magandang balita! good news!

wow! so much good big news.

1. congrats brett and ashlee on your engagement! i am so happy for you!! PLEASE wait til i am home to get married, thanks!

2. congrats to dan and kallie on your new baby GIRL!!!! I am sooooo happy its a girl!! kallie facebooked my branch president and he text me that, and i think everyone in the whole country of Philippines heard me scream. i knew first ;) 

I hope everyone had a great week!!! Sounds like you did.

i forgot to tell you about the new missions in the Philippines  there are 4. but my mission is not getting involved, which is good. it was split last year. i am so happy. 

we have a new foreigner in the house. love her! she is from castle rock colorado and knows brynn and casey! her name is shawnie houser. she is just like shocked! haha so funny. i am trying to help her get through her first couple of weeks.

i love my mission and time is so fast!! i only have a couple more fast Sundays in my mission, so i have been bearing my testimony each one in tagalog because soon enough i can't do that!! so sad. 

next week i have officially lived in asia for 1 year. cool right? i have hit my year mark in the field. 

xoxo

sister, 

transfer week

this was the longest transfer of my life. literally. 8 weeks! but its officially 18 weeks until i am home. ah! 3 transfers left. 

i am not getting transfered. i am staying in my area again this will be my longest area of my mission! i am happy cause i love this area, but it will be hard to leave.  its getting really hot here! summer is coming!

we have been helping one of my favorite families prepare to go through the temple and get sealed! please pray for them! They have been struggling in their life with tithing and have been full tithe payers ever since we started helping them! Their goal date is in june and i hope they make it before i come home! we did an FHE with them last night and it was so great. They are so strong.  

I love you all family and friends!! hope you are surviving in the cold and snow! enjoy hawaii mom and dad!! we are super close now ;) just a boat ride away. 

talk to you all next week

Sister Curtis 

Welcome to February

Hello family!

i am in marikina city right now, it's famous i guess for their shoes. so that is what we are doing today, shoe shopping!! i have only used 2 pairs of shoes my whole mission and the ones i have on right now have big holes in them! i will send a pic. my feet are like black when i get home from the streets. gross right? 

one morning at 6 am my comp got up and turned off the fan and turned the lights on (i have no idea why) so i woke up and asked her what she is doing and she went to the bathroom. so then i try to fall back asleep and i hear, "meow, meow" i was like what is that?????????????????????? i get up and look under my bed and there are 4 KITTENS!!!!! OH MY GOSH!!! I was terrified. Then, i like scream and wake up my companions and they were like "30 more minutes" so then i get in bed with my trainee haha cause i am so scared.  Turns out, cats have been coming through our windows (we have screens!!) and eating out of our garbage and using our house ha ha. i immediately texted the senior apartment couple and told them what happened, and i asked them to bring "Cat spray" haha spray to kill cats. i guess that doesn't exist ;) anyway, we made our trainee take the kittens out and put them outside and then the mommy and daddy came because they heard their kittens and started hissing at us. we were sooo scared they were going to kill us so we locked all of our windows and doors! haha this really nice old guy outside our house scared the cats away and took their kittens away. don't worry, we are all safe! (but last night i forgot to close my window again and the cats came in oops. my comps weren't too happy haha)

we are making a lot of progress in our little branch. i love it. we had like 25 less actives come to church yesterday. it was really great.  i am really seeing how faith works and trusting in the Lord.  I love this work and loving my areas.  training is still hard and exhausting, but really great. it keeps you on your feet. sorry my email was only really about cats. i am really tired haha 

i hope everyone had a really good weekend! happy birthday mom & parker again!

talk to you soon!

xoxo

S. Curtis 

1 year? What the..

Where did the last year go? Honestly, i didn't remember until my parents emails said it. Haha! happy 1 year to me.

 

So I am training. Oh my gosh, its so exhausting. Oh and remember how i have two wards? Thank you Spirit. Honestly, it has been so smooth i only went on splits twice in this new area last transfer and i remember all of it! It's definately the Spirit. exept this one time i thought for sure i knew where i was going. we go into this house and i ask if we can come in and share and they all gave me weird looks. but i didnt think anything of it cause hello, one white girl, pakistan, and filippina. so then i am like being my crazy self and asking them who are members. turns out we got the wrong house! HA! i dieddddd laughing. the kind of dying when you are trying not to laugh so you just start crying instead ya know? kallie knows what i am talking about. but thats just how nice filippino's are. they just let you inside even if they dont know you. so hilarious.

 

I am so tired, oh my goodness. Elder Brevard, how did you do this 3 times???

i am in a tri-some. one from pakistan and my trainee is sister quinco. so cute. her boyfriend is serving in Utah so she is practically American. Ha. I told her i am going to go home and visit him for her. she was a little homesick the first couple of nights. I honestly, don't remember how hard it is at the beginning. i know i struggled but can't remember. i only remember fun times. but anyways she is great!!

we had a really great experience. in our branch, we have 15 names. they are our focus family names. they are all in active families that we want to rescue. well, our branch president put this family on the list after praying about it. i was kind of annoyed because they hate missionaries and are super inactive. last night, it was like 8:30 and we had time for 1 last appointment. I am trying to work my trainee really hard so she will get focused in the work! ha but i had the impression to go to this family on our list. When we got there i just tried to be my crazy self and not talk about church too much. well, they invited us in and we shared. the women completely opened up to us about why she is inactive, why she stopped going to church, etc. After she was baptized the ward just completely forgot about her. We thanked her for being so open to us and just testified. It was the coolest experience. At the end of our lesson, she told us "the day will come when i will come back to church and it will be soon." I just looked at her family and told her so many blessings are waiting for them if they come back unto Jesus Christ. I told her I am not going anywhere and we are going to help her come back. THEN SHE INVITED US BACK TO HER HOUSE! Cool right? I know. I loved it.

i just laugh every single minute of the day. my new companions are hilarious. my one companion is from pakistan and her english/tagalog is hilarious. she tells me about her country and everything is illegal. its illegal for men to do dishes. whhhaattt the?? she tells me "ya, its ugly there in pakistan" haha so funny.

my headaches have been a lot better. yesterday when we were going home i told my comp "wait i haven't had one headache all day!" i think i am too busy to think about myself. ha ha which is a good thing.

 

that's all i can think of today, love you a lot!

xoxo

Sister Curtis

2013 & Pregnant

Kallie isn't the only one pregnant!! I am, haha i am getting a little sister curtis jr. next transfer!! :)

everyone in my zone keeps calling me nanay which means mother! haha so funny.

the ap's called me and told me i will be training next transfer. i kind of wanted to die when they told me that. especially now that i have 2 areas. but it's fine. we'll see what happens! Surprisingly i am not too stressed out. i just pray my headaches go away.

 

the coolest thing was i had to go to trainer's meeting on monday morning BY MY SELF!!!! So scary. I could have taken a taxi all the way there and done it like an American would of, but i did the scary way and took jeepney's all by myself! It was so scary & I hated being a lone!! But i made it safe no worries :) sister aoina is training too! Yay!

 

new year's eve was the craziest day of my life. our curfew was 6 pm. remember how nothing in the philippine's is illegal? yeah so imagine world war 2 outside but ten times crazier. we went to sleep at 1030 cause we were exhausted and woke up at ten minutes til 12 and i honestly was worried i was going to die. i felt like the japanese came and were bombing the philippine's. so me and my comp got up and and said "yay happy new year" to each other with our eyes barely open and then went back to sleep. we have no idea how we fell back asleep. ha ha so funny. then yesterday was january 1 and we just did a lot of member visits and ate! also we had a family home evening that was so great. i'll attach pics.

we had a really cool lesson with one of our new investigators kim. she is amazing and will serve a mission. we played the joseph smith dvd for her and then me and my companion bore small powerful testimonies to her. i just bawled when i looked at her and was talking about joseph smith. she is only 21 years old and so cute! the spirit was so strong. we played it in english for her because she didnt have a remote to change languages and its the first time i have seen it in english for a while and i just felt the spirit so strong. we asked her how she felt after the lesson and she said, "happy and peace" i loved that! please pray for her.

 

tonight because my comp is getting transfered we are going over to our branch president's house for dinner. the Del Val's where i skyped. i am so excited she has the best food!! i love them. i am so sad to say goodbye to my companion. she is the best. and not to mention, she is gluten and dairy free so everytime we get dessert or yummy food she can't eat, she gives it to me! :) my next comp probably won't do that, dang it. oh well maybe i will loose some weight. haha the elder's tell me if i loose any weight i'll look really ugly. but hey i worked out yesterday! of course, that is my new year's resolution. haha oh and get married ;) just kidding.

i love you all, happy new year!! i hope everyone has a wonderful new year's day and year!! I can't believe i will see my family this year. it's crazy. LOVE YOU!

xoxo

Sister Curtis

Maligayang Pasko!

Merry Christmas Family,

 

BEST PRESENT EVER WAS SEEING YOU ALL!! Oh how I miss you!! Well family, you are all beautiful! Sheesh. It was hard to say goodbye, but then my comp skyped and it was good to meet her cute family. Her mom was taking notes! so cute right? Haha!! I was laughing so hard. What a good Christmas on my mission, honestly.

After we skyped we ATE! That's it. Our first appoint was all seafood. I actually like seafood now crazy right? I am so happy. It's really yummy here. Then, we ate soup with chicken feet in it. i will attach the picture. Then a dessert that is rice ha ha and then a feast at our last appointment. I am STILL full. ugh. So fun. We had to go in 7:30 pm because there are so many drunk people on Christmas so then me and my comp made a music video to David Archuleta. Best thing of my life.

Christmas was so great! Thank you family for everything. I wish everyone could see the huge smile i have on my face right now as my mom and lori are emailing me about Parker! haha that kid is the best!

i love you all, merry christmas enjoy your break!!

xoxo

sister curtis

CTR- Cook the Rice

Merry Christmas Family,

it is just barely starting to feel like Christmas here in the Philippines, because we just got snow! Just kidding. I wish.

This past week was so hard. We worked maybe a total of 4 hours due to my migraines, i had orders to rest. AND all i have been eating is salad cause my companion is a health freak and she put me on a cleanse. Ha i am skinny now :) no rice. i actually miss rice. i CRAVE rice! Funny right??? So me and my comp kind of went crazy sitting in our house all week, but it was fine! Thank you David Archuleta's Christmas CD! haha. but we are still alive.

yesterday, we had church and after the ysa and youth combined are preparing a musical number for next weeks sacrament meeting. two songs. well, my comp because she is so great, is the pianist so i just sit there and listen to these poor kids try and sing. well, their chorister will be out of town next week so they needed a new chorister. they all picked me. remember how i can't sing? but remember how my mom is Karen Curtis and she is like the best chorister ever? like mother like daughter. so pretty much me and my companion kept yelling at them and cheering them on and jumping up and down and going crazy. they sound SO much better :) then of course i put them into a good formation and told them, "always remember kids, if everything else fails we all still have our looks" they liked that! haha so funny.

after church we went to the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional. SO good. Did anyone go to that last week? Or watch it? It was great!! I loved all three of our Prophets messages. About being good gift receivers, sharing the gift of the gospel, the spirit of Christmas, families, the Savior. I loved what President Monson said how we all get so "distracted" in this season with buying gifts, activities etc. But we should be the opposite. We should be focused on the Savior and His gift to all of us. I am so grateful for His wonderful gift to me. I love this time of year especially as a missionary, I get to share about Jesus Christ and all that He did for us.

We taught an English class for the first time, that was the hardest thing ever. English is the hardest language ever! I taught English in a different language. Cool right? but hopefully we can get more investigators from it and help these cute filippino's learn English and get them out of poverty! if they know English their chances of getting out of poverty are way higher. that's my goal. ha

I hope everyone remembers in their busy season Jesus Christ and His perfect gift to us! Enjoy the beautiful snow while I enjoy palm trees and coconuts :) I love you all!