Hello everyone!!  Sorry I didn’t get an email off yesterday but we were in the police station allllllll day!!!  Don’t worry it wasn’t us hahah I’ll explain the whole thing in a second.  But let’s just say I’m exhausted.  We had a full week! And no water during the day.  This makes 2 weeks and there’s no end in sight.  Basically were getting experienced on the fine art of bucket showers!

   So I bet your all dying to know what happened.  Well here in good old Muntinlupa there have been several accounts of things being stolen.  Not just little things either.  Big expensive things like iPods, cameras, lots of money etc.  Anywayyy so leaving your things unattended is a big no no.  But my kasama is new and she didn’t really believe me that it wasn’t good to leave your bag around.  So in sacrament meeting, which was testimony meeting and it was awesome. I had to play the piano again...PATAY!!  But I bore my testimony and two of our less actives and two of our recent converts did to and it was just such a strong spirit there. The one recent convert...she’s 11..she just got up and cried and it reminded me of me when I was little and so when she came down I just hugged her so hard haha cause she’s adorable.  And she made me bear my testimony before she would do hers.  Ahh the sacrifices we make on a mission lol.  But it’s really cool how excited we were to see those that we teach up there bearing their testimonies. It’s just amazing and wow. I can’t even explain it.  But anyway after the meeting was over we jumped up to go talk to investigators/less actives, etc.  Anyway but sister Seleue left her bag unattended on the bench.  Before you know it bishops wife is yelling at me to stop that girl cause she has her bag.  Anyway a lot of commotion happened and the good news is we got the bag and nothing was stolen.  The bad news is the cops had to be called and we all had to go to the baranguay to do our statements but we had our ward mission leader with us the whole time so that made it nice.  (our ward mission leader is the coolest!)  And they had to call president Tye and the zone leaders and yeah.  It was crazy.  And we were there allllll night.  Well until 7 and then the members took us to the church and fed us really fast and then we had to go back until 9.  And then the next morning at 8 we had to go back and file our case and all that and so we were there until like 3 in the afternoon.  We even had an attorney there and were all official.  The best part was he fed us free lunch :)  Lots of drama and lots of running around and the worst part was that we had a mission activity in Dasma at 1!

 We didn’t think that we were going to be able to make it but we really wanted to see everyone and just have a good time so we called president Tye and he told us to come so we hopped in the jeepney and ran to Dasma.  We spent a lot of money on transportation but it didn’t matter cause we got to see everyone. We didn’t get there until it was over so we missed the games and food and everything  but we were just so excited to see people that we didn’t even care.  It made our day just to be there.  I saw sister Lizada again and we just screamed and jumped around and everyone looked at us really weird but it doesn’t matter haha.  And the funny thing was when we got there the story of us being in the court had already spread except for of course it got changed and so everyone thought we were in jail.  It was a really good time haha.

 This week we had exchanges again. I usually hate exchanges but this time I really enjoyed them. I got to go to Binan and teach in their area which was good because it was a new view.  But usually I have a hard time because I’m teaching people that I don’t really know and that I’ll probably never teach again so I have a hard time getting that love there.  But this time I really prayed for help with that because I wanted to have good lessons.  And it was really cool because even though I didn’t really know them I still had that love for them and I was able to have some really good lessons and really feel the spirit and learn from our STL. So I guess the lesson we can get out of that is it doesn’t matter who you are talking to.  It doesn’t matter if you are best friends or if you have never met the person before in your life.  You are still all alike because we are all children of god.  And if we can get that love there then we don’t need to be afraid to share the gospel because they know that were doing it because we love them and not just because we want to force our religion on them.  So share the gospel :) hahah 

 I love you and I’m so thankful for all your love and support.  We’ve been crazy busy and all that but it’s been really good.  Were safe and were happy.  Transfers are coming up soon so well have to see what is going to happen.  I’m sorry I don’t have much more time to talk about the rest of my week but we have a zone meeting to go to.  But talk to you all next week!  Oh and a shout out to Brooks on his baptism!  That’s really awesome and I can’t wait to see pictures :)  Till next week then! keep on keepin on!

XOXOXOX from muntinlupa!!!

-Sister Van Tassell (or Sister Van as everyone likes to call me here)