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!!!