#1's Weekly Email: Week #3

This photo sat in my inbox for quite a few minutes before an email showed up. I figured she was writing to someone who ranks higher than her family first....I couldn't, for the life of me, figure out who that might be. Hmmm......

Finally, this showed up:

Ok so I've learned so much this past week.

I realized that the MTC is a lot like the military. They tear you down every single day only to build you up and make you stronger.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's that this mission isn't about me. It's that I can't do anything without the Lord. Alma 26:12 comes to mind. "Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things..." In Tagalog there's a saying that says, "Kaya ko makasama ang Diyos." That means, "I can through God." It's pretty much gonna be my motto for my whole mission.

This week was fun. We all really bonded as a district. We got some newbies. There's 8 new sisters and 16 new elders. So many! But they're all awesome. It's so funny to walk around and look at the elders and be like "oh you're 18 and you're 19 and you look like you're 25." hahah so many of them look like they're 12!

Last night there was a HUGE thunderstorm. It was the coolest thing ever. Our teacher said it was preparing us for the Philippines. We went out and danced in the rain. It felt like home. And I was wearing my Crocs so I got to jump in the puddles. It was the funnest thing ever.

We all went to the gym yesterday and worked out. Sister P. and I did a bunch of workouts for our abs and legs and now it's hard to move. And then this morning we got up and did them again. I might be dying tomorrow. I'm sobrang sore!

Our teacher, Brother C., left class early on Thursday cuz his wife was going to have her baby! She had him on Thursday night at 9:30 pm and his name is Arthur. :) Brother C's probably gonna come back and teach us on Monday and he promised to bring pictures :) It's such a happy thing.

I think I've told you everything. The language is coming slowly but it seems like it's coming. We won't really get it until we get out of here I think.

Ok gotta go.

Mahal kita!

-Sister Hess

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Q and I sent a few other emails back and forth this morning. I had asked her about a million questions, so she took the time to answer them. I thought some might be fun for her to have for the future, so here are a couple additional things she said:

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For the 4th we had a devotional (kind of) and watched 17 Miracles. Holy poop that movie is awesome. Go watch it :) And then they let us stay up late and got everyone ice cream and we watched the fireworks outside. It was really fun except all of us were stressing about staying up so late cuz we knew the next day would be terrible. We went to bed by 11 haha so much for staying up late.

We think we're leaving on the 29th but we're not for sure about that and we won't know for sure until we get our travel plans in like 13 days :D  We don't get our travel plans until right before we leave. The districts that are leaving right before us just got theirs. LA to Hong Kong and then staying over night in Hong Kong. That would be sobrang cool!

The passport holder is awesome.

We're learning all the different ways to conjugate things. In Tagalog there are like 10 different ways to conjugate and there's so many different types of verbs. I honestly just sit there and wonder how on earth someone came up with this language. It's ridiculous.

Can you get J's email from L? I kinda wanna write him too and get him to send me that pic of the leiderhosen hahaha

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J is #1's oldest friend who is currently serving his mission in Austria (the Alpine German-Speaking Mission to be exact). This HAS to be the photo of the week:

Oh, I almost forgot....actually, I did forget....Here are some photos her companion sent: