Merry Christmas--Here's Some Trunkaso

Dear friends and family,

First off, this was the Christmas message from my nephew, sent to me by my mom.  He's so smart, he spells and types his own words now.  I feel like there's a lot of subliminal stuff in this message I may not fully understand: 

"missionary fashions plates captioned apples grahams posters wonderful weddings soup salad notates babies/pokers lambs"

So the picture is of us on Christmas morning.  True to tradition, I made french toast (my mom's recipe) and bacon.  It was delicious, and I wore my new "Philippines Manila Mission" apron to cook it, given to us by President and Sister Stucki.  Super awesome.  Christmas was great; I was glad to skype my family.

Unfortunately, I got a slightly different gift for Christmas... the day after Christmas, Sister Taufa got weirdly sick and just slept for a really really long time.  Said she felt really weak and sick, but felt a little better by the end of the evening.  We still ended up working and teaching two appointments, but then at the end of the last appointment I started feeling weird.  We went home, and I couldn't even finish planning before I fell asleep.  The next day, I slept for about 6 hours straight during the day, and several times woke up and tried to get out of bed but was too weak.  There was no identifiable reason - no fever, and my stomach hurt a little bit (as well as my head) but there wasn't any real REASON why I felt like I died that day.  It's continued to a lesser extent now; I have a weird cold (again) and still feel weak and like I want to sleep all the time.

Moral of the story - don't make fun of seemingly fictitious Filipino diseases.  While I was on Palawan, everyone would always say, "Sorry Sisters, I can't meet with you... I have 'trunkaso."  Which as far as I could tell was often just  what they called feeling a tiny bit sick and like they didn't want to do anything.  Now I know better.  Trunkaso is the disease that steals away all your energy and kills you for no apparent reason.  The Philippines just likes to mess with people's health, I think.

Anyway, on a happier note, I feel inspired to share with you Bishop's lesson from Sunday.  It was a lesson to the whole ward about setting goals for their families, but I think it applies pretty well to everyone and I thought it was awesome.  Here we go:

WAYS TO HAPPINESS 

The goals and plans, following Nephi's example

2 Nephi Chapter 5

1. Verse 10: Statutes and commandments - why they're important to us, and that we need to follow them 

2. Verse 12 - Read scriptures daily with our families

3. Verse 17 - Be industrious and labor with our own hands - work hard and be diligent and driven

4. Verse 16 - Temple worship - (families should be sealed and attend the temple regularly)

5. Verse 26 - Magnify our callings

Promised blessings:

Verse 27 "And it came to pass we lived after the manner of happiness"

Verse 13 "And they did prosper in the land."

There we go, Brothers, Sisters, and Elders - Let's all set and achieve great goals this year, following the examples of our scriptural and real life heroes.  I know we'll all be happier and live better as we live the principles and teachings of Christ and the prophets every day.  It's as simple and straightforward as that - obedience does, in the end, mean happiness.  Let's make a goal to be happy - and therefore, to be joyously obedient to God's will for us in all ways we can.

Masigayang Bagong Taon!  Happy New Year!

Love, 

Sister Larsen