows haha its so hard to keep track of which day is which here.  Like its a blur.  Like one superrrrr long sunday.  But the best sunday ever hahah.  It is so true that the days are long but the weeks are short.  Meals are what we look forward too.  Of course haha food runs my life.  except for its a lot of fattening food and not a lot of fresh stuff so that is getting kinda old.  AH well! so lets see this week we have been teaching 3 investigators!  Its not too hard but weve been getting kind of mixed up in what weve taught each one so we need to get better at that.  So we prepared really well for two of our lessons but then the third one we thought we had down because wed given it before so we went in without much preparation.  I was super frustrated and just didnt want to teach her and so we hadnt practiced and didnt have the spirit very strong and it was aweful.  Like we couldnt understand anything and we left and just cried. But it gave us a new perspective on teaching and were really going to try to be better about preparing.  And not getting frustrated haha but thats a work in progress.  umm So big news.....Elder Holland came to our sunday devo!!  It was only cause his son was speaking but it was still legit.  It was super awkward because we sang called to serve at the beginning and some elders stood up and it was just weird and the people on the stand had to tell him to sit down and it just kinda put a weird feeling on the song.  But the talk was super good so it got better.  We sang in the choir and we sang praise to the man with Elder Holland sitting right there.  Talk about awesome!!  Even though i hate choir cause i suck at singing haha.  I go cause my companions go. 

    So for valentines day we bought some red paper and pink sticky notes and made a paper chain.  We hung it up in the room and stuck pink sticky notes every where all over the class and it was super cute.  we gave our elders a valentine and gave them each a plate full of candy.  I really hoped they liked it.  I think they did.  We were just going to leave up all the decorations but our teacher took them down.  We speculate it is because she has no love in her life and hates valentines day but who knows.  One of our teachers went with his girlfriend to Arizona so he wasnt here all week and that was super sad but it also ment that we got Brother Smith as a teacher and he is the BOMB.  He is an amazing teacher.  like he makes me figure things out instead of just telling us and then he is super encouraging and always gives us the biggest smile when we get it right.  Me and sister bergeson were so confused in class a few days ago and he gave us a little one on one time and it really made me decide i needed to work harder.  I have a green book that has all the vocab and conjugations in it and when i left the class i told him i was going to study it until i absolutely cant stand to look at it ever again!  He laughed but it is so true.  I really need to work harder.  I made it to the book of mosiah in a week.  That is awesome but were just getting more and more lessons to plan so its slow going.

    We have a big window right outside our room that has a great view of the mountains and the lake and whenever i get a spare second i always go sit there and write letters.  Letter writing is better than emails.  Umm lets see what else happened.  Oh this sunday we went to the Legacy video for movie night and it was like kind of a love story and we were all on cloud 9.  When they kissed we were like woooohooooO!!!  and after it was over we were talking about it like we had just been to the best movie ever.  Even the elders were excited.  The best part was when the guy and the girl shook hand and everyone was like aww  and someone was like hey dont diss it thats all you are going to be getting for two years!!!!  it was  the funnies thing ever.  Um  lets see we had the elders give us blessings this week and basically it was the strongest spirit ever and i just cant even describe how thankful i am that they are here for us and worthy of the priest hood.  They see us cry and they see us laughing histerically and they see us teaching on sunday and everything else crazy we do and they are still just so supportive and always give us an extra boost of support and love and its just awesome.  Me and my kasamas are still getting along really well.  Our district has decided that Nearer my God to thee is our favorite song and we sing it a lot.  Were  going to sing it as our farewell song.  OH guess what!  we get to host this week!  That means get the missionaries from the curb.  We get to miss class (or have to miss class)  im not sure which.  and it will be super fun.  The sad part is the older district leaves in one week and were not getting a new district this week and next week were only getting four.  Were going to be so small!!  alrighty well I guess this is enough for today. Love you all!  keep up the hard work.  Remember me here in Provo.  Mahal kita!

  Sister Van Tassell

Kumusta?? how is everyone?  So a super awesome thing happened this week.....our first investigator became our teacher!!!! we were so excited it like made our life!!  He is like the nicest guy ever and hes super patient and talks slow so i can acctually understand him.  Plus you know me its easier to focus on a guy teacher than a girl teacher....sad but true hahahhaha.  Safe to say we all look forward to morning class now!  Afternoon class is when we have our girl teacher and we all have to try so hard to stay awake.  The language is coming slowly but surely.  Tonight we get 2 investigators so thats going to be a challenge.  Im worried but were going to try and go with what we know instead of memorization so cross your fingers haha.  Well acctually i should say pray.  We pray so much here.  Like 20 times or more a day.  I get tired of doing Tagalog prayers but whatevs.  I need to figure it out.  I made a ton of flash cards!  were learning conjugations and its not hard per say but it is a little tricky so i really need to buckle down and get it done.  We are always busy.  i dont know how it all gets done.  This week we have to plan a lesson to teach on sunday as well as all of our other stuff.  oh well.  Thats why i have mga kasama. So we can all do a little bit.

    The other night we got a little distracted during companion study because we had studied seriously all day long...but anyway we all started talking about our lives before we came on a mission.  Everyone thinks my stories are the funniest things ever because they are all from california or big cities in other states.  They were dying when i told them about the beet dump.  They thought i worked at a DJ place when i said i ran a beet machine.  OH MY GOSH how funnyy is that!  they also were highly amused that we drive tractors and go on dates in tractors.   They were making fun of me so much for being so country but it was just funny because it was true and they just dont understand.  Oh california people....  One of our elders is a surfer and we were talking at it was so cool cause he said he live like five minutes away from huntington beach and can hear the waves and all that good stuff.  It is weird how different we all are and yet how close we get.  I think its because we are all on our own kind of so we have to stick with who we have.

   So the oldest distict from our zone left today.  It was so sad.  They were all super nice.  last night we had a little testimony meeting with them up in this amazing room with a perfect view of the temple.  I just cant even tell you how cool it was.  They have amazing testimonies and they are going to be great but its sad that they arent going to be here anymore.  I hate saying goodbyes :(   so my companions make me go to choir with them....it is like death because everyone here is a good singer and im over here like um kill me now.  I only enjoy going because  i get to see walker and tell him all my drama haha.  It is pretty cool to hear us all singing though.  Every time there is a devotional there is always the rumor going around about omg president monson is coming!! and some people believe it and get super stoked and its really funny.  So many things are just funny here and its probably because we have no other form of intertainment.  I called it a jail that we come to on our own free will.  Jk its not bad.  I like it.  Its hard but theres always people there for you and always something to get your mind off the hard things.  On Sunday night we have movie nights and i went to the testiment last night and there was a kissing part and everyone freaked the freak out like ohhhhh and whistling 

and all that good stuff.  I was dying haha.  

   so me and my kasamas are getting along well... shocking i know.  lol but really we all work together without too much trouble.  Its funny because were all similar in the fact that when we get mad and stressed we all just get superr quiet so you know that if we arent talking theres definatly a reason.  but we get over it pretty fast.  Sis eddington hasnt had a breakdown yet so shes the strongest out of all of us haha.  Its so weird to have to be with people all the time.  There are times when you are like wow you guys are awesome!! and then there are times when its like ummm WOW haha.  and at those times is when i just start praying that i can make it through haha.  Im acctually super thankful because neither of them are morning people either so we all wake up and honestly dont talk until breakfast and we all go to bed at nights and dont talk then.  Ok we are pretty quiet people but it works for us haha.  We keep our room super clean too. Shocker i know  haha.  Im just worried about when we have to pack for the philippines.  I feel like im going to be sending a lot of stuff home.  oh well. 

    Well lets see what else happened.   Not really much.  Its getting to be a pattern of sleep eat study 

repeat.  Oh im going to try and read the book of mormon before i leave.  I hope i can do it!!  I memorized my first scripture in Tagalog.  It is Moroni 10:5 and it says sa pamamagitan ng kapongyarihan ng espiritu santo.  malalaman ninyo ang katotohanan ng lahat ng bagay.  YEAHHH buddy!  i feel pretty cool haha.  We always have assignments to practice our tagalog outside of class.  we do it but we talk like such white girls though.  in class just to annoy our teacher we always say our k's like in our throat so it is like german and it is so funny.  Elder Rogers always says mabuti mybootie instead of mabuti.   We sing a lot but none of the songs are church songs haha whoops. Randomly walking to class well break out in a song from frozen.  gotta love it!!  Alrighty i probably am going to call it quits today.  You guys are awesome!! keep writing!  i love to hear it.  im probably better at returning letters than i am returning emails.  Weird but true.  Love you all!! you guys are awesome!  

   Mahal kita!  

             SISTER VAN TASSELL

   

kumusta pamilya!

Heyyyy!!!! i cant even tell you how excited i was for p day.  The elders are playing the ukalale and singing so its setting the mood and making it awesome.  My first week has been so amazing and honestly a roller coaster!  I love it here.  Like i really do.  Everyone is soooo nice and i just love it. My companions are so awesome and we all get along really well.  Im glad i have a 3 some cause it just works haha.  our district is amazing too.  The Elders are soo sweet and are always there for us and walking us home at night.  Oh my gosh so the other day at gym i played four square and the girls were super boring to play with so i left and went to play with the elders and i was the only sister there and i totally kicked butt!  and it was awesome and all the elders were like SISSSSTER!  they say it super funny like seester. We can always hear our elders cause they are loud and dont know how to whisper. but we love them mahal ko kayo!  They are like our family and we kneel and pray together like twice a day and sing tagalog hymns.  An elder from hawaii told me he liked my accent and it was so country and he could totally just listen to me talk all day.  That made me laugh.  The food is acctually good.  
Yesterday was fast sunday and it was the first time  ive ever fasted for 24 hours so it was hard but i had to be happy and it acctually felt good.  at dinner i ate soo much!  and they had ice cream and cake and steak and shrimp and we ate till we wanted to die!  oh and its AMAZING how many people there are here and that we were all fasting at the same time.  The spirit gets so strong its crazy.  Its just good.  Like we pray so much.  i had to pray in sacrament meeting yesterday but it wasnt bad because it was just our zone and our zone is cool.  They have some amazing testimonies.  I havnt had a problem making friends with them at all.  like i have so much to say i cant even decide where to start.  There are times when i get really down but ive been reading a lot of scriptures about being humble and it really helps.  I memorized a scripture in Tagalog already!!  

   The language is good but hard.  but ive studied more this week than i ever have ever!  its crazy that in 5 days i can pray and testify and say other things.  our district is super smart so we catch on fast.  the other districts say were doing really well but they might just be saying that hahah

 soo much has happened but i have to tell you of this one. The most amazing thing ever happened saturday.  Well friday we taught our first lesson in tagalog.  We taught brother danilo.  and before i came here i thought that the "actor" investigators were a joke and it wasnt really a real life experience but it so is!  we were scared out of our minds but it went ok.  Like not perfect but we did ok.  We just memorized a script and did it but saturday our teaching appmt got moved up from 6:30 to 3:15 so we lost tons of study time so we just had to whip up a lesson with what we knew.  We have learned so much though so it wasnt impossible.  We honestly didnt know what all we were going to say and we were switching off a lot so before we went in we were honestly shaking cause we were so nervous but we said a prayer and it calmed us down so much.  We went in asked him to pray because the day before he said he was too uncomfortable to say a prayer on his own.  So today we taught him how and he said the best prayer ever and we felt the spirit super strong .  and then we had him read some scriptures and asked if he felt the spirit and he said YES!!!  We asked him if he would be baptized because our teacher said we should at least bring it up so he knows what our intentions are for being there and he said YES!!!  we were soo excited.  We tried to set a date but he didnt agree to one because he sad that his parents dont like mormons.  We offered to teach them too but he said they lived in california.  Then i just got this strong feeling to bear my testimony and so i just did (and im not good at testimonies right now)  i always forget the words but i just did it and it went well and it just ended our lesson so good.  After we got done we left the room and all three of us just started bawling.  It was easily the best feeling in the whole entire world!!  like just the spirit and love for brother danilo and love for mga kasama (my companions).  the elders probably thought we were crazy but we were so excited and said a thank you prayer and then had to run outside and jump around.  Then when the elders were done we ran to our class to tell our teacher how it went cause he practiced with us before we went in.

      I miss you guys a lot and i cant believe ive only been here for 6 days!  but honestly during the day all there is time to think about is tagalog.  Like in class we have to listen so hard and focus 100% constantly!  When we go to bed our brains about explode.  And we are exhausted all the time but we work hard so it helps.  There are so many people speaking all different languages.  Ive heard so many australian accents i just love it!

well i probably better call it quits for the day.  You guys need to use dear elder because it seriously is such an exciting thing to get mail and dear elder is fast and just as good as a handwritten letter.  so use it!  and tell other people to use it :)

    mahal ko kayo.  langit

         Sister Van Tassell