Yahoo!

HAPPPPYY BIRTHDAY, LYSSA MA LOU, LADY BUGGY POO! I'M SO STINKIN PROUD OF YOU!

YOU'RE 16, YA OLD FART!! ;) I could never marry a 99 year old man...
you have a little note on the way :) i'm sorry it's not much. i'll do better, i promise! i just don't know how to yet, from here!



Thank you, everyone! especially mom, dad, and aaron for your correspondence! you are super bomb!!!



how is everything?? it sounds like you're so busy! aaron, i loved the sea turtle! so cool! and the photo, thank you! dad, i'm praying for you and your test. you will do so well! i'm glad you're receiving comfort in your studies. you are sooo so smart and diligent. you will be blessed for all you're doing and i know the Lord will help you in everything you need. thank you for your funny letter! i got one via dear elder and just grinned all the way :) it was fantabulous! thank you for making me smile! laughter is the best medicine and we all totally need a good laugh every single day. sister gupta makes me laugh quite a bit. just her manner and opinions and straightforwardness about matters when she expresses things to me is hysterical. i love her! you will love her too. somehow i'll kidnap her from india and make her visit us. she's great.
mom, i pray for you too in all you do. SO much! you really are supermom! but no matter how busy life gets, your first priority is to your Heavenly Father and then to your family--which makes you even more incredible. that's how it lays it down for us in the white handbook: first to the Lord, then to Pres., then to missionaries. good priorities. and of course the ppl we serve :) i think it's in the leadership section. thank you mom for sharing your insights. again, i can't thank you enough for the spiritual uplift. you always know just what to say. it's so incredibly nice. i can't believe it. it's insane how well our Father knows His children. it makes sense, of course, but its still crazy amazing. he is so aware. i testify of this. there are so many tender mercies each day, and they are clearer to me here in the field than they've been for me before. and i know there are so many i miss along the way. how spoiled we are!

sunday, on our way to our quick lesson before church, i was telling sis gupta how i was concerned for br. candido, a less active member who had come to church last week, but whom we hadn't visited this week. i didn't want him to think we'd only visit if he wasn't coming. that's certainly not how we feel about him. after our brief but sweet lesson--big blessings!--we got on the jeepney for church, hoping to make it barely in time. i've become the temporary pianist, we discovered, as bishop texted us, hoping we'd be there right then. aaah! wish we could hurry traffic along. then, out of nowhere, br. candido climbs in the jeepney!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SWEET! i know, right?!?!!?! yeah. pretty great. and he came to church again :) wow! love it!

then yesterday i didn't get to write bc we met with Pres. for quarterly interviews. they are individual. and you know what?!?! he emails us individually each week in response to our emails to him. how great is he?!!?!? wow he is amazing. and we had great meetings with our AP and ZLs, all of whom are so good. love every missionary here. they rock. and i learned so much about using the area book!!!! it's so important to keep track of the ppl we're teaching and the details--bc in the details, we show our love. we keep track so we can meet their needs and help other ppl to continue to build on inspired teaching once we are transferred elsewhere. i thought of how i love to know you care about the details of my mission and my life and how knowing these things about those we teach come through in our teaching--to make the gospel personal BECAUSE IT IS! great stuffs.

so mother's day call! woo hoo! there's a card i can buy and use, i believe, from my cell phone to call you. mom's phone is best, right? and would around 6 pm that day work for you? cause i can prob call about 9 am here on monday, the following day for me, and it's my pday, so we can work that out easily. gimme your opinion. sis gupta prob won't need the phone til later, so that would be rockin! or i can go for earlier if you need. later? sup to you, babestum!!!!! lemme know.

tonight, i am going to extend the baptismal commitment to a family! wooooo! holy karazzzzy. can you belieb it??? pray for me, if you can! that'd be sweet! i love you so much!!!!

i can't believe you're all getting so big, my siblings! i hope you're being so sweet and patient to each other and helping out at home! i feel your love from here, and i send mine. i'd be lying if i said i didn't miss you. of course i do!!!!!! but the harder i work, the easier it is and the more i love it! time will fly and i'll be missing this beautiful place with heavy air and heat like a blanket and crazy, honking drivers and ppl that say Hey, whashur name? and little kids that follow us around and sweet, humble people with barely enough to survive day to day, and ... well. no. i won't miss cockroaches. ever. i tell sis g all the time that they're the spawn of satan. sorry to ruin the mood :) hahaha

but know that all is well and you are SO VERY LOVED!!!!! please let me know how i can help you.

mom, i'm sorry i didn't say much about journal, but i'll keep thinking and share what i come up with. you are all SUPERB!

xoxoxxooxxoXXooOOOXxoxolxo

sis r :)

P.S.
to answer mom's qs in a dear elder i got... the jet lag is pretty gone by now! prob by about the end of the first week it was mostly gone. of course now you know i love sis gupta! sis w is in the angeles mission... i don't have the exact address, but i can pouch mail her here for free. did you all go to slc for our tradish? how was it/ when are you going??? the food is pretty good, actually. i've eaten plenty of things i wouldn't normally like, but liked. strange. like tuna sandwich with tomatoes and spaghetti with only sauce and noodles. odd. but i liked it. and tang is a big deal here. very popular. way too much soda! i can't take it! but ppl are so sweet to give us things when we visit them.
the weirdest things i've eaten were chicken liver in our pansit ( pansit is actually very good. i think that's the stuff sis crump gave us. member?) and pig feet... i think. but i didn't actually eat that. it's all fat. all fat and bone and spiny pig hair. so i spit it out discreetly and prayed that the wealthy americanized family would forgive the poor american. they didn't seem to care :)