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 :)