I LOVE MY DAD

Happy Father’s Day sa inyong lahat!  Today I’m super excited to email because this week has been a great week.  Let’s just start with transfer day.

So this transfer day a member was nice enough to give us and our luggage a ride to the mission office.  This was a huge blessing. Because riding a mini bus with about 10 big bags.....I don’t even know how to explain how much of a pain that would be.  So we rode in this nice old red van...that overheats really.  We had several pit stops on the side of the road waiting for it to cool down enough to get started again.  But we made it there safely and now it’s just another story in the books.

  Sister Picar got transferred and my new companion is sister Mendoza.  She is my 'niece'  here on the mission.  Because sister Lizada (who is my nanay) trained the missionary that trained her.  So her 'nanay' is my 'sister.'  There you go. That’s my family history from the mission. I hope you understand. But she is super super awesome. I’m very excited to be able to have her as my companion for the last transfer of my mission. We’ve only been together for like 4 days now and I’ve already learned a lot.  Cause last transfer I felt like sometimes I would catch myself thinking that I’ve been out for a long time so I’ve got a pretty good idea of how to do things and do them well.  And then she became my companion and she’s just such a great missionary. I realized that no matter how old you are you can’t get comfortable with where you are at. You always have to try and improve.

 So this week we went back to the Molina family.  I just love their family. It absolutely makes my day when we get to go to them.  Cause they are just super awesome.  We’re praying for a miracle that they will be able to be baptized before I go home. But if not I hope that they will continue to be taught and to progress. This week the son said that he knows that our message is true! and the dad said that he knows about 70% sure.  I’ll take it!  :)

So I’m listening to some EFY songs right now and looking at pictures and doing the whole trip down memory lane thing. But I think I should probably stop cause its getting me really sad/worried about going home. I’m super excited for my batch's turn to come to get to get on the airplane home...but then again I just don’t know how excited I am to leave this place where you feel the spirit so strongly and you get to do the Lords work every day. I’m definitely not a perfect missionary and I hope that I can make it through without regrets. And all in all really miss you all. But maybe it’s just the fact that you don’t know what will come next.  But that’s part of life. Moving on and upward. :)

So I’m still going to count down and I still show all of your pictures to all my companions and I tell endless stories about the things that you write to me and the things that we do.  And I hope you’ll be patient when I do the exact same thing with all the people I’ve met here haha.  That’s about all I’ve got for this week. Take care and enjoy every day you have.  

XOXO from Noveleta

--Sister Van Tassell--

We are never forgotten.

Hello everyone.  So I was too stressed to write this email because I was worried about transfers. But now we have the call. I’m staying but my companion is transferring. My new companion will be Sister Mendoza.  So now I’m not as stressed anymore and I can focus on the email.

So this week was long and busy! We had X-rays, zone meeting, and zone conference. So that means a lot of traveling. It was exhausting!

I think I already told you about X-rays last week so I won’t tell you again. I don’t want to bore you.

And then we had a bunch of meetings. They were really good but also really exhausting.  They asked me to talk in Zone conference which is in front of half the mission!  And they didn’t give me any time to prepare! They just called me up.  So I was super duper nervous. But it went ok.  It was just about preach my gospel. So I talked about faith. I’m not sure why I was nervous cause I’m usually ok with talking in front of people. But the good news is that I survived. :)

This Sunday was really exciting.  One of the families that we are teaching came to church!  We were pretty darn happy.  I hope they had a good time.  The part I worry about is that that Sunday there was a broadcast from Salt Lake. And it was all in English. So I hope they understood haha. But I think they did. And there was two really good musical numbers so I hope they felt the spirit too!

This week I think I just want to add that we are never forgotten. So last night I was super stressed.  Super super super stressed. Me and my companion struggled and then someone said "hey Joe!"  (which you know about if you’ve ever served in the Philippines) And then I got home and things just didn’t get better and I went outside and prayed and then was reading the liahona and hoping to find a talk that was just for me. And then you know what else happened. The hammock that I was sitting in fell down.  And then an ant bit my arm and it hurt.  Haha and all the little things of the day just added up and I still hadn’t found a talk in the liahona that fit for me so I was about ready to give up. Just those times when you can take it anymore. And then I flipped the liahona open and I read a talk from conference. I can’t even remember who it is from. But all I remember is that it said how he was here because he loves Christ  (oh it was from President Uchdorf)  And he said he’s not here for worldly reasons. He’s there because he wants to be obedient and show his love for Christ. So then I just thought about why I was there on the mission. I’m just like 88,000 other missionaries that are trying their best to be the best missionary they can because they know that is what Christ wants from them.  And it’s not easy. But no matter what happens....we make it through. That’s the cool part. We make it through. We learn and we grow and we improve and we are blessed for our willingness. :) And we are never forgotten. I know that is true.

That’s all I’ve got this week. And you may all officially start counting down on Wednesday cause that is the start of my last transfer here!!! Crazy huh!  Love you all!  Have a great week! 

Sister Van Tassell  

The end is near

Hello family. Sorry my email is late today. We just came from getting X-rays. All of the missionaries that go home in July had to go get x-rays.  I think it’s for TB or something. But it was in Manila so we are all kind of exhausted. But it was fun to see all of my 'batch' and catch up on what is happening to them.  Missionaries are crazy when they get together haha. And loud.  But it makes things fun.  

   So this week was a little bit on the downward slide when you compare it to my last few weeks. But it wasn’t an awful week.  So you all remember our investigator that read and came to church and made us all so excited.  Well this week we taught the word of wisdom and were super energetic and tried to help him find a way to overcome his struggles.  Well the next thing you know he is avoiding us and stopped reading and didn’t come to church.  He said we are forcing him to change things that he has done all his life and he doesn’t want to be a part of it anymore.  So that was a little bit...no a lot rough. But we’re definitely not giving up on him. Because his wife told us that he is still praying. So that means there is still hope. But I think we’re just going to go back to basics.  Yeah buddy. The joys of missionary work! 

On the good news...one of the tatays we are teaching came to church!!   He came even though his family wasn’t able to. It was super exciting because he’s not one to go to church too much. But he has been really open every time we have taught him. And he asks so many questions.  So that was defiantly a highlight of the week. 

What else happened?  Not much. We went to the beach to celebrate my companions 1 year mark. We just watched the sunset. So that was fun.

We walked and walked and walked some more. And I’m trying to work on my patience for other people. It was so crazy hot this week and most people weren’t there, were sleeping, or sent us away because they were busy/tired.  It would have been so easy to just tell them what you are really thinking. Believe me. I wanted to.  But that won’t help things at all. That won’t make it less hot and it won’t make them want to let you in any more.  So basically you just have to remember that no matter what they say or do, they are all still children of God and they have their choices and we have to love them. :) All you need is Love haha. 

We were walking and trying to find people to teach and there was no one. So we decided to say a prayer. So we stopped at a quiet spot and prayed to know where to go.  And that’s the moment that you would expect me to write that a miracle happened. Well one did but not in the way you would think. The miracle that happened is that we were given new energy to keep walking and keep talking to people. We didn’t find anyone but that doesn’t matter. Miracles are miracles no matter how small.

Alrighty everyone. Have a great week.  Don’t have too much fun haha. Enjoy your air conditioning. I would kill for one right now. 

Talk to you next week!

-Sister Van Tassell

JUNE NA!                                                      

Well here we go again.  You won’t be getting too many more of these! 8 more to be exact! You all can now start your countdowns!  It’s crazy! and weird to even think about. So that’s when you just don’t think about it....except for this area is really close to the airport so the airplanes fly over super low and so that’s a little distracting. And gets me excited. 

So what happened this week? We taught a less active family that made me feel really guilty.  They are really struggling with their family scripture study and family prayers.  Because the kids don’t participate or listen. So then I felt bad for all the times that I have been less than excited to participate in our family scripture and prayer.  Because you could really tell that he was discouraged.  So I need to be better about that when I get home haha. But maybe I helped him cause I told him that the kids really do notice the effort. Even though they are fighting and grumpy. They do care and it does affect them. Even though they don’t realize it or admit it until much much later haha.

What else. It’s still hot here.  HOT HOT HOT.  It’s so hot you can’t even sleep.  

We also went to the Ukay Ukay.  It’s like thrift shopping. I bought a skirt, a dress, a pair of jeans, and a slip for 170 pesos which is only like $4.  Doesn’t get much better than that!

Our investigator came to church again this week! For all three hours!! And he listened. And he had the book open and he even opened the hymn book when we were singing.  Gosh it’s so hard for me to explain how exciting it is to see. Me and sister Picar just talk about it and are so excited and can’t stop smiling. Just to see the desire.  Cause we all know that it is one thing to go to church and a whole different thing to participate.  And you can just see the change in his attitude and countenance.  

That’s about all that happened this week. It went by pretty fast. We did a whole lot of walking this week cause we were trying to save money. We just walk our entire area. My feet haven’t hurt this bad since my first area hah. But it’s fun and then we can spend the money on ice candy (popsicles) to keep us cool!  And 7-11. cause there is air conditioning there.  So that is like heaven. To take a little break there. 

Alright well you’ll hear more next week. Take care! Love you all! 

XOXO from Noveleta

-Sister Van Tassell