Friday, May 24, 2013

Here is the update from last week - email received on May 16th

Magandang Umaga ng pamilya ko!!! :) Well this week went even Faster, which I didn't think was possible! But it was great. I got my FIRST letter from you guys!! I looked at the date and it took about 3 weeks to get to me. But in comparison to how Great letters are it isn't bad at all! I'd wait 3 months! ha Sister Kalama saw it on the letter board (they pin them up instead of giving us PO boxes) and I started crying I was so happy! Thank you so much, I got the BEST family ever!!

SO I want ALL of you to find the book Our Search for Happiness and read it!! It's by Elder Ballard, and it has changed my life. It's incredible! This week I realized that this mission isn't for me at all, but it's for those waiting for me to teach them. I had a hard moment yesterday and was talking to my teacher about my feelings of inadequecy, and she gave me some Really good advice. She challenged me to not only go on my mission, but to become a missionary. And that's what I'm going to do! I am going to learn Tagalog, even if that means I can't speak english when I get home, ha because I want to serve these people. I love them so much already! My teacher is amazing though, she's 23 and just got married about 2 months ago and told us a couple days ago that she's pregnant! She's so excited :)

We had an incredible devotional this week also and President Nielson (area pres.) told a story about a man from Kiribiti (where Christmas Island is!) and so this was about 40 years ago or so, but there were 0 members of the church there and this guy was 19 and decided to go to school. So he moved away from home and went to Fiji where he met some missionaries and was baptized into the church. He went home and began his own missioanry work and set up a branch, and now there are 11,000 members! Elder Kiraren, from my district, is one of the first missionaries from there. It's amazing!!

I also found something SO awesome in my personal study this week! In my patriarchal blessing there's a line about my desire to do good will be magnified as I sit at the feet of those who have the right to teach the church...well in Preach my gospel it says "You have the authority to preach the gospel" as a missionary. I'm SURROUNDED by people who have that right, and I'd never thought about that line much before but now I see how incredible it is and it's happening RIGHT NOW in my life! Amazing

I had a HILARIOUS experience also. Remember how we have that joke of singing Happy Birthday like "maligadi waaaa" (however it's spelled..) ha BUT They started singing Happy Birthday in Tagalog in the cafeteria and it sounded JUST like that!!! Only like an hour earlier was I telling my companions about us singing that at home and then it happened and we all bursted out laughing! I have found the source of that song :) Was it Caitlin who sang it to Matt or something??

Oh I told Elder Liu I'm going to visit him in China :) ha Even though I won't because I never want to fly again...But I taugh him how to say "wattup homie?" and it's Hilarious because he says it now to like the President and everyone! Also, we were doing TALL (the language program on the computer) and the randomly started feeling my hair and I didn't even notice, but sister miner burst out laughing and he just looked up and said "What happened?!" hahaaha He always says that and it's hilarious!

The dogs here are WEIRD like one looked like half german shepard half weiner dog...hahahaha And they bite!! So I won't be cuddling animals ;) But don't worry, I will be able to talk and sing in tagalog for you all!! I'll have to sing happy birthday to myself for you guys :)
Sister Benesch

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