Goodbye Philippines!!

I can't believe it's my last email. I still remember my first email thinking, I will never go home! and its here.

i am so grateful for my mission and the past 18 months i was able to serve the Lord. It was definitely some of the craziest experiences i have ever had in my life.  I truly gained a testimony of the importance of missionary work. I LOVE the Filipino people and learned so much from them.  

This is the true and living church. It is guided by Jesus Christ. He lives and loves us.  I loved sharing His Gospel the last 18 months! I am excited to apply everything I learned into the real world.   

Last week we had a big zone conference with like 6 zones and we did a workshop. it was so fun! I loved it. President gave workshops and then he and sister delamare  said their good byes. President sang "god be with you til we meet again" to us. everyone was crying. Keep them in your prayers. 

yesterday, i gave my good bye testimony in Sacrament meeting, the last time i will look out and see brown people ;) so sad. but i just cried to them. They are my family here. 

I am especially thankful for my support at home. I love my family and they have been nothing but supportive. thank you for everything family. 

I am so excited to see all of you!! just endure like 4 more days ;)

love you all,

xoxo

Sister Curtis 

new area new calling

hello family!

how is everyone doing? i am doing good. there was a huge shock last week at transfer meeting. we have this new leadership position in our mission its called trainer sisters. there are 4 of them. well at transfer meeting me and my whole batch bore our testimony and then all took a picture with pres and sister delamare because we are all going home together. then transfer meeting started and i was transfering so i was super nervous but not really cause its just 6 more weeks. well then they called sister Sabiano to be a trainer sister and announced i am the other trainer sister. you all should have seen my face. i was like sitting back all relaxed and then they announced that and i about had a heart attack. everyone was like.."ohhh" and screaming. ha ha super funny. 

so now we are white washing an area, meaning we are both new to an area and we have to work here without anyone showing us where to go. plus twice a week we go on splits with other sisters. and guess where i get to go??????????

MINDORO!!!!! the island in our mission. we get to travel!!!!!! I AM SO EXCITED!! there is a beach there!!!! we have a meeting with president tomorrow and he will tell us everyone.

also, our ward is one of the best wards in the philippines i am pretty sure. so we have an amazing area!! there is still a lot of work to do. its not as hot here as my old area so i am not sweating at least ALL the time! 

i really like my new companion she is super great. of course, trainer sister. she deserves this a lot. we both confessed to eachother we were scared to become each others companion. she is super quiet and me..well i am not quiet. but i love her. please pray for us. we need it ;)

a lot of work to do the next 5 weeks. love you all!

take care!

s. curtis 

transferring again for the last time

i am so shocked and sad!! i really wanted to end my mission here! but i guess the Lord needs me somewhere else!

we have such a good area and golden investigators i am going to miss this area so much! 

there is so much happening in our mission right now and my whole zone is in the computer shop getting all the news. so funny. so i feel a little stressed out right now. but all is well because i am going home ha ha! 

we had a really good week and i am excited to see whats going to happen tomorrow at transfer meeting. i hope everyone is well and excited to see me. 5 weeks. can't believe it. the other day in comp study i was sharing something i learned in personal study and then i got all quiet and the tears came. i just can't believe i will be not a missionary and my name tag will be off in just weeks. i love missionary work and want to be a missionary forever. 

i love you family, have a wonderful week! i will email again on monday. mom please update my blog. people keep emailing me telling me its not updated! thanks.

sister curtis

14 May 2013

hi family!
so good seeing you all, except for bryce and brett!

i just loved skyping! it was so weird doing it for the last time! but my family is so good looking. you are all so beautiful!!

we just got back from the temple. we woke up really early and the elders came and got us (cause we didn't want to be up really early when its dark outside by ourselves) and then we were waiting for a taxi when this random guy said, "for 300 pesos i will give you a ride to the temple in my van" so obviously we said yes cause a taxi would have been more than that and it was the sketchiest thing of my life. but it was ok with 7 missionaries. we had a really good session but i honestly just felt so stressed the whole time. i think cause i only have one more temple day and everything is coming to an end and reality is hitting me.

after the temple, the office elders came and got us sisters and drove us to banapple. its a really yummy cafe the AP's and office elders love. our zone ate there all together it was so fun! i'll send a pic. it was so YUMMY!! oh my gosh.

i can't really remember what happened this week but i love you family so much!! it was so good seeing grandma and grandpa! they are so good looking and hip. i am so excited to see all of you in PERSON and hug all of you. livy and owey looked SO big like owen is a man. so cute! and kallie's little stomach is so cute. i love my family and so grateful for all of you. i am so grateful for my mission! its the best thing i could have done at this point in my life.

love you all, i will email next tuesday (for me) again because we have transfers next week! i will bare my goodbye testimony in front of the whole mission(in english, so hard) and my zone is singing. i told them i dont want to because i am already participating in the program ha ha but they are making me. love you!!

sister curtis

ps i promise there aren't mangos in utah!

it's MAY

this week was really good! soo fun. on thursday, elder ardern of the area presidency of the philippines spoke. he is so cool. i really felt inspired after. he talked to us about d&c 20:59 warn, expound, exhort, teach, invite. i just loved it. it was our whole mission who got to go except for the island, but so after of course we all talked to the missionaries and one of the elders in my batch was like,  curts go to the mission office down stairs we have presents! he had a paper in his hand and i knew what they were so i RAN down there! haha and my whole batch was in there getting our flight plans. i told them i didn't want them! but now its real. but anyway so see ya'll the 28 at 1:09 pm :)

the other day on the jeepney ride going home from an appointment, and me and my companion just started to sing hymns for everyone! haha then we realized they probably don't understand english so we started singing hymns in tagalog by memorization..we are pretty cool right? everyone looked at us and just smiled. they loved it! the filippino people are the BEST! 

the other day the ap's were driving us home from the mission home and we begged them to treat us to mcdonald's and so we went in the drive thru and we got stuck. they have like huge space cars here they are like huge vans. so funny i was like crying i was laughing so hard. all these nice people just got out of their cars to help us back out. the mcdonalds people were like hanging our food out of the drive thru haha so funny. 

oh shoot, so we had this service project on national service day at our stake center. there were 2 zones so like 30 missionaries. and it was so fun. we just talked about 72 hour kits and mostly just listened to music and danced. haha the brothers there gave me the microphone and i LOVE the microphone so i am like speaking tagalog and english to everyone so funny. it was one of the missionaries birthday so i got everyone to sing happy birthday! i love this country. i don't think any other service project would have been so fun. 

we had a missionary devotional last night and i got the senior couple in the office to come speak. they are the best. sisster harris told all of us when she first saw her husband she knew she was going to marry him! haha soo cute right? we were in the mtc together, and i know her grandson so he introduced me to them. so we like started our missions together. they do all the trunky stuff of the mission, like flight plans and etc. but they were so cute. they go home in august and i told them i will go to the homecoming. they live in highland too! 

last pday we went to the mall to get my filippina's eyes checked. well they both got their eyes checked and it was free so i decided too and it turns out i need glasses!! what the. i have stigmatism. i am so sad my companions just laughed and laughed at me. but i will just wait to get them checked at home. 

i really love my area! its really fruitful. i love the ward too, after being in so many hard wards and branches this ward is great!! the bishop lives next door to us and him and his family are so nice! they have the cutest kids ever. i can't wait to be with kids again and be able to hold them!! i can't wait to hold my nieces and nephew!

i love you family, try to have missionary experiences its the best feeling. 

i will email all of you next week!

sister curtis 

April 15, 2013

hi family,

i am now in the city! i knew i was going to the city after being only in province. i feel culture shocked everyday from all the cars and fast food chains. ha ha its called tagiug city, in pateros. anyway, its great and i think i will end my mission here. we have two areas and i am training again. but we are in a three some. so one of my companions from naga mission in the philippines, just finished her training (sister aoina's trainee) and my other comp still has 6 more weeks so i will finish her training. she is from san jose california. so we constantly talk about the day when me and my sisters and mom are going to go to san fransico and visit her! (she is 19 and i need to remind myself that sometimes ;) ) president told me to get these sisters ready to train! so they will be doing everything the next couple of weeks. i told them i will rest because i am an old lady in the mission ;)

general conference was so good. i know i am like a year late but i loved it. ALL my questions were answered. i really felt like the big topics were about missionary work, and becoming more strong in our families. it made me excited to go home and apply everything i have learned. speaking of that, here in pateros its close to the airport so the airplanes are crazyyyyyyy. its so annoying. my companions look at them and say, "bye sister curtis" and wave. what the! its still far away. there is a lot i still have to do before i get on one of those. 

i feel like i am seeing so many miracles. these next two transfers i decided i want to be exactly obedient. and we are! and that's why we are seeing so many miracles. we come home each day and i think, we were exactly obedient today. i love that feeling. its not like i wasn't before but when you have that mindset of exact obedience and not just obedience and then you do it you see a difference. i feel really busy here in this area. which is good. i just want to focus and work hard. 

i miss you family. i think i may just call you on the phone for mother's day. whats the point of skype? i will see you soon after! don't kill me mom. it will make you all want to see me more! ha ha

take care!

S. Curtis 

Happy Easter

Hello family!

happy easter. i missed all of you. for easter morning me and my roommate s. houser made a yummy breakfast and celebrated together! ha ha Holidays are like nothing to me anymore, they don't even feel like the holiday! but then i spoke in church! My campanion went first, she spoke all in english and then i get up and only speak in Tagalog. So funny right? complete backwards. i told our branch some of the traditions we do in America! like easter egg hunts with money in them! that's really all i could remember. they just laughed so hard. then after church we had a missionary devotional and it was really good! our whole district came and we sang army of helaman. the senior couple spoke there and showed pics of their mission to help the cute old filippino's have a desire to serve. ok, being a senior missionary is the easiest thing ever. serving with your husband sounds ten times better!! haha 

remember how i got lice? don't worry its gone. but now s. houser has it!! ah! i have been picking it out of her hair for the last week. its like my favorite thing ever! 

today is Parker's dad's birthday! Happy Birthday Eric!! 

so listen to this. one day i was doing laundry (by hand) and the ZL's call me on the other sisters phone in our house. They call me like everyday for some reason! so funny, anyway so the other sisters in my house gave me their phone and i talked to them and set it down. well, it got water damage. these phones we have never break. honestly, i drop ours everyday and its fine. so then we put it in rice, (which actually the filippino's never heard of that HELLO they live in the land of rice) and it never came back to life. I told the elders they need to give it a priesthood blessing but they refused. haha! anyway, it cost me 1,000 pesos! what the heck!! that's like over $20 i think. then the next day the office elders brought them a new phone and that same day i lost OUR phone. oh my gosh. i am loosing it. i called the office elders and they were like "noooooooo sister curtis" hahaha shoot. another 1,000 pesos.i told them to hook me up and so hopefully i won't have to pay that much again! haha  guess i won't be eating this week ;) 

we have a baptism this week! i am so excited. his name is kelvin. he is 18 and really cool. isn't this week gen conf for all of you? that's so weird. its not til next next week for us. its my last one. so sad. everyone says gen conf is like ten times better on your mission. hopefully the prophet doesn't announce 16 year olds can now go on missions. just kidding.

love you all,
xoxo
sister curtis