That's All Pholks!

Thanks for the emails. Mark got baptized. Mendoza family finally came to church. Just had my interview with President. I'm so happy with the mission I have served. So excited to see you. See you in a couple days.

Love, Sister Mortell

[Allyson will report her mission February 8 at 1:00 in the Vienna Woods Ward.]

Phinal Countdown

I was at career workshop yesterday so I didn't get to email, so I’m emailing today. I can't believe my mission is just about over in one week more and I will see all of you at the Boise airport! The past weeks, I have been really sad and also nervous about coming home but, I think I am content now. I know that I have done everything I can and I am very proud of the mission I have served. I guess it's time to move on to a new phase of life!

I can also see that all of you are going to great lengths to keep me from being trunky... either that or you're not excited to see me. haha, just kidding. On Sunday night, I will go to San Fernando then the next morning, I will wake up and go to Baguio with Sister A. Then I’ll come back to San Fernando and have interviews with president and hopefully have time to visit some of my Sevilla friends. Then on Tuesday morning, we will go to Manila and go to the temple and then we can do whatever we want in Manila and then on Wednesday morning, I will get on a plane and come home! Haha. I'm actually getting really excited to come home. I’m just excited to see all of you. I know it will be hard to come home, so I’m a little nervous, but I know everything will be ok.

I have some good news!! BROTHER M IS GETTING BAPTIZED ON SATURDAY. I got permission from President to go to his baptism. So excited! Three of the branch missionaries and Brother M visited me in Bauang on Sunday. They just showed up at the chapel. It was so happy! I was so glad to see them and I’m glad that I will be able to see some people in Agoo before I go home. As for our missionary work this week, we had a great week. We had 39 lessons last week, which is really good. And Brother R came to church again! And so did Brother C. We had a great lesson with Brother R. I was so happy for him. He said that he will not miss any more Sundays and he is ready to be baptized. He’s even planning who will baptize him and everything. He just still needs to quit smoking. We were riding on a jeepney earlier and saw him smoking which was kind of depressing but I know he can do it.

 

In other news, a couple days ago a man yelled at me, "you wife me!" haha, that's a new one. I get "you're beautiful" "I love you" "what's your name" and things like that 20 times a day, but that one is a new one.

We just had lunch with the Elders in my district. Elder M woke up early this morning and made this delicious food (bicol express) for all of us so we could have a nice little party for Sister Mortell's last district meeting.

I’m just about out of time; I need to go proselyte in 5 minutes... I’m not sure if I will have time to email next week or not. I am just trying to enjoy my last few days as a missionary. I honestly think everyone else here is more trunky for me…endless jokes about eternal marriage. But I am so excited to see all of you. I love all of you very much and I will probably talk to you next week. If not, I’ll see you next Wednesday!

Love, Sister Mortell

Eternal Phamily

I forgot to tell you some good news I learned a few weeks ago! I was in the office and I was talking to an elder that is assigned in my first area right now. Brother and Sister G (my very first baptism) got sealed in the temple! Hooray! I am so happy for them. They are so awesome!!

We have no baptisms scheduled until after I go home and I don't know about Agoo. I just emailed my old companion, so hopefully I’ll hear soon. As for as investigators and stuff like that though, a miracle happened this week! Brother R came to church! He will hopefully be baptized on Feb. 28. He has been taught by the missionaries on and off for several years. He has two children that are RMs and all of his kids are members. Yesterday was the first time he came to church—EVER in his whole life. We didn't have much of a chance to talk to him about his experience, but we're visiting him on Thursday. I hope he had a great experience. We were so happy when we heard this voice say "Sisters! Sisters! My dad is at church!" The whole branch was really happy too because a lot of them come work with us for his lessons and a lot of them kept telling us to give up on him because, "He'll never change." haha, looks like he's changing now! In other news, Brother C finally came to church again. We were pretty frustrated with him because it seems like he doesn't really care about anything and it's been hard for us to teach him because we can't always find a fellowshipper, so we were going to pass him to the elders. We asked him about it and he doesn't want to be passed to them, so I guess we'll keep teaching him for now. It is extremely hard to teach him because it is really hard for him to understand things. But we had a pretty good lesson with him last week, so things are definitely looking up.

Remember how I kept feeling sick? Well, that continued last week. All of us were having all kinds of tummy problems (except the Filipinas). My companion was really sick for a day so we had to miss like 2 hours of proselyting. It drove us crazy to stay in the apartment. She just rested and I cleaned the entire house very thoroughly (including the fridge-- that was a big task). Then we just went out and worked but she was still pretty sick. We think we figured out the problem... I think our filtered water isn't actually filtered. We stopped drinking it and now we pretty much feel better.

Other things... hmm... this is my last normal pday. Next week I have to go to career workshop and the Monday after that I think I’ll be with Sister A (my MTC companion) and I think we're going to Baguio. Then, not this Sunday, but the next one I will go to San Fernando and then have my next pday the next day and then go to Manila and then home I guess. That’s pretty weird. I can't believe it. Meanwhile, I’m the joke of the ward. Everyone loves teasing missionaries who are close to going home. My emotions are getting more and more confusing the closer I get to coming home.

Last week President surprised us all by surprise visiting our apartments and then making us teach him. And then he videoed it and evaluated it and whatnot. He made everyone teach the restoration in 3 minutes (not even apostasy or Jesus Christ's earthly ministry. just the restoration-- which is really easy.) For some reason (maybe because we're probably the oldest companionship in the mission) he made us teach the entire plan of salvation in 3 minutes. haha. It actually went pretty well though. It was weird to watch myself in a video. I realized that I move my eyes around a lot.

We had zone activity earlier today. We played games including an egg toss and volleyball and soccer on the beach. It was really fun. An elder from my MTC group was my partner in the egg toss since he's in a trisome and my companion was the one in charge. We made it pretty far--just barely lost. I also discovered that soccer is actually really fun.

I love all of you! And I will see you in a short 16 days! I hope the inversion and birds are gone by the time I get to Boise.

Love,

Sister Mortell

Phireworks Ring in Two Thousand and Phiphteen

We are in Baguio. We woke up early and did our studies early so we could have more time. It is a little cooler, I’m pretty tired, but we're happy. We are excited to celebrate my companion’s 21st birthday and also I’m going to buy some souvenirs.

New Year’s Eve and day was ok. It was hard to teach lessons because everyone was sleeping. Surprisingly, no one had us over for dinner or anything. We just came home because we had curfew at 6 and chatted with my housemates... then we attempted to go to sleep at 10:30, but that pretty much failed because it was noisy. We dozed off then I got woken up at about 11:55 because the fireworks were going crazy. So I went on our balcony and watched the fireworks until midnight then wished myself a happy new year and went back to sleep. haha, the fireworks were great. There were several shows within view of our balcony that matched the quality of the Handel Court show on the 4th of July.

Oh! Also, on New Year’s Eve, we had MEXICAN FOOD. We found this weird Mexican place and tried it out. It was absolutely delicious. There is never Mexican food in the Philippines, but there happens to be a large population of older white men that have married beautiful young Filipinas in Bauang. So, this place is catered toward them. We walk in and it kind of looked like the inside of the Wrangler or something. Anyway, we had some delicious Mexican food, but then we all felt sick after that! Everyone in our apartment has been having stomach problems and such! We even had to stay home for a couple hours one day because of my companion's problems, but I think we are both ok now.

Our week was good. We struggled more this week getting lessons than we did the week of Christmas. I’m just treasuring the last few weeks of my mission so if I have a stomach problem, I’ve just been continuing to work because I don't want to waste my last little time while as a missionary in the apartment.

We are struggling with investigators. We haven't taught Brother C (our 17-year old investigator) all week. He was always at this member’s house, but now he is never there because the member doesn't want him there because he is being a bad influence on his kids because he got drunk on Christmas... so we're going to have to figure that out. Right now our more progressing investigator is this girl. She’s awesome. The only problem is that she's only 16. :( But she is way more mature than most adults. She is very smart and understands our lessons well. She really wants to be baptized and wants her family to be taught, but it is hard to teach them because they are always at work in Baguio and only come home once a week. So hopefully we'll be able to teach them this week.

We’ve also been working on quite a few less actives. haha, this less active older man named Brother N came to church on Sunday for the first time in a very long time. We had taught him earlier that week, but our lesson was really short because we were about to be late for our curfew and my stomach was killing me and this guy is really old. He fell asleep while we were teaching him. haha, luckily he woke up after a few seconds, but we ended the lesson so that he could sleep. But then he came to church! He must have somehow been inspired, haha.... or it was just a coincidence... we have also been working on this less active family. They have a lot of struggles and our lesson with then last week was difficult... they were telling us all these concerns about family problems and drinking and being offended and they were just blaming each other and they were like almost yelling at each other. The husband kept saying really mean things about his wife under his breath. But then we went back and taught them a couple days ago. They are still having problems, but there was a dramatic change in them. The husband hasn't been drinking (which is a miracle because literally everyone gets drunk on New Year’s, occasionally including active members). They haven't been fighting that much and they even read the Book of Mormon! So hopefully we'll be able to get them to church sometime in the new future.

Church this week was ok. There was a switch and the order of the classes reversed and church is now 30 minutes earlier. They reminded people about it like 10 million times, but 45 minutes after church was supposed to start the first class finally started. But sacrament meeting was really good. The testimonies were great. I think everyone is all motivated because it’s a new year. I bore my testimony because I realized that would be my last fast and testimony meeting on my mission. That was kind of sad and I cried.

There were a lot of funny things that happened this week. We have this really funny older less active lady. She is a piece of work. She can be so grumpy that it is hilarious. She’s just a character. So we were teaching her and my companion was saying the opening prayer. I thought to myself, "I wonder if she closes her eyes during the prayer." So I open my eyes to check. She is looking around and fixing her hair and whatnot. I just smile, but I thought she didn't see me peek. Then she just slaps me! haha, I tried so hard not to laugh but when the prayer ended both of us were chuckling and my companion  and the lady's husband were pretty confused.

Yesterday during a lesson, a baby duck had diarrhea on my companion’s foot. haha. I’m lucky because the duck had gotten close to my foot right before that, but you know that I don’t like animals, so I just nudged it away from me and it went over to my companion.

This week I've been noticing that Heavenly Father is very mindful of us if we are being exactly obedient and working as hard as we can. There were several instances this week where things were not going the way we had planned, but then something else good would end up happening. Some examples-- we got punted for a really long time, but then we met this family and got 5 new investigators. If we would’ve had lessons, we wouldn't have met them. Also, we were annoyed because our member that was supposed to work with us yesterday cancelled last minute but then we were teaching an investigator and her cousin is a less active. She joined and we had a great lesson. The less active shared her feelings before when she was active in church and they committed to come to church on Sunday.

My companion and I were just talking about all of the blessings our families have experienced since we've been on missions. Her dad became active again when she was in the MTC after he had been inactive for 10 years. I am so grateful for the opportunity that I have had to serve Heavenly Father. I absolutely love being a missionary. I'm excited to come home and see all of you too, though. Love you lots! Have a good week and I look forward to more nice long emails from all of you.

Love, Sister Mortell