Family Home Afternoon

Dear Everyone,

Last week on Pday was way fun, because we got to go to the mission home and have a "family home afternoon" with President and Sister Ostler.  I super love just being around them; whenever I'm near them I feel happy almost instantly.  We sang a few songs, President Ostler gave an inspiring message about true charity in spite of hardships, and we played games.  All the Ostler's things came on the boat from the U.S. now, so they moved out a lot of the pictures we're pretty sure had been there for 60 years and put in a bunch of nice family pictures, pictures of Christ, etc.  Not only that, but they have a Foosball table there now and like, an arcade basketball game which is way fun.  I forgot how awesome Foosball is.  I may or may not have started getting really competitive.  You know you're doing it right when you get just as sweaty as if you were playing real soccer (okay, not quite hahah, but I was super into it.)  We also played "guesstures" with a bunch of missionaries (it's like charades) which was way funny and fun to see our whole zone enjoying themselves.  Sister Ostler made delicious cinnamon rolls too, which just made everything pretty much perfectly awesome.  President and Sister Ostler are definitely excellent role models for how to be down to earth and yet spiritual in so many aspects of their lives.  I love how they always hold hands are super family centered with their son whenever we see them :)  I definitely always feel loved when I'm around them.

The picture is from where Sis Dumayas and I ate before the activity.  They apparently have stores in Manila AND Virginia!  Mom, you should totally make that picture my FB profile picture, hahah.  I was super excited when I saw that, and all the workers at the restaurant were kind of laughing at the silly American when they saw how happy I was about "Virginia."

I was all ready to tell you all that I finally made it through a transfer of my mission without getting sick... but yesterday my stomach did some crazy stuff, and I had a "sinat" or small fever.  So close.  It's cool though--still alive and still kicking.  The good food the members in 3rd ward feed us is keeping me going, haha.

Been doing good exercise every morning; that's going successfully.  When I left Palawan, I was debating on whether I really wanted the jumprope my trainer gave me or not.  I decided to take it, and didn't use it until this past transfer.  I  run and jumprope at the same time every morning.  It's super effective.  Pushups and crunches are helping.  "4 month slim down before you "die"" as they say in the mission is actually super effective.

I'm super enjoying my mission right now, although of course there are challenges and hard things that happen.  I guess I've just gotten pretty good at not letting stuff phase me.  I really liked these verses that I read in my study this morning, which King David wisely spoke in Psalms 27: 

 1 The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? the Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?

 3 Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear: though war should rise against me, in this will I be confident.

 13 I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

 14 Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the Lord.

President Ostler invited us to study on some of the leaders in the scriptures we really admire, and David has always been one I admired before his fall from grace.  I read up on some of the trials and crazy things that happened to him, and I can really see that these verses came from his heart after repeatedly being rejected by Saul and persecuted on many sides.  As in all things, I plan to wait on the Lord and do all things in my power that I can at this time to fulfill my purpose as a missionary and become what He wants me to, even if I'm not always 100% sure what he wants me to learn at every moment.  I'm positive I would have "fainted" in doing this work a long time ago without His support.  I hope we can all find those things that we need to wait on the Lord for, and trust in him enough to have confidence to strive forward with what things we can do.

Love you all!

Sister Larsen

The best tan lines of all time because of my shoes.  X marks the spot.  

Go 3-D or Go Home

Dear Errybody,

Last week was pretty awesome.  For our district activity, we went to a member's house and watched "Despicable Me 2" on their 3-D TV (missionaries can get special permission to watch Disney type movies once every few months.)  Movies are definitely cooler in 3-D, for the record.

 That's a picture of our district with awesome 3-D glasses (I definitely have double glasses on right there.)  Rather funnily, the whole movie was pretty much about love and dating life in a characterized version, but we all got a pretty good kick outta it anyway. It's also awesome because the minions in the movie, either on purpose or accidentally, say about 5 identifiable Tagalog words.  Go figure; the minions are Filipino.  The house we went to also has a massage chair (like, the ones that are recliners with a machine deal inside)  set up in front of their TV, and we all took turns in it.  I feel like all the buffness now because I realized how tight my muscles actually were and how many muscles I actually have now.  Boss.

Other fun thing, if you have one of those types of cowlicks that are swirly here in the Philippines, people will tell you that you shouldn't ride on airplanes or boats because you'll crash the plane or sink the boat (like, you're a curse on the ship.)  Apparently in the provinces if you have that they won't let you become a sailor.  I don't have one of those but one of the ward missionaries has two and people tell her that all the time apparently. 

One of my favorite things here in Paranaque... there's a jeepney here that I like to refer to as "the party jeepney."  It has a ton of tiny lights on it all in the front that make it all glow-y and flashing and super cool. And its music is always really loud.  If I could only take home one souvenir from my mission and if I could pick anything, I would pick that jeepney right there.

I ate pork liver flavored with ginger this week.  That was an interesting experience... I don't think I'll make a regular habit of it but the flavor is pretty good; it's just strong.

I met a British man this week whose kid was married in the temple.  Cool stuff.  He didn't want us to teach him but was nice enough though.

This has been a truly miraculous week for Sister Dumayas and I. For probably the first time in my mission, I really felt "led" to a family by the Spirit to find them. We've set aside Thursdays as our "explore the area" day where we try to go to some of the roads or places where we've not found anyone yet and so we rarely go there (or never have before.) After a few hours in the sun, we were walking and looked ahead. I said, "We've never gone straight here before," and we both said "let's go!" because we felt we needed to. We walked about 15 steps down the road and saw an older man with his grandchild. We talked to him for about 20 seconds; his wife immediately let us in. They then told us that they'd been taught by missionaries 3 other times and their youngest daughter was actually named by an Elder back in 2000. They've just kept moving which has been an obstacle to their being baptized, but they've been in this house for 2 years now. They have a lot of extended family there too who also listened to the missionaries previously and went to church. One of my favorite parts - one of the daughters of the couple said that she had a feeling she'd see the missionaries again, "The Mormons just always have a way of finding us!" I'm grateful for the good experiences they had with previous missionaries so they're very willing and excited to listen again.

I realized this week that everything that brings me most happiness in my life is part of my life because of the Church.  I realized just how many stupid decisions I would have made had I not been a member of the Church, and how sad I would have been.  No offense Mom and Dad, but if only you two had been telling me not to do those things that I might have liked to  and if I didn't have the doctrine behind it from the scriptures and teachings of Christ and a personal desire and faith in Christ (and confirmation through the Spirit that this was good and right for my life), I probably wouldn't have listened to you and woulda seriously messed up my life, or at least my self esteem and perception of the world.  I really want others, everyone, to make those good decisions before it's too late and before there's a lot of damage already done.  I want everyone to have hope and faith and see things clearly and not be side-tracked by the distractions and temptations that are out there.  I realized this week just how free I am to be happy, and how grateful I am for the path I've been given to do so.  If anyone ever thinks that I've been serving a mission because of obligation or duty or pressure, I hope that they'll understand that I really did this out of a desire to help people be happy  - real, lasting happiness.  Not just lasting, but forever.  I truly testify that true happiness comes from living the Gospel as Christ taught, and all other ways of living life are... kulang, or to say, lacking.  Something will be missing.  I can say that when I live the Gospel with my heart and mind and strength and follow the commandments, my life feels in balance, and I feel happiness, joy, regardless of what happens or how many people refuse us or how long we walk in the hot sun without teaching people.  It doesn't matter, as long as I'm doing my best and through Christ's Atonement really recognizing what's my best.  My best to help others be happy.  Sorry this is really preachy, but I'm just reaching that very sweet spot in my mission where it's all coming together now and the lessons Heavenly Father wants me to learn from my mission are coming together in a real, solid, and beautiful way.

Much Love,

Sister Larsen

The car of a daughter of one of our members.  "Kitty Racing."  The inside is all Hello Kitty too.  Talk about super legit!  They opened the car and let me sit inside too.  I really miss non-mangy cats, you guys.

P.S.

We taught a lesson this week on the law of chastity to a bunch of 19 - 25 year old men.  One of them we'd never taught before, and this was his first lesson - he was just sitting in listening to his friends' lesson.  In Tagalog, "Chastity" (Batas ng Kalinisang Puri) translates more like "Law of pure cleanliness."  So at the beginning of the lesson and end of the lesson I was talking about that being the name of this law we must follow, and I asked him if he would follow the law in his life (the new guy who we'd never taught before - I figured we might as well ask him.)  He then said yes, he would live it, by cleaning his house and making sure to shower every day.  I don't think he really got it, hahaha, since "Will you live the law of chastity" probably sounded more like "will you live the law of being clean" in Tagalog.  That happened on exchanges with a former Sister Training Leader who is now training and is really a better missionary than I am... I don't really like going on exchanges with missionaries I feel like I have nothing to teach, other than I sure learned a lot from her and let her know so.  We had a good laugh about the awkward Tagalog translation of "chastity."

We also taught a different lesson to a former Less Active member where it uses the tagalog word for "horn" which is pretty deep Tagalog.  The word for that is something like "turotot" I think, and the member asked us what it meant while he was reading.  I had English scriptures in front of me (skill acquired - reading my own scriptures in English and paraphrasing them back in Tagalog after listening to someone read it in Tagalog... something like that.) and I was trying to explain what turotot was but couldn't remember the Tagalog word.  So I said, "Patutot means blah blah blah..." and then our ward missionary smacked me in the leg a bit and started laughing and said, "TUROTOT!!!"  Then I remembered that "patutot" is another one of those words people don't know what it means sometimes and it sounds similar... but that word means prostitute.  I don't think the member noticed but the ward missionary and I had a good laugh about it afterwards.

Adventure Time

Dear Everyone,

I really like something that President Ostler said at Missionary Leadership Conference.  For one, he said, "Blessed are the flexible because they will not break."  Definitely experienced that on my mission... not with relation to being flexible on rules or our values, but with situations and things that might happen which we weren't expecting.  So, the more open we are to changing our plans and views of things regardless of what might happen, the happier and more successful we'll be.  He also said, "Count on things not being the way you planned, and call it an adventure." So, so so true.  Love it.  Every day is an adventure if we view those wrenches in our plans as adventures rather than hardships.  Time to try and do something new, explore new things.

This has been a pretty tiring week.  Two back to back exchanges, trying to do really good exercise... but it's good. Good stuff's happening.  I feel happy, even though sometimes there's a lot of hard work and effort before miracles can be seen.  While on exchanges, I saw something that made me ridiculously happy - while in a tricycle, I saw a tindahan (a tiny family owned store that sells just a limited supply of snacks, drinks, etc.) and normally each tindahan has a name, normally the name of the family or owner. This one, however, had written in huge letters in English, "BEST DANG STORE."  I suuuper wanted to meet the owners of that tindahan.  They need to become members, haha.

This week I felt pretty enlightened by these verses from the Bible.  This is when David instructed his son Solomon to build the temple, although Solomon was undoubtedly young and inexperienced:

9 ¶And thou, Solomon my son, know thou the God of thy father,and serve him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind: for the Lord searcheth all hearts, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever.

 10 Take heed now; for the Lord hath chosen thee to build an house for the sanctuary: be strong, and do it.

20 And David said to Solomon his son, Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for the Lord God,even my God, will be with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee, until thou hast finished all the work for the service of the house of the Lord.

So, this has some pretty real applications to my mission right now, at this time.  I'm certainly not building a temple, but I am in a sense trying to build myself to be what the Lord wants me to be and learn right now from my mission, the things I'm supposed to incorporate into my being.  There's a lot of places I know I can still improve, with relation to my thoughts and heart and desires, but I also feel and can definitely see how far I've come as compared to where I was previously.  One of my favorite exhortations here is "be strong, and do it."  That's really one of the main things my mission has required of me, one of the basic principles I've learned... to do, with faith, and to be strong in spirit and body.  Even though building the temple undoubtedly seemed a giant challenge to Solomon, David gave him everything he needed to accomplish it - plans, men to help him, and funds.  I feel that in a sense that's where I'm at on my mission.  I have what I need to accomplish  the work I said I would do and now is truly my time to do it.  Fear is slowly being erased from my life, although it was a huge part of me before my mission and during a large portion of it... as I've learned confidence in the Lord, my fears have slowly ebbed away to confidence and trust in Him.  I know the Lord will never forsake us until we have accomplished the things he asks us to do, and we need not be dismayed if we give our whole selves to what we know and feel to our very core is right and coming from Him.  I'm so very grateful for every circumstance and all the people I've ever met on my mission and what I've seen and experienced which has brought me to where I am right now, with the things given to me that I need to do this work but at the same time stretch myself and my faith.  

Much love,
Sister Larsen

Thought They Saw Double

Got a haircut last week, so that's why I'm sending another pic of Sister Dumayas and me.  Last haircut I got was last October, so I figured it was about time.  Pretty much have no hair now and it's still falling out...don't know how to tell my body that I'll eventually be moving back to the cold and need all the hair again.That's aight, it'll grow back.

The picture is of Sis Dumayas and I at MLC, the meeting for the leaders in the mission.  It was pretty awesome, we had focus groups talk about current rules and things in place in the mission and then decide what the rule is and what it should possibly be changed to be.  It was pretty legit; they said they'll be doing it at the next MLC's as well.  Super cool to see the handoff of the mission from one mission President to the next, and how the adjustments are made with the help of the missionaries.

I went on exchanges this week with Sister Larsen!  Everyone was super confused that our names are exactly the same, and quite a few asked if we were actually sisters. I still think we might be related since her dad's side's from Idaho. Sister Larsen's way fun to have around; we'll probably be here in the same apartment until I "die" off my mission hopefully :)  While on exchanges, we ate kikiam (has a little bit of fish and a lot of flour) and squid balls (same deal, but squid bits) and it was super delicious.  It's normally a street food so we're not allowed to eat it, but this was prepared by members and therefore okay.  If it wasn't bawal.. not allowed... I'd probably eat street foods like every day of my mission, but everything here is fried so that's maybe not the best idea ever.

We went on exchanges with missionaries out of the Missionary Training Center this week.  You'll remember back when I was in the MTC that we went on exchanges with missionaries in the Manila area twice while in the MTC.  It was super duper weird because I still remember those exchanges out of the MTC, and as I went with the super fresh missionary around helping her get a feel for missionary work, it was like... whew.  That was forever ago I was still in the MTC, and SO much has happened, but it also seems like it was just yesterday.  Super strange; I'm feeling super old in my mission at this point.  

Cool thing about my area here is that it's exactly across the highway from my old area in PQ 1 ward.  So I see my old area every day, and see people from 1st ward when I go to church sometimes.  Way nice.  First ward was a super party, one of the most memorable times of my mission in a lot of ways.  It's always nice to see familiar faces; and I really love Paranaque.  Happy to be here.

I'm learning some Ilocano from Sister Dumayas.  That's another dialect here in the Philippines, and the other Sister who lives with us is also Ilocano so they speak it to each other.  I picked up some of it just from listening.  There's SO many different languages in the Philippines, it's super awesome, but almost everyone speaks at least some Tagalog.

Last but not least... the Philippines is the best, because no matter where you are they're probably either playing 80's rock, rap, or dubstep/electronica.  Not that I listen to it really as a missionary, but even in super public places there's dubstep playing inside local grocery stores, hahah.  Not acceptable in the U.S., totally cool here.  I like the chillness aspect of Filipino culture; that's always a nice thing for sure.

Much love,

Sister Larsen