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Saturday, July 20, 2013

#1's Weekly Email: Week #5


It's so funny to see #1 in jeans, as you'll see in her first picture. It is only on their Preparation Day (P-day) that they can move away from the usual dresses and skirts and Elders from suits.

Needless to say, these girls are EXCITED. They are now the oldest missionaries heading to their mission in the MTC. It's funny to think that somewhere in the Olongapo Mission some sister will be called to be #1's first companion. I really wonder what she'll be like. It used to be, from what I understand, that the North American missionaries had to have native companions. I'm curious to see if that's still the case.

I now get photos from Sister T. and Sister P., so that's super great! I love that they so willingly share. #1 did, however, take her own photos this week. She was lacking a card reader. There you go, parents who are preparing to send missionaries off in the future, don't forget a card reader that they can hook into the computers there at the MTC and upload their photos. I ordered her one and had it shipped to her, and now life is hunky dory.

Okay, so I put the most important things in bold lettering so you can cruise through this email if you don't have time to peruse its intricacies. The foreign words are in italics and are translated at the very bottom of the post.

 Here you go....

Enjoy!










Kumusta mga Pamilya ko!

How are you guys? Life here is just plain awesome. Wanna know why?! I got my travel plans!

We're flying from Salt Lake to San Fran to TOKYO! :D We get to spend TWO hours in TOKYO! I'M SO EXCITED! I'm going back to Japan :) Seriously I'm overjoyed. I'm gonna go eat a bunch of jumbos and a bunch of their chocolate bars and yup. That's how it's gonna be.

So on Tuesday, all the girls in my district played the funniest prank on my kasama. It was PERPEKTO. Sister W. pulled her shirt halfway over her own head and had her super long hair hanging out of the bottom and it looked like she had a beard. She makes the funniest faces ever. So while my kasama was in the shower, she went and sat on her bed and got under the covers. She was sitting on Sister T's pillow and was hiding behind the closet door. We turned off all the lights and sat by the door at the desk with the desk light on. Sister T finally showed up and put her clothes away and then turned to her bed. She kind of looked at the head of her bed for a second and then Sister W. chuckled and Sister T. jumped back a foot and then screamed. It was the Funniest Thing I have seen in such a long time.  Oh man I'm still laughing about it and it was days ago.

The other night we wanted to talk so Sister P., Sister S., Sister T., and I went out behind the MTC and talked and stargazed. It was awesome. We almost felt normal again for a second.

We're learning so much. We've kind of started reviewing things since we only have 9 days left here. It's crazy to think that we've already been here for a month. It totally flew by.

Every day we either have gym time where we go work our butt off or we go play piano.

Oh, I'll be buying a calling card and I'm gonna call you guys in when we're at the Salt Lake airport so be sure to be home on the 29th in the morning. At like 9-ish. Our flight leaves around 11:15.

I'll be sending home stuff I don't want to take to the Philippines with me this next week, ok? So if you get a package from me, that's what it is.

Our whole district gets to host the newbies this next Wednesday and Sister P. and Sister S. and Sister T. and I were chosen to be part of this teaching experience that they do ever Wednesday night for the newbies. They put all the newbies in different rooms but in huge groups and they have an "investigator" in there (they're really just converts that have interesting stories) and then a companionship comes in and starts the discussion with the "investigators" and then the newbies take over. It's gonna be awesome. And all the companionships that are chosen are recommended by their teachers. So that means that our teachers like us a lot and think that we'd be good examples for the new missionaries. No pressure or anything. Oh and another thing. We get to do it in English... pero we've only ever taught in Tagalog so we don't know how to do it in English! hahaha we'll see what happens. It's gonna be so fun.

Earlier this week some of the sisters and I got priesthood blessings from our elders. i'm so grateful that we're surrounded by the priesthood here. it's awesome. And that all these elders are worthy to hold it is pretty incredible too.

Ummm I think that's it. I'm definitely gonna write #5 this week and I might send him a t-shirt too (don't tell him that). When the email home to you said that "[T.] pointed [#4] out" or whatever it said, I was about to go all crazy white girl on T. hahaha good thing I didn't. Um you don't need to send cookies. I've got enough food over here... But if you could send me a jar of nutella and a box of cheezits I would love that. I think that's everything.

I love you guys and I miss you and I hope everything's going good at home.

Mahal kita!
-Sister Hess


p.s. I'll send you pictures of everything. Including our classroom, the drinking fountain in our building, and the bathroom.


Top left to bottom right (in #1's own words):

TOP ROW:
  • Classroom: This is the room that I've been stuck in everyday for the last MONTH.
  • Mga dink: One of our zone leaders favorite words is Dink. he calls us dinks all the time...
  • Desks: These are mine and Sister T.'s desks.
  • Birthday!: It was Sister P.'s birthday this last week. and behind the banner is the first vision and our purpose in Tagalog.

MIDDLE ROW:
  • Air con: This is the air conditioning unit in our classroom. Every single day, I stand on my chair and close the vent cuz it's so freaking cold and my chair's right next to it....
  • View: This is the view from our window. the sunsets are absolutely amazing here every single night.
  • Hallway: This is the hallway right outside of our bathroom.
  • Stairwell: This is the stairwell right outside of our hallway. We study here all the time, and it was out this window that Sister P and I saw President Monson :)

BOTTOM ROW:
  • Drinking fountain!: This is our drinking fountain :)
  • Bathroom: This is the bathroom in our building :) You said you wanted pictures of everything...
  • Computer: This is the computer and tv that we use everyday in class.
  • Computer lab: This is the computer lab where we do TALL (our language computer program. I absolutely hate it)


Tagalog-English Translation
Kumusta mga Pamilya ko: Hello, my family
Kasama: companion
Perpekto: perfect (probably didn't need to translate this one, huh?)
Mahal kita: I love you




Okay, I HAVE to share one more thing with you.....Today, among the photos #1 sent was this:


The caption read something like this:

"Our building is named after this cutie. His name is Heber C. Kimball, and this is his picture. Hehe"


Oh, my dear girl! This is the one leader of the early Church that you are, from what I understand, related to. "Hehe" is right.

1 comment:

LeAnn said...

It's always so fun to read about what is going on with the missionaries. You are going to really enjoy this time. I loved it when my daughter was on a mission. I sent out 3 boys first and I loved their missions too; but girls communicate better.
Continue to enjoy the moments with your emails are letters.
Blessings!

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