November 4, 2011
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| District 2 @ MTC This is our study time! Apparently if you fall asleep with the book ON your face--you learn better! Elder MacMillen, Elder Orth, Elder Sasagi, Elder Leasasu |
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| So this says "Teacher Cook, please bless my book green here! Thanks" Sorry my Tagalog is bad....It's only been 5 days. Ya....totally was supposed to say "please leave my green book here, Thanks" haha...It was hilarious! Brother Cook walked in & just looked super confused...then he just laughed! |
Hey Pamilya po ako!!
This week was just as awesome..lovin every minute of it here! :)
First of all...Mom, thank you for the sweater, it was PERFECT...sorry I didn't tell you sooner, I thought I did! Thank you also for the cool story about your 79 year old convert from the Charleston home! That was such an incredible story. Actually last night I was reading Enos 1 and I thought of him. You should read it. The last verse I put as my "funeral scripture" that I would hope to be able to say some day! About the curling iron, that one is perfect! i just wanted any one of them, so that is fantastic. Also, can you send my hot pink nail polish please? if you've already sent the package (which i hope so cuz I get real anxious) but if you have, don't worry about sending it! I just need that nailpolish for my toes. :/
I got a letter from sweet Amber Simons this week :) I LOVE LOVE LOVE her! I am so grateful for her...she mentioned the blog update was last updated my 1st Pday at the MTC though...haha :) What, it's almost like you've been moving an entire house or something?! haha :) Love you, and thanks again for doing that. Kelly, or Kari...or whoever is helping Mom with that, thank you all again! I appreciate it! :)
So Susie, my companion, Sister Morton's friend made me a duct tape wallet...it's purple and silver and it's so sweet! I love it...it's waterproof...for the philippines :) haha Also, I bought cinnamon certs this week...and thought of Dad. It brought back memories of sitting by him during church and he'd pass out his cinnamon certs to me and kelly :) Oh and Mom to answer your question about flying out with Sis. Morton...we're praying that we're on the same flight, but it's a real possibility that we might not be :( I am way nervous! She is serving in San Pablo Philippines which is way lucky because they speak purely tagalog there...she won't have to worry about learning a few more dialects once she gets there :/
The cafeteria food here is gettin old...fast hah I am so tired of it...it's nasty...the only thing I like are the salads and even that is starting to get old because I eat that for like a couple meals every day! :) Oh well...soon we'll be in the Philippines!!!! I hope kelly's dentist appt went well...we were at the dentist at the same time :) Thursday I had a dentist appt too...I met with him and he said to watch it, he thought it might just be a sinus infection...which is kind of what i was thinking since I had been sick with a nasty cold earlier...but he took a couple of xrays. he had me put an ice cube on them and they hurt though...so he said since i've still got a couple of weeks to just watch it and that we would still have time to get it taken care of before I left if it was a problem.
Thank you for sending that music. Also, I think I might audition to sing at one of the devotionals or something...I dunno...we'll have to see if i can get my voice completely
back from that cold so I can! But anyways, i really want to...we'll see :) we rented music for come thou fount and also Be still my soul which is a duet I might sing with one of the Elders...I dunno it's a real possibilty though :)
So on Nov 1st you wrote me about a Tender Mercy Mom, and said that it was amazing because it was terrible weather the day you moved Kelly out, but somehow you managed to avoid the rain. How awesome is that? It is also very awesome that Sis. Ycmatt talked to us in our "chika chika" time (girl talk) at the end of the day, and I also read Bednar's talk about that this week and started a journal just of tender mercies that I see :) I love that it's not irony at all, obviously the Lord knows I need to be better about recognizing all of the many tender mercies I'm given!
I pretty much hit a wall this week. A big, huge, fat, tall wall! I am so stuck on the language it is very frustrating. I have learned how to use all of these different conjugations but there are so many I am having a hard time remembering them all. And it is SO frustrating because the Elders that don’t' do squat during study time are pickin it up like there's no tomorrow...so not fair! It seriously frustrates me though..no joke! Anyways...last night I also read D&C ...honestly I can't remember which chapter it was but it totally comforted me. And at our amazing devotional this week the speaker just said; you know, you have been promised the gift of tongues. So make no mistake, you will receive it. Now it's just learning how to be patient till it comes, or making sure that you are working as diligently as you can so that you are worthy to receive that gift. It sounds so easy...apparently I have to work on my faith a lot. haha But for real, I know it will come so I'm trying not to stress over it. I just need to have Tiyaga...patience! :)
Um...I bought a shirt at the bookstore haha...they have all of these shirts with different flags on it and it says where you're going and they have them for all of the states too...they never have Philippines ones...but anyways so 3 of the other sisters and I bought random shirts. Sis. Ycmatt & Sis. Sharp went up to the counter and bought them and the cashier was like oh sweet, are you going to ohio? and the Czeck slovakia? NO idea how to spell that sorry...but anyways they just said no actually we're not, we're going to the Philippines. HAHAHA how funny is that? It was hilarious! Anyways, I got a Tennessee one cuz it said "Tennessee" "Sounds good to me" hahaha it was funny, anyways we're excited about those. Also, I was talking to another Sister and she said that her teacher told her she should have her wedding dress made in the Philippines cuz you can pay like $30 bucks for a fantastic dress, how awesome/ crazy is that? haha I thought that was pretty cool! Kind of random...but cool. Oh...we also decided everyone in my district would contribute some money to buy Elder Seuseu a camera. He is from Samoa, and he is the only one here in our district that doesn't have a camera. So w'ere gonna get him one, Elder Bradshaw talked to me about it, I thought that was pretty sweet of them. They really are great guys. I have to tell you Elder Bartleson takes care of me...he's so sweet. he always gives me his gloves when we walk to the temple and he gave up his desk so I could have the nicer one. He always clears my tray at dinner, and pulls my seat out for me, and all of the Elders stand when we enter the room. They are so great, I feel really really bad...especially because I'm not used to being treated
like that! Well, by Daddy...but thats all :) I love them so much, they're great! Like my brothers :)
Oh...I had to give a talk in church last sunday. They do this thing where they tell you the topic and everyone is asked to prepare just a quick 5 min talk and they announce at sacrament mtg that day right before you go up that you are speaking. I knew it was going to be me though. I had this huge overwhelming feeling. It was on the Holy Ghost, and I had such fantastic experiences with it this last week, that I just knew I was going to get up and share that. it was awesome. I wrote a talk, and then I left it at my seat and just talked for the 5 minutes on something completely different, shared a scripture and quote...but it was crazy. i have always gone up to the pulpit with at least a note card...but nope...just got up. It was cool...being a missionary is so great!
Happy LATE Halloween Family! Sorry I couldn't be there and see all of my nieces & nephews dressed up in costumes. For Halloween Sis. Morton and I dressed up as each other. We both own a black and white striped shirt, purple skirts, black shoes, black cardigan, and she wore her hair straight and wore makeup, and I wore my hair curly and up with no make up :) It was fun!
Well, i wasn't going to mention this..but thursday night I spent the night at UVRMC Emergency Room. We thought it was an appendicitis attack.....Not me though! :) Mom, I could just see the look of panic on your face :) Anyways, for real though. At about 9 Sis. Funaki started to be in pain. I didn't see her till around 10:30 and she was curled up on her bed in tears. I went in the room and asked her what was wrong. She told me she was having a sharp stabbing pain on her right lower abdomen. Does that not SCREAM appendicitis?! Anyways, I told her to rate the pain on a scale of to 1 to 10, 10 being excruciating pain. She said she was at an 8. So, I called down to the front desk at 11:00 and told them about it, and they said bring her to the front desk. I took her there with Sis. Ycmatt, and they talked to an oncall dr at the moment he said to bring her to the ER. So, we did. We got to go in the shuttle, dressed in our pj's with our nametags..carrying preach my gospels and took her to the ER. We were there till 3:00 in the morning. i wish I would have had my camera. Turns out the Dr. also thought she had appendicitis, but the UA test they did was Neg, so his next conclusion was that she had an ovarian cyst. Anyways, the pain stopped and we came back home. Man I wish i would have had my camera. And...she's totally fine now, we took care of her :) It was crazy! Right before that I sent another Sister to the Doctor too cuz she had such a severe migraine, she even took lortab and it didn't do a thing! Crazy stuff goin on around here!
The spirit was so present this week as we have taught our discussions and learned so much. I felt this overwhelming feeling the other day to include the investigators who I will be teaching in a few weeks in my daily prayers. I have tried to do that. I pray so hard that they are being prepared to hear the gospel, and that they know how much Heavenly Father loves all of them. I pray for all of you multiple times throughout my day! I love you all so much, and I am so grateful for you!! This week we had a special
experience with our investigator JD. We have struggled with him because for the past few lessons we went to teach him and he was totally trashed/ wasted and we couldn't even teach him. All we could say in our poor tagalog was that drinking was bad, and not healthy. That God loved him, and that there was another way to be happy. That wasn't the answer. So this time we prayed soo hard that the spirit would be there and that JD would be able to feel of that love. So, we went in and we felt like we should ask JD to say our opening prayer. As he said "Diyos" God...the spirit filled the room. He said it as a question as if he didn't know if he was even there or not. He was. Sist. Morton and I just started to have tears pouring from our eyes. He asked if God was there, and told him he was grateful for us and that he wanted to know the truth. We looked up after he finished the prayer and he looked at us and I felt like I should ask him if he could feel how much God loved him. But I didn't ask. Then he asked me, why are you crying? Then I knew I should have asked him that question, so I'm grateful I was given another opportunity to ask. I asked him, JD, could you feel how much God loves you? And he started to cry too and said yes. Then I told him I could feel that love too, and we talked to him for a minute. I don't know why...logically it didn't make sense...but I felt this prompting to ask him to follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized. He said he wants to but wasn't ready. Then Sis. Morton nudged me and said, ask him the date thing. So I asked him if he would prepare himself to be baptized on Nov 17th, and that we would help him and made him a promise that he would be ready. He accepted. It was so amazing...the spirit truly does all of the teaching. It is crazy how the gospel changes lives. I'm so grateful to be a part of this great work!
Anyways, I love you all soo much! I pray and think of you often!
xoxoxox
Pag-ibig,
Sincerely,
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