So another week down! This week we get our travel plans!!!!!!! Say what?! Ya, I'm excited. BUT more on that when I actually have them and know that I'm really leaving. At this point, I feel like my mission is the MTC. The Philippines doesn't even seem like a really place. Life in the MTC foreverrrrrrr...
Not much happnened this week. I'm to the point where it's the same thing every day, going to bed at night just seems like a little nap before we start learning again, and I've done pretty much everyhing that's cool to do here. But this place still rocks my sock (if I wore socks...). The few fun, different, and non-learning related things that happened this week: I found out our district is reaaaaaaally competitive. We were playing language review games on teams, and pretty much if you didn't win, you are now shunned for life. We take bragging rights to the extreme. Of course my team won:) Glad to know that my competitive side is still allowed here. Now that I have officially tried everything to eat for meals, I now have granola for breakfast and lunch. IT HAS CINNAMON ALMONDS!!!! And that's about as exciting as life gets. And sometimes I have a couple ice cream bars to balance it all out:) We are now the oldest district in our zone, and the next ones to leave. All the people that came in after us seem really really little. Actually out of 25 people, there are only 2 elders that are over 18. So I guess they really are young. I have to rememeber to be Christlike with them ususally. I don't deal with immature people:) Good thing I'm a missionary and have to, and want to a little more.
Here's a journal entry I wrote from this week. "Sometimes the MTC will tear me down to my core, until pretty much all I know I have is my testimony. That is when this becomes hard work. But then, Heavenly Father uses that to His advantage to build me up to much more than I was before and so much more than I could have ever become on my own. He is turning me into His missionary, preparing me to do His work, and I love knowing that He cares enough about me to take the time to teach me all of this." When our investigators won't pray when we ask them to or when I can't for the life of me remember how to say anything in Tagalog, I remember that without the hard times, I wouldn't be able to know and understand the joys of missionary work. Without tearing me down, He could not build me up.
Funny story for the week: I started giving the elders in our district one of my princess stickers when they did something awesome. For example, Elder Johnston ate 6 ice cream bars in 10 minutes after dinner. Elder Ranada keeps fixing my lanyard that holds my card every time I break it. Elder Thayne learns a new joke every day to tell the sisters. They thought it was literally the coolest thing ever to have a princess sticker to put on the back of their tag. I just thought it was hilarious that they would do this kind of stuff for a sticker. Now, all the elders in our zone beg me for a princess sticker for their nametag. It's become that right of passage to let everyone know that they've done something super super cool:) Something that I thought was a dumb way to make things fun has now turned into a zone-wide competition where all the elders see what they can do to get a sticker from me:) There are elders that will take my food to the trash, elders that are always talking to me, elders that try and learn really awesome tricks (and usually fail), etc. FOR A PRINCESS STICKER:) I love it.
Well, I apoligize that I don't have anything too witty or life-changing this week. Maybe next week, but until then, I love you guys. Thanks so much for everything you do for me, and supporting me so much with this work!
Piling ang Tama,
SISTER TAYLOR