haha k this week was SOOOOOO GOOOD! Fastest week of my mission by far.
Monday we woke up at 5 and had a great p-day i talked about it last week.
tuesday we woke up at 5 and we had zone interviews. President was sick so we traveled inland to the mission home (usually they are at our church). it was great. i had an interview with the President, the last time i had an interview i was branddddd new and now its been 2 months. SUCCESS. I just cried to him and said can i do this? and he said "yes you can sister curtis you have the right mindset and attitude, time will help" cause i told him i just want to work really hard and love my mission. anyway after that his wife sister delamare took me and my comp aside and had a little workshop. she talked to us about how great of women we are and what we are doing is so great to prepare us for life. i thought about my mom and my sisters and how they didn't go through this "training" to become mothers and wives, because they are already great. they didn't need it haha but it's true. that was the first time in my mission where i was so happy with where i was and that i didn't want to be anywhere else. i kept thinking, ya i have grown so much in 4 months and its only been 4 months i can't imagine how i will be at the end. i was so happy then that i am learning all these lessons now so in the future i can be the best mother and wife. anyway i just walked away from talking to her so happy with my choice to serve a mission. i know its not all about me but i'm super grateful for the lessons i have learned to far.
after that, wednesday thursday and friday were suppperrrr fast. i love love love love love X10 my area. i want to stay in cogeo foreverrrrrr pleeaassseeeee.
saturday we had TEMPLE tour! SO SO fun. it's once a week and we travel to the manilla temple as a zone and we all bring investigators, less actives, people preparing for the temple and give them a tour. a zone is in charge each time and they do the tour so we just get to listen and walk around with them. the whole mission goes so its so fun! i saw a lot of my batch and missionaries from the mtc. one of the elder's said, sister curtis i am so proud of you i didn't think you would last" haha how mean. but true..he also said he heard stuff about me. about my first day in the philippines. how embarrassing. the ap's told him. i got so mad at them! haha anyway temple tour was soo fun! i loved it.
okay listen to this. don't tell dad this haha the other day we went to our area that is a mountain literally. i hate it. and we had to cross a "hanging bridge" okay its exactly what it sounds like. this bridge is the sketchiest, unsafest, horrible bridge that is going to fall any minute. ya everyone crosses it no problem. you have to go one. at. a. time. well i was the last one to cross it and usually i am pretty ya know tough and not scared. noooo i was scared to death. it took me about a week to cross it and i kept yelling, "i can't die!! i have children to bear, and a finance!!" everyone was like staring at me and totally thinking i was crazy but i was right, right? haha anyway i didn't die and i am never crossing that again!!
so i can't speak english. at temple tour i asked an american elder, "do you feel like your english is loosing?" what the? loosing? i can't speak. i can't speak english, or tagalog. ugh.
friday we went into a less active's house and their gay son was watching "GLEE" i could have cried i was so excited to see normal tv. don't worry i watched it for a sec. then they told him to unplug the tv and go into his room. so he did but we could still hear it. we were trying to teach and invite the spirit but we could still hear the songs loud and were distracted by it. I thought about how hard we try and teach these people the gospel the most important thing on this life, but yet so many are distracted. i thought, if we are trying to teach this hard how hard is our Heavenly Father trying to speak to us but can't because our lives and minds are too distracted by everything else (like cruises-just saying jk) we can't hear because its "too loud" does that make sense? a mission really helps you understand what is most important. parker wrote me and said "shelby, we were so spoiled in highland, what did the highland area do to us? i still like nice things and will have nice things, i just appreciate them more" haha love that kid
anyway,
this drunk guy came up to me and proposed. Parker you may have some competition. my companion grabbed my arm and helped me get away. ha ha
so for the first time in 2 months we got rejected. this 14 year old girl who is just so cute told us she doesn't want us to teach her anymore and isn't allowed to go to church. when she said that i couldn't move. these people are so nice they NEVER reject us. and i just felt so sad. i looked at her and thought no no no you need this in your life i promise! my companion asked if we could teach her one more lesson, so we taught her the plan of salvation. we asked her where she wanted to go after this life and she said the celestial kingdom...hello you can't get there unless you listen to us haha i was so sad. i just bore my testimony and told her i traveled all the way from utah to share this message beacuse it is so important and true. the spirit was so strong through out the lesson, but she couldn't feel it. my companion said sometimes people's hearts are too hard to feel the spirit. i was so sad. i love these philippino people so much and hate to see them not accept this wonderful message. after her we went to Bok ya know the best kid ever? we let him watch the restoration in tagalog which makes it so weird sounding oh well but the spirit was so strong. he said the closing prayer and asked heavenly father if he will tell him the truth. sooo awesome! i love that kid! his whole family watched the movie with us and the spirit was so strong in their cute little house. i was so happy his family joined in to watch. i feel like that was the first time i could feel the spirit so strong and knew that everyone felt it too.
i thought about the wonderful people in my life that can't feel the spirit, because of their choices. how do you not feel the spirit? how can you go your life not feeling God's love and that great feeling? as missonaries we feel it constantly, all day and it makes me so sad how some people can't feel it. it got me so sad.
we just got back from the mall. we went bowling! i felt like a normal person haha i love being in the malls cause i feel like shelby comes back. elder lim told me to close my eyes whenever we would pass a shoe store!! they have cute stuff here and its all so cheap! anyway, bowling was way fun. the malls are in the city i hate the city. i like going there for a little and then going back to the province where there is nothing. i love the provinces!
only 2 and 1/2 weeks left of the transfer! aH i won't be a trainneeee so scary. but excited. i think i will stay and my comp will go. or we will stay together. i don't really care as long as i stay in cogeo. this week we have so many activities. we thought it would be boring cause all our activities are over for the transfer but we have like 2 dinner appointments, a service project with the ward, and then saturday morning we are doing another temple tour for a couple's family in our ward who aren't members while they are getting married we will show their family around! YAY! so exciting.
the other day me and my comp were talking about miracles. i told her there were so many miracles that happened in the book of mormon. like when lehi and nephi were in prison and there came a ring of fire around them and protected them or something like that haha like how does that even happen? how come miracles like that don't happen anymore, but then i was thinking aobut all the miracles right now. like its a miracle i am in the philippines teaching the gospel, its a miracle there are over 55,000 missionaries all over the world serving. its a miracle all the temples we have. like those are all miracles ya know?? miracles happen everyday. seriously its the BIGGEST miracle i don't die everyday on a tricycle or a jeepney,. haha but in all seriousness this church is a miracle. i love it. i never want to go inactive.
thats all for today. sorry its SUPER SHORT, i really had nothing to say today sheesh.
xoxo
Sister Curtis
p.s. i love you parker!
