Saturday, February 18, 2012

:) ;) & !!! = She's excited

Below is Danielle's final email from the Provo MTC. I highlighted the !'s, :)'s, and ;)'s for your convenience in recognizing the tone of excitement and anticipation throughout. The next email we receive will be from a jet-lagged, bucket-showered, go-to-the-bathroom-in-a-hole-in-the-ground, "I love my mission!" sister missionary. Bye-bye bubble. Hello world.


Kamusta pinakamahal ang pamilya ko!

I got your package yesterday. Mom your cookies were a super big hit! Confession... they are almost all gone. :) Thank you for the pictures and other things you sent me. And jen, how did you know I was craving a reese? :) By the many smilies you can tell that I am so excited!!!!!!!! This might be my most random email yet.

Travel plans- start: Monday
I leave provo at 1:30
Leave SLC at 4:50
Get to SanFran at 5:53 and don't leave until midnight. (so this is when I will probably call you, yippee!) Thank you for the cell phone number but you had so little faith in me that I wouldn't remember my home phone?!? ;) (That's a winky)
We will get to Hong Kong at 6:45am  (HK time)
and then fligh to Manila right after that! Gaahhhh!
End: Feb 22 Talk about jet lag!

Anyways to continue with the randomness, my mind has gone blank and everything I once knew about this week is gone. Hummm...

I am sending you a package with all my winter stuff today. That's exciting.

My next email will be from the Philippines.

President Stott and his wife gave us beautiful pink/orange flowers for Valentine's Day. That's true love right there. On Val. Day we had Don Clarke of the 70 come and talk to us. It was all about love and working hard. He said, "the day you truly love the people, is the day that you will truly be happy." Also, the scripture in D&C about heart mind and strength? that one? Well he said first you have to love the work, then you have to think the work and THEN do the work, and that is how you will be successful.

We said goodbye to our teachers on Thursday and it was so sad! They were so great, but surprisingly it was harder to say goodbye to our progressing investigators. (they were our teachers role playing an investigator for us). At first it was hard for me to see them as separate people but when we said goodbye to them it was really sad because they felt like real people. I can't imagine how it will be to leave real people.

So yesterday was in-field orientation. During our whole time here we have focused on the language and teaching, so yesterday was the day we learned everything else. Like how to work with the members, how to contact, how to set weekly goals with the key indicators and such. It was really good but so much information all at once. They really stressed baptism, working with the members and mormon.org (which if you haven't gone there in a while, is a super cool site.) They did this play about working with members and there was a Primary president who stuck stickers on all of the ward council's foreheads. So the Bishops sticker caught the light and it looked like a laser pen on his forehead. So the facilitator got so mad at us and told who ever it was that they were a clown, which lead us to all busting up because we all knew it was a sticker. A few minutes latter he sheepishly said sorry. So funny! They are starting this new program called the first 12 weeks. We are some of the first missionaries to try it. For the first 12 weeks you get two hours of companionship study a day, and they have these dvd's that you have to practice certain things with and they for that week you are in charge of that area of teaching. By the end of the 12 weeks they are hoping that we could train a missionary it needed.... WHOA! Three months in and I could be training someone. Let's pray for a little more time. :) That probably didn't make any sense, but oh well.

So Sister Hoopes couldn't sleep one night so she came and slept on the floor by my bed, and proceeded to tell me a story about Cody and Neeko, they were best friends and loved to hunt dragons. The floor then became uncomfortable and so the story stopped. Sister Hoopes wanted me to tell you this story. So there is the story. :)

We had to explain to Sister Snow what a Harlot was. Just imagine 6 19 year-old boys trying to explain that story. Then imagine the 21 year old female's face after they choke out and explanation.

Mahalkita lahat!
Sister Lyons.... soon to be in the Philippines!

No comments:

Post a Comment