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!!! :)