August 31 2014

The Mission is amazing!!!! I feel so blessed to have this opportunity to serve a mission! I looooooooove the Philippines!!!!! It is such an amazing place! I never imagined I would have this much joy! It hasn't been easy, I am learning so much about myself, about others, and about Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and his gospel. My heart is so full! This week I have learned to importance of listening. I am not very good at speaking, and never have been but I have learned that that isn't whats important. Through listening I can communicate more then actually speaking. 

The people here are amazing! I want to cry as I write about them. Seeing all that they sacrifice to be members and to keep the gospel strong here is amazing. They will walk miles to get to church because they know how important it is. They are so inspiring! Thanks for all the prayers and emails. I love you all! This gospel is amazing!!!! Christ is everything, literally! I am so thankful for him, and I know that he lives! Before my mission I would say in my testimony, "I know that Christ lived and he was an example..." It never felt right, because it wasn't right. He didn't just live, He still lives and has a body and spirit! I am so grateful for this knowledge. And want to be like him.

Mahal kita!

Sister Dahl

The Malakas family

 First time doing my laundry and it was a blast! Sister Panal is a pro and helped me

THE FOOD!!!!!!!!!! I can't talking about the food, I could go on for days.We have an investigator who is a chef, he is one of my favorites! 

August 17 2014

Kamusta Everyone!!!!!

I made it to the Philippines!!!! HOLY MOLY I can't believe this is real life!!!!! We got to the Philippines on 2 fridays ago and stayed at the Philippines MTC for 5 days while they got our visa all worked out. So we got more MTC...yay...not. haha. The the next day they had us go out proselyting in manila. WOW!!!! that was shoking. I was extremely amazed at the culture and the way they live. My companion was the funniest craziest little Filipino Sister Sia. Then on the 13th they bused us to our missions, we went to the mission home and met the President and wife President Dahle and Sister Dahle. LOVE LOVE LOVE them they are amazing! They assigned us our trainers. I got sister Villaviles. She is the tinniest little Filipino. haha she called me fat. haha. I love her! She is such a hard worker and so cute and nice and loving. We went straight to work once we got to the apartment. As the next couple of days settled in and I realized this is real life and my life for the next 17 months I was kind of shocked. The way of life here is so so so different, but really the same. The Filipinos are amazing people and as I am learning to love the food (I ate this week pig skin fried and a delicious pork in blood) (mmm masurap!!), the culture, the heat (its always hot!!!!!) and most importantly the culture, everything is getting easier. Kamusta 

I feel so blessed to have this opportunity to serve a mission. My heart is so full. I know that this gospel is true, and I know that the professes in the scriptures are being fulfilled and will be fulfilled. I know that god loves all of his children. I know that Heavenly Father loves me. He loves me enough to bless me with opportunities to learn a language so that I can learn more of him and learn to trust him (the language is definitely one of the hardest adjustments). I know Christ lives. I know that he is with me always and will never leave me alone, because that is his mission, to succor his people.

Mahal Kita!

Sister Dahl

The sky is so beautiful here. The Salonga family we ran to their house during the storm the lightning is crazy here!! and it was a brown out during the storm so we read from the book of mormon around a little candle. 

 

August 2, 2014

Well well well! We got our travel plans and we leave this Thursday morning! The MTC is amazing, but I can't wait to go to the jungle of the Philippines with all the spiders and no toilet paper! haha but really I'm so excited! I'm pretty sure I only know like 10 words in tagalog but I think I will survive!  This week our teachers have been telling us tons of stories and showing us tons of pictures, it gets me so excited! Yesterday we had in field orientation which was a nice change in the schedule!

I love my companion, she is seriously such an amazing person. Everyone always says get used to being with someone 24/7 because it is an adjustment, the littlest dumbest things will start to bother you. Thankfully that has never happened with us...hahaha joke! But we are so open with each other and talk about everything so its the best. She has this habit of always saying "ready" "ready" "ready" except for in tagalog its "handa" "handa" "handa" sometimes I will count how many times she says it throughout the day, the numbers are pretty high. I don't think it had anything to do with me being slow...haha joke. Sometimes I would even purposely go slow just to make her wait hahaha. I finally got the courage to tell her how much it bothers that she says "handa" all the time even though she is never ready herself, and she was like "I really say it that much"? We laughed and made fun of each other and now it is our favorite joke! Anyways! Sister Hamblin is seriously the best it is going to be so hard saying goodbye to here on thursday because we aren't on the same flight. Goodbyes are hard, but because of the gospel goodbyes never have to be goodbyes, its always see you later!

So everyday is so much work and so exhausting, the thing that gets me through everything are my personal study time, prayer, and my companion. Getting to talk to Heavenly Father through the prayer and listening to him through the scriptures is such a blessing. It is so comforting to know that I always have someone to turn to and that is my Heavenly Father. 

This week me and Sister Hamblin were feeling kind of stressed with the language and feeling pressure to be perfect at the language and perfect missionaries. We took a break from everything and took a walk (around the mtc campus) and talked about how we were feeling, how we can better balance our day (balance is huge), and then our strengths and focusing on our strengths and what we do know rather then what we don't know. We came to the conclusion that if we are always focusing on what we aren't then we wont be able to be what we are! Then we started talking about Christ and how through him we don't have to be everything, we just have to try and trust in him. When me and Sister Hamblin were talking I couldn't help but imagine myself talking to Christ instead of Sister Hamblin. Heavenly Father has given us people to help us and be there for us like Christ would.We need to talk to them, listen to them, share our fears and concerns with them. Christ works through each of us like my bishop said, "we are all Christs hands"! One of my favorite teachers sister mcClatchy told us one time that representative translated in tagolog literally means body. As missionaries we are the body of Christ. 

Mahal Kita! 

Sister Dahl

Next week this time ill be in the islands! wooooohoooooo!!!!!! 

This baby looks like Nichole when she was a baby hahaha so cute!!! Im in love