soooo its been a long weekend. we havent gotten mail since like thursday because of weirdness and whatever holiday was on monday and havent gotten it yet today so ill just write back letters after i find my dl today.

but okay everybody big news. i only have seven more days in the mtc.

like what? where did time go? you could say im freaking out a little. like leaving to my new home in 160 hours. (hopefully that math is right or thats embarrassing)

anyways umm mom did my memory card make it?! i didnt know you had to get a certain kind of envelope for them so...hopefully it didnt get lost. and thank you MIKEY AND JORDAN FOR THE CAFE RIO and other little treats in there. how nice and so thoughtful and perfect way to end valentines day. and thank you aubree/corbin for the litle valentines package with pictures. i love pictures. and rachel and annie for the sandwich/cookies/note! it was perfect cause i didnt eat dinner that night. so cute and so good.  hope everyone had a great week with valentines and dads bday and whatever else! thanks for the lips mom...haha i'll get you those pictures soon. but yeah it was a great valentines day. me and my roommates searched through all the free bin boxes and put together little valentine packages for the elders in our district. and decorated with the things marne sent me. and something else funny happened but i cant remember now but you can just laugh and pretend like you know what happened.

but anyways ummm mom this is important so listen up...actually you might be a litle upset because i dont know details but next week we leave the mtc at 8. and so ill probably be in the airport 930ish? and then my flight to seattle is at 11. so i'll be calling between 930 and 11. hopefully! itll jus have to be short. but IM SO EXCITED TO CALL! i would call in seattle but we have seriously like a 15 minute lay over before i fly to tokyo. so if not maybe theyll let us call in the philis but i highly doubt it. but yeah after a fun 21 hour flight i get to the philippines on the 28th at like 11 at night. so thatll be interesting. us 4 sisters standing on the letter m in the middle of the night waiting for someone to pick us up. hahah

oh mom just a warning, the other side of my mouth is being weird so expect a call probably on thursday. im fine just something a little freaky that theyll explain and hopefully fix in time. so fun i love the dentist.

im actually really sad to leave the mtc. i dont know why i love it so much. its gonna be a bittersweet change.  but im exited to get out and get some real work done...even though the next couple weeks will probably be just me sitting and smiling and nodding and praying and asking kids if they want candy. thats about all i know how to do in tagalog.

OHHHHkay coolest thing before i forget. last week i said i promised id stop telling my ecuador stories esp in my letters cause im not in ecuador anymore..but then ahh yesterday it was the coolest thing. i was reading in john chapter 14. verse 18 and 27 (my all time favorite scriptures) but in verse 18 is says, i will not leave you comfortless, i will come to you. but then if you look down in the foot note of that...comfortless was a greek word translation that also means orphan. so then its jesus talking saying "i will not leave you orphans, i will come to you". mostly just made my whole day and life. tender mercy.

2nd coolest thing of the week was on saturday night. i dont know why i have so many off days/moments. ive never been so bipolar or had to many emotions in my life but saturday night was hard. bro moffit was teaching and i was just not wanting to do anything and just really not wanting to be there. couldnt get my kids out of my mind and few other things were bothering me. our whole fundamentals lesson that night was about listening and teaching by the spirit..something we learn basically everyday. but he stopped and had us do an activity for the last hour of it. we got a partner and one was the missionary and the other just themselves. not an investigator role play this time but just ourselves. so me and elder merril were partners. and right from the beginning he decided to be the missionary and started pulling these questions out of nowhere that really were getting personal. they were simple questions but were just hitting me really hard. we then went back and forth just questions and answers all through the spirit edifying each other, pulling out scriptures and thoughts and things that were exactly was i needed to hear. and im really punctual about remembering when class is over so i can go home and go to bed but we had to stop cause we had gone 15 minutes over. and it was the coolest thing. and i cannot wait until i am comfortable enough with the language so i can have lessons with the spirit that strong there so i can have those kind of experiences.

and last thing was our devotionals this week. pinaka mabuti. i love them. they are the best part of the week and get me SO pumped.

and the personal study this week was so good. ive been thinking a lot about what kind of changes i would make in my life if i had the opportunity to meet my future celestial exalted self, like have a lunch date or something? what would that conversation be like? i think its really sad for me to, with my earthly brain, already realize how far below my potential ive been living. and then how sad it must be for Heavenly Father to see us live like that. and then how sad im going to be for my investigators to see them not even realize their potential. and even more just how embarrasing it is how many weaknesses i have. but seriously thank you to the grace and love of God because He is our Father. Hes not some principal waiting to catch us and give us detention. Hes our Father and He WANTS to bless you. and then ha im just so sorry to my parents, all the things im learning right now are things theyve been trying to teach me my whole life. so im sorry i was a punk. but all the weekly family nights make sense now.

anyways i think thats all for this week. well theres more but my hands cant do the whole 30 minute time thing. but I LOVE YOU ALL and the church is true. mahal tayo ng diyos. put off the natural man and remember who you are. cant wait to call on tuesday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

xoxo

sister tingey

ONLY ONE MORE PDAY IN THE MTC!

okay so this may be a long email so just bear with me.

dad the freckle went away so im okay.

that was hard hearing papas news. ill be sending a letter for him today.

mom im eating better foods...sometimes

first, THANK YOU sister traasdahl and cami for my valentine packages! SO NICE & cute!

and thank you rachel for the best cupcakes ive ever eaten in my whole life! and im sorry i missed my food on monday. it will NEVER happen again. ahhh.

and um please find a way to get megan frosts family emails. im pretty sure i read her letter 23986 times! best letter EVER. see if you can send me those every week! and coco, im sending you a letter with my facebook passwords and stuff and things i wanted you to do on them but could you also email cami ahlstrom and see if she got my email back? and then tessa could you send one to elder vea! he's in my district so his mailbox should be #152! and then mom can you send one to sister niupalau, hers is #152 as well! if it can be anonymous that would be great but if not thats fine too! thank you so much for doing that! even just one of those little dear elder packages..cookies or whatever for valentines! i didnt even know it was so soon! see if you can get any pictures from ecuador of their valentines day please!!!!!! and dad i dont think i got the other picture book yet..(if you sent another) but i did just get a slip to go get a package in the mailroom so that might be it! and THANK YOU everyone for the fun letters this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i promise im responding to them all today. so should be there on friday....actually i have no idea how the mailing system works. but i love everyones letters.

OKAY so parents, here's why the MTC called you on friday. so i had this weird puffy gum where my wisdom tooth was taken out. and it was just annoying. so went to go get it checked..but they sent us to this place where i had the most tramautizing dentist experience of my life. so we get dropped off and find the building. walk into this place that just looks/smells like a rest home in the 1970s. that already made me nervous. just with all the carpet floors, dim lights, freaky smells, efy music and FISH DECORATIONS everywhere. this sweet olddddd lady takes me back into the back  where her even older husband (seriously probably 95 year old man) is waiting for me. takes a look in my mouth, forgetting that mouths are kind of sensitive and to be gentle with his tools. after a while he says "hmm thats weird. ive never seen anything like this before. but i mean we could just cut it off and hope that it heals okay. let me take a xray and just make sure theres not any bone fragments in it before i cut it off." so he gets out the first xray ever invented, takes a picture and decides theres not any bone fragments in it and so goes and gets ready to start this procedure. i am just freaking out a little. praying with all my heart and just SO nervous. come back in and gives me a couple numbing shots and then LITERALLY 30 seconds after he shoots the numbing thing he starts going in to start cutting. but hi ive been in dr jones office many a time to know that after you give the numbing shot...you wait a good five or ten minutes for it to actually make affect. i tried explaing that to him but he said it would be fine. so he starts. and im crying...and telling him hi um actually i can feel that. so he puts a couple more shots in and i say a couple trillion more prayers and he goes in (still no gently) and starts cutting away. gets whatever that thing was out of my mouth and says "hmm thats weird...there was bone fragments in there...here feel!" a little dizzy and shaken i feel the cool bone fragents and try and act excited with him for my new bone fragments. anyways he finishes STILL NOT GENTLY cleaning out my mouth. and then lets me spit out a couple cups full of blood. mostly hes just really lucky that 1) im a representative of jesus christ 2) that he was so old and so cute and 3) that the holy ghost was holding down my hand from ripping out some of his bone fragments because never in my life have i been so grateful for dr jones and that he always gave me the pig nose. luckily, after a dramatic morning..im a alive and my mouths fine! hahaha but good night. but a plus side was we got to take a little field trip out of the MTC. drove right by mikey and rachels house. so that was weird.

ano pa...

hahahaha and mom i knew hell wasnt a bad word because sister niupulau (from tonga) says it all the time. ahh hell no! what the hell is he saying?

she is so funny. she laughs like a hyena and has the greatest tongan slang. ill start recording everything she says because i cry laughing everyday.

oh HIGHLIGHT of the week. me and sister houser were starving one night so we went downstairs to get a hotpocket out of the vending machine. mine almost got stuck on the little wire thing. we were so nervous. so we hit the machine and then got 2! so then we celebrated and yeah thats about it. mostly it was just a great moment.

i was in the bathroom this morning..and a girl walked in a we were just talking and she asked where i was going and i told her philis and she freaked saying no way i grew up there and so she was all kumusta? so i answered mabuti! then so clearly and simply she asked ano ang pangalin ninyo? and i just stood there like...um what? pakiulit?! she said i just aked whats your name..ive been here 4 weeks and im pretty sure thats the only phrase i use all day. kill me.

another language problem was we had to do this translating activity outside where we just went around to random missionaries. so sister houser had to ask them/ talk to the people in tagalog and then i was supposed to pretend like i was the translator and tell them what she was saying and then tell her what they were saying. so we ran into these elders and ask where theyre from. they looked kinda lost and say lo siento soy de mexico. so i said perfect. and had to translate from tagalog to spanish and spanish to tagalog instead of tagalog to english.  except then i realized i stopped understanding what sister houser was saying and just ended up talking to the elders. i was super super frustrated after. we went back in the classroo to study and i just was mad. so i got out my journal and started writing everything that was bugging me. and as i wrote i realized why ive been give this call. this call was actually an answer to my prayers. before i sent my papers i prayed so hard that i could become closer to Christ. i feel like ive talked a lot about how its been hard for me to learn how to rely on Him but with this language..thats all im going to be doing everyday. and not just with the language, but also i need to learn how to love more of God's children. i cant just love mesa and ecuador people. i need to learn to love all kinds of people and cultures. and the thing that gets me through most of it is how i felt during my setting apart when president ostler told me that there is someone there that im teaching who will be very familiar to me..and thats because we were really good friends in the premortal life. i learned that my heart is going to learn how to stretch so make room for the philippine people and that they wont be taking the place of my ecuador people. and that i need to be practicing what im preaching. all day long im learning how to teach people about how the atonement will help refine and make them the people that God wants them to be and that Hes never too busy to help you with your frustrations...so thats what ive learned to do this week. that this is hard because im not here to do this my way but im here to do this His way through the gifts He has given me. and through the gifts He will give me if i work and ask for them.

so that was a nice little journal time.

and then AH i love devotionals. i absolutely looooove devotionals. they are the best parts of the week. and everytime they give them it seems to be exactly what i need each week. well sunday morning they gave this whole talk about making sure to include the children in the lessons. gave a lot of good advice and remembering that god touches the hearts of children too. i still remember the first time i felt the spirit, the night i was probably 7 or 8 and was driving home with mark shill from the cabin and we were listening to that cd of all the cousins songs. and that is still one of the strongest feelings i can remember. so its important to let children feel that and teach them as well. and then that night was the best one...just about mosiah 28:3 it talks about if we love our investigators enough that even the thought of them not accepting the gospel would cause our souls to tremble and shake. and that we dont always know whats going on with our investigator..but the spirit does. and that God cant guide your steps until you take a step.

and then they talked a lot about the natural man! oh my gosh it was the coolest thing. had the coolest stories. talked about how we need to stop turning in when things get hard but to turn outward like Christ did. that you need to not just learn about Christ but to learn OF Him! and only through the CHARACTER of Christ is the atonement made possible. and that missionaries need to remember this mission is NOT about them. so who cares about what you want. this is the time to not once think about yourself all day everyday. and (sorry just a little collection of my notes) but seriously i was just wanting to jump up and punch the air through the whole thing. i just got SO PUMPED to be here. and to be a missionary. and got the feeling i had the day i decided to go on a mission. its the different effect of the spirit that ive been experiencing lately...where its not the one that touches you so deeply and makes you teary but the one that just makes your heart so light (?) and happy that you literally can barely sit in your chair..you do this little bouncing thing and cant even hold still because you are so happy and so excited about this gospel. and then to top it off the guy giving the devo had flown out some of his investigators from argentina from 40 so years ago and they talked to us and taught us of the ripple affect it has had in their life. and seriously it was the greatest night..one of those HOORAH FOR ISRAEL type of things.

anyways so i love everything. life is good. ive realized ive been trying to question this church for too long which is the dumbest thing. im going to go prove it right. theres no way thats its not true. if you dont believe me...then test it out for yourself and see if God wont bless you. alam ko po na sa pamamagitan ang pananampalataya ni jesucristo at pagbabayad-sala, magiging po tayo sa langit. mahal tayo ng diyos!

mahal po kayo!!!!!!!!!!!

kita kits

xoxo sister tingey

ps CANT WAIT TO CALL YOU IN THE AIRPORT IN TWO WEEKS!!!

pss sorry again that this is so long. but lots happened. good week. miss you!!!

2 more pdays

HIII!!! kumusta po kayo?? how in the heck is it already pday? uhh and ps i only have 2 more pdays left till im outta this place. its going to be so fun to be able to see the sky again. and like people. and life. but first of all good luck reading this letter. its going to be a little rough and probably not make sense because we accidently took a 4 hour nap today (the most sleep i think ive gotten here so far) and everythings a little fuzzy. also think me and my kasama are getting a little sick so hopefully that passes.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOUmom and shills and mcdaniels for the packages!!!!!!!!! so fun. and thanks for the fun letters i got this week!! letters are better than meals. not kidding. and almost as fun as the new bunk beds we got in our rooms this morning. they are running out of places to put people like the 1500 new missionaries coming this week so they just decided to stick another bed in our room. i didnt even know that was possible but i guess with the lord all things are possible. so yay for new roommates.

and sorry about the memory card, i meant to send it but then i didnt. haha so look for those this week i promise.

ummm ano pa....oh! THANK YOU to whoever prayed for me to be able to make it through fast sunday because i know there was a real prayer for that this week. cant remember the last time i made it to 6...but it was the easiest and most productive fast sunday ive had in my whole life.

and thanks mom for the cool story about the mom of 6 kids. LOVED it.

best story of the week was after dinner the other night me and my kasama were got popsicles. hers got stuck to her tongue. like i never even knew that was a real thing. but literally the popsicle would not come off her tongue. and so we stuck her head in the drinking fountain and tried to get it off that way but it didnt. i dont even know how we did it but like 5 minutes later we finally ripped it off. i dont think ive laughed so  hard in my whole life. and then after that we got in trouble for eating in the hall. somehow we manage to get in trouble for something every day. waa. but we try our best.

other best thing weve discovered this week is how much cool stuff people leave in the free bins on all the floors. weve gotten so much sweet stuff its like christmas every monday night when the old people leave. so thats exciting.

something sad though is that all the snow has melted so our snowball fights feel like rock fights instead so pray for snow.

well mostly i cant even think of anything else that happened this week. everything is fun and good. my brain is fried and somehow i still dont feel like ive learned any tagalog buttttttttt its fine.

anyways yesterday had a really cool lesson. this guy came in to talk to us and was going to go over this whole planning thing but just stopped and took his lesson totally other way. he told us about one of his previous investigators from the philippines and we had this huge long discussion about it. anyways main point about it was that he LOVED this investigator and worked and worked and would do anything for him in order to help him. right when they were getting somewhere he was transferred. he said that it was the hardest thing about his mission was just trusting that the next missionary coming in who would be teaching him would love Jeffrey as much as he did and would work as hard and put in the same amount of effort he did for this man. it just made me think about the week i was leaving ecuador and how that was the hardest part was trusting that whoever came next would be able to love those babes and much as me and my group of girls did. it sounds weird but i really was so scared to leave. but i was so happy for that lesson because its been hard having motivation to study for people who i dont even know. but just as much as i wanted new girls to come in and be good to my kids i know that i need to be studying and getting ready to go in and love these investigators for these other missionaries and more importantly for god.  i know i wrote dad this week explaining how hard it is to be in a classroom all day when i look at my watch and add two hours and realize its bath time and that selia needs help getting jorge in the bath. or that christian and manuel need to be taken on a walk because they’re having a tantrum with their autism frustrations.  or that i can see laurita and martin trying to tell the new volunteers something but they can’t understand the grunts. or that the new girls are not wanting to play with edu cause he hits and pulls hair and has a bigger head than them and the volunteers not knowing that if you give him an orange and just wrestle him back he will hug and kiss and laugh with you for the rest of the day. or that laurita needs me braiding her hair. or that edu hasnt eaten in like 30 minutes and is going to need a game and an orange. or that aniye just fell off the slide again and i just want justin to pinch my ankles and leidy to yell BEJ from upstairs. and thats the hardest part about being here is how bad i want to be back there. so that’s been hard dealing with during class.  the spanish is frustrating too.  the other night there was a new elder here who came from mexico and only spoke Spanish so we talked for like 20 minutes and then someone in my district came up to me and asked me a question in tagalog and I had no idea what they said to me. if i didnt have that one day where i knew with all my heart i needed to be here, i would be in ecuador right now. and last night was the hardest night ive had here. i was talking to elder robison about how excited i was to get out of the mtc so i could just see one kid or hold one baby. and then him and another elder told me too bad cause we cant even hold the babies there. and i had read that somewhere but i didnt really pay attention to it but then one of the elders got out the stupid (just kidding its not stupid) little white missionary handbook that explains all the rules about not being able to do with kids and embarassingly i just sat down and cried. and i dont think it was just cause of the rule but i just think i missed my osso kids so bad and it finally hit me how much i did. that whole quote about i knew that someday thinking back on my tears would bring me to laughter but i never thought thinking back on laughter could bring me to tears. basically its so true. and my poor district had no idea what to do with me. those are my favorite kids in the whole world. i have been thinking about those babes and how much i would give to make a quick 3 week stop on the way to the phillipines to go say hi. so the only 2 things that remind me why i’m here is because of the night i had with dani when i realized if this family had the gospel that the mom he was crying for could be the one rocking him to sleep instead of me.  and second that in my setting apart it promised that i have close friends from another life who need me.  so if they need me i will come. but that’s probably the hardest part is just that i don’t know them yet.  but sorry other than that i really do love the mtc.  i’ll probably feel more useful soon. 

so yeah little dramatic last night. but everythings good now. love my comp. love my district. love the mtc. love the church. love my family/friends. learning to love tagalog. excited to love the philipinos. still tired. starting to make the weird missionary jokes (embarrassed). miss everyone and hope everything is good!! and my time is way past! LOVE YOU BYE!!!

xoxo

sister tingey