Go Hard or Go Home

Heyo errybody.  This week's been a pretty crazy week of surprises (fortunately mostly pleasant ones), and I'm just kind of like... aight, I'm along for the ride, and I'm determined to enjoy it, and things are going pretty great.  We'll put it this way... I'm not ready to go home yet, so the only option is to go hard.  Maximizing this as much as I can , and getting really specifically inspired to get over stuff that I shoulda gotten over a long time ago (like my still innate fear of talking to random people.  That fear is pretty much totally gone now.  There are a lot of things where suddenly everything's clicked, and I just don't care too much anymore to pay attention to my obstacles like that.)

I'm currently on exchanges with a Sister who is the daughter of someone famous.  You know that awesome movie "The RM" ?  You remember that "Polynesian exchange student" the main character's family brings into their house right when the main guy gets off his mission?  Yeah, that's this Sister's dad.  Pretty cool, haha.  

At Zone conference they taught us how to communicate effectively, meaning how to shake hands as Sisters and how to smile at people so we don't give off the idea that we're "interested" or "flirting."  There's been a lot of problems in the mission with people falling in love with each other or other people falling in love with them and of course, that's not why we're here on our missions, so we had some training to try to stop that before it starts.  Apparently my handshake's not firm enough.  Gotta practice it so it's less "soft and feminine" hahahaha.

We also got a lot of training on becoming "master teachers" so that our lessons are guided by the Spirit and that we teach all the doctrines better that are in Preach My Gospel.  It went really well and we learned a lot.  My teaching has definitely been improving more because now I'm more focused on it, and really getting to know every lesson truly inside out so I can teach the doctrines the way that will be more effective and helpful.

Bishop came up to me yesterday and asked me to sing a solo in sacrament meeting a few weeks from now.  Let you know how that goes.

Love you all!

-Sister Larsen

Probably a photo of the district playing basketball and volleyball, as mentioned in last week's blog post. 

When It Rains . . .

IT POURS.

Maybe some of you heard about Mario, the tropical storm or whatever it was this week, but we definitely had some crazy flooding right outside our apartment.  That picture is of the road that we use to get out from our apartment, and the water you can see behind that wall is the huuuuge chasm that normally funnels out all the water.  Talk about a flood!  I don't know why that lady was using an umbrella while she was up to her waist in water, haha, or where was so important for them to get to that they walked through all that rat and human feces and trash that's in that water.

When we were restricted to staying in our apartments because of the flooding, I washed my laundry by hand (the Filipino way) for 3 hours (it takes that long.  Be thankful for washers and dryers), took a nap, wrote a coupla letters, and ate a lot of food.  It was fun.  Fun... we're gonna have some later on today when we play basketball and volleyball as a district.

Anyway.

This week I've really been working on talking to everyone.  Sometimes that's productive, sometimes it's not.  One time as we were walking, I saw an older gentleman walking ahead of us.  And I saw in his hands... nun-chucks!  Then I got excited, now I definitely had something to talk to him about.  So I walked up and said, "Bakit mayroon po kayo mga... nun-chucks?" (pretty sure there's no word for that in Tagalog.)  The man turned around and said, with a strong British accent, "Oh, my, I do not speak Tagalog."  Turns out he's from France, but went to school in England, and teaches self-defense to some of the other foreigners that live in the area.  We talked to him a bit, and when we asked him if he would be interested to learn about our message centered on Christ and families, he said, "Absolutely not, but thank you for the offer... I have nothing to gain from religion, and am actually a very wicked man."  So, there we go, but he wished us well, and we went on our way.  On the way back later at night I heard from his house the sound of a punching back getting whacked, probably by nun-chucks.  New life goal - learn how to use nun-chucks.

We also had a "work and self reliance" workshop this week where missionaries who are going to go home in a few months learn about applying for jobs and doing interviews and all that stuff.  It was SO funny because when we did the practice of people walking into a room where their "potential employer" was, they were supposed to walk up and confidently say, "Hello, I'm (their first name and last name) and I'm here to apply for the (job.)"  Almost every single one of them who did that walked in and said, "Hello, I"m Elder..." or "Hello, I'm Sister..." and they just couldn't say their first names!  It gets hard for sure when we haven't used our first names for the past two years or so.

Speaking of which, I will be coming home in mid-November for anyone who doesn't know that.  I'll be looking forward to seeing most of you all then, and for now I'm focused on being a missionary!  But thanks for all your continued love and support throughout these 18 months.

Thought this was way awesome when I read it in the Bible Dictionary this week. The definition of the word earnest in a Biblical context.

"Earnest"

A pledge or security. The word thus translated is a commercial term denoting the deposit paid by a buyer on entering into an agreement for the purchase of anything. As used by Paul (2 Cor. 1:22; 5:5; Eph. 1:14) it means that the Lord gives us His Holy Spirit in this life as a foretaste of the joy of eternal life. The Spirit is also the Lord’s surety that He will fulfill His promise to give eternal life to the faithful.

May we all live earnestly to receive the gifts of the Spirit and have that foretaste of joy every day.  I know that the Lord does and will fulfill His promises to us, and there's only one way for us to be happy - through obedience to His commandments and pure, clean hearts.

Much love,

Sister Larsen

Music Manager

Dear Everyone,

First, off, what happened at Mission Leadership Training this week.  On the top of the list of things talked about was music.  For those of you who forgot, back after my first transfer in the mission, the rules for what missionaries could listen to got changed from being the white handbook rules - pretty much that the music just had to be uplifting and inspiring - to that we could only listen to hymns and Mormon Tabernacle Choir. So that's what I've been listening to my whole mission up until now.  This time, though, we all had a council on music.  Sister and President Ostler played clips for us of what was mostly classical music and had missionaries put their thumbs up if they thought it was appropriate for a mission and thumbs down if not.  For all except for one song (which reminded me of Virginia because it was some bluegrass with a guy singing in a strong Southern accent about his tractor and which few other missionaries understood except for me), I put my thumbs up.  But, as I looked around, many of the other missionaries were consistently doing thumbs down... to classical music.  Their reasoning was that it was "too exciting" or "too depressing," and I wanted to laugh because I was like... so we're only allowed to have one emotion on our missions?  Anyway, I was definitely (and predictably) one of the few voices for being liberal on the music, but I never thought that a mission would be vetoing classical music, haha.  I can only describe it this way... Manila MIssion is one of the most straight laced and strict missions you will ever come across.  Been doing some technology stuff to try and get it distributed tomorrow at Zone Meeting to our zone since Sister Bechachino and I are assigned to talk about music.

Anyway, didn't really end up mattering, because the Ostlers gave us a USB with a bunch of music on it and said that it was the new playlist for the mission, and we can still listen to Mormon Tabernacle Choir and hymns.  So that's that.  It's a nice solution, I suppose, but.  My music choices will change *some* when I go back, but I still miss having more freedom in the category of what we listen to on our missions.

President Ostler is also awesome because for part of MLC, he got down on the floor with some worn out shoes and shoe polish and started polishing them.  He said absolutely nothing to us, just started polishing them.  He started pantomiming that he wanted us to start giving out suggestions, and pointed to the board that said, "Leadership Qualities."  We all eventually realized he wanted us to get "service" out of what he was doing.  It was pretty impressive, he didn't speak a word the whole time and afterwards brought it home by handing the shoes to one of the Elders (he had polished the Elder's shoes) and said that actions speak louder than words (hence he wasn't speaking) and that our number one priority in exchanges, etc. is to serve missionaries and not to correct or judge them.  I like that, it's much needed in the mission and for us right now.

I went on an exchange with one very happy and enthusiastic Sister who's only in her second transfer (still in her training.)  When we went to the apartment, she realized she had forgotten her keys... so we yelled for her apartment mates to come out, but they didn't hear after 10 minutes of yelling.  So we planned outside and then tried yelling again.  No response.  She said, "I'm gonna climb the fence."  I protested, but she said she'd do it so we could at least drop my stuff off inside in case it rained (I was going to be spending the night at their house.)  So she totally climbed the fence in a skirt and was really quite skilled at it, hahaha.  She's from New Zealand of Tongan and Indian descent.  It was way fun to go out with her, and I commented on the fact that she has a gold tooth (which I've seen on other Polynesian missionaries before) and asked her why they wear them.  She said that it can symbolize having done something noteworthy or good, and I said I totally wanted a gold tooth now after my mission (hey, serving a mission is noteworthy and good) and she said, "Yeah!! That would totally be so cute on an American like you!"  Next goal, gold tooth.  Just kidding (kind of), but it WOULD  be super legit.

Anyway... my time's up.  I love you all and hope you have a great week.  Always find ways to use your free agency to make good choices every day!

Much love,

Sister Larsen

Here's a Few Crumbs . . .

Some really great quotes from our mission tour this week, where the area President, President Ardern addressed us (some of these come from other sources, but I didn't write down exactly where it was coming from) :

-"You cannot put a crust (small piece of bread) on the altar of the Lord without receiving a loaf in return."

That's pretty much how I feel about every day of my mission, although I'm pretty sure it's more like a few crumbs rather than a crust. Even with those few crumbs though, I've definitely seen the "loaf" that the Lord gives to us, especially as missionaries right now.  That's like, a loaf of pumpkin bread (my favorite), haha.  But seriously, I feel so blessed at this point of my mission to be where I am, doing what I'm doing.  I really know when I give it my all the Lord will make up for my own weaknesses or the things I'm not perfect at.  Seen that time and time again here on the mission, and I'm more grateful than anything for it... because ultimately, people's lives have been changed to be happier (eternally) because of the Gospel and my few crumbs I've been able to offer.  

Another two quotes I liked, 

"There's no resting place on the path called faithfulness." - President Thomas S. Monson

Sometimes I think maybe my brain or body is about to just shut down with low battery, especially this far into my mission, but somehow I just keep going and I know that's through the Lord's help.  Super true there's no resting place, and I know that my mission right now is only preparing me for the next steps I need to be taking in life and especially the responsibilities  I'll be given to continue serving in the Church even after my mission.

And,
"It's not how many times you go through the scriptures, but how many times the scriptures go through you."  

Super true.  I'm so thankful for how President Ardern taught us to use the scriptures more wisely, to really ponder and apply them more effectively to every situation, especially as leaders in the mission to help others through using the scriptures.  

This week's been the craziest, busiest week of my mission life... two meetings with President Ardern (one for just the mission leaders, and one for a few zones where he further instructed us) and a temple day.  And this week starts all the exchanges we're going to be going on, but it's pretty crazy too because we have a million extra meetings this month and only so much time to actually do exchanges feasibly.  But.  It's gonna be great, and because we'll be so busy I know September's gonna just fly by... but, I plan on savoring every moment of the "loaf" I've been given right now at this point in my mission.

Fun stuff - we're teaching in a house where there's no lights and there's a family of the type of lizards Sister Bechachino and I always used to hear when we were on Palawan as we taught by candlelight.  Pretty awesome, I enjoy it.  I miss the province, but Paranaque definitely has its moments where it feels like we're in the province.

We also saw the official Azkal's team bus this week.  The Azkals are the Philippines national soccer team.  Too. Cool.  It drove right past us on the road and I wanted to run out and just make it stop so I could meet them... they're called "azkals" or in english "street dogs" because a lot of them started by playing soccer on the streets in the squatter areas.

I hope all of you keep living in a way that the Lord will be able to give you spiritual loafs  of the bread of life every day!  Love you all!

-Sister Larsen

(picture is of Sis Bechachino and I at the temple)

The Lord Giveth . . .

".... The Lord taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord."

-Job

Hi everyone!  This week I got quite the shock.  Sister Dumayas was transferred, and her replacement, my new companion is... a familiar face... Sister Bechachino!  I helped trained her when we were on Palawan waaaaay back at the beginning of my mission, and now we're Sister Training Leaders and companions again.  Pretty crazy, but I know that the hand of the Lord is in this and that He gave the inspiration to President Ostler for that to happen.

Our area super duper flooded on Monday... Sister Dumayas and I walked home in water up to our knees even on the main highway because it was a sudden torrential downpour... like a river flowing from the sky, straight up.  But we made it home, hahah.

I have no idea what this transfer has in store, because this next week is gonna be super duper crazy and I'm way excited for it.  We have so much going on in the month of September that I know it's just going to fly right on by.  I feel so blessed to be a missionary right now, serving the Lord.

I just don't have time this week, haha.  But... Merry Christmas!!!  It's the "-ber months" (September, October, November, December) and in the Phliippines as soon as September hits that means it's time to celebrate Christmas.  There's already lights up in town and our neighbors are playing Christmas music (heck, I've been playing Christmas music ever since I've been on my mission.)  Pasko na!  It's Christmas!  Love you all, and have a great, productive week!

-Sister Larsen

P.S. The picture is a hand-painted picture of the DC temple in a member's house here... I was super duper excited when I saw that, my temple! :)

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.