How Many Sisters Can You Cram on One "Trike"?

Dear mga kaibigan at mga pamilya,

First and foremost news - I report to the Manila mission (and escape the MTC!) on July 3rd.  I'm a little unclear on what happens after that, but presumably soon thereafter we will meet our new missionary trainer companions and find out our assignments for where we'll be serving the next 6 weeks or more.  We couldn't be more excited!

One thing that I thought was super cool that our MTC President said at Sacrament meeting this week was that, "An Elder asked me what the most important thing I do every week is as the MTC president.  I thought about that, pondered it, and the answer I recieved from the Lord was that partaking of the sacrament is the most important thing I do every week."  That caused me to pause and re-think the importance of the sacrament.  Sometimes I catch myself taking it for granted, but it is so very important to truly value that renewing of baptismal covenants.

Even on my mission, I have a strobelight.  Yes, it's true.  Sort of.  I was using my mini camping - lamp light that we bought for me before I came to the Philippines because there's blackouts here a lot.  I turned it on, and as I was turning it off I realized there was an "SOS" setting on it which flashes on and off.  I had MoTab playing on my bed at the time and I was like, "AWWW YEAAAHHH MOTAB PARTYYY."  My companions and I had some dignified missionary fun with that, haha.

This is cliche, but we have "service projects" we do each Saturday where we help clean up the grounds of the MTC.  Some of the Elders were assigned to sweep up the grounds, and some were assigned to take chairs from outside of the gym inside of the gym.  The Sisters were cleaning windows, when some of the Elders walked up to us holding something in their hands.  One of them was holding an adorable tiny lizard (one of my companions was super scared of it) and the other opened his hand and there was  HUMONGOUS DEAD SPIDER.  It would have been the size of his palm or larger had its legs been out.  It was gross.  I said, "Send some Elders outside, and of course they'll find spiders and lizards."  Classic.  The spider bothered me less than I would have thought it would, though, but the Elder said it was alive on his arm when it fell out of one of the chairs he picked up.  I would not have handled that so well.

Apparently, fun fact, my sneeze is recognizable from down a whole hallway and through a closed door.  I sneezed one morning in our room and a Sister yelled from very far away, "BLESS YOU SISTER LARSEN!!"  We thought that was pretty funny.

So, here's some numbers that were given to us at a devotional from a member of the Asia Area Presidency.  They're legitimate.

There's 3,335 missionaries serving in the Philippines

96 million people living in the Philippines

So that means - 36,000 people that need to be taught per missionary.

We definitely have our work cut out for us, haha.  We'll make it happen.  We're excited to serve.

Proselyting was quite good.  I loved our in-field trainer missionary companion.  This time it was our whole trio plus her together.  She was very good and efficient at what she did, but let us teach most of the lesson which was pretty awesome (although scary, too, since it was hard to understand exactly what our investigator was saying since she spoke so softly and her accent was different.  I made out at least two words for every sentence, but that doesn't mean I knew the meaning of the whole sentence.)  So it went well, but we have our work cut out for us.  We then went tracting (3 of our appointments fell through) and handed out about 6 pamphlets which was cool (and got numbers and addresses from people.)   I hope my companion in the field is as efficient and awesome as the one we had; she spoke only mostly Tagalog to us (even though she speaks English) and I feel I could learn a lot from a kasama like that.

On the way back from the mission, we got a trike to take us.  A trike is  a motorcycle with a small side car attached.  We crammed three of us in the side car, and our in-field companion rode on the back of the motorcycle itself.  We had a super fun time even though it was very squished; people were waving to us and smiling the whole ride back, haha.

One of the missionaries here seriously hurt her knee in gym (tell EVERYONE on their missions/going on their missions to be careful!  It's not worth it to injure yourself and not be able to serve/have to go home!)

Next week I'll be in the field!  Our P-Day is probably on Monday, so I'll write to you then.  Stay malakas (strong) in panamnampalataya n'yo (your faith!)

Nagmamahal,

Sister Larsen

The MTC.  This is the view right out our bedroom window.  To the left more (not on camera) is a very large mountain that is probably a volcano.  When we walk outside of our room, there's a window facing the temple that is super beautiful but I won't send a picture of that now.

Myself with "Elder Cookie" from the area people get shots