November 24, 2013

Hello Family!!!

I had such a great week! And I have some good news for you! On Wednesday I got a package! And I was really excited! But then I realized it was my Christmas package and I couldnt open it yet. But wow its huge! Thank you so much! And then on Saturday my week got even better! Why? I got TWO packages!!!! I got the one you sent me with the Christmas count down and I also got a Christmas package from Susan! So tell her I said thanks. It was awesome!! And mom, I know you were worried, but nothing got broken into. Dont worry. But what did break this week was my glasses... Sad. But they arent really broken. Just the part that goes on your nose fell off so I can get them fixed. We are going to Bacolod today and there are some stores there that can hopefully fix them for me. Luckily I have two pair! And then on Sunday it was a great day! It was Kynans baptism!!! My first baptism! It was so great! He is awesome! After the baptism was sacrament meeting and he came and sat by us. When he walked in he said, "Im one of you now!" It was really funny. Hes so funny and awesome and Im really happy for him! Our next baptism is scheduled  for Dec 7 for Abigail. She is so great! Im really excited for her. And then on Dec 14 we have 7 baptisms scheduled! Next month we actually have weekly baptisms set up. So hopefully I dont get transferred next week so I can stay and see them all! Its going to be a great month! Sounds like you all had a great week! I cant believe its already time for the roll party at the bakery! I love the roll party! I wish I could be there! But it will still be great without me Im sure. I love that you put the tree up already! Everyone here put their tree up like a month ago. And some people even have lights on their house. But of course not everyone because a lot of people dont even have electricity. But the people that do have electricity put up Christmas lights and I love it! Its awesome. I love Christmas! This whole week and last week too we have been singing Christmas songs in our lessons. Its so great! Its crazy that Christmas is almost here and we will get to skype! Im really excited for that! Glad you are ready and have a new webcam! Its going to be great! Mom Im sure you did great in your talk today. And Hallie too! Sounds like everything is going great there! And mom I for sure think you should wait for me to watch catching fire! Haha just kidding. I wouldnt wait if I were you. That would be too hard! So I give you permission to watch it without me. And Hallie if you want to know what happens just read the books! They are really good! Wow Kam sounds like a crazy week! I never had to get stitches so I dont know what that feels like but Im sure it hurt really bad! Today I hit my head really hard on a tree branch and I thought that hurt really bad but it didnt even bleed or anything so Im sure your eye hurt a lot worse. But Im glad you got the stitches out! You should send me a picture. And you rode the shuttle? Thats crazy! Ive never been on the shuttle. I would be scared... Not really now but when I was 14 (almost 15!! 15 more days! I think...) I would have been scared. So thats awesome! Hallie sounds like you had a great week! I wish I could hear you sing your song! But Im sure you did awesome because you have such a great voice and your just awesome! I had a really good week though. Im still not very good at Ilonggo so I teach a lot in English but this week I lead almost all the lessons! It was great! It was hard though but I really liked it and I learned a lot. I spoke more this last week than I have every other week combined on my mission. Mostly because I was leading so I had the opportunity to talk because Sister Nielsen talks a lot so it was really good this week! But sorry this email isnt very long. And Im going to have Sister Nielsen send you some pictures because all the pictures are on her camera and I am just going to get them off her card later. So I will have her email you them. But I love you all and miss you so much! Cant wait to hear from you and also see your faces soon! Just a few more weeks! Thanks for the packages! Dont worry I havent opened my Christmas packages yet. I will wait until Christmas! I love you!

Sister Remund

November 18, 2013

Hello Family!!!

Wow I had a great week! And a great week will be coming! Well there was some rough spots this week... but overall it was a great week. On  Monday we found out that Sister Martinez was transferring. That was sad. She has lived next door to me since I got here so it was sad saying goodbye. She goes home right before Thanksgiving so I wont see her again. Then Sister Bendoy moved in next door. She got there on Tuesday. She was a lot of fun! Her first area on her mission was my area so she was able to help us out with some of the people. (I dont think this next part should go on the blog) Then on Friday she found out her parents and either one or three siblings died in the typhoon. It was really sad. So she left Sunday morning. Since she only had three weeks left in her mission she just went home. It was really sad. So on Saturday we did exchanges so she could go in our area. So I went with Sister Portugal in their area. It was a lot of fun! Their area in on the beach! So I got to go to the beach this weekend. But no, its not like the beach anywhere else. Its really gross. Its just all trash. But it was still cool. Everyone has been so great in helping each other build new houses and clean up from the storm. Its great seeing how much everyone is helping. And clearly it helped us a lot because we have had more people at church these last two weeks then we ever have. So many less active members that we havent been able to get to come are coming now. Its so great! And this week is going to be great too because guess what? Kynan is getting baptized this week!!! Im so excited for him!! He will be my first baptism! And its great because Im the one that started teaching him! Ive seen him completely change and its been awesome! He is still talking about serving a mission so we are really excited for him and he is going to do great things. Hes 16 right now and so by the time he can leave on his mission he will be so great. I cant wait for him. Thats so cool that everyone back home has been helping so much! We got new missionaries in yesterday but we havent met anyone yet. Sister Portugal will be getting one of them so I will meet her tomorrow. We heard about the 8 or 10 sisters though and I cant believe it. Wow it sounds awful there. Its much worse there than it is here. I feel so bad for everyone there and for all that have been affected. Its crazy how bad it is there. I wish I could do more to help. So thank everyone there for me for all they have done to help the people here! Also I saw something that Sister Dixons parents did for her that I want. They made her a calender! With pictures of her family! And everyones birthdays on it! I want that! So can you maybe make me one? That would be cool. Because I dont know anyones birthday except family. Also guess what I can do? At Mang Inasal, I can eat 5 cups of rice! Everyone thinks Im pretty cool. But thats my record so far. Maybe I will try and get 6 next time. Also Kam, do you know the song 4 minutes? Its at the end of a movie and I remember us singing and dancing to it during the credits but I cant remember the movie! And the song plays here all the time and every time I hear it I die because I cant remember the movie. So you should look it up and tell me. Also mom, I do know Elder Stagg! He is from Sister Nielsens batch! Ive heard a lot about him. Thats so funny that you met his dad! Sounds like Kam and Hallie had fun weeks. Hallie Im glad you are going to be on coach Jensens team! You will have so much fun and learn a ton! Im so excited for you! Also guess what? I get to see you all in 5 weeks! On skype! Pretty crazy. I cant believe Christmas is so close. It feels like summer here so I always forget Christmas and Thanksgiving are so close. But thanks for all the email this week! I love hearing from you and whats going on in St. George! I love you so much and cant wait to hear from you again!

Sister Remund

Waiting out the Typhoon in our apartment.

Let the clean up begin!

TYPHOOOOON!

Hello Family!!

Wow its been a crazy week! It started great! On Wednesday we had zone training and it was really good! We hadnt even heard about the storm until then. At that point we were only going to have to stay inside on Friday. My follow up training with President was supposed to be on Thursday. After zone training they canceled it though and told all of us to go out and buy canned food for Friday and the following days because they werent sure if we would have power or water. So we bought food on Wednesday and then went out in our area. We started by seeing Billy! He is so great! We taught him about repentance and he loved it. We had such a great lesson with him. He said he had a dream about Jesus Christ coming down to him. He doesnt remember anything else but he woke up crying. He said he knows this church is true now because that hasnt happened when he investigates other churches. He then said he has a lot of sins and he wants to be completely cleansed from all his sins. Then he committed himself to be baptized in December! That was weird. We didnt even need to ask him. He just committed himself! It was great! Then we got a text that said we needed to be inside at six that night and not go out at all on Thursday or Friday. So we spent the whole storm inside. It was pretty boring. We studied a lot... well, tried to study. We kept getting distracted from the storm. We have a balcony so when the storm wasnt very strong we would go out and sit on the balcony and watch it. It wasnt super bad where I am. We kept thinking it would get worse but it never did. And since we live in a concrete house and all the houses around us are concrete we couldnt see any damage. So we thought it wasnt that bad. But then we had a mission wide service project on Saturday. We started by going out to one of our areas called Bagol. Its away from the city so we figured they would have the most damage. Holy cow. It was beat up out there. One of our less active members whos husband is an investigator right now had their huge mango tree fall on their house. They no longer have a house. It was really sad. Then we walked over to other peoples houses. And along the way pretty much every tree had fallen over. We were walking on top of the trees because they all fell down. Then we got to another persons house. Their house isnt much better. The wind was so strong so their house is slanted now. And another members house completely tipped over. It was really beat up out there. We spend most of the day there. The ward was great though and they gave us relief bags to give to them. There was also a ton of flooding out there. There is a river by their house and its normally like 20 feet below their house. They showed us how high it got and it was up around my chest. It was completely flooded there. Its really bad out there right now. But other than that area most everything is okay. My area wasnt hit very hard. Ive heard of other areas that have been hit so much harder. Everyone in the ward was talking about Tacloban and how its flat there right now. I was worried about the missionaries there. Some of my friends from the MTC are there right now. Hopefully they are all okay. But we are all safe and nothing too bad happened. We are still cleaning up but we are good. We only lost power for a day. The power went out Thursday night and came back on Saturday night. And we had water the whole time so it was okay. We didnt really struggle at all because we had flashlights and candles and a gas stove in our house. And since we had water we were still able to make food. And we had bought a bunch of snacks so it was good. The sister training leaders live next door so on Friday night they came over and we talked to them for a while. It was a lot of fun! They are really funny. Its been crazy! Its weird that Ive been here for 2 months and Ive already been through an earthquake and a typhoon! At this rate I will experience a lot of crazy things on my mission! But its great! The people here are so amazing and they are all helping each other. We went to help the family who had their mango tree fall on their house and they were like, "no we have a lot of men here helping us. Go help the Gallo family because they only have one man. They need the help more than we do." It was so great! They are so awesome and they even came to church on Sunday! Its the first time they have come to church in years. It was awesome! But now its pretty much back to normal because we are back on our regular routine. It was cool though. This was the first time I realized how much I love the people here and care about their safety. During the storm I was so worried about everyone and their safety. Before this I havent realized how much I care for them. Im so glad that everyone is safe and is staying positive during this hard time in their lives. I love the people here and love getting to know them. Im excited to continue teaching them and helping them as best I can. Sorry its not a great story but hopefully that gives you enough detail to know kind of whats going on here! Anyway I love and miss you all so much and I love hearing from you! Thanks for emailing me! Cant wait to hear from you again next week!

Sister Remund

November 4, 2013

Hello Family!

Sorry Im late today. We went to Patag with the other sisters in Silay! It was so cool! The reason we went there is because there are falls there and they are really pretty. It was a ton of fun! We had to walk through water to get there and it felt so good! I loved it! I will send some pictures of it later. I love all the pictures you sent me from Halloween! Looks like you all had fun! Was Kiel at the house carving pumpkins with you? Did you carve pumpkins with all of them? Hallie I like your costume! And your pumpkin is by far the coolest thing I have ever seen! I love minions! Speaking of Halloween, you asked about proselyting in the graveyard! It started great! Except we were only there for five minutes. We taught one lesson and then had to come home. Sister Nielsen got sick. So we came home and she slept the rest of the day and I caught up on my journal and cleaned and just relaxed mostly. I was sad we didnt get to do it but it was still okay. She woke up the next day feeling much better! And good thing she did because Saturday was our mission tour with Elder Andersen! It was so cool! I got to shake his hand! It was so great and we also heard from Elder Clayton who is in the presidency of the seventy. It was a great meeting. And then on Sunday we had stake conference and Elder Andersen was there too! I was lucky because he came to my stake and the other missionaries didnt get to hear from him again. After stake conference, we were leaving and we were in the parking lot outside when he came out. It was me, Sister Nielsen, Sister Solomone, and Sister Dixon standing there. He came over and was like "keep up the good work sisters!" It was so cool! He talked to us! It was awesome! Other than that it was a pretty normal week. Did I tell you about Kynan? He is so great! His baptism is on the 23 and really I dont even think we need to teach him ever again. Hes awesome. Hes already talking about serving a mission when he is old enough. Hes 16 right now so he still has a few years but he never misses anything! He is so great and I love teaching him. He is one of the nicest people I have ever met. This week I have follow up training with my batch and with President. Im excited for that. And Sister Nielsen is excited too because she hasnt been to one since hers. She trained one other girl before me but she didnt get to go to follow up training because she got transferred and got me! She has gotten a new companion every transfer. Im the first one she has had for more than one transfer. Thats why I thought one of us would get transferred but we didnt! So thats cool. But one thing I heard this week is that Im not supposed to have an active facebook account so dont ever get on there and update anything. And maybe stop tagging me in pictures. But you can add us as a friend on facebook! Just dont talk to me on there. Mom I cant believe you arent in YW anymore! Thats so sad! That stinks that you might not be there for Hallie. But Im sure you will find a way to get up there. My bites arent bad. I havent gotten any this week. Yes I wash my sheets. Yes I use spray. No I dont need Sister Chin to look at them. Im fine. Hallie- its your decision but you would learn so much from coach Jensen! I loved him as a coach and he would make it so much fun! Hes the best coach Ive ever had! (besides dad) But whatever you want to do, basketball is still basketball and it will be fun no matter what! That stinks that Chelsi Green is in the hospital. I will pray for her. That would stink if she had to come home. Hopefully she gets better soon. But Im going to send some pictures now! Thanks for emailing and for sending pictures! I love them just as much as you love getting pictures from me! I love you and miss you all so much!

Sister Remund