I JUST LOOOOVE MY FAMILY!

And I LOVE writing letters to you every week.

third of the matching
skirt companionship

That was the first thing that came out of my mouth after I read you emails hahaha, I just love you guys!  Your emails are soooo good, and this week sooo funny.  My favorite is that I am now Ben's favorite sibling and then the really awkward picture that president Querido managed to get of me and my companion.  I obviously was not paying attention. 

I just hope that's not what I usually look like when I'm talking to people I haven't seen in awhile...

SO, lets just review all the qualifications I got this week making me a certified, genuine FIlipina:) (Again.)

this is the most annoying,
disobedient, and loud kid
I have every met in my life

This week was filled with eating and eating, and talking and eating.  I have become even more talkative (thanks to my ever so talkative companion) and we realized this week that talkativeness=dinner appointments:).  We managed to score dinner appointments almost every night this week!!!!  Yesssss.  One of those dinner appointments I learned to make leche flan (get the egg yolks ready for when I come home!) and then one of my favorite members here, Chat Nobleza made REAL, live, eatable sandwiches, WITH LETTUCE!!!!!  I didn't fully appreciate the leafy, tasteless stuff until I ate it for the first time since I left America. 

I want a salad for my first dinner home.  With ranch.

We also experienced the actual missionary life when we ran out of stove gas.  Saturday night.  We still haven't been able to buy any because there are a whole bunch of fiestas here, so for the moment, this missionary's diet is crackers, instant oatmeal, and the candy bars that were in my last package.

we had a picnic and picked mangos
at our investigator for lunch

Thanks as well to my companion, I am the proud owner of 5 new pairs of shoes.  All of which I am saving to bring home.  They are sooooo cute.  I'll send pictures next week.  One of those pairs has cats and dogs on it, but you won't be ablet o even imagine it until I send the pictures:)  Whoever told me that there was nothing to buy here obviously did not know how much junk filipinos are good at saving.  And how good I am at finding useless things to buy.  

Last P-day I might have bought a machete....  Are those allowed on the plane?

one of the members made real,
 almost american sandwiches!!!!!

This week one of my personal goals was patience.  I figured patience is a great thing to learn on a mission, lots of opportunities to grow and really learn.  But I realized this week, when you pray for patience, Heavenly Father will reeeaally find good ways to test your patience.  I have never tried so hard to be patient and then had more things happen to try that patience.  Heavenly Father is a funny guy.  

But, nonetheless, I managed to learn a lot about patience.  One day, it was thanks to a puddle.  We left from an appointment and we were so frustrated at our investigator just because of some of the things she had told us and then things that she doesn't understand.  We said goodbye (this is about 8pm now and dark) and start walking across the road to go home.  My steps were a little hard and forced as we're walking (haha trying to get rid of my impatience) and as my mind was thinking about all the things that our lesson lacked, I managed to stomp my foot into a giant, fresh, really muddy puddle.  Right into the middle of it.  My companion just stopped, we stared at each other for about 10 seconds, and then just burst out laughing.  I managed to fish my now dirt covered shoe out of the water, and hobbled home.  Hobbling half because we were laughing so hard and half because I was only walking with one shoe on.   

But this week was full of great lessons like that about my now very improved patience.

these are the shoes I've been talking about)
But the good news, I didn't buy any today)

Right after I type this, we're walking to the post office to send of the bajillion letters that I spend the last two weeks writing.  I am so impressed with these letters:)  Let the Beene's know I sent them a letter too:).

Funny Story: Our zone is at war right now:)  In a missionary appropriate, joking kind of way...  As always, our work is focused on goal setting, goal achieving, and numbers of work.  We won again for the highest stats last week and so we got to watch last week as the other district tried the cinnamon challenge:)  ha.hahaa There were 4 big elders and some cute, small filipina sisters that spent about 5 minutes coughing out their guts and trying to hide spitting out the giant spoon of cinnamon they ate:).  

KAPAYAPAAN!!
SISTER TAYLOR