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