My mission

A shift in my missionary paradigm. My mission was not typical. Past tense. I have been home from my mission for a few days. My mission was shorter than most. But I am still proud of how I served, it was an honorable mission.
There is a stigma with missionaries who return home early. Assumptions are made. Generalizations of sadness and failure. Granted before my mission I unfortunately fell into the same way of thinking. But I have been enlightened through my experience.
There is no sadness associated with my mission being shorter than most. And utterly no sense of failure.  None. It was a good mission. My gifts and talents are just more compatible with a different type of service. My mission is not something that needs to be tiptoed around. I would love to bore you with my excessive mission stories.
My mission and the decisions that I have made regarding it are something I will never regret. I have learned a lot. And will continue to learn from it throughout the rest of my life. I consider missionary work to be an amazing way to spread the gospel. And I commend every single missionary for their commitment. The Philippines is such a unique and beautiful place. So full of its own culture and way of life. I had a lot of wonderful, positive experiences. I know that this Church is true. And I hope to be able to serve my whole life in ways that fit me better. Marami salamat para sa lahat.

Letter from Sister Hall!

Alright summary of my week. It was much better than the first few days.

On Monday after we emailed we headed to Angeles for a zone activity. We literally just sat around for hours and played games. Not even really fun games, like 'what if' but in Tagalog-thus nothing was funny to me. I was confused as to what the purpose was of this 'activity.' Because it felt like we were just killing time. Then all of the sudden everyone is pulling out cameras and people are disappearing  And then they all reappeared with a birthday cake and started singing. Surprise birthday party! It was really nice of them, apparently they had all been talking about it in front of me the other day. But obviously I had no idea what was being said. And then on Tuesday on my actual birthday we went home for our lunch/study/nap time and I was offering up M&Ms for the birthday treat and one of the girls said' well it would be better if we had cake and ice cream.' I thought to myself well yes it would but we obviously don't have any. Then next thing I know they are pulling out a cake and ice cream. So tricky. Well not even tricky. It just helps that I am oblivious to all things. It was super nice of them as well.

Monday night after our zone activity we convinced the ZL to let us come to their FHE because we didn't have one to go to. So we all went to Sister Pinks house. She loves pink, facebook and her camera. The AP's were both there too, so I think we had 10 missionaries. We played these role play games, the sisters tried to sing a song-but one line in we sounded so terrible and started laughing that we couldn't even finish, and they also fed us a big dinner. Since I was the newbie they wanted me to try everything, including the chicken feet and neck. Um... I put it on my plate but I couldn't bring myself to try it. So one of the Elders, that has taken mercy on my well being, ate it for me. But now my comp thinks it is funny to tell everyone that my favorite food here is chicken feet, it is not really funny at all. But oh well. We were at their house pretty late and we were about an hour away via jeepny, but there were no more out for the day. So our AP's drove all of us home in the van, so squished. But it was great because it only took about 20 minutes.

For our service project this week we met with our district and had to take off the outer layer of this stone wall. Hard to describe. Basically it was the most pointless thing, we used hammers and just hammered away. It was so ineffective. And frankly there was really no purpose to it. But oh well. The owners of the house just sat there and watched us for three hours. I literally sweat through my entire outfit. Seriously I keep getting mystified on how much I can apparently sweat. Also apparently this was this was a rare type of service because we usually do something easy for half an hour and then just eat and talk. So it was hopefully a one time wall tearing down activity.

Everyday I get told I am beautiful. So that is a plus. Granted it isn't always but the most trustworthy of people. A lot of the people we talk to on the street say things like 'I won't remember your name but I'll always remember your face,' or 'I will only let you come to my house if she comes (aka me).' So flattered all of the time. I have even been proposed to. One old my probably 60+ asked if I could help him get to the US. Um no. Continuing our conversation I realized that he wanted to marry me so that he could get a green card and then we could just get divorced. Up no thanks. Another lady who was playing poker chased me down and asked my name and begged for my first name. So I told her. No big deal. But now every time I'm on that street she yells Lindsay. And she always questions me about boyfriends and things like that. She pretty much wants me to marry her son. Um again no thanks.

My comp saw a 'white' man the other day so she made me chase him down, although he didn't look American to me. Surprise he was German. And only spoke a little English and a little Tagalog. Somehow he gave us his address. So we showed up at his super nice home later and met his wife who is Philippine so be basically had a lesson in Tagalog, English and German. It was pretty entertaining. 

One of our investigators Jessie, I think I mentioned him last week? We'll I memorized the whole baptismal invitation and our last meeting went well so we invited him to be baptized. He said he believes in the BOM, JS, everything. He has been to church for three weeks in a row. He was a pastor and knows the Bible through and through. BUT.... he wants to have a knowledge of the BOM. He believes it, but wants to completely read and know it all. I told him he won't ever have a perfect knowledge, faith is enough, he has the rest of his life to study. Alas still a no. But he said maybe in a month or even a year after he studies it more. Well okay then. He is pretty cool though.

Another investigator Berline. We passed her on Tuesday said Hi, she investigated a few years ago but wasn't interested enough. So we went on our way. Then suddenly Sunday morning she texted us and asked if she could go to church with us! Well of course.! She loved the entire thing! (funny-it was ward conference which apparently means here that everyone stays and eats a big meal afterwards in the church). Later last night we went to her 'house' I use that term lightly, because it was probably the poorest shack I have been in yet. But we taught her family and they were super interested! So hopefully that goes well this week!

The lifesavers you sent me. Random. But you know how every once in a while you get a really soft one? Well here they are all like that. Sobra masarap! So yummy! Also a member has a little fried food vendor street spot thing. So she had me sample all of her food the other day. Pretty much it was fried sweet potatoes and bananas in sugar. It was a great treat.

The people here are very honest. All of the dogs bark and hate me for some reason. And one of my investigators told me it was because I have crazy hair. Which is totally, true. A bunch of little boys told me that I am really 'long' aka tall. Which is true here, I look like a huge giant. I'm not even tall! I can't send pictures again this week, but when I do you will see that I am now a giant.

Well tapos na. Finished. Everyday I get a smudge better at the language. Everyday is a good day.

Talk to you next week!

Sister Hall

Letter from Sister Hall!

After many hours of traveling we made it to the Philippines. The 15 hour flight wasn't too bad, I slept nearly the entire time. How lovely. And the last hour on that flight we were moved to first class, like the laying down first class. It was lovely. From Hong Kong to Manila I sat next to a lady by myself and talked with her, a good mix of Tagalog and English. Confidence booster. The moment I stepped off the plane into the Philippines I was already dripping in sweat. Well it is what it is. I will literally be sweating for the next 17 months straight. I was even lucky enough to be rejected into the country because of visa stuff, thus I went to a different man and he let me in. But I was stressed for a moment that I wouldn't even be allowed out of the airport. We dropped by the Manila MTC and picked up the local new missionaries then headed to the mission home for the night. Our last night together. It was bitter sweet. The next day we headed to the mission office and were assigned to our new companions and our new areas. My companion is Sister Gaor. She is a few years older than me and quite a few inches shorter. She is relatively nice. Though she speaks some English, there is still a big language barrier. And on top of that there is an even bigger cultural barrier. She isn't very good at remembering to tell me how to do things or what is going on. She has just assumed that I know how everything works, which has been kinda frustrating. Because I am obviously a newbie at everything here. But I'm sure to figure it all out eventually.

My mission president is really great. He was so nice the entire time we were at his house. When we left the MTC we were told over and over to make a great impression on our president. Success. He liked me so much, I was impromptu called up during our meeting the next day with everyone to speak. Lovely. He even told me at one point that I might become a trainer in 12 weeks, literally right when I am done being trained. Umm..we'll see about that.

Tagalog. Some hours I feel good about it, most I don't. I miss about 99.9% of what is being said around me. Hopefully I'll be able to figure it out soon. I am alright with religious topics, but other than that it is a lost cause. I can't really hold any kind of conversation, unless I am baring my testimony. So coming here I expected to be in an area out in the middle of no where. A small rural town. Jokelong. I was assigned to one of the biggest cities in my mission. Not at all what I expected. But it has been fun trying to adjust. The second day here I had to travel to a Stake youth conference and teach a big group of youth. That was just great. But all of the little girls loved me nonetheless and kept telling me that I was beautiful. Well thanks. I am not sure if I'll be able to figure out pictures. But every day we ride all over the city in jeep's and tricycles. It is an adventure for sure. We have some great investigators right now. A few families with little kids. One little boy, Timothy. He is a sweetheart. One man who is 50+ and was a preacher, he has been investigating for two years. I really enjoyed talking with him because I can use a bit of English and he still understands. He really wants to know the truth with a surety.

Six years later and I am no longer a vegetarian. Sad, sad day. But alas. I literally would probably be dead of starvation. So I suppose I am just going to have to take a temporary break from it. And in 17 months I'll be one again. The food here is also not what I expected. My MTC teachers got me really excited for it, but so far I have not liked it at all. I ate cheese ice cream the other day. It tasted how it sounds. Granted we haven't eaten much here. So it might get better. We tend to skip most meals because we're too busy working, so I haven't really had dinner yet. But I think we have a few dinner appointments this week! Yay. 

In my apartment we have two other sisters. It is two stories. First story is a little entry with the kitchen and a bathroom. The two bedrooms upstairs. We even have a little 10by10 cement walled yard. We shower with a bucket. And we have to constantly have a fan on us so that we don't die from heat. Even while we sleep we keep our fans on. One night there was a big thunderstorm and we had a brown out (they don't call it a black out here) and the power went out. That means no fans. It was impossible to sleep at that point. But who needs sleep anyways.

Oh no pictures sorry. Just found out they don't have a card reader.

Scattered thoughts.

Every night when we come home at about 9 we try to daily plan. But I literally am exhausted by that time. I have fallen asleep while planning. Everything that I write at night is all over the place. It's kinda funny to look at in the morning.

We have OYM's here. Which just means open your mouth. Basically just talk to everyone. So I OYM's this man the other day and ended up getting his address and cell to return and teach him. I was pretty stoked about it. He has lived in the middle east and just seemed really smart. But my comp didn't really think that he was a good potential investigator. So we'll see if she lets us visit him.

At church yesterday I spoke in sacrament meeting. It went well enough. I think the ward feels kinda bad for me and my lack of being able to speak. But they were all really nice. My bishop and his family are SO great. They spent most of the day trying to help me learn Tagalog. And they found out it is my birthday tomorrow and were so excited. And were trying to make all of these plans. There is a ward party Wednesday, and they have decided that they are going to also make it a birthday celebration for me! I am really glad to be in their ward. During relief society, although I had no idea what was going on, at one point the primary came in and sang to their moms and as a result of being there they gave me a delicious little marshmallowy, cakey, fruity thing. I don't even know how to describe it. Except that it was the best thing I have eaten up to this point.

Despite the fact that this email has a lot of whines in it and a lot of negatives. Just know that I am obviously in a different place, very different. And I am trying to adjust. I really do love being here, it is just a bit hard right now. I know that I am supposed to be in the Philippines and I look forward to every day and being able to improve my abilities as a missionary.

Happy mothers day!

Mahal ko kayo,

Sister Hall

Address!

Sister Hall would love to hear from all of you!

Letters

Phillipines Angeles Mission Office

F. Tanedo Street

Barangay San Nicolas

Tarlac city, Tarlac 2300

Phillippines

E-mail

lindsay.hall@myldsmail.net

In the Phillippines!

She has landed in the Phillippines, and it is HOT!

President and Sister Martino!

 Her first companion, Sister Gaor. Serving in the Angeles Zone, San Fernando District.

Pictures!

Letter from Sister Hall!

Hello there.

 

Our schedules were completely changed this week, I believe most of the MTC's were moved around. So know how I emailed you a picture of it last week? Well it is not the same at all. I really don't have Pday today anymore, but they have shown mercy on us and allowed us to spend a few minutes emailing and doing laundry. And we also get our new Pday on Saturday, so basically two Pdays. How lovely. The best part of our new schedules are that we don't have to be anywhere until 7:30 now, instead of 7. That is an entire extra half an hour to get ready, you don't realize how great that is. So nice.

 

Last Wednesday our Elders were asked to help host the new missionaries, but sadly we were not. So we decided to study out front and watch them come in and try to live through those who were actually hosting. While we were sitting there a man came up to us panicked and asked if we were busy because there was an emergency. So here we all are thinking that we are going to have to go do CPR or something on someone. But low and behold they didn't have enough hosts for the foreign sisters! Oh happy day. So we ended up being allowed to host two sisters! They warned us up front that they likely wouldn't speak any English, well that should be interesting. But luckily for me both of my sisters were from Japan but spoke English! It was so much fun being able to host! And we get to do it again tomorrow, because we're some of the oldest here. Monday and Tuesdays a huge chunk of the MTC leaves and it is great because it isn't so crowded. But they are quickly replaced by Wednesday. Just turning out missionaries left and right over here.

 

The field is now open. So great. We have been playing sand volleyball. One day we played Elders vs. Sisters in our district. It was a blast and the sisters won, but obviously we weren't keeping score because that is against the rules... The next day we challenged the other district that has been here with us the whole time to a game. It was so much fun, we have a pretty good team-minus a few. But they had a couple sisters bail and they had mostly islander Elders. That all seem to have an odd talent at scrappy volleyball. After a few close games. We ended up losing, but just barely. And unfortunately the game point went to them on a mistake I made. Dang it. But it was such a great gym time. Hopefully we can get them to play us again.

 

When I was walking over to the field on graduation day I tried to linger outside by the road as long as possible in hopes that you would drive by. Seems that the timing was off.

 

Random paragraph. Thanks for the cookies. Loved the packaging. Loved all of the cookies. And thank you for all of the random crap room card finds. They are cute long. We usually have class with a teacher twice a day and they always start with a prayer. I have discussed this with all of the sisters in my district and apparently I have some kind of sign on my forehead saying 'please always ask me to pray.' I literally pray every single class. My DL calls on my SO much, but there are nine other people in this room. I suppose it is just more blessings for me, I need to work on my Tagalog prayers some more anyways. I have just been repeating pretty much the same prayer over and over. One day this week all of the international kids got to spend the morning at temple square. Thus there were no elders in our class. It was just the sisters and Sister Watkins. Girls day. I can't say we learned too much, but it was a great class. Sister Watkins is totally the kind of person I want to be one day. The islanders obviously come from a completely different culture, where body types are viewed in a different way. This week a bunch of the Elders told me that I look too skinny and that I need to put on more weight. Well I suppose I will take that as a complement. But just how they told me was hilarious. I wish I could imitate their accented voices for you.

 

On Sunday my kasamas and I had to teach what is pretty much the Sunday School lesson on enduring to the end. We spent forever preparing, it is so hard to work as a threesome sometimes. Especially to teach as a threesome. One extra opinion. One extra voice. One more person to coordinate with. In the end our lesson was amazing. We did so great, couldn't have been more proud of my girls. One of the best parts was that we had one of our Branch Presidency sitting in, Brother Willis. He is my favorite person ever. When he talks to me he looks into my eyes and I can just feel him looking into my soul. He is so cool. And he loved our lesson so much. So great. Sorry if I have already talked about him. I cannot remember what I have already talked about. So in sacrament meeting everyone prepares a talk and they just call you up on the spot. This week going in I predicted the speakers in advance. I though it would be one of the tatlohan (my companionship) and Elder Vunibola. Vunibola right on. Sister Marcucci thought it for sure wasn't her so she didn't even bring anything. That meant it was between sister littlefield and I. Well it was one of us. Sister Marcucci. As soon as her name was said sister Littlefield and I immediately rummaged though our papers and handed her parts of our talks. True companionship right there. She did great too.

 

So I feel like this week has been flirt central week. Right when I think I am in a safe place. It is pretty entertaining at times though. Whenever someone in our district (and now our whole zone has caught on) has someone of the opposite sex approach them and start talking, everyone one else starts making annoying alarm and beeping sounds. It has been so funny. Or when our tatlohan is talking with Elders outside of our district the Elders will come over and casually join into the conversation. There is one sister in going to Japan on the floor right below us, we call her flirt alert. She is so over the top and comes and finds the boys in our district and zone. Always. She has even found our classrooms. Our Elders are so sick of her, but she sure does keep things entertaining for us sisters.

Also I am really happy that I only have a week left here. I somehow have made a few Elders become fans of me (don't know how that happened) And they are becoming competitive over it. Pretty much one of them has practically planned out our future together. Well. See ya never after this week. Poor guys. But they should not be thinking like that right now anyways. Silly elders...\

ALSO Brianna. One of my Elders wants to marry you. He is 22 or 23-can't remember. Fujian. And hilarious. Pretty much it is a done deal. So don't make any plans for the next two years. Perfect thanks.

 

You want some more embarrassing stories? Okay. Here's two more for you. Sister Littlefield almost fell on the stairs the other day, but I happened to be in front of her so she didn't actually fall. So later I am walking up the stairs jokingly telling her to please be careful on the stairs. Next thing you know there is a loud clang and boom. Who is laying on the stairs? Oh that would be me. Karma. Even better and entire district was behind me and as I slowly turned myself around to sit on the stairs they were all standing there so concerned for my well being. People from other floors were coming out to see what had happened.  I was fine. Except for my pride. And perhaps a lot of bruises. Later we were again running up the stairs and Sister Littlefields karma came back around and she biffed it. And the entire seem up the back of her pencil skirt ripped. It was a good thing we were in the residence halls. But nonetheless it was hilarious.

 

 

I don't think I really need anything else. I can get basically everything in the Philippines. Shouldn't be a problem. I haven't packed yet, hopefully I am not over. But I will be sending a bunch of stuff home. If my birthday gift isn't too big or breakable then I could fit it in. I've been collecting boxes for my roomies and I to send stuff home in.

 

We got our flight plans this week. We are all together. We have to say goodbye to our Elders in Hong Kong though. And total bummer, one of the elders in the other district that is coming to my mission has to stay in the MTC 2 weeks longer because he had a stomach ulcer.

 

May 6 SLC to LA 

May 7 LA to Hong Kong 

May 8 Hong Kong to Manila 

 

We then stay in the mission home for two days after we get there! Can't believe it is already here!

 

I need to switch computers to send pictures! Kapayapaan at mga magbasbas

Ingat!

 

Mahal ko kayo!!

 

Sister Lindsay Hall

Pictures!

Letter from Sister Hall!

Kumusta,

I can't believe it has already been another week!

And Lauren is married!!! And Laura is engaged!!! SOO exciting!!

I have seen so many people this week that I know! Especially Cassie! I saw her once for the first three weeks. And now I see her every day! It is easily a highlight of my days!  There are at least four of us from Jerusalem here. Annaleah, Cassie, Mary and I. SO exciting 

Thanks for the cookies! So maybe we already ate them all. At first they thought they were store bought, no you fools. They are home made! One of my elders was in heaven, well he actually asked multiple times if they were ecstasy. They were great! Smashed, but still soooo good. Apparently we will now be catering every ones weddings here. Surrrreeee...

Last Tuesday at devotional Richard G Scott came and spoke to us!

It was super great, he invoked an apostolic blessing for us that we may be successful missionaries and master our languages. He was so great that the girl who was saying the closing prayer was walking up to say it and he stoped her and started talking again! It was great. He also reminded us that our calls were inspired, and we were called to succeed-not to fail. We also heard from Cheryl Esplin (in the Primary Presidency) on Sunday and the YW president and one of her councilors was there as well. It was a great week for speakers. She talked about how the world needs the joy and light that we have. One of the best things about being in the mtc is that every week we have amazing speakers.

We have been learning a lot of new conjugations in Tagalog, pretty much it is just pure memorization. And when you are trying to think of a sentence to say you have to literally think about it for a few minutes to figure out the proper grammar. But hey at least we are progressing. One day during language study my mga kasama and I made up a game. It was called the kasama beater. On the chalkboard we wrote up the conjugation charts for all of the pronouns and left the 21 spots for the words empty (this is kinda hard to explain), so one person would be the announcer. They would in a boxing fight style voice introduced the contestant. Then there was the caller, they called out the pronouns in English and what form. Then the contestant had to write it sa Tagalog in the correct place in under three seconds. If they could not accomplish this they got a tally. And at the end depending on how many tallies you had, that was how many beatings you got. And I can gladly say that I had the lowest amount of beatings overall.

One day our teacher Brother Nuttell told us how a previous district of his were very proud about completing what is called the tower challenge. I attached a couple of pictures from it. So clearly we took it as a challenge and the next morning decided to accept the challenge. Pretty much there are these giant things filled with cereal and as a district we had to finish off the entire thing. And we were dumb and picked Life to eat, which was perhaps the worst decision ever. I only committed to eat two bowls. And yet I somehow ended up managing to eat four. Cereal for days. A few boys ate around 8 or 9, can't remember. One ate two, we now call him the two bowler. Success. We ate the entire thing, granted we forced a few random people to eat our last few bowls. But all together we ate 47 bowls of cereal. And for the rest of the day we were all so, so sick. Later we found out that our teachers previous district consisted of 12 big boys. We are 5 small girls, 4 small boys. But somehow we still finished.

This week with all of our candy we made a few care packages. One of the Elders in my Zone that is going to Angeles with me had his tonsils out and they found a mass (not cancer luckily) the other week, so he has been pretty sick. We made him a huge box of treats, he absolutely loved it. Another elder dislocated his shoulder so we made one for him. And we made another big package for Sister Watkins (one of our teachers) because she has been super stressed with finals. We loved giving everyone their boxes and they all loved it.

Here are a few great Tagalog mistakes I made this week. I made it into my teachers journal of "dumb things the missionaries say." First I was teaching the lesson on the plan of salvation and I tried to say that everyone on earth will die. But instead I said everyone on earth will suicide. oops. Just making up my own doctrine here. Another one. I was in class and after having a conversation about how to properly use gusto (because it can mean either to like or to want) I jokingly turned to my companions in a hushed tone and said gusto ako. Which means I am wanted. And my teacher overheard me and had quite the laugh over it.

There is this one district of boys here, I think they are going to Peru or something. But they are beyond obnoxious. They think they are super cool, like my freshman year kids who called themselves the 'shiz.' And unfortunately they have the exact same schedule as us so we see them everywhere. Twice this week we were walking past them and they pretended to run into poles and get hurt. Both times they were video taping our reactions. The first time Sister Marcucci yelped, but the second time none of us were even phased. We call this group of boys the pterodactyl tangga (stupid) and friends. Because one of them made this dinosaur type sound at me once, thus the pterodactyl.

Also one day I was peppering with a volleyball with a few of the elders and a sister and I was allowing the Elders to hit it at me as hard as they wanted. So I passed one to Elder Tufele and assumed that he was going to hit it to someone else and next thing I know he is slamming it at me. Even worse I was not ready and screamed and it nailed me. He felt so bad, it didn't hurt physically-it only hurt my pride. Ha.

Now for a few embarrassing moments. Twice this week I had problems with my skirts.One morning I was just minding my own business in class when I looked down and the side seam of one of my brand new skirts was coming loose and had already came loose and had a giant hole! Thus I had to carefully walk back to the room and change. Another day I went to swipe my card to get into a building, because you can't get in any doors with out a card, and it was slightly windy. But apparently where the card swiper was just created a whirlwind with the wind. Thus my skirt completely flew up and I was practically on the ground laughing and trying to push it back down.

Now for the most embarrassing. Luckily this did not happen to me. Yesterday we had a sub teacher, Bro Lopez (we played volleyball together last semester), he took us outside to practice doing street approaches to each other. He sent my two comps and off to say a prayer and then walk over and practice the approach. Sister Marcucci was wearing one of our elders jackets because it was still pretty cold and being the people we are we put both her and Sister Littlefield into the jacket before we started praying. I then proceeded to try to button it closed with both of them in it. We were all laughing really hard and they feel onto their knees. They were stuck in the jacket, so I was trying to help sis Littlefield get out because she was laughing too hard and thought she was going to pee her pants. Once I got her out Sister Marcucci stands up as well, still dying of silent laughter. Low and behold she herself had just peed her pants (skirt). I didn't realize it had actually happened until I noticed the giant puddle under her. Bro Lopez started walking over to see what was going on, noticed what had happened (we were all on the ground at that point laughing) and he allowed us to go back to the room so she could change. It was seriously one of the funniest things. I have absolutely no idea how she let that happen. But it was so funny. And apparently she was the third missionary that Bro. Lopez has had that wet themselves. It was so great and awkward. But she handled it so well. Now we just constantly say remember that one time....

Two of the districts in my zone left on Monday! It was super sad to see them go, because we had gotten pretty close to a lot of them. And most of them I will never see again, because they were international students. We only have 5 districts in our zone, so now about half of them are gone! We get more tomorrow though. But now we are the oldest zone! We will be the next ones to leave, in just under two week! Crazy! And we get our travel plans later this week!! SO excited to go!

Well I have exceeded my time limit. Rebel. Okay disobedient. Hanggan sa susunod!

Sister Lindsay Hall

Pictures!

Temple Day.

 Temple day.

 Laundry Day.

 Someone is a little tired.

 Lindsay and her companions.

Just eating some redvines.

The skirt was too short.

Letter from Sister Hall!

It is my half way point through the MTC. how exciting. This week has been gone by relatively quickly which is nice. We have learned all of the major forms of grammar that we should have a basic understanding of. Which basically means I still can not speak Tagalog. But yesterday I finally was able to memorize all of the proper tenses of different root words, that means nothing to you. But I felt very accomplished. Language study is a different kind of memorization than I normally do, so I have had a bit of a hard time catching it as fast as I have wanted to.

So what has happened this week.

During relief society on Sunday the woman that spoke, Mary Edmunds, was hilarious (and she was the first sister missionary in the Philippines). But she talked about how our DL's were '18 going on 12.' Which is completely true. Granted my DL was trying his best, but he is just a baby still. But we got a new DL this week.

One day I felt like my district stole a small piece of my soul though. I was talking about what my plans were in life, things I want to do. And a bunch of them were adamant that I would not do anything that I want to. It just made me miss people who actually are encouraging of what I want to do. It wasn't a big deal. I just stopped adding to the conversation after a little while. But no worries, at least I have plans and ideas. But hey, to each his own.

Also Mary Edmunds at one point was telling all of the Sisters at the MTC to not touch the Elders except for handshakes. Except to keep tabs on the ones you like for after your mission. We almost died of laughter. Thanks, but no thanks.

I forgot to mention this a while ago. But the walls speak. The front desk has the ability to speak and listen through speakers everywhere. Including the dorms. For example we will just be in the room and the speaker will come on for our entire floor and ask us a question and you just respond by talking to the walls (they usually just ask us to find a sister in the hall). Nonetheless they are always there. Listening. I thought it was ridiculous the first few times. And now it has just become so common place that I rarely even listen.

We had TRC the other night. We talked with two guys who have served missions in the Philippines. They don't pretend to be investigators or anything so it is not stressful. We just went in there and practiced talking with them. It went relatively well. On the other hand we also taught our two investigators (aka our teachers). Those stress me out.

The girls in my room love to work out. Ha. I do too.... I have worked out with them a couple of times, because I have to go with them. But most of the time I'm just like eh don't sign me up for cardio. I'm more of a fan of horizontal running. I prefer to actually be playing a game or doing an activity to work out. Otherwise it is no fun. One day I convinced Sister Reddish to pepper with a volleyball. And she is pretty good so it was a lot of fun! Let's hope that I can convince her more often to play volleyball with me. One of the teachers in my zone was in my volleyball class down at school and was super good, he is always asking me if I play in the volleyball games on the courts during gym. I have yet to do that. Because the international kids kind of dominate the courts and can all jump ten feet in the air. So ya. One day..

Two of the girls were on this super strict diet for a week where they only ate veggies. Granted that is pretty much what I eat (plus my body weight in candy-aka lollies in Australia). But they were super extreme. Thus the boys in our district tell us all of the time that we only eat rabbit food. But one of them the other day decided that he needed to go on a diet, he has gained 15 pounds. So he went and got a salad with me. He was pretty much gagging the entire time he was trying to eat it. But he was committed. Although I don't think he quite understands the concept of eating well. He then proceeded to eat an entire package of oreos in class. Silly boy.

We have two districts from our zone leaving on Monday, so we will only have three zones left. It is a bummer, but we will be the oldest ones here! I feel like the kids who got here before me are all older than me and the ones who got here after are all younger. I wish that the districts left the same time as us, most of them are really great. They are all going to the same mission too! Naga. Where as we will all be split up.

Sister Marcucci and I have created two songs in Tagalog. Granted each song only has one word each. One is called (mga)bulaklak. Which means flower(s). We sing it all of the time and it drives our third comp insane. But it is such a catchy song. We even got our other Sisters in on it.

Um I ate three bowls of ice cream on Sunday. Don't judge me. I had not intended on eating all of them. I had gotten bowls for some other sisters and then they got their own too. So pretty much we had a lot of ice cream. It is cool.

Monday I had my volunteering again, cleaning. And I had to take the trash out of a ton of classrooms. I decided that it was a very telling job. I came to the conclusion that all of the kids going to France currently have colds. And all of the kids going to Brazil are candy addicts. All of them.

Quote from Sis. Marcucci for the week, "Welcome to the MTC, let the trials begin." When the newbies were coming in last Wednesday one girl had left her luggage outside by itself and we were joking about moving it. And that was Sister Marcucci's response.

On Sunday night we had a devotional and Greg Droubay came and spoke. He works for the church in the PR area and works on different campaigns and how the Church is viewed by non members. It was super interesting. In New York over Christmas they bought tons of spots on Times Square and a bunch of taxi cabs. And last week they just started a campaign in London. In London there are a total of 1000 double Decker buses. The Church purchases space on 250 of them. 1/4 of the buses are currently advertising Mormon.org. Super cool. They also bought a ton of other stuff as well. Although the entire time I just kept wondering how expensive all of it was. But in the end I suppose it was all worth it. For example in one area referral's went up 90%. It really doesn't take much to change perceptions about the Church.

Well yep there are the random things of my life.

Thanks for the letters!

Sister Hall

Pictures!

 Polka Dot day at the MTC.

 Lindsay and her companions.

 Lindsay with one of her companions.

Lindsay with the Sister's of her district.

 Lindsay and her companions.

 Lindsay and her companions.

One of Lindsay's companions.

(Do you think they have a big enough stash of food!)

Letter from Sister Hall

Magandang hapon,

Let's see. This week seems like it has gone by so fast, yet so slow. The hours are long, the days are short. The days are long, the weeks are short. I feel like I have been here for ages, yet it has only been nearly two weeks. Time is an odd concept.

So this week I decided to play basketball during one of my gym times and I am obviously an accomplished basketball player. We played 3 on 3 with a few sisters, needless to say I got nailed in the head twice (one being my face) with the ball. Then I proceeded to be pushed to the ground and had my hand stomped on. I forgot to take a picture of it, but it pretty much looked like I had been in a fight all of my knuckles were bruised and I had her shoe imprinted on my hand. Needless to say, I won't be playing basketball again. But luckily that was the worst of it for me. Yesterday two of our elders broke bones playing volleyball. One only broke his big toe, but the other broke his ankle. So they had to go to instacare. It was our Fijian that broke his foot and he is too prideful to use crutches or a brace or anything. So he has just been walking around like it was no big deal. Hopefully he doesn't have to be delayed at all because of it, word on the street is he might have to get surgery.

Oh you were wondering about my district. All of the Sisters are going to Angeles with me and all of the Elders are going to Bagio. But the other district that came in the same day as us is just the opposite, so all of their elders are coming with us. Also new missionaries come in tomorrow, apparently we have almost two districts worth coming in for the Philippines. And for temple day, aka today, we have the lovely opportunity of going over at 5:45, pretty much it couldn't be any earlier. But it is great because we get to eat breakfast there afterwards and it is a nice change up. One of our elders has gained 16 pounds in the last two weeks! He is pretty proud of it.

I got to leave the MTC the other day. Out to the real world. Sister Marcucci had a root canal before she came and was still having pain from it. So her and I got to take the MTC shuttle over to the root canal guy. She had actually pulled out a piece of popcorn the day before from it and it had stopped hurting. But we still decided to go to the dentist to check for an infection....and there was no way we were going to pass up our opportunity of visiting the real world.

For conference they played the sessions in the huge room where we have devotionals. But we decided that it wasn't worth sitting in those chairs for hours and hours and went into the overflow rooms. Which were much smaller and had better chairs. And best of all we didn't have to be in our chairs early and even better of all we had made goodie bags from our plethora of food and were able to snack on them in there. Conference was great though, we had a few district discussions about it afterwards. I loved how often missionary work was mentioned, it was exciting for us. Also did you watch the young women's conference? We watched it. You should look it up, it was great. Mainly the little girl who said the opening prayer was awesome. I couldn't even close my eyes while she was praying, I was just too enthralled with her. Via the advice of conference, I have been trying to focus on what I do know. Not what I don't know. Because there sure is a lot that I don't know and that is not too encouraging. Also what language do you think is spoken in Heaven? Pretty sure it is Tagalog (obviously I am bias).

Hmm the other day we came into class in the morning, usually we direct those three hours by ourselves-no teachers. But when we walked in there was Sister Mary Rose, our investigator that we have been teaching. Surprise. She is now our second teacher. So she teaches us for three hours in the morning, then Brother Nuttel teaches for three in the evening. We have moved on from learning really any more vocab, we have to do that on our own now. We have moved into grammar. Lovely. Considering I am not an expert in English grammar, that translates poorly over to Tagalog. I have to super focus, just to make sure that I understand the sentence structure and tenses and on and on and on. It is abnormally tricky. Rosetta stone did not even hint at this.

What else random do I have to tell you....only one other girl in my room hears the alarms in the morning but no one but me wakes up to them. So I get up and just head out of the room, as to not wake them. I don't find it to be my job to be waking them up every morning. But unfortunately that means most days we are late. I just stand by the door for around ten minutes waiting. We are not the best at getting to class on time, obviously. Also neither of my sisters wear watches! Some days they ask me the time at least every five minutes. If I couldn't have read a watch before I sure am an expert by now.

Every Sunday and Wednesday there is ice cream here. BYU creamery ice cream. Last Sunday we (the sisters in my district) couldn't decide on just one each. Thus we got about six bowls and shared them between all of us. It was great. Felt just like home. Even with the cupcakes we would get a knife and cut them up into little pieces, we could each try a bit of each. I am my mothers daughter.

I loved the snow today, I have absolutely no clothes appropriate for snow. But it was still great. I was mainly excited because most of the missionaries in my district had never seen snow! What a sad life.
Thanks to Brianna for sending my district cupcakes, the boys ate themselves sick.

I'm going to try to send some pictures, I found a computer that actually will send!

Love you, miss you.
Sister Lindsay Hall

Pictures!

 Lindsay and her companions.

 Lindsay with the sister's of her district.

 Lindsay's district.

 Lindsay with the sister's of her district.

Letter from Sister Hall!

I know you are probably distraught right now about not hearing from me yet, pero alas my pday is today (Martes).

Which is a great day to have it we have decided.

So you dropped me off. And the next few minutes was pretty much a whirlwind. I was taken to a room where I spent about three seconds with about ten different people answering questions and receiving lovely gifts, aka necessary papers. Then I dropped my things off in my room and was taken to a computer lab, by this point I was only being spoken to in Tagalog and was reasonably confused as to what I was supposed to be doing. After taking an orientation on the computer. I was dropped off at my classroom. I have four elders and five (including me) sisters in my district. The elders. We have two from Australia, one from Fuji and one from Arizona. They are young. But they are all reasonably fun to be around. Although we occasionally question if Fuji really likes, but we just think that it is his culture and women aren’t really respected there. But he is bound to like us by the end. He is always joking with me, but I can never hear what he is saying because he talks so quietly. So I just laugh anyways. The first day here one of our sister’s didn’t show. So we were in a foursome companionship. It was kind of fun. She turned up the next day, she had been sick.

My companions. I have two. We are a tatlohan (threesome). When we walk we smash the person in the middle and call it a kasama (companion) sandwich. I was assigned to be the senior companion. Which I thought was silly at first and seemingly pointless. But I have had to direct us all of the time. In conversation, learning, walking, almost all decisions I have the final call. I am not a fan of it. At this point I have to kind of set the standard for our companionship. But so far it has been going well. We all get along really well. But it is surprisingly a lot harder to have three people in a companionship. It just brings an extra opinion to the table. Yesterday we had a rough day. None of us were having the same opinions on how we should teach. And one sister was being really stubborn. But we talked it out and are now headed in the right direction. We have three bunks in our room, but luckily there is only five of us. But nonetheless the room was made for four people, so we have had to figure out how to share desks and closets.

We are supposed to be up by 6:30 that would be nice. We are usually up much earlier, either to work out, go to the temple or do our service (cleaning a building). We go from about 5:30 to 10:30 every day. It is nonstop the first few days we had to rush to get dressed, rush to our class, rush to get ready for bed. It has just taken time to get into a system, so we are not feeling as rushed anymore. Although I am super rushed right now because I only have a few minutes left on the computer. I have been able to find sufficient food for my odd eating habits.  Every day is very structured, but at the same time it is not. We have assigned time to do certain studying, but it is completely up to our companionship how we do it. And we have a teacher that comes in for three-hour slots and teaches us Tagalog, the first few days he only spoke Tagalog. An entertaining game of charades. He is a really great teacher. We have already taught an investigator, in Tagalog, three times. We have committed her to pray and to read the BOM. We can understand more than we can speak right now, so it can be frustrating when we know what we want to say to her but we cannot because of the language barrier. Our teacher told us last night that we have learned most of the vocabulary he is going to teach us and now we are just going to focus on grammar.

Easter Sunday was great, we had sacrament as an entire MTC. It was passed to over 3000 people, all of them being worthy to take the sacrament. We then listened to the presiding bishop speak. We have a lot of devotionals here. It is a nice break from the studying that we do. My zone is great they helped us pull a hilarious prank on our Elders yesterday. Um well wish I had more time, until next week.

I have run out of time so I can’t send pictures. Pasensha. Sorry.

But I am doing great!

You should write letters to the elders in my District, they stopped passing out mail in class because they don’t get any.

Same address.

Elder Paz

Elder Vunibola

Elder Masame

Elder Bigalow

Love Sister Lindsay Hall