August 10 Email

Hello Family - So the internet died here at this place and we are waiting for it to start working again. I decided that while I was waiting I would open up this notepad and type your letter so I can paste it later. We are in Lucena because the AP's called us and said they were going to come here for an activity. Lucena is about an hours jeep ride from Lucban but we went...and then they weren't here and we don't know the way to where they went so we're just here in Lucena where it is much hotter than Lucban although not that much further away. My area is one of the coldest places in our mission they say -- that's a blessingsome days :) The week has gone well for the most part. We have a mission tour right now so our six week regular schedule is kind of messed up and we're having zone conference all over again, thus I'll be driving to Lucena again tomorrow night and waking up early Wednesday for Zone conference with Elder Teh of the seventy who is coming to speak to us and our emails from the mission for the last couple of weeks have been wear your best, come and be quiet, don't bring cameras etc." haha...we also just had zone interviews last week so we were in Lucena. Zone interviews were really good for me. Getting to talk to president was a good thing and helped relieve me of some of my concerns. I was definitely not enjoying being accountable for the work we were/weren't doing and it was giving me a kind of anxious attitude. I feel bad for president and Sister Anderson, they have a lot of adjustments to make and I think President is trying to fix everything he doesn't like about how the mission is going with the zeal of someone new but he said himself in my interview that Sister Anderson told him, "you can't just change them, so accept them." How true is that sometimes? As for not mentioning people by name all the time, that probably has in part to do with the lack of names to mention, it's true, but besides that I don't know why I haven't. Kalvin is one of our investigators -- we both discussed the other day the fact that we truly believe he will be a member of the Church one day but we don't know how far in the future that will be. Even Brigham Young took years before he decided he was going to join the church and he became prophet so I have hope and pray for him every day. Kalvin stretches my language abilities. I'm sure I've mentioned this to you somewhere. Maybe in a hand written letter or in an email but I want to explain to him and understand him so much that I have to stretch my vocabulary. Our ward mission leader is Kuya Eddy.... Kuya is a word they use here that means older brother and Ate is for older sister (and the pronunciation is not like the word for eating but a softer A at the beginning like ah-te) but you attach it to peoples names all the time basically so anyway Kuya Eddy Sews for a living and right now they are close to festival in Lucban so he has a lot of work to do. He is our ward mission leader but he's going through a tough time right now. He diligently comes to church still and teaches the new member/investigator class. We went to his sewing shop in the evening after church where he was sewing -- Sister Odo was talking to him in a somewhat joking but serious manner about keeping the Sabbath day holy. He chuckled a bit and seemed exasperated-- he wants time to read more, to do what he should and improve in the gospel but he's overwhelmed and he said to us "this is a blessing from God, I have so much work now I need to do it and make sure these customers come back" he works over time, he sleeps there sometimes instead of at their house and wakes up in the middle of the night to keep sewing -- reminds me of someone else who works overtime and sleeps over :) As Sister Odo was talking with him he finally looked over at me and said "What do you have to say" and all I could think was that sometimes God gives us the desires of our hearts or the things we ask for etc. and blessings and those same blessings become obstacles to our own happiness. It says that in the scriptures, that God will grant unto us what we want if we seek after that rather than what He wants for us and although we will see it as a blessing and a prayer granted at first it will become for us a stumbling block so we must be mindful of that and humble ourselves before we are made to be humble. I was also impressed by the article about Elder Eyring’s life and the strong impression he was given one night after his wife brought up "is this really what you should be doing with your life?" and he was quite happy and successful where he was -- the thought came "never take another job without coming to me first" and he knew there were many jobs in his past that he did not ask theLord about but decided fully on his own wisdom and no council from the Lord. Soon after he was called by people from Salt Lake to take up a job which lead him eventuallyto Rexburg and then to being an apostle -- a life of service and as much as it may have seemed like he was sacrificing he knew he wasn't and this was God's will for him and his life has been greatly blessed. I hope, Dad, that the desires of your heart will be fulfilled, but most that you will know the desires of God because I know they are far greater and you have somany talents and have helped so many people already that there is surely a path meant for you where you can continue to do that. I was also thinking with Brother Eddy about how sometimes we are meant to learn to sacrifice -- if blessings always came immediately would we ever learn the greater joy of sacrifice? I know that as parents you have learned sacrifice, I know that I'm learning more what sacrifice is now and it comes in many forms and it is a great covenant that we made to sacrifice all we have as Christ did, all to the will of the Father so that he might make more of our lives, give us greater joy, expand our vision and build up friends (that last part is a portion of a quote from someone, Benson I think, and thus it has authority more than my own words :) I know this is true. As for the card -- it is a pin problem, but not really. At the MTC the ATM told me my pin was wrong so I called in to the bank and used that same pin and it worked, they told me it was right and thus I still don't know what the problem is because I have no other pin to use and the bank said I'm using the right one but the ATM doesn't care! Haha...as for the 400 I don't know what they do with that they put it in with all the mission money. I think the money you pay for the entire time will cover my plane tickets and not much more, the Church pays for a lot and thus we are given an allowance in accordance with what they think we can live off of and we can use it for food, electricity, shampoo etc., and transportation and sending letters to family -- if we run out that's our own fault :) haha it works well but if I want to buy souvenirs, clothes, have clothes repaired, print pictures etc. I have to use my own money. Wouldn't McKaylee have been 19? I thought she was two years younger than me? It is interesting how that works, I always wondered what it would have been like to have someone closer and I'm strangely excited to return andhave Savanna by quality of graduation be "closer" because you're basically the same age from 18-28 when in college and there are the 18 year olds that act mature and the 28 year olds that don't and vice versa... then you get married(some do) and that makes you grow up hopefully no matter who you are and thus in college you're all in the same pool :) I have run out of time -- I plan to send at least mom a good reply to her last couple of hand written letters and I promise to get to Savanna and you dad another time if I don't know. You'll be getting a letter from me with only pictures and a page of explanations so don't get too excited and then a good letter will come -- I just need to steal away the time to do it! Thanks for the emails and your testimonies and great examples to me – I love you all Brit