The Final Countdown  

Magandang pday sa inyong lahat!  Just to let you all know tomorrow is my 100 days left in the mission mark.  It’s pretty darn cool. Time flies when you’re having fun!

I’d also like to let you all know that I know how you feel. We are all suffering from the weather. It’s too cold for you and too hot for me. Too bad we can’t just meet in the middle. I’m just glad that summer is almost on the downward swing. Bring on the rain!

So much happened this week! We went hiking at Pico de Loro. If you don’t know it then look it up on google cause it is soooo pretty. The hike was actually pretty hard. And of course the elders took off and didn’t bother to wait around for us. So I got stuck with the slow group. It wasn’t too bad cause I still was getting over being sick so it was a little bit harder to breath. But I survived. About halfway up me and this other American sister got bored with the slow pace and we took off and met the elders at the top. It was super high! But it was just the peak of the mountain. Then we had to go down a little ways further to get up to the actual Pico de Loro.  The elders were all pretty proud of us cause it was high and we were the only two sisters that made it. It wasn’t even that bad though. Pretty easy actually. And so cool.  Defiantly worth it. It’s a different experience hiking in the Philippines though. It’s like jungleish and you sweat a LOT more! But it was still fun. And an amazing feeling to be able to get some exercise and fresh air!

I also got to go on exchanges with sister Edington...one of my mtc companions! That made me super happy. And we basically just got to catch up because we have been on opposite sides of the mission for such a long time.

This week was LEGIT cause we had a baptism. It was my companion’s first baptism so she was super excited and I was too. It was the cute old Tatay that I’ve been telling you about. He was so excited and when he gave his testimony he just cried and cried.  I was a bit worried cause this is the first baptism that I have had to be in charge of as senior companion and leading the area. So it was stressful. But when everything got started I just looked at the picture of Jesus that we had set up in the front and I just felt so good and knew that even though it wasn’t perfect, it was ok cause we had done our best and that Tatay Panny felt the Spirit and so did we and that is what counts. So that was defiantly the highlight of our week.

My next favorite part of the week was Tuesday. We got to teach the husband of one of our less actives who, in the past, has refused to talk to us. But he agreed to listen and we had a really good lesson. We BRTd a lot at the beginning and I think that helped.  When we were teaching though I asked him if he was happy with his life and he answered no.  That was really sad for me cause of course we would hope that everyone is happy.  So then I asked why he wasn’t happy.  He went on to say that he was having family problems and that work was really stressful and so on.  I was like oh ok brother we understand that those things in life are never easy. But now I want to ask what your blessings in your life are. He told us that the blessings in his life are that he wakes up every day and that he has a job and that he has a family.  That shocked me and really made me think!  The exact things that made him struggle and made him say that he was sad with his life were the things that he also considered his blessings.  I found a scripture in  Helaman 12:1-2 that talks about how we are so blessed through the Lords infinite goodness.  But the time when we receive the blessings is often the time that we turn away and we lose our faith and we forget where the blessings came from.  How true it is.  I’ve seen it in the scriptures and in my life. We get too comfortable and we forget how much we need to lean on the Lord.  So I hope well remember to take a second look at the things we consider our trials and try and find the good. Try and find what God is helping you to learn. And always smile...or you will get wrinkles.

So take care this week. I’m getting off now! Love you all and thank you so much for always supporting me!  You are the best!

--Sister Van Tassell

XOXO from the top of Pico de Loro

Were a day late and a peso short

Hey everyone!  I guess I’ll start by explaining the title.  Day late because we barely got to watch conference this last weekend instead of on Easter Sunday. And peso short cause were on the low end of our support and we still have an activity today so were going to be on tipid mode.  tipid means thrifty.

But other than that this week was really pretty good. I got to start working again! That was exciting. This week we were working really hard to get our investigator ready for his baptism interview. In order for him to finish the lessons, we had to go to him every day. He is this really cute old tatay that was a referral.  He’s the one that I told you was a really good cook. And so every day this week we had dinner at their house. It was pretty legit.  And on Sunday he had his interview. He was so nervous! Cause he was really confused about the godhead and he was just sure that he was never going to pass the interview. So we told him to pray. And we prayed with him and he cried cause he was so worried. But he passed and everything turned out ok!  He is the best. He got a new haircut for the occasion and everything.  His friend that referred him was also really nervous about the interview. He kept walking around everywhere and telling us to go check on him.  We just had to tell him that the elder that was interviewing him was a really nice guy.  That kind of calmed him down a little :) good times good times
 

This week at conference was awesome! We have to go to the stake center to watch it. Well I guess not stake center cause it’s not a stake but whatever.  So on the Saturday session it was basically all missionaries there and not many members.  Sunday there were quite a few members though.  It’s pretty cool here cause there are soo many missionaries in our district/stake.  I counted the other day....but I forgot how many. But maybe close to 34 or something missionaries in our stake.  That’s pretty different coming from a stake with 2 missionaries.  But I loved hearing all the messages from our prophet and his apostles and I love the spirit that you feel from watching conference while you are a missionary.  It’s a lot different.  I actually don’t fall asleep :)  One funny thing that happened...when they were announcing temples I couldn’t really hear very well cause our video was kind of choppy so instead of hearing Bangkok Thailand I heard Bangkok china and I was super excited cause I thought that the church was like finally going to be started in china!  But then I realized after about 10 minutes that there wasn’t a Bangkok china and it was really disappointing haha.

This week I was in charge of cooking for our apartment! We ate all American food and we didn’t have rice all week! I’m sure my kabahays were not too impressed. But oh well.  I made burritos and pasta and sloppy joes. All of it was very masarap :)

As far as spiritual thought this week...I think we can just count conference.  They say that if you ask 3 questions and pray about it the week or two before conference and prepare yourself spiritually...you will receive an answer.  And I know that that is true. Because every time I’ve tried it I have received an answer.  This time I asked 3 questions and one was about how I can strengthen my faith. And it was perfect because there was so many talks based on faith and how to stay strong even when we don’t see the light. I loved the talk about the little girl that got in a plane crash and then walked the mile to the light that she saw in the distance.  The light sometimes fell out of her view but she just kept pressing forward.  And that’s how we all need to be.  Find the light and just keep pushing forward even though we might lose sight of it for a while. It’s like Neil A. Anderson talk about how we are in the last days. We have to make all of our actions count. This is our time to practice and improve and prepare for the world to come. So make it count :) I love conference and I also want to agree with Jenna and say that I sustain President Thomas S Monson as our prophet today here on earth.  He is the Lord’s mouthpiece and he is the way we can know Gods plan for our day.

Thanks for all your support and all of your prayers! Love you all

Sister Van Tassell

Have I done any good in the Mission this week?       

So this week the typhoon didn’t hit our house but sickness did. We actually didn’t know about the typhoon at all.  It’s crazy how much information we don’t hear about as missionaries. On April fool’s day we got the text from President Tye saying that we needed to make sure that we had our water and our 72 hour kits prepared just in case.  So we weren’t even sure whether it was for reals or if it was just a joke..... so that was a little funny. But we were prepared anyways so we weren’t too worried.

I guess I’ll fill you in about the sickness that happened. So Sunday night we were coming home from Naic and I didn’t feel too hot...kind of like I was getting the flu. So we just stayed home and didn’t work that night just to catch it soon and then get right back in the swing of things.  Unfortunately it didn’t really work that well. Every day after that it just kind of got worse and worse. I couldn’t really eat and I had a fever and my body hurt so bad. So I basically just laid on my bed and on the couch for the last 7 days. I feel bad for my companion because she didn’t really know how to help me. I didn’t know how to tell her to help either. She is really sweet though and always was getting me water and things to do.   So I’m glad she was there to help me out.  Finally on Thursday we went to the doctor and got some medicine so that was good. I had to get blood drawn L But the medicine worked eventually.   

I did have a pretty cool experience that I will share with you so that my letter isn’t all about being sick and sad stuff.  So Thursday night after I went to the doctor was like the worst night. Long story short I was just straight up miserable. I hurt so bad and was so hot and couldn’t hardly breathe because I was coughing so bad. Especially if the fan was on my and there was no way that I could survive if the fan wasn’t on me.  So it was really awful. Anyways I was almost positive that I was going to die haha. But anyways I had gotten a blessing from our district leader earlier that day and it said through my faith I will be healed.  So that night I was struggling pretty hard and I was like what’s up….like maybe I don’t have any faith. Cause it’s only getting worse! But then I prayed and just asked that even if I didn’t get all the way better…all I wanted was to be able to breath well enough that I could sleep a little bit.  Then tomorrow well figure things out.  Then I just got the thought to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth.  Little thing for sure but it worked! And my coughing stopped for the most part. And I could breathe kind of. Now that was a huge miracle for me and proved that the blessing was true. And it reminded me of 1 Nephi 1:20 .

But behold, I Nephi will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.

So there is my week in a nutshell for all of you. Don’t forget that the Lord has prepared his tender mercies for each of us and he won’t leave us alone if we will turn to him.

Love you all! Have an awesome week!

-Sister Van Tassell