HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROCK AND MOM!  Ok now that is done so I won’t forget to do it.  So this week has gone so fast and so slow at the same time if that is even possible.  It was transfer day this week.  I’m still here because I’m still in training.  Only for 6 more weeks.  But sister Lasalosi got transferred :(  super sad because she made the house a lot of fun.  and let’s just say that the new kabahay is going to help me develop some Christ like attributes :) 

So we get support the 1st and the 15th of every month.  Let’s just say that sometimes it feels like we have to  live for years in between support.  This week for example, we just made rice and opened a can of corned beef and had corned beef and rice. Or tuna and rice.  Or an egg and rice.  Ramen noodles are cheap but they don’t fill you up.  It’s a bummer hah.  Getting Nutella was really, really nice.  

So tomorrow I officially have been out for 3 months!! yayyyyy!  15 left ha.  I counted and we use 12 6 week calendars while we are on our mission. I have used 2. So I only have 10 left to go.  Trunky already!! :)  

This month could be really awesome!  We have a lot of baptisms planned so I’m hoping that they follow through and they will happen because that would be very, very exciting.  Before sister Lasalosi got transferred, she gave away some of the clothes she was tired of or that she had grown out of (missions do that to you hahah ).  We took some and then we gave some to the Ng family because they all felt awkward wearing pants to church and didn’t have the money to buy dresses.  One of the girls wore the dress to church and it was so cute!  Two of our 10 yr. old investigators came to church yesterday too!  They are basically the cutest kids in the entire world.  They were singing the hymns and I just about died because it was so adorable.  They wrote us notes saying how they were sorry they couldn’t come to church last week cause they were out of town and yeah.  We hung them up on our wall.  The little girl’s name is princess.  And she looks a lot like Kennedy.  So adorable ;)

   So yesterday we taught a guy who is super, super smart.  Like I think my companion was saying he was a lawyer or like a president of a company or something crazy like that.  Anyway he believes in all that we teach him but he has one question.  Why we have the Sabbath day on Sunday and not on Saturday.  Which is because of the resurrection right?  Anyway we told him that but he is soooo well versed in the bible and he just kept pulling out so many different Bible verses and just said he wanted to make sure because he didn’t want to be breaking any commandments.  I just challenged him to pray and search hard for the answer this week and we would too and then we would see what we had found by next Sunday.  It was a little crazy because here we are, 19 years old and knowing not very much and there he is...older and knows the Bible superrr well and we have to teach him.  I was just thinking about all the Book of Mormon Prophets that have everyone trying to prove them wrong and they still teach with power and the spirit just does all the work.   The whole time we were just praying that the spirit would be there and I’m hoping that it will touch him this week while he studies.  He really is golden though because he believes everything we teach and agreed to baptism but he just has so many questions.  crazy crazy.  He’s super nice though.  It was a fun teaching appointment. 

Alrighty well I’m running out of time!  I love you all.  Your letters are the best and it is so fun to get all the pictures :)  Keep on keeping on till next Monday :)  mahal kita from the philippines :)

So false alarm.  The water that was supposed to be off for three days turned out to not happen. But of course we didn’t know and so we stored soooo much water. We had three trash cans full and we filled up all of our clothes washing tubs.  It was kind of annoying that we didn’t know there would be water cause we went out and bought two new trashcans to hold water in.  Oh well...prepared for next time!  

So this week started off great....I lost my voice!  It’s kind of hard being a missionary without a voice.  I kept praying all day that I’d be able to make it through the day and I actually did.  It wasn’t pretty and when I got back to the apartment I seriously couldn’t talk at all.  But at least I made it!  

We were super focused on finding this week.  Our mission is super low in getting new investigators so we had a competition on reaching the standard of excellence.  Me and Sister Lizada reached it but the rest of our zone fell a little short so we lost.  You know how I feel about losing.  I feel so defeated hah but I guess the only thing that matters is that we did our best.  We actually were finding one day and we decided to ask a lady for directions and then OYM (Open your mouth, I think).  I decided to ask if we could teach her right then and she didn’t really answer but her friend said yes so we went into the house and about half the neighborhood followed.  Inside the house we had 9 people we were teaching and then outside there was about that many more just listening.  It was probably the funnest lesson because there were people of all ages and it was exciting because there was so many.  We only got the names of the people inside but it was awesome.  We went back a few days later for the return appointment and the lady wasn’t there but there was a who group of other people who wanted to hear our message.  Unfortunately there wasn’t another adult babae (girl) so we weren’t able to teach because there was guys there.  But we set a return appointment for them too so I’m hoping they are there. 

We have an investigator and her husband sews clothes and so to BRT (??? no idea) with him we are going to have him make us dresses!  I’m so excited because he said we could draw up what we wanted and then were going to go fabric shopping!!! FABRIC SHOPPINGG! yayyyyy!  

Also this week I attempted to cook chicken.  Let’s just say it didn’t go well.  My poor future husband.  I really need to learn to cook better.  Hopefully I’ll have more than a tiny gas burner in my house though.  

 Alright well my letter isn’t super long today so pasensya!!!  (sorry)  But were going to a restaurant that has unlimited rice!! Sooooo RICE EATING COMPETITION!  yesss I’m so excited haha and the winner gets halo halo!  (Halo-halo is a popular Filipino dessert with mixtures of shaved ice and evaporated milk to which are added various boiled sweet beans, jello and fruits, and served in a tall glass or bowl.)  So wish me luck!  You guys are the best!  Love you all!

 -Sister Van Tassell

Yes you heard me right.  Walang tubig. We heard the good news that the entire city is not going to have any water for 3-4 days this week! Patay. We have to store water for showering and for cooking and for drinking.  It is going to be interesting to say the least! So this week has been awesome with conference and all.  Safe to say conference is a TOTALLY different experience as a missionary.  It’s pretty amazing to hear them pray for you.  And you know you’re a missionary when you jump up and down cause you hear Elder Holland is leading off the meeting. Yeah weird!  I carried on the tradition of snacking during conference.  I brought so many snacks!  It was super funny but I’m glad I did because it is a lot easier to focus if you aren’t hungry.  Some of the members brought food for lunch so they fed us at the church.  I had some cream cheese on bread and about died cause it was so yummy.  I miss cheese here :(  We had 5 investigators at conference!!!!!

   One of our investigators is pregnant.  We actually gave her a dress so she would be able to come to church cause she didn’t have a maternity dress.  She walked all the way to church yesterday!! And that is a long ways!  She left at 6 o clock in the morning so it wouldn’t be so hot! She is amazing.  I hope she keeps having the desire to come. And I hope we can find a way to make it easier for her.  One of the members paid for her jeepney ride home.  I was so thankful because I couldn’t imagine her having to walk all the way home again.

   Another one of our investigators is 10 and he’s so adorable.  Whenever we go to teach him he always sees us coming and yells SISTERSSS!! and runs to meet us!  And then he tries to hug me but we just say bawal bawal! :)  And then he escorts me and says he’s being a gentleman hah.  Oh he’s funny.  All the kids come to that lesson so it’s a bit obnoxious but I love them.  Two of the little girls gave me notes saying I love the sisters!  I just about died.  That right there makes my mission worth it! 

   The other investigator that came is George.  Wow he is super awesome.  Like the other day we went to teach him and he said he was so excited to learn about the plan of salvation. hah so we taught him all about it and he had so many insights and when we asked him if he knew about the 3 kingdoms he was basically quoting Doctrine and covenants.  Plus he fed us lunch and bought halo-halo!

  So cool spiritual moments of the week.  It is so cool also that every day we can be so close to the Spirit. Even the littlest things turn out to be a big deal. Like this week we had scheduled to teach the Ng family on Saturday but I just kept thinking about them all morning on Wednesday. When I brought it up to sister Lizada she said that she had been too and that since we had time we should stop by and see how they are doing. When we got there it turns out they were actually going to be out of town on Saturday when we were originally supposed to teach them. So we sat down and had a quick lesson right there. I know we were led there because they needed to keep being taught and keep progressing! They are such an amazing family and I love going there. I hope they will be willing to accept a baptism date soon. I just really get excited when I think about completing their family. 

One funny story is that after follow up training meeting it took longer than usual to get back to our area so we were later than expected. We had originally planned to stop and eat somewhere but we didn’t have time so when we went to drop off sister Lasalosi's package we grabbed snacks and just planned to grab some food on the road. That day we got marienda (snack) at every appointment! I know that it wasn’t a huge deal but Heavenly Father took care of us because we realized that teaching people was more important than eating a nice big meal. 

  

Also this week we OYMd a guy who was just standing outside a big house.  Turns out his name is Ding and he’s a Muslim and was interested in our message.  We were super nervous because we’ve never taught a Muslim before and we didn’t know what concerns would be brought up.  We taught him twice this week and he was so receptive!  We actually were able to teach his sister too.  She was at his house sewing basahans which are like hot pads made out of rags.  She was using this super old sewing machine that had a foot pedal!  It looked like such a leg work out!  Safe to say it was super easy to BRT to her because we just talked about sewing.  Any way but they both listened and were super receptive.  While we were teaching it was really loud because people were doing karaoke outside.  I was praying so hard that the spirit would be there so that he could feel it.  And right when we were starting to testify about Thomas S Monson and Joseph Smith the music turned off and it was quiet and we could actually feel the spirit and it was amazing!  I loved it!

Well I have to get going!  Sorry no pictures today!  My camera is broken :(  Shout out to all of you that sent me letters!  I loved them so much and I’m working on writing back!  You are the very very best!  Love you all!  Mahal kita!  

SISTER VAN TASSELL
ps feed the missionaries so karma will come and I will get fed :)

Well here is week three...well actually I don’t even know what week it is.  Time is going by pretty fast here.  It’s weird because every day is really similar so they all kind of run together.  So we got to watch the women’s broadcast on Saturday!  It was kind of the best thing ever.  I loved it cause I heard so many things that I needed to hear.  I have to say though.  The tabernacle has never looked so good!  I walked in to the chapel and saw the broadcast and started crying because I missed home haha cause I’m weird like that. And wow those videos were amazing huh?!  In the I am a child of God video did you see the jeepneys?  That was the Philippines! Go check it out.  It is so crazy!  Those jeepneys are everywhere here.  We ride them several times a day.  And so many people squish into them.  Like you think there is no more room and then four more people squish in.  And imagine that in 95 degree weather with humidity.  Interesting to say the least haha.  There is no personal space bubble here.  

This Sunday one of our families that we are teaching came to church!!!! YAYYYY Well only the kids came but still.  That is 5 investigators!  It was so awesome.  They are so cute and they were super curious and asked a ton of questions.  And the oldest girl said she felt good there.  Which we took as an awesome sign.  They were like our kids, hah cause we sat by them and took them around to all the classes.  The members were super nice to them but it’s hard to get fellow shippers cause YW are wellll, YW hah you all know how that goes.   We showed them the baptismal font and talked a little bit about baptism.  They haven’t accepted a date yet but were praying for May 10.  The cool thing is that their dad is already a member.  Less active but still a member so our goal is to prepare him to be worthy to baptize his family.  It’s so exciting to think that we are helping them complete their family.  I hope they keep growing in their desire to learn about the church because they are so amazing and I just get so excited thinking about the blessings they can get as a family and maybe if they get baptized we could start helping them prepare to go to the temple.  

  So this week we were walking after teaching an investigator and a lady asked us what church we are from.  Which is like a golden question ha.  I love when people ask us why we are here.  It is such an easy conversation starter.  Anyways we stopped and talked to her and soon 4 more of her friends came over and we gave them all pamphlets and decided to just teach them right there so we sat down and taught them all about the restoration.  It was cool cause they all just gathered together and there was a bunch of kids and it was just fun.  Plus five new investigators is always awesome :)

One guy on the street was like "good afternoon maam....I LOVE YOU!"  hah oh it just makes me laugh how everyone says crazy stuff like that.  They are super obsessed with me because I’m white.  I can’t even count how many times people say stuff but you just have to learn to laugh at it.  There is an adorable little boy (like 2 years old) and I’m his "crush."  Whenever I go teach the people that live by him he is always there and I wave and he gets all embarrassed and turns around and hides and we all laugh.  It is so funny. 

We had exchanges this week.  It really wasn’t that bad but it was weird being with someone else.   We only taught two lessons because it was the women’s broadcast.  She told me in the evaluation that I don’t smile enough in the lessons.  Pshh whatever.  But yup that’s my goal now.  Is to be happier.  Anyway I’m running out of time.  I love you all.  You are the best ever!  I miss you.  Thanks so much for everything!  Whenever you think about complaining about something just think about the people out there who don’t have as many blessings as you do.  Think about all you have and how lucky you are to have it.  Also never take a washing machine for granted.  Or a microwave.  Or a walmart.  or a car.  or really I could go on forever hahha.  Just be thankful.  That’s all I can say.  You guys are so awesome and I’m so thankful for such a strong support system.  Keep sending me pictures and keep me updated because I love hearing from you.  mahal kita from the Philippines

-Sister Van Tassell