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

happy 14 months to me!

eah its been 14 months cool huh!!! 

so now its allowed to email friends thats pretty cool! the first presidency came out with a new white handbook and we get 2 hours on the computer to email! pretty cool. so now i have more time! so friends, email me! 

 i just found out that my favorite sister missionary, sister weller is engaged and i am so happy for her!! 

i got some good mail today! i love getting mail from the ward and hearing about what's going on! 

this week was really good! its getting hotter and hotter. i actually can feel it in the air that my mission is coming to an end. isn't that weird? i know its still far away but there are SO many people going home in our mission in the next 4-5 months and plus our mission president is going home and so i just feel like its going to come so fast. i don't know if i am ready or not. 

i feel like my little branch has completely changed. i don't feel stress when i go to church now! everything is going sooo smooth. its so nice for us! i never want to leave this area. i ask all the members who their favorite missionary is and they all say, you sister curtis! of course it is! ;) 

this morning at 6 am. yes at 6 am me and my companion and house mates went sprinting! a couple of the young single adults wanted to join so we all went jogging this morning. i thought i was going to die. honestly, but it felt so good and i already feel ten times more sexy. 

in our branch we have a lot of people who can't afford, or don't have white shirts and ties. can i ask anyone who has any extra or doesn't fit anymore or wants to give them to poor people in the Philippine's to donate them? would that be okay mom? if they aren't the right size they can sew them and tailor them! the culture here isn't really to dress up because no one has money but it would make it ten times more reverent. 

i really don't have a lot to say this week! i love you all sooooo much.

xoxo

s. curtis 

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