It’s almost April….What????        

Happy pday everyone.  I’ll just start out this email by letting you know that I got my 'trunky letter' This week. It’s just a letter that you have to fill out things about how you are going to travel home so they can get your flights booked. But everyone here calls it trunky letter. It means you have 4 months left.  It was pretty cool I guess.  But it got me thinking about what it will be like to come home...so that was a little weird. I guess I don’t know what all to expect and it’s weird that I’m one of the older missionaries now.  So that was a highlight of my week.

   Also this week we had 6 investigators at sacrament meeting! It was super exciting. We have one old tatay who is really progressing and is scheduled to be baptized on April 18 so we are really hoping he makes it. He is also an amazing cook so every time we teach him he makes us lunch and it’s so yummy. It’s exciting to have people start progressing.  We are also teaching a bunch of his kids and grandkids and they are the cutest things ever. I love them so much. Mom and dad when you come we are going to visit them.  They had never seen an American before me so they were pretty excited. That is actually how we oymd them cause they were all staring so we just started talking to them. You would be amazed at how well that works. But now we are teaching them several times a week and they also came to church this week. And when we come they always run down the street towards us yelling sister van sister van sister van! it’s really cute. And then after we teach they walk us to our next appointment.  We taught them about word of wisdom and they all committed to live the word of wisdom.  So we follow up with them all the time and their experiences are so cute.  They all are reminding each other only to drink milo (hot chocolate) now. And one of the girls said her mom bought her an iced tea and she was about to drink it but then she remembered she had promised us so she didn’t drink it! :) Super awesome sila.

   Another experience with oyming.  So as we walk down the street people will sometimes point and say wow it’s an American!  Sometimes it’s annoying but it just depends on how you look at it. And what your attitude is. So some girls did that to me this week and I decided to go talk to them but I only spoke in English to them just to get them a little flustered haha. It was really funny. But then I changed back to Tagalog and we oymd them and asked if we could teach. And they said ok so we went to their house and about 100 kids followed us! joke that’s a bit of an exaggeration but when we taught the lesson and I think there were 20+ kids there.  It’s not an ideal teaching situation but it was fun and they were all so darn cute.  Sometimes OYMing is fun :)

      Those are the main things that have happened this week. My companion had her money and one of her flash drives stolen so we think someone broke into our house and took it but the weird thing was that they didn’t take the other valuable things that were out in plain sight.  So it doesn’t make any sense that they only took her money and nothing else.  Maybe it was a ghost. The sisters are convinced that there is a ghost in our house and they are freaking out. So we all slept in the same room last night.  Crazy crazy. But other than that we are doing good. Just trying to make the best out of every day.  I’m on D&C 122 today. Not sure if I told you but I’m reading the doctrine and covenants backwards.  it’s kind of like a countdown. One section every day. So it means we have 122 days left haha.  Crazy crazy.  Miss you all like crazy!  Love you all and hope you have an awesome week!

XOXO still from Trece

Sister Van Tassell

3, well after today we only have 2 transfer days left before we meet again :)

So here it is Monday again. And we just heard that I am not transferring. So I’m not really sure of my feelings right now. I really wanted to transfer. But nope I’m here for one more. That means this will now be my longest area.  Oh well. I guess there is a reason for everything. I’m just very sad that one of my closest kabahays is transferring.  LL  Transfer day is the worst.

 But as far as this week it was ok. The highlight was defiantly Monday.  We got to go to the beach. That was good even though we don’t get to swim.   We just hung out and played some games. We played soccer, volleyball, and a game with shoes that I don’t really know the name of.  But it was good to be able to relax and not worry about too much.  It was super awesome to be on the beach. If that was my area I’d probably go there all the time.

This has been a week of learning.  We were all pretty stressed so we all had to learn how to help each other and to deal with each other. And personally I’ve had to learn a good lesson in humility. And I guess I just want to say what I’ve probably said before a hundred times. It won’t be easy but it will be worth it. It’s so hard to see the positive sometimes. Like really sometimes it seems like there is ZERO positive! But I know for a fact that isn’t true.  I read a story during my studies a long time ago that really helped me this week. It’s about a shepherd.  One man asked the shepherd if he counted his sheep every night. The shepherd said no he didn’t.  The mad was shocked and wondered how he could possibly know how all of his sheep were really there and safe. Then the shepherd said that they could blindfold him and lead him to any sheep and he could tell if it was his by just putting his hands on his face.  I thought that was pretty darn cool. Then we kind of related it to the Savior when they say that he is our shepherd. He knows who we are and he knows that we are his. He knows us so well.  I can’t remember where the scripture is but it says something to the effect of how Christ is the perfect Shepherd because he was first the lamb. I love that so much. He knows all of our struggles and so even though there is really no one that you feel like understands…HE DOES.

That’s my little blurb for all of you this week.  Take care and don’t forget to keep the missionaries in your prayers J  I love you!

--Sister Van Tassell

2015 Mutual Theme Song…..Check it Out!

Dear family. 

   The letter this week is short and sweet. This week has been the week of service. We had two service projects. One was breaking out and moving concrete for the wife of our branch president. So that she could plant a garden. The other one was cutting and clearing grass out of this big area.  The problem with that though was that we didn’t have enough machetes and knives and stuff for all of us to actually be able to work. So the elders basically did the work and the sisters messed around and took pictures. It was fun thought because it was really pretty.  And we got fresh coconuts straight from the tree.  It was so tall and the guy just climbed all the way to the top. No problem. It was crazy.  But it was a pretty awesome experience. Also the grass that got cut had to be burned and it was all still green so when we burned it, it was SUPER smoky. So when we got done our eyes hurt and we all smelled pretty bad. But it was a really good time. 

  What else happened this week?  I lost my voice.  There is probably nothing worse than losing your voice here on the mission. Because you feel absolutely fine but you can’t teach.  So it’s hard and you feel bad for not working but honestly even if you do work...the investigators don’t understand so it’s pointless.  I sounded like a mad for an entire week. And I couldn’t hardly talk for like 3 days. Everyone told me that I shouldn’t drink cold things but I really wanted to cause it was hot and cold things taste the best. So I did. And maybe that’s why I was sick for so long.

   Another fun experience....we ran out of gas at our apartment so we didn’t have a stove to cook on. We used the rice maker to boil water but mostly we just ate out because we didn’t really know where the place to order gas was.  We lasted almost a week.  Finally the elders felt bad enough for us that they came and found the store for gas and got it reordered. It’s probably a good thing but I think we could have probably survived for a little while longer :)

     As far as the spiritual experience this week...I guess I’d just have to say that it was being able to teach again after losing my voice.  It’s amazing to feel the spirit of teaching.  That sometimes we get into the rut of just being used to the same thing happening over and over again but when we stop for a minute and go back we realize the blessings that are coming. It’s really amazing to be able to spend the whole day just teaching and bearing your testimony.  It’s worth the hard times and worth the struggles.  And I hope I’m being the kind of missionary that Christ would want me too. So remember to always take out the time from your day to look at the little blessings in your life.  They are there. I promise :) I just wanted to send this picture that I took the other day. Every cloud has a silver lining and it’s up to us to be sad that the sun is going down or hiding behind the clouds or to be happy and see the beauty in the sunset and the silver lining.  It’s our choice :)

Love you all so much.  You are the best and I love you all. Make this week awesome! 

XOXO Sister Van Tassell

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR

Hello mga gwapa.  I’m coughing my lungs out over here.  And it’s not fun. I always get sick on Monday which isn’t fun because then I don’t have the energy to email.  Pero nagtitiis na lang ako para sa inyo. dahil mahal ko kayo :)

So this week was good.  We went exploring which was for sure the highlight.  I loved it. We started to go down into this valley thing and we saw an old tatay making walice ting tings haha. So we stopped and talked to him because that is just what missionaries do.  They can’t help but talk to people.  And it turns out that he is like kind of the care taker of that area so he knows it super well.  So he just kind of volunteered to be our tour guide. Which was legit because I know that it wouldn’t be nearly that fun without him.  He took us around and endured while we took millions of pictures. and he took us to this waterfall.  And then we climbed some stairs and there was an old canal that he said was built by the Spaniards a long time ago.  It was pretty legit because it was super high off the ground.  And my companion lost her flip flop in it haha.  Then we basically just hung out down there for a while.  It was so beautiful.  Because the water in the river was clean!  So it was like a little bit of heaven.  Actually more than a little bit.  It was heaven on earth.  I can’t get over how beautiful the real Philippines are.  Not the city part.  The legit country part.  It’s crazy that anything can ever look like that.  It’s so funny how much more we appreciate the things around us when we get older. I remember mom always saying how beautiful the sunset was and then I would look and didn’t see anything special. But now if the sky is even a little bit pink I just sit and stare and think how blessed we are. It’s pretty cool.

Also this week me and my companion did some good hard missionary work.  There is no feeling that is better than good missionary work.  The feeling when you are so tired that you can’t go anymore and then you still try and hit one more lesson before you go home.  That’s good stuff.  The not good feeling though is the feeling of trying your very best and loving your investigators and thinking about them and worrying about them and praying for them and then them saying that it’s just not going to work out.  That’s a little rough. And then you get thinking about what your purpose really is.  But as long as you keep working hard...it all gets better.  The ones that are prepared are waiting. So that’s all that matters.

This Sunday was super awesome because we had one of our less active families come to church.  We also had one of our part member families come. It’s so exciting when people come to church. It just makes my day. 

I also made burritos and black bean sauce this week.  It was sooooo good.  The black bean sauce turned out a little different than it should but I just didn’t tell them and they had no idea haha.  My cooking skills are improving.  hopefully!

Ok yeah that’s about all I’ve got this week. Summer is on its way here again so it means it’s really hot during the day. But it’s nice because it gets cool at night. So it’s not unbearable.  This is a really nice area to be in. So we’ll see how long I get to stay.

Take care and enjoy the cold weather!  I’m still working on being as tan as I can be before I come home. love you all! ingat po kayo!

-Sister Van Tassell