Don't even know where to start on this one - I can't tell all the awesome stuff that happened this week because there's not enough time. I wrote about it in my journal though, so someday maybe you'll hear the stories eventually. I'll try to explain as many as I can briefly.
First, the random stuff. It has been
officially declared in our mission that everything but Mormon Tabernacle Choir
music is "bawal" or "not allowed." That stabbed me to the heart a little bit...
since everyone knows the type of music I normally listen to at home, and how
even EFY music was very far from what I'd listen to during the week. However...
I gave a talk on "exact obedience" at zone meeting last week (where they
announced this) and I also recently read in the manual "Teachings of the
Prophets - Joseph Smith" that Joseph Smith once said, "I made this my rule -
when the Lord commands, do it." To me, that pretty much sums it up. Our
mission President knows what our mission needs, and sometimes it may initially
be hard to accept, but... there you go. We're doing it. Exercising to Mo Tab
still feels kind of weird though, haha.
That picture attached is of us at Zone
Conference (three weeks ago, I think.) Notice anything out of place??
Hahahahahah.... still probably one of my favorite pictures ever. There wasn't
space for me so they put me smack in between some Elders. If people don't look
closely at that picture, they're gonna be super weirded out.
There's a monster here (imaginary... or
is it???) called a mananangal which is a vampire... with wings... that eats
fetuses while they're inside pregnant women... and at night its legs detach from
its body and walk around and scare people. Yeah.
There's cheese ice cream here. Not too
bad, actually.
To the family - I showed some of our
investigators the pictures of Miles and Molly (my niece and nephew) and they
said that Miles was a "joker" because of his big grin in the one picture and
that he's smart too because his head is so ginormous. Matalino - genius, haha.
And that Molly is very tiny, haha.
We taught 9 people at once in a lesson
this week. It was awesome, and the main investigator accepted a baptismal
lesson. We were super intimidated to teach at first, because it was 9 teenagers
of varying ages, but all went well and we are excited to teach them again. We
had 21 new investigators this week who are willing to have us back to teach
them. Lots of good work this week. Seriously... here in our mission, there's
so many people willing to listen (and many with real intent) that it's hard to
fit everyone in we'd like to teach!
Yeah, needless to say, I'm excited for
our area. Transfers are... next week. Soooo... that's going to be exciting,
but this is very far from being a "dead area" as they say. So many people here
are willing to hear our message, and are progressing as well. I feel so
incredibly blessed to be serving now in the Manila Mission. I know that as we
expect miracles in our lives and pray for them and act so that we do every
possible thing for them to happen - in our personal lives or the mission field -
those things will happen that we ask for in righteousness, even if it's not in
the exact way we might initially expect.
The work is good. Stay strong, and keep
your faith growing always. The Lord has great plans for all his children we
can't even begin to comprehend.
Much love,
Sister Larsen
[Note from Marinda's mom-- The following photos went with the previous blog post. I am reposting the explanations of the photos. I finally figured out how to use Print Screen and Paint to save photos that aren't jpeg. Thanks to my husband for reminding me about how to do this.]
The picture is of me at FHE at Nay Montilla's, she works with us a lot and is
just awesome - she keeps a record of all the missionaries that have been through
the ward since 1997 when she joined. The guy next to me is one of our
investigators, he's awesome too. I taught them how to make "french toast" my
mom's way, and they were all amazed to see how american food is made. I also
cooked it in Nay Montilla's HUGE wok, which was fun. It turned out pretty
tasty, so... success. They liked it well enough but said it was "sweet" which I
find funny because every single food here in existence is sweet, pretty much.
The tiniest lizard of all!
(These aren't my hands - we caught him crawling on our wall in our apartment
like they love to do)
The man with his hands clasped in
front was our baptism. He's so awesome! We are so excited to have him now as a
part of our branch - he and his family are so sweet and I know that this is
something his family has wanted for him for a long, long time.
Kind of like Virginia... buuuut not quite. Asian flair, forreals
Awesome road
Sunset from the church - because
you requested it, mom. Most of the time the sunsets are SUPER AMAZING, like...
breathtaking. But most of the time I don't have my camera on me.
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