You’re Awesome

Hello everyone!   I decided to take a page out of Dayton’s book and title my email like this.  It’s always good to get a pick-me-up.  So there yah go everyone!  YOU’RE AWESOME :)

  Soo now I will start by singing a quick version of happy 8 months to mee!   Is that insane to anyone else?  I for one don’t feel like I haven’t seen you all for 8 months.  But I guess that is because you guys are amazing at keeping me updated with letters and pictures...so I feel like I still get to keep up with your life :) So that makes me happy.  I found a girl that reminds me so much of Macie this last week.  I sent a picture.  I don’t know.  She is really cute.  Hopefully you can see the resemblance and I’m not just going crazy from the heat hah.

    This week FLEW by.  Like I can’t believe it’s over.  We were super spoiled and had dinner appointments every night. Hallelujah ;)  I love dinner appointments.  Seriously we don’t even have to go shopping this week cause we hardly ate any of our food....which is a good thing cause we are currently super low on funds.  Thank goodness support comes on Wednesday!

   So this week we had Zone conference.  It lasted from 9 am to 5 pm!  Super long but super good.  Jenna said that her mission president is the best but don’t listen to her...because the truth is that President Tye is the best. It was really a spiritual high.  We got a lot of talks about giving our all to the work and then expecting the blessings that will come when we do.  One of the Elders told a story about the dad that bought his daughter a fake pearl necklace and then she had to give it up before he could give her the real pearl necklace.  Anyway of course it was told with a lot more detail but it was so cute and it made me cry.  Which sucks because I cry a lot more now that I’m here on the mission.  Plus it was a mean story to tell cause it’s about dads and we all miss our dads here haha.  But no it was really inspirational. It really makes you sit back and think about the things you want to accomplish while on the mission and then you have to think about what you have to do in order to accomplish them.  Yeah we even got to play jeopardy at our zone conference.  It is crazy how competitive we get when we get to play a game.  That is what comes from having no competition anywhere else.  It was a lot of fun.  We won too....or we did until they did one of those lame questions where it was whoever gets the next question right wins everything.  I was mad.  Because we kicked butt and then we still lost.  But whatever.  It’s not the end of the world haha. It was super-duper exciting to see everyone and talk to the people in my last district.  And the APs took us there and then back home.  And they even stopped by Macdo.  Love it.

   This week we had the chance to go to a chapel open house.  It was for our stake and the missionaries put it on.  It was at a different chapel but we got permission to take one of our investigators there.  It was really good because there were members and missionaries and investigators everywhere.  There was always someone to answer questions and to explain more.  It was really really good.  I loved it.  Plus they had a little mini concert at night....we didn’t get to go to that.  But I thought it was a good idea for getting people educated about what really happens at church and getting them to realize that we have a good time and we are real people.  It reminded me of the Salmon dinner we always have at home.  I don’t think I realized how big of a difference that makes until I came on the mission.  The more fellow shippers the better!  So that’s the challenge of the week.  Don’t be shy to welcome someone at church.  Try to see what they need and help them out.  The missionaries will love you and you’ll feel awesome because you just made a new friend.  Even if it’s a little bit out of your way. It’s totally worth it.  

   Well that’s all I have time for.  I’m off to our district activity.  We’re going to be playing volleyball and hopefully some Filipino games.  I’m super excited.  Actually getting to play a sport is the best feeling ever!  Alrighty!! Have an amazing week.  You are all awesome.  And I love you all.  Keep on keepin on!
XOXO from Molino!

--Sister Van Tassell