MTC Hits 3,000 Missionaries

Family!!!! Hi!!!!

How are you guys!?! I'm first just going to go through the dumb boring stuff that we have to cover real quick before we get to how the week's been. First, did you ever find out anything from the Stembridge lady about getting my stuff out. I think maybe Twit should call Skanchy this week and see what he'd be willing to do. I really don't want to have a carry on because 3 bags it's just too much and I have enough stuff that I can send home that I think it'd work. Matthew's number is in my cell phone. Hopefully he'll comply?? Eesh, I just don't know. So there's no AC in our classrooms, just fans. Haha, it's hilarious because it's honestly not too bad, there's only been a couple days that have been not good, but you'd think the elders were going to die of heat in there or something. They're going to kill over in the Philippines if a room with 3 fans in it is too hot. Haha. Yep, and all of our elders are super tall. Elder Gallacher is actually the 4th tallest I think. We have 3 elders that are 6'5", 6'4" and 6'2". They're seriously going to dwarf the Philippinos like none other. The little Philippino girl here comes up to Elder Webster waist. It's pretty funny to see them standing next to each other.

This week we're about to hit the highest capacity ever seen at the MTC....almost 3,000 missionaries at the same time. i honestly don't know how this place functions so smoothly. They have to have some serious coordination going on. And every time I eat breakfast, it just blows my mind how much milk and cereal they must go through. It's incredible! For our devotional on Tuesday we watched some of the Mormon commercials and they showed the one with Allie Schneider. It was funny because my companion was like, that's so awesome! and I was like, I totally know her! What exactly happened to her again? She was born like that, right? I couldn't remember and my kamasa is curious.

So I'm wondering if there's a book out there of Tagalog verbs like the 500 Spanish verbs book that I have? Would you mind looking and let me know. I doubt there will be, but it would honestly be so helpful. The language is such a cool one. It's all about just knowing roots and then you manipulate the root to make it say what you want it to. For instance, bayad means to pay. To make it a gerand you do, pagbabayad which means paying, and then if you do pagbabayad-sala, it means "paying of sins" or, the Atonement. How sweet is that. Everything is just used in such a simplist and clear way which makes it awesome. It just depends on what prefixes you use and how you hook it together. Like "Liwanag" means light, but if you put "Ipa" onto the front of it, it makes it a causitive verb so it mean "to cause to come to light" or "to explain" in english. It's a really sweet language.

I heard that Kamas was on the news this week. My teacher told me it was because someone drowned in the river? Super sad. I also got the HP magazine and news article this week which was the highlight in the Philippino hallway. Everyone wanted to read the HP article. It was hilarious. I loved the part that compared it to the book of Mormon. That was my excuse for saying it was totally "mission appropriate" material. haha. Oh yeah, and got the emails from Jeannie and Kim too. Salamat Po.

So pretty much I've decided that since there's like 4 days packed into one day, I go through about 27 emotions with in a 24 hour period though. Honest to goodness, It's so annoying. It's like the world's worst emotional roller coaster. It's because you're really tired, but then you're happy, but then you get frustrated with the language, but then you're on a spiritual high. It's honestly comical how quickly it can change… and slightly annoying too though I might add. I'm loosing all my muscle in this place too! I have no calf muscles left at all. I seriously sat on my bed yesterday morning before gym and mourned the loss of all my muscle. It was a sad day indeed :( Hopefully I'll get it back quickly after the mish.

Ok, I'm out of time that’s the lamest thing ever. But I love you all and I'll talk to you next week. Maybe I'll send a handwritten letter too so I feel like I got everything in. Love you!

Just kidding, my Kasama is amazing and is letting me use the rest of her email time! Yay! Ok, so next on the list:

So the two older districts from our zone left this week and it was seriously so sad, but so great. They were all just so excited to go and so pumped and I couldn't help but get excited to go. I'm kind of glad they're gone though now because while they were here it was just making me too anxious to leave too. And note to everyone, I still have 3 weeks to go, so no reason to get anxious already. It's good though; I have way too much to learn about teaching and Tagalog to be jetting off just quite yet. Crazy thing though, I get my flight plans next Thursday! AAAAHHHHH! I can't believe it's honestly here already! So the next email I send will have my flights and travel plans and then we can figure out when I can call you guys. I don't know if I'm going to need to buy a calling card though or something? Haven't quite figure that out yet but I'll let you know. Oh yeah, and Sister Dyer is from Orem. Thanks for letting me know about Gma Bennett. That's so sweet of her to help out. I'll be sure to send her a thank you soon. I hope she's doing ok though. And Mike too. Kind of funny that he broke it at the ATV rodeo of all places, I have to be honest, but I hope he's doing well and that it heals quickly. Not so much a good thing to be without when you're a mechanic you know.

Funny story from the week; so we were all talking about how long it takes to learn the language and our teacher said on average 6 months. So we were saying how that's a perfect Christmas present, and Elder Larsen goes, with all sincerity, "I'm going to wake up Christmas morning and it's going to be like, bam, "Kumusta po Kayo? Mag-fluent ako!". Hahaha, oh my goodness, it was so funny. I realize it's probably one of those stories where you had to be there and part of the funniest may just be that we'd been cooped up for hours by that time in the day, but it was so funny. Hopefully we'll be fluent by Christmas. Man, I sure hope so because spitting it out now is seriously painful it feels like. Last story, so the fire alarm went off a couple nights ago at about 2:30 in the morning. Yeah, kill me now. So we're all evacuating out of the building. My kasama was pretty upset, but I just thought it was humorous to be quite honest. Mostly because I knew if I got mad about it, it'd wake me up too much and then I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep. haha. I'm out of time again, but I really wanted to tell you about a talk by Elder Holland that I heard this week, so maybe I'll write it in a letter. Love you so much much much! Ingat po!

Hello Tagalog...Goodbye Spanish

Aking pinikamamahal na pamilya!

Bugger. I just typed this whole email into the journal entry thing on LDS.org hoping that it'd let me copy and paste it here...yeah, it didn't. It closed out of it as soon as I opened the email page. I'm kind of peeved. Really, we can't even have 2 internet pages open! So ridiculous. Well anyway, I'll try to recreate what I just typed. Hopefully I can fit it all in. First of all, thank you so much for the packages! they honestly made my day, you should have seen the ridiculous grin on my face. I almost shed a tear or seven because it felt like my heart was going to burst with happiness. It's been way fun to show people about my life. I love it. And thank you for the sketchbook/journal. I was actually able to take the one back that i bought here so it worked out perfectly. I kept the brown one with the flower designs on it because it was so stinking cute. Good taste you have :) So thank you so much.

 Seven Peaks sounds like a riot and the comment about Michelle's swimming suit made me laugh so hard! I think you should send a picture...I gotta see this :) And a picture of Boo's new glasses. He's totally going to look all GQ, I can totally see it. I got your letter with Chanae's email and the newspaper clippings. I seriously just miss that girl and really wish she'd get home because I can't communicate with her when she's in Fiji! but I still love her. And the newspaper clippings honestly made my day! I pulled them out and just drank it in. Everyone else enjoyed them too, I must say. I forget how much I love to read about that kind of stuff. Also, start brainstorming for other people we know that work here to try and get my stuff out. I don't know how much it'll be, but I'm pretty sure It'll just be my carry on with everything in it. I found out this week that there's a 15 lbs limit on your carry on, so that blows out the shove-everything-heavy-into-your-carry-on idea. If we can't think of anything or anyone, I might have you get a hold of Skachy. I'm just a litter nervous with his whole rule following mania he has. We're going to go through our stuff this week so I'll let you know next Friday about it.

Honestly, not much exciting has happened this week. Here are some highlights though:

1- We taught our lesson for TRC all in Tagalog this week! 35 minutes and we made it through the Restoration and how to pray. I honestly can't believe it. We've only been here 5 weeks and we know enough to be conversation and teach a lesson. Granted, we talk the speed of snail and I'm sure our grammar is terrible, but I don't even care! It was way sweet. I keep getting my spanish and my tagalog crazy mixed up though. It's honestly hilarious. It's like as soon as I enter that little foreign language bubble in my mind I can't control what comes out. It'll usually happened about 2-3 times per lesson but sometimes more if I'm not concentrating hard enough. It's sad though because I'm loosing so much Spanish! The other day in class our teacher wrote a sentence on the board that said, "I can go to the store" but none of us knew the world "tindihan" which means store. But I just totally out of the blue guessed store when he asked what it was. Totally had no idea, but apparently I was right. So they all go, is that what it is in spanish too? And I sat there for the longest time, and I couldn't remember if that was the word or not! But I don't know how I knew it if it wasn't the word. don't worry, I finally had to go as Sister Packard after class what the spanish word for store was. It's tienda, by the way. So pathetic that I couldn't remember that. It's ok though because my spanish has helped me SO much with Tagalog and right now that's what I need to be shoving into my head, so it's totally ok.

2- I found out this week that out of the top 10 languages spoken in the church, 5 of them originate in the Philippines. pretty sweet right! I'm not sure exactly where Tagalog falls, but still cool

3- So during gym a couple days ago, there was a grounds worker sitting there reading a book that looked a lot like Harry Potter. So of course I go up and ask her if that's what she was reading. It wasn't, but instead, we started talking about the movie. We honestly sat there for 20 minutes and she answered all my questions and gave me the low down on everything. I caved, I couldn't wait to watch it myself. I just had to know! Man, I should work on my patience or something.

4- I've decided I would totally love to work at the MTC. Honestly though, I think I would love it. Small drawback...I'd have to live in happy valley. The True Aggie inside of me honestly cringes and is slightly repulsed by that thought. So we'll see who wins the inner battle. Maybe I'll keep that idea on the table for after the mish; we'll see......

5- this isn't really a highlight, but still a part of the week. The 3 districts older than us leave this Monday and I can't even tell you how sad I am. I love the elders and the sisters are seriously the best. I'm going to miss them so much, especially my gyms buddies. I'm going to have to find some other gym buddies to be my psychiatrists and give me therapeutic treatment during gym time. I just know I'll be crying big alligator tears when they leave. It's ok though, because I'm still super excited for them. And once they leave, I'll only have 3 weeks left. How crazy is that?! This has flown by like none other. It's awesome though because it just sinks in more every day that this is where I'm supposed to be. I love it.

My other email was a lot longer, but I'm out of time so this'll have to do. I don't really have many good stories from the week so this email's kind of lame, but I promise I'll try to remember them all for next time. Thank you so much for everything you do for me. I wish I could adequately put it into words, but it just wouldn't do it justice. Mahal ko kayo MUCHISIMO!! (I don't know how to say that last part in Tagalog :) Have a fantastic week!!

Harry Potter...I'm Missing It

Dear Family, hello!!!

Holy hannah, my brain is going really really slow today...I'm a little bit tired and sick and well so i'm not exactly functioning at top speed. So we'll see how much I get through and maybe I'll have to send a letter some other time with additional stories. First of all, I was wondering if you'd mind finding and sending me a sketch book that has a hard cover, spiral bound. Some of the missionaries here have what they call a memory journal and they get other missionaries etc to write in their journal. It's pretty sweet. They used to sell them at the bookstore, but they're not restocking them anymore so I was wondering if you'd send me one. Not too big though, just medium sized. Also, before I leave, I may need you to send me some Weller Rec pens because I don't think I brought enough and for me, not all pens are created equal.

Ok, here we go. I'll just going to go through it all so it may be a little jumbled, but ayos lang :) So Sunday was sister Iosefa's birthday. It was seriously so much fun. Her mom is super on top of things when it comes to packages and letters (she gets a letter a day and a package a week...don't ask me how she has time for that but apparently she does) but anyways, she got three huge packages. One was a chocolate cake which we got to share with the whole district. It came with happy birthday plates, happy birthday napkins, candles, matches, and utensils, just to give you a feel for the type of packages she gets. Haha. It was way fun though. On Sunday, we took the happy birthday hats because we wanted to take a picture by the temple with the whole district to send to Sister Iosefa's mom and we're about to leave the MTC (none of us have them on, by the way) and this old man comes up to us and starts giving us a lecture about what it means to have "quiet dignity" and that while you're on a mission, you don't have birthdays. Bahahahaha! I was dying. My poor kasama, she really took it to heart and was about ready to cry. I had to turn away because I was about to laugh in his face. I'm thinking, "seriously dude, who do you think you are? No birthdays on your mission huh, you just skip those. Probably no Christmas either huh". Seriously, too funny. He was a member of one of the branch presidencies though and he goes, if you don't understand what I'm saying, talk to your branch president about it. Ha, one little problem with that, pretty sure Pres. Taylor would grab a hat and jump in the picture with us. Pretty sure he must have been in a branch presidency with the dud missionaries instead of the fun cool ones that are going to the Philippines. Seriously hilarious. But we took the picture anyway, and it's getting developed as we speak so I'll be sending that soon.

This week we also talked about some of the things they run into in the Philippines. Apparently there's no divorce. I had no idea, but it's a law and it's super expensive to get a divorce. So instead, it's really common in their culture to just separate and then when they find someone else, they'll just live with them for the rest of their lives. Causes few problems with the law of Chastity and baptism. So apparently, there are special rules for the Philippines where if they've lived together for 5 years, they can get baptized. But since they can't ever get married, they can't go through the temple or have their family sealed. It made me really sad for them that they can't have those blessing because of some law that they can't avoid. Crazy, but I guess you just teach that if you're faithful, those blessings will come eventually, just not in this life. Anything we talked about was a murder case one of my teachers had ran into. The guy had murdered someone and never gotten caught so before anything could happen, he had to turn himself in, apologize to the family, and then go to jail before they even consider letting you get baptized. And even then you have to write to the first presidency to get permission. I am crossing my fingers that doesn't happen to me. ever.

The emails on Monday that you sent me practically made my life! I was so happy and not really many people here who could fully appreciate it or understand why, but that's ok. I send a letter on Tuesday with the responses so it wouldn't have to wait til Friday, but then I thought about how often you check the mail, and you'll probably get this email before you get the snail mail letter. Haha. But just know it's on the way. I was talking to one of Elders from the new district and found out he's from Fairfax, Virginia so we just started talking about DC and turns out his Dad was the chief of staff in Bennett's office before Mary Jane. It was hilarious! He knew all the staffers there, all about DC and the politics that happens on the hill. It was awesome to talk to him! So fun to finally have a conversation like that. I kind of miss it. He said his mom is going to send him any good news clippings and I said, perfect, I live 3 rooms down. Haha. Also, I saw Matthew this week! I literally ran into him practically. We were running up to gym just as he was coming through the gate. Seriously made my day! He was talking on the phone though to his mom and my kasama was antsy because we were already late to gym so it was a super short conversation. Still always so fun to see a familiar face. I've decided too here that I'm a hugger! I hate the fact that I can't hug people. Well, I can hug the sisters, but not any of the elders. So I couldn't even give Brayden a goodbye hug when he left this week, I could only shake his hand. Super lame.

So the older district got their flight plans this week and I'm so jealous! That's who we're always with so it just feels like we should be leaving with them you know. But alas, we are not. I'm going to miss them so much. Especially Sister Packard and Sister Dyer, my gym buddies. We just have the greatest time together, even just talking during gym is therapeutic. I might go crazy for a bit when they leave, but hopefully I'll find someone new. They're seriously the greatest though. I just love them. Also, can we just have a moment to celebrate that Harry Potter came out last night! Oh my goodness, I was so excited last night, I couldn't go to sleep. Ok, lets be honest, I couldn't go to sleep because sister Mohrmom was snoring so loud. But for reals, when you go see it, I changed my mind, I want to know how it was. I'm sporting my HP shirt as we speak and you wouldn't believe how many comments I've gotten today. It's hilarious. I'm trying to convince my teacher to tell me about it when he goes and sees it. We'll see if he gives in or not.

Last night we had TRC again. It always goes a little bit rougher than I'd like, but we're still learning. Our "investigator" was a girl that goes to BYU that just got back from her mission in Manilla 3 weeks ago. She was super cute and way nice. So we told Bro. Mauzy he should ask her on a date. So we told him all about her and how we thought she was just really cute and I think he might actually do it! After we mentioned it, we go back to the classroom and he comes and sits down next to sister iosefa and I and goes, ok, give me the dirt, so what's she like? And then he goes, well what if I get too scared to do it? Haha, so we talked about him and dating for a little while. Seriously, the funniest thing ever. I really think he might do it, but we'll see.

I really wanted to write about a devotional that we had this week on repentance but I'm out of time. Maybe I'll write it in a letter and send it with the pictures. We'll see how much motivation I have :) Anyhow, got to go. Love you so much and I'll talk to you soon!!

Oops...forgot. I AM in the MTC!!!

Candace sent this handwritten letter. I laughed til I cried. Hope you enjoy the story as much as we did!:)

Dearest Familia!

So, I know I just wrote you an email like, oh, 2 hours ago, but I thought of a story I wanted to tell you that I didn’t have time to write about because of that stupid red clock up in the corner flashing the time at me. Man, I hate how there’s only 30 minutes. It’s ok, I’ll get over it.:)

Ok, so here’s my story. I was just in the classroom with the Elders and it was “study” time. Sister Losefa was in an interview so it was just the Elders and I hanging out and talking. And I started telling them about Iron Elder. He’s an elder from the Japanese district that is seriously a maniac at gym time. He was in the army (or more likely the marines) and during gym times we sometimes just watch in awe at the crazy stuff he does. So we named him Iron Elder. We don’t know his name but we decided not to find out because then we can keep calling him that. And I think I might ask him to make me a work out plan for the Philippines. Genius idea, right?! Anyway, back to the story. So we’re talking about Iron Elder and I go, “Yeah, seriously though, he’s LBA!”       As soon as I said that, in my head I’m going, Oh no.  
      And Elder Brunker goes, “What’s LBA?  
      Of course I started going red because I have this accursed gene or something where that just happens to me. And I go, “Oh, it just means legitimate, like legit.”   
      And he goes, “Yeah, for the L, but what does the BA stand for?” 
      And I’m just like, “Don’t worry about it.”    
      And then Elder Gallacher goes, “Oh my, Sister Weller!”   
      Of course I start blushing again and I couldn’t help it, but I just started to laugh.  
      Then Elder Gallacher proceeds to explain what the “BA” stands for.                                                    
Bahaha..there’s goes my clean reputation! That’s ok. It had to go sometime. They might as well know the real me, right? It was hilarious.  Anyway, thought I’d share.

Love You! Candace

Service Time=Singing Time

Ok, those pictures were awesome! Shoot, I'm sad I missed it. At first when I read the letter I thought you were talking about the tree in the front yard and I nearly started crying. But then I figured it out so no worries :).

Questions first....yes, Brayden is doing really well. Really though. Everytime I see him, he's just really happy and loving it here.  So tell Lisa not to worry, he's doing great and he's where he needs to be. About the carry on, I think I'm going to be sending a ton of stuff home that I just don't think I'll need so I don't think the weight will be a problem but I guess we'll find see. Sweet info about the mission though! It just makes me so excited to go you have no idea! Yes, I got Chanae's email...she's seriously the greatest. Sounds like she's doing really well. It's just so good to hear from her, it made me smile :) And I think I get 1 hr of email time in the field. I'm not entirely certain, but I sure hope so because this is seriously ridiculous. We all sit and laugh about how funny it is. I actually have to make a list of everything i want to tell you because I don't have time to sit and think about it! Oh yeah, and thanks for Twit's address :)

So updates for this week! It's been a good one. This is going to be a really random crazy letter, but I am determined to fit it all in so we're just going to be going down the list.

So it's funny finding out people's first names in this place. You get to know them as Elder or Sister Whatever and then you find out their real name and it's so funny! It's weird because most of them totally fit! For example, Sister Packard, one of my absolute favorites, she's an absolute sweet heart and just gorgeous....her name is Jane. Or Stister Stonick, she's crazy and off the wall and totally different and hilarious, her name is Damien. It's just hilarious. Makes me wonder how well my name fits.

So every Thursday we have "Service" time which is basically where we get to clean for 1 1/2 hours. It's awesome, I can't lie. I actually really like it because it breaks up the week/days and I like to sing the entire time. This time we picked a plethora of Disney songs as well as some Wicked and T-Swift. Also, there may or may not be some dancing involved. Haha. It's actually really fun. who knew scrubbing toilets would be so enjoyable? :) Also, remember how I forgot a blowdryer....genious. I just use the hand dryers in the bathroom. Works like a charm.

Usually we go to the temple super early on Friday morning so that we have all day to do whatever else needs to be done, but now that it's closed I feel like we have so much more free time. It's pretty awesome, I can't lie. And I think we actually get to go help clean the temple as a district in a couple weeks or so. That'll be cool. So the language is coming, but it's seriously the funniest thing. I'll start into Tagalog but then if I don't know how to say the rest of it, I automatically switch into Spanish. It's seriously hilarious, but not so good in a lesson. We were at TRC teaching our teacher and I couldn't figure out how to say it in Tagalog and so I just switched into spanish ending with a nice, "Por favor". My teacher just starts laughing because he knows I know spanish. Yeah, it was pretty funny. He's the teacher that jokes around with us a ton so we don't get a whole ton done, but we sure have a ton of fun. He actually really is my favorite teacher.  Another language mess up, in TRC yesterday I was trying to say "here on earth we are mortal and we can die", instead I said, "here on earth we are mortal and so we can murder". Haha. yep, probably shouldn't say that to an investigator.

Last weekend we had the 4th of July celebration which was so awesome! We had a devotional at 9:00, which is super late for missionary time. The speaker was a guy who works in the white house and from the sounds of things works really closely with the marines. He was telling all sorts of stories about when he worked with the UN during the Serbian conflict and then when he was in Iraq a couple weeks ago and in Lebanon during the war. Oh my goodness, I just wanted to pick his brain so bad you have to no idea! I seriously miss reading the news here. I forget that there aren't a lot of nerds like me out there that like to talk about the news and politics and current events. I always think we exist in abundance because in my classes i'm surrounded by them. Alas, there's not many here. I miss my BBC. Anyway, such a great devotional. They did a parade of all the flags too to represent the missions around the world and it was awesome! I love being part of the missionary force, It's seriously the coolest team to be on ever! :) We also got to watch the fireworks from the Stadium of fire, which was just so fun and hilarious because the elders going to the Philippines can make anything funny. We didn't get to bed til probably 11:15....whoo, I know right. Pushing it there, huh. It was great though.

Sunday's devotional was sweet too. It was Jenny Oaks Barker, Dallin H. Oaks daughter. She's a world renowned violinist and so she told us stories about her life and then would play songs for us. She was absolutely incredible! And then she had her kids play too. The 9 yr old played the violin, the 8 year old on the piano, and the 6 yr old on the cello. Seriously, cutest thing ever.

 

So basically I straighten my hair here all the time. Basically because I don't ever really get to work out much and so, why shower right?! Haha, yep, I'm disgusting. Do I care? Not so much. There's a sister here that is seriously 6'5" tall. I'm not even joking. I'm been scouting her out all week to figure it out and she walked by a really tall elder on the sidewalk and they were about the same height and so I asked him how tall he was. Yep, for a girl she's practically giantess.

Oh yeah, last thing. I had the weirdest dream last night that they switch my mission to Russian. I was so angry, yelling at them saying, "no, I'm going to the Philippines!!". weirdest thing ever. Anyway, gotta go. Love you SSSSSOOOOO much!!! :)

 

Minute to Win It!

Oh family of mine!! Holy cow, I honestly feel like I'm playing minute to win it when I'm typing these emails. That's the kind of pressure there is with time. I'd need to type like 200 wpm to actually get everything in! Ok, so first things first, I love the updates!! Keep them coming :) No to the back sweater, I won't be needing it, but I do still need Twit's new address. I've had a letter sitting on my desk for forever now that needs to go to her. Thanks for the email updates from Kim. Summaries work. If it seems like something super important though, you can just copy and paste it into the body of the email and send it to me that way.

So updates for this week! It's been a good one! I swear though there's a time warp here or something. The days feel like 7 shoved into one but the weeks go by SO fast! I was thinking about it this week though. Boo's going to love it here...There's so much food in the cafeteria, I swear it was made for him. Most of the Elders in my district graduated in 2010, so they're 19 going on 20, but I'm not sure if that's how it is for all of them. And try, not 8 hours together, more like 16. haha, hence the serious bonding. I'm so glad we're all going to the same mission though. It will be so much fun to serve with each other the entire time. No, there's not really any alone time, but I don't really mind. If you want a second to yourself, you just don't talk. Haha. It works out. And sister Iosefa is so great and easy going that it's not a big deal at all.

You know how I mentioned my little Philippino friend that came in last week? Well she is seriously the cutest thing ever! Sometimes at night after class and everything, we'll sit in the hall of the dorms and read out of the book of mormon in Tagalog and she's teach me words. And we ask her all sorts of questions about the culture and what they eat and everything. It just makes me so excited to go over there!! She's so stinking tiny though, like seriously, I think she comes to my armpit. Maybe. But she's gorgeous. Just so pretty. Crazy thing though, It was so hot the other day, and she was just sitting there freezing. She says it's cold here. Yep, I'm going to die walking around in the philippines. The mission president seminar is over, which is good because it was just way too crowded. Security did go up, but you couldn't really notice it much because everyone's already in suits and ties anyway so they just blended right in. I'm not in the new mission they're creating, which is the Quezon City North Mission. I don't think anyway. I think what I heard they're doing for that mission is taking parts of the Manila mission and parts of the already existing quezon city one and combining them. Chase freaking cracks me up. I may need to have a discussion with him about his taste in girls :)

I finally made some gym friends and it's the greatest thing ever. We don't really run much, but we usually do at least 1-2 miles or something around there. I just like it because they think like me so I can be completely myself and honest and I know they're not going to judge me. One is Sister Dyer, who is also my roommate and so great, and then Sister Packard, who is also headed to the Manila Philippines mission. We do a lot of toning things and right now we're working on dips. Yeah, I'm a wuss I've come to find out. But they're so great. I just love them to death.

The language is coming. Seriously, so much quicker than I could ever hope. Yesterday at TRC my teacher told me he's never seen a missionary use so much Tagalog in a lesson after being here only 2 weeks. It made my day. I'm being helped so much, it's incredible. When they talk about the gift of tongues, it's for real. It really hit me this week, I didn't learn Spanish to learn Spanish, I learned Spanish to learn Tagalog. Sister Iosefa was a bit homesick this week so it was kind of like an emotional rollercoaster, but it's getting better now. I think she's starting to assimilate. Also this week, the MTC president from the Philippines MTC came and taught us. Holy cow, it was the coolest thing ever. I wish I could type out some of the good stories I have from the week but I'm out of time.

Things to send with the package: waterproof, one of my white V-neck shirts just the tshirt ones, the missionary stories from Grandpa, you know the ones that mugs emailed around to everyone. I just thought those would be fun to have. And also I need a black thin belt. One that's about 1/2" thick and long enough to go around my hip area, not just around my ribs. and not shiny/glossy or whatever, just simple. That's all I can think of though. I'll keep you posted :)

Anyway, I love you so much and so grateful for everything. I'll talk to you next week!! Ingat po!