Dear friends and family,
First off... I AM SO INCREDIBLY HAPPY.
Yeah, it's dirty and crowded in the city. Doesn't even matter. We're doing
awesome work here, through the help of the Lord. One day we taught 12 lessons
(10 of them with a member present), and found 5 new investigators. In my old
area, we'd be lucky to teach 4 or 5 lessons in a day and find 2 new
investigators. This is awesome. We are really able to fulfill our purpose as
missionaries.
I don't have any good pictures yet of the
area, but I'm sure those will follow. Here's the fun part - Sister Cooper, my
new companion, just barely finished her training which means she's "3 months
old" on her mission in the field. I'm only one transfer ahead of her. So...
we're definitely getting a full dosage of the gift of tongues, because we super
need it. Before this was less evident to me in lessons because I had always had
a Filipina companion to help me out before when I was "nosebleeding," which
means unable to understand the language or speak it. Now, it's just us. And
honestly... I don't know what it is. I think that the people here in the city
are legitimately easier to understand because they do sometimes use limited
Taglish (Tagalog mixed with English) but I also just have realized that when I'm
feeling the Spirit, the language comes SO much easier. It's actually amazing.
I wouldn't have ever though I'd be here at this point, but they do say at about
6 months in the field here we should be able to function pretty well in the
language. I'm at about 4.5 months now being in the field, so it's coming along.
The members and people we've taught lessons to have said that my Tagalog is
quite good, so I'm happy about that. It has up and down moments, but really...
the stronger the Spirit is in a lesson, the more fluent I am. I am 100%
positive that correlation is direct and evident. Sister Cooper is an awesome
missionary and companion, and she and her trainer did a great job with this area
so it's been well prepared and we hope to continue with that high standard of
work.
Here's the funny part. You'd think that
living on Palawan would have been a more ghetto living situation than here. But
that's not really the case - there we had a super nice apartment and heated
showers. Now, don't get me wrong, I like our apartment here and it's pretty
nice. But, the shower doesn't really work so we just fill up buckets with
water, take a dipper cup and pour water on ourselves for our "shower." I like
long showers. That's just the truth. So I quickly realized in an apartment of
4 Sisters it wasn't gonna work out for us to all move through the bathroom fast
enough. So, I banished myself to showering in the laundry room with a different
bucket and a bowl to dip water with. That's how we do in my new ward,
hahahahah. I don't mind, it's just a good mission story to tell :)
I'm reaching that part in my mission
where Preparation day (when we email, wash clothes, write letters, clean the
apartment, etc.) just feels like an annoyance. I mean, I love you all, but we
are SO BUSY teaching and finding people throughout the whole week here I don't
have time to breathe let alone think much about home. It's awesome. I love it.
This is a very, very happy part of my mission. I'm excited for everything
that's going to be happening in the next few weeks. SABIK NA SABIK AKO. I'm
SUPER DUPER EXCITED!
Much love from afar,
Sister Larsen
P.S. On Friday we were told to be at
home by 3 because of the storm that went through the Philippines. It didn't
really end up hitting us hard at all, but from what I understand it hit Palawan
(where I was) and Coron (a small island near Palawan where we have Elders)
pretty hard, but all the missionaries and members are okay. That's definitely a
tender mercy of the Lord.
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