Wednesday, October 30, 2013~Week 11 

Quezon City; 4:47 PM Wed (PH); 2:47 AM Wed (US)

Hellooooooo family!! I feel like it's been forever since I've talked to you! But I also feel like it was just yesterday! The days are long and hot and hard but time really does kind of fly! I can't believe that next week is the end of the transfer! That doesn't even seem real to me! I've survived a whole transfer here in the Philippines!! Only 11 more to go!! Woooo! 

It was a pretty good week! After I emailed last week, we went home and we played Monopoly Deal! (I very much miss playing that at the Nelson house! And just games in general with the Nelsons and the fam!) But it was fun and it felt good to just kind of relax! After that, we visited a ward member who invited us over because it was her sister's birthday and they had a Belle cake!! It was so adorable! I didn't get a picture but it was so so cute! 

 Sister Jones loves dark chocolate so I bought her a
dark chocolate Hershey's bar for her 9 month mark!!

We had MTC Exchanges again this week and we got to go with Sister Garcia! She's from Arizona and she was so so cute! And completely fearless! We were so proud of her! She came with us to teach the Fuertes family! And this time, I extended the baptismal invitation to Anna Mae and she accepted as well! Then Sister Jones asked if she would prepare herself to be baptized on the 23rd of November and she got really really quiet and didn't say anything and we got really nervous. And then her face got red and we thought she was going to cry! And then she just said really quietly, "I'm just glad that the truth came to us." So yeah, she said she would be baptized on November 23 with her brothers! So that was exciting! BUT! We need prayers for them because we think that their grandma is not letting them come to church! So pray that she'll let them! And that they'll come! Because if they don't come to church, they can't get baptized! After we dropped Sister Garcia off, we went up into the mountains and we were able to teach this man named Markos! And he's basically blind but he has a wife and I think he said 3 daughters. After we taught him, he said he wanted us to come back and teach his family on November 2 because it's a holiday and everybody will be there! We were like, ummm okay!!! So hopefully that works out! 

Cendana, Salisbury, me, Jones,Hepworth, Valikoula, Marcelino, Strebel

Last Friday was my one month mark in the Philipppines!!! I just thought I'd throw that out there.

We started teaching this couple this past week and they are perfect! Their names are Jomil and Mauna and they got married like a year ago and she's pregnant and they are just so prepared to hear the gospel! And it's the cutest little love story because Jomil is 39 but looks like he's 27 and he's really chill and awesome and Mauna is like 35 but looks like she's 45 and she has a throat problem so she sounds kind of funny when she talks and she's so sweet and they're so in love!! It kills me! But we're really excited to teach them and we're hoping to give them baptismal dates tomorrow! We also started teaching this girl named Kathy! She's 19 and she's so cute! And she also GOLDEN! She just accepts the gospel and she KNOWS it's true and she just keeps saying how grateful she is that we found her and she wants to come to church so so bad but the problem is, she's living here in Quezon City because she works for this rich family and her boss is super strict. They only 1 day off a month! And so she can't even come to church either! We're not sure what to do! Soooo again, PRAY! Pray that we'll be able to find some way to keep teaching her and that she'll find some way to get to church! 

 Princess Saberon. A cute baby in the ward!

On Sunday, I finished the Book of Mormon!! I started it over when I went into the MTC and I finished it! I LOVE the Book of Mormon so so much! It made me sad that I had to end! But it's okay because I can start again! I will never tire of reading it! It takes on new meaning as a missionary! And I wish I would have truly STUDIED it more before I left! But I am so grateful for the time that I have each morning to study for an hour! It's my favorite part of the day! I love it!

Yesterday we went on splits with the Sister Trainer Leaders and it was pretty fun! Sister Jones went with her trainer Sister Sabiano and I went with Sister Harston! (Mom don't be mad....I forgot to take pictures......SORRY! LOVE YOU!) I was just a tad bit nervous because I had to lead my area but luckily, I was going to the easiest part and the part I knew the best! So it wasn't that bad! But it was cool to work with her! She's been out for a year and she's really really good at Tagalog. But she's so sweet and it was nice to work with her! 

My first visit to the Manila Philippines Temple!

My "Dad" & "Mom" in the mission.

My District at the Manila Temple.

And today! We got to go to the temple! It was exciting! The Manila temple is really small and very simple but it was so peaceful and so CLEAN! Which is definitely something the rest of the Philippines is NOT! So that was wonderful! We got up at 5:00 am and got ready and left the house at 6:00 am and it's a 15 minute drive to the temple! Then we just waited outside the temple and took pictures until we got ready and we were in the 8:00 session! I miss going to the temple so much! It's hard to go from going every single week to once every 6 weeks but I know that I am so lucky that we can go at all! It's a huge blessing! I love the temple with all my heart and I very much miss the St. George temple and going with mom and dad. It's okay though! Just know that I will be dragging you there with me very often when I get home! 

The Manila Temple this morning!

After the temple, our zone went to this mall called Landmark and it smelled like Christmas!!! And there were Christmas trees and other Christmas decorations and it was wonderful! And our whole zone ate at Taco Bell! It was lovely! There's an Elder in our zone that's ending his mission and he gets to go home next Wednesday and everyone was so jealous of him! But he had to miss THREE Halloweens because the transfer just happened to roll over two week from when he came on his mission!! I can't even imagine missing three Halloweens!! That's awful! I'm missing two Thanksgivings and two Christmases but only one Mother's Day, one Easter, and one 4th of July! And one birthday! So that's a relief!

Quezon City South Zone

Anyway, it was a good week! Thank you all for writing me and for sending all the pictures! Molly's cage looks AMAZING!!!!!! I love it and I am so happy for her! I miss my little puppy! Give her some love from me! I love you all so much! I get so much strength from you! It's hard being away from you but I know that it's only for short time and I know that it's for a great cause! It doesn't even seem real that I'm actually on a mission already! I want you all to know that I know that this is the true church restored on the earth today and that it was restored by the prophet Joseph Smith! I know that the Book of Mormon is true!! It is the most wonderful book in the world! I know that the Plan of Salvation is REAL! Heavenly Father loves us all so much and wants nothing more than for us to return to him! I'm grateful for this gospel and I'm grateful to be a missionary and that I have the opportunity to share it with the people here in the Philippines!! I love and miss you all SO SO much!! Have a great week!! LOVE YOU!!

Love, Sister Andersen

P.S. HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! EAT A LOT OF CANDY FOR ME AND WATCH A FUN MOVIE AND GO TRICK OR TREATING AND EVERYONE DRESS UP AND HAVE FUN AND EAT MORE CANDY!!!

Monday, October 21, 2013~Week 10
Quezon City; 12:43 PM Mon (PH); 10:43 PM Sun (US)

Hello my beautiful family!! First off, just thought I'd let you know that the dearelders that you sent a while go in September, I just got them last Tuesday! So they take a while to get here! But thanks SO much mom and dad for those letters. It's so so nice to get mail! 

Okay so last Monday was my 2 month mark as we all know and so after emailing time, we were on our way back home but Sister Jones had to stop at this little store to pick something up and when I went inside guess what I found?? A HERSHEY BAR!! I was completely overcome with joy! It was 43.7 pesos which is basically a dollar in America and it was worth every peso! So I got that to celebrate my two month mark!

My Hershey bar! Super excited about it!

So we went home and we decided to watch Legacy! We're allowed to watch those kind of movies on p-day if we want! But it was really really fun because I popped some popcorn for us all on the stove and had my little Hershey bar and we watched Legacy and wrote letters! And then watched it again and wrote more letters. Because it's actually a pretty short movie and we still had a while before p-day ended and we wanted to write more letters! So obviously we had to watch it again! It's as close to a love story that we will get on our whole missions so it's probably going to be my favorite movie. Anyway, I wrote letters to Nick, Jake, Josh, and Aaron. They're all in the same envelope though and I sent it last Tuesday! So it will get there in a couple weeks! And I would just like to add the weather was splendid on Monday! It wasn't even that humid! It felt so nice!

Popcorn and Chocolate!

On Tuesday it rained SO HARD! The streets by our house were started to flood and we had to walk to PEC Meeting at the church house!  They said that the intense rain was an effect from the earthquake in Cebu! But that's the only effect that we felt! Thanks to everyone for asking about me and caring though! I'm perfectly safe though! It was so funny though because I was wearing this little plastic rain poncho and had my umbrella so I stayed pretty dry!

Us at the church in the rain!
 I pulled my skirt up to be a dress for the walk home!

 Except for the part of my skirt that wasn't covered by the poncho! I may as well have walked straight into a lake! It was SOAKED!!! I got to the church I literally was ringing my skirt out! It was so funny! So the next day, because it was raining hard again, I got inventive with my skirt to make it shorter so the bottom part wouldn't get drenched! I'll send a picture!

My creative way of shortening the skirt...rolling it up and belting it.

On Wednesday, I visited America. Okay obviously not for real but we were on our way to part of our area and neither of us had eaten lunch and we wouldn't be back at our house until 8:30 or 9:00 so we just walked into a grocery store to pick up a snack and they had so much American food! It's now my very favorite store in the world! The American stuff is super super expensive but it was so fun to just see it and hold it! They had stuff like Ragu sauce and Spaghettios and whipped cream and Honey Comb! It was amazing! So we had that little adventure and then we went to teach this little family! The Fuertes family! I think I talked about them last week but I don't remember. But their names are Anna Mae and Ruben! And they are both so smart! They follow through on all the commitments we give them and they understand everything! We asked them in the previous lesson to pray about Joseph Smith and read a little bit from the Book of Mormon and to pray about it and when we returned this time! They had! And they both said that they knew it was true! And so this time we taught them more about the Book of Mormon and the Holy Ghost and gave them Alma 7 to read and they said they would do and we left! But it was the BEST thing in the world because we passed their little home on the way back from our area and we looked over and we saw Ruben hunched over the Book of Mormon with a flashlight reading it! IT WAS SERIOUSLY THE MOST PERFECT MOMENT IN THE WORLD AND I WISH I COULD HAVE TAKEN A PICTURE OF IT!! It was beautiful!! Haha and then also, I had a HannsBoNanns moment earlier that day. So in the ward, we don't really have a lot of members that work with us and so when we do have someone that wants to work with us, it's really really good! And someone had texted us that morning and asked if we had anyone working with us and Sister Jones told me to text back, "Wala po." Which means like none. And I accidentally typed, "Walo po." Which means EIGHT! I told her we had eight people working with us! And we didn't even catch it until later that night!! It was so sad! I felt awful!! Bahhhh.

Thursday we had BEAUTIFUL weather!! And we street contacted someone named Pio and he spoke amazing English! So we taught him the whole first lesson in English! It was so fun! Life is so much easier in English. That's all I have to say. Tagalog is fun and I'm trying so hard to learn it! But life is just better in English. I LOVE AMERICA.

Friday was a big day for me! We taught the Fuertes family again but this time we also taught another sibling named Damdam! Anyway, we taught the first half of the Plan of Salvation and at the end of the lesson, I, yes I, Hannah Lynne Andersen, extended them the baptismal invitation in Tagalog! I was so darn proud of myself! And Ruben and Damdam accepted!! Anna Mae left right before the end of the lesson because her baby was acting up but we're planning on giving her the invitation next time! I'm so excited for them! They're just so cute and happy and I love them!! But yeah! Ruben and Damdam have a baptismal date set for November 23! So please pray that they will be prepared by then! And that we can get them to come to church 4 times in a row!! After that, we taught a brand new investigator that we were just talking to when we were passing these little shops! We taught him the entire first lesson and he's so golden! He just kept saying how he's been searching for the true church his whole life and how he's gone to four or five different churches over the course of his life and he feels like maybe this could be the one! We're super excited about him! The Lord is blessing us with so many new people to teach which is amazing because our teaching pool has been really really low lately! So we are definitely being blessed right now!

Saturday was kind of fun because we got to do something different! The young men and young women from the stake are doing a road show and we got to go help make and paint little props! It was fun and they're so cute! Our ward is doing something from Mulan! I'm not sure what the heck the theme of the road show is but I'm excited to see it! If I don't get transferred! It's at the end of November! After that, we took one of our investigators to the Family History Center and helped her start her family tree and hopefully got her excited about doing work for her family! I think she wants to be baptized but her mom won't let her come to church. Her older brother was baptized about two years ago but he's not allowed to come to church either. So pray that their mom's heart will be softened! 

Sunday was good! We went half an hour over in sacrament meeting because one of the talks was so long and he was speaking very very slowly! So that was kind of funny. But other than that, it was a pretty normal Sunday. 

TODAY!

This morning, I had a very HannsBoNanns moment. So the stairs that lead up to our bedroom are rather steep and the steps are really quite small and I tend to go down them kind of fast and this morning I was half way down the stairs and of course, I fell. But it was a pretty bad fall! Haha my ankle gave out from underneath me and so I started to fall to the side but I kind of all of a sudden was falling backwards and I landed right on my tush. SO HARD. It hurt my back pretty bad actually. Like I think my spine got crunched a little bit. But in that process, I ended up hitting my other ankle, bending both of my wrists in funky positions, hitting my elbow, and bruising the back of my leg. It's so nice to know that I'm still the same person whether I'm in America or the Philippines. Isn't it comforting to know that I won't be that different when I get home?? You're all very very welcome. (Yes dad, I know, Angel's Landing!!)

Anyway, it was a pretty good week and hopefully this week will be even better! I'm finally starting to become comfortable with the area and I'm opening up a little bit more in the lessons which is good! My Tagalog is still very very beginner but it's getting better and I can understand people pretty well! Thank you all for your prayers and love and letters! I love hearing from all of you! It makes my week so much better!! It's crazy to think that on Friday, I will have been in the Philippines for a month! Pray for all our investigators and less actives and for me! I need all the help I can get over here! You're all the best! Thanks for everything!! I LOVE YOU ALL SO SO MUCH!! MAHAL KITA!!

Love, Sister Andersen

Monday, October 14, 2013~Week 9
Quezon City; 12:12 PM Mon (PH); 10:12 PM Sun (US)

Hello family!! Guess what?? Today is my two month mark of my mission!! Whaaaaaat? I feel like missions are just weird time warps because I feel like I've been on a mission for FOREVER! But then I also look back and it's like, woah. That went by fast. Like when you're in the moment, it feels like an eternity. But then you look back at last General Conference or being dropped off at the MTC and you think, where did the time go? I don't know. It's really weird.

TODAY!

So this past week actually went by pretty fast because I had so many meetings!! I'll tell you all about them and such a little later in the letter but right now I have to tell you all the most important thing that happened last Monday. I HAD TACO BELL! We went to a mall (not the Mall of Asia because that's in Manila) and they had Taco Bell there and I almost cried tears of joy! It was so American and beautiful and I think I want to have that every single time that I go to the mall! AND as we were walking out! I saw that they had a Krispy Kreme!! Like what the heck?! I know I can't eat it but it made my heart so happy to see it! It was probably the happiest day of my life. So that was Monday and it was just really nice to be out and kind of relax. P-days are inspired. Missionaries definitely need a little time to just chill. And talk to their families. And friends. It recharges you for the week! I love it!

Me in front of the mosquito net kingdom!

Me inside the mosquito net kingdom!

And then on Tuesday we had Zone Training and we were taught by our District Leaders, Zone Leaders, and Sister Training Leaders! It was really good! But on Tuesday I started getting kind of sick. Just like a cold and cough and such and I was really really low on energy. So it was nice to be in the air conditioning for the first part of the day. After that, we went to our area and it was up in the mountain and it was so exhausting because I had no energy and it was unreasonably hot that day and we literally walked ALL OVER THAT MOUNTAIN AND NO ONE WAS HOME! It was insane! We ended up only being able to teach two less actives but at least we got that! One of them, J., said that he wanted to make us Python Adobo!!! He shared with us how he would just hang the python up after he killed it, peel the skin off, and then chop it up and cook it! I was like ummmm thanks but no thanks. I'm actually very frightened that he's going to make it and I'm going to have eat it and die. Yeahhhhh. But then after that, we went shopping for groceries and when we came out of the store, it was POURING! Harder than I had yet experienced here in the Philippines! It was so intense! And the groceries are put in these super thin, weak paper bags that if they get wet, they are just toast! And it was seriously pouring!! So we threw up our umbrellas and started for home and by the time we got to our street, we were SOAKED!! Hahaha and then we realized that our bags were ripping and the things we had bought were falling out from the bottom of the bags!! So we were trying too pick things up in the middle of the road and trying to stay dry and trying not to drop anything else and it was probably quite a sight to see!! I was laughing SO hard because there was absolutely nothing going right and I ended up just dropping my umbrella, running to pick everything up, grabbing my umbrella again and running to the door! I was such a mess and so was my companion and it was hilarious!! It was the first time I'd really let go and laughed like that since I've been in the Philippines so I'm so grateful for that ridiculous rain!! 

Wednesday was a good day because we got four new investigators!! I'm really excited about one of them! His name is R. and he's 14 years old and he's the happiest person I've seen here in the Philippines!! He's just always smiling and he wants to do everything we ask him to do! Please pray for him and his family! They need to come to church! Actually, please just pray that our investigators and less actives will come to church in general! That is our biggest problem here. Nobody comes to church because they live in the mountain and it's far away and kind of expensive for them because they have no money! So pray that the Lord will help them find a way to come to church!

Thursday we had Zone Interviews and that was good! We were taught by the APs and the Sister Training Leaders and the Zone Leaders! And we were interviewed by President and everything was swell! It lasted for 7 hours though! From 1:00-7:00 and then we had a dinner appointment and it was all really good food but we had to walk home and it took us an hour and so we were really tired when we got home! And that's all that happened on Thursday. But Sister Revillo said something that made me laugh! You have to imagine her saying it in her cute little Filipino accent! She said, "Do you know why the men have the priesthood? So they can reach the level of the woman. Cause you see without the priesthood  we are just so much better than them! That's why they have the priesthood!" What a grand lady.

Friday we had a Trainer and Trainee Meeting with the President and I got to see Sister Sims!!! It was so good to see her again! I've missed her so much!! We saw each other and we both just kind of got this look on our faces that said, "Oh my word I've missed you and this is kind of hard and I'm so happy you're alive!" And then we just hugged and she literally did say, "You're alive!!!" Hahaha but it was so good to talk to her and be with her for a few hours! And we got to see the other missionaries who flew over with us! Elder Houston (my Zupas buddy) and his MTC companion Elder Starr! It was so fun! They're all doing so good!! I'll send a picture of us later! Then after that we had weekly planning and that always takes like 5 hours. Literally. So yeah. We did that. And that was... fun. No it's actually not that fun but it's very necessary and so we do it!

Reunited and it feels so good!

And then I FINALLY got to see General Conference!!! It was soooooooooo good!! I LOVED all the talks so so SO much and am so grateful for them!! It seriously was the fastest conference has EVER gone in my life though!! But some of my favorite talks were Elder Bednar's about tithing! I loved it! And President Uchtdorf's about "Come! Join with us!" So good! Elder Packer is a sweetheart and I love his cute little voice. Elder Holland's made me cry! It was SOOOO good! I loved how at the end he said that "broken minds can be healed just as broken hearts and broken bones can be healed." And how he said that those who had these kind of problems would stand there in the resurrection with "breathtaking perfection " It was just so good!! President Eyering's was so good too! The "You were supposed to remember!" story made me laugh and I thought about what a kick dad would have gotten out of that one! Haha it just seems like something he would laugh at! Elder Scott is a gentle giant and I love how he pleaded with us all with such tenderness and care to use the Atonement! President Monson's made me cry too. He loves his wife so so much! It was all so wonderful and I can't wait until they give us the Ensign so I can go back and read it all again!! I'm so grateful for the prophet and all the apostles and all the other people who were called to speak! It was magnificent!!

Squished inside of a tricycle on Saturday! The other one is Sister Hepworth!
She's a part of the other companionship in our house!  It's like a motorcycle with a side car.
 They are so tiny and they try to fit in as many people as they can!
Her comp is riding on the back of the motorcycle!

Anyway! Last week was crazy busy and this week will be back to normal! We scheduled a lot of time for tracking so pray that we'll be guided by the spirit to the people whose hearts are ready to receive the gospel! 

I am so grateful for all of you! I pray for you all by name every single morning and every single night and I hope that you can feel my love and my prayers for you! I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father gave me the family that I'm in! You are all so wonderful and I miss you so much but I know that I'm where I'm supposed to be and yes it's hard being away from you but with the help of the Lord, I grow stronger every day and every day I realize more and more how important the work that I'm doing is. I know that I have a responsibility to share the gospel with these people and I know that I can and will touch the lives of many as long as I always rely on the Lord and trust in Him! Thank you for your support and prayers and love!! PINAKA MAHAL KITA!!!!

Love, Sister Andersen

Monday, October 7, 2013~Week 8
Quezon City;12:35 PM Mon (PH); 10:35 PM Sun (US)

Heyyyyyyy fam bam! First of all, I'm so so SO happy that you had such a great birthday mom!! I was praying so hard that you would! I thought about you the whole day!!!  I wore your favorite skirt and shirt and had my favorite meal, spaghetti, for lunch and just kept wishing you a happy birthday all day long!! I'm so glad that you got your gift and that you liked it!! 

A favorite outfit for mom!

Eating my favorite gluten-free spaghetti in honor of Mom!

  And what a BEAUTIFUL cake!! I want you to know that when I get home, I am going to make you the BEST Halloween Birthday cake in the world!! So be excited!!! And I was looking forward ALL WEEK to our chocolate birthday date! They don't have Hershey's here but I got the most American Chocolate I could find and had that!  Sunday was Fast Sunday and so I started fasting after lunch Saturday so that I could break my fast at 11:00 the next morning for our date!! 

Best chocolate I could find for our date.

It was so fun! And I could just imagine you eating it and letting every piece melt in your mouth and then after we ate it, giving each other a big squeeze and a nice sticky, chocolate kiss on the cheek! Thanks for the date mama! It was so fun to feel so close to you! I LOVE YOU!!

This week has been a little crazy! After I emailed everyone last week, I went home and was able to write hand written letters to Mom, Dad, Alena, Janessa, Morgan, and Jannie! But I promise to write everyone else that I didn't have time for as often as I can! Including my brothers! There's just hardly any time! And I can only send mail every two weeks when they do a mail run so it's always going to take a long time to get it but they will come!! Anyway, Tuesday we had district meeting and that was nice because there's an Elder from my zone in the MTC that's in my district now and it was nice to see a familiar face! And! I met Elder Phelps!! Brock Johnson's cousin that everyone kept telling me to find! He's in my zone! So it was fun to talk to him about the people we knew from St. George and he's actually really good friends with my MTC district leader Elder Hunsaker! So we talked about that and it was just good for the soul! And then we all went out to eat at this place and I had pansit which is basically just rice noodles with some lettuce and carrots and stuff. It was good! And gluten free! So yeah Tuesday was good!

Eating pansit at Mang Inasal after district meeting!  Dessert is called halo halo.

And then on Wednesday we had MTC exchanges which is where the missionaries from the Manila MTC come out with the missionaries for a few hours. They get to do it twice! How nice and helpful that would have been!! Those lucky ducks! But it was really good and the sister that we went out with is from Tonga! She's very very nice! She's going to the Naga Mission! I hope she has fun!

On Thursday, we went to a dinner appointment with the other Sisters to a fairly wealthy member's house and the food was really good! My favorite part though was the chocolate covered blueberries BECAUSE they were American! They have a place in Manila that's basically a Costco and that's where she got them from! I miss Costco!!!!

View from Kainig 1 

On Friday, I saw my very first rat and I almost died. I HATE RATS! We were in Daang-Tubo teaching a recent convert and it just crawled right up by the window and it's huge tail just sat there on the wall and then it scurried away and it was disgusting and I could go my whole entire life without seeing another one and be perfectly fine! I would definitely be more than fine actually. I hate rats. EW.

On Saturday night, we had an experience that I never wish to have again! So we feel asleep with the light on that night for some reason and then at like 12:30 in the morning I wake up because Sister Jones was kind of squealing and was out of bed and I asked her what was wrong and she said that there had been a cockroach CRAWLING ON HER ARM!!! I was like what?! And then as I start to look around at the floor I realize that there are TWO more crawling around and then it was just a little bit of frenzy because I started pointing at the cockroaches and she grabbed her flip flops and hit them and then I screamed because there was one climbing up the wall and she runs across the room and smashes that one and then I look down and the other two that she had smashed were still trying to crawl and I yell, "They're still alive!! They're still flipping alive!!" And so runs back over and starts pounding on them and then I yell that one just came in through the window and so runs over and smashes that one too and then she just sat there repeatedly hitting all the nasty little creatures until we were sure they were dead! So in total, there were FOUR extremely large cockroaches in our room! IT WAS SO DISGUSTING!! Yep. We shut all the windows as tight as we could and covered up our entire bodies as best we could with our sheets and tried to get some sleep after that but just ew. So that was an adventure of sorts. Could have lived without it but it happened anyway.

The spider that was a little tiny bit smaller than the
size of my palm that was outside our house last night!
Our neighbors captured it for us!! It was so funny! 

Sunday I had my chocolate date with Mom, (best part of the day and week), and then we had church and then after that we had the Relief Society Broadcast and it was fabulous! I loved it!! It was fun to look into the choir and see people that I knew! And who were coming to the Philippines!! Super super fun! And President Monson looks so skinny! It makes me sad!! But he's just so cute and I am so grateful that we have a living prophet on the earth today!! What a blessing!

TODAY!!!!!!!!!! 

So it's been a busy week and this next week is going to be even busier! But I am so so SO grateful for so many things! I am grateful for the power and strength that I get from the Lord every day! I am so grateful for the hour of personal study that I get every day! It's my favorite part of the day because it starts the day of work and allows me to just focus on the work rather than think about home! I devour the Book of Mormon! I never really appreciated the Book of Mormon so much until I came on my mission! It takes on new meaning and brings such peace and comfort and joy! I love reading it!! President Monson said during the RS Broadcast that he "never tires of reading it" and I don't think I ever will either! I'm excited to finish the Book of Mormon so I can start reading it again! President Bednar suggested that we could take a new copy of the Book of Mormon every single time we start reading it again and write a question in the front and go through and highlight everything that pertains to the question you have. He said that you will get something new out of the Book of Mormon every single time. Before I left the MTC I bought a Book of Mormon and I'm going to do that but I'm just going to do it in different colors instead of different books! I'm super excited!! I love the Book of Mormon and I love this gospel and being a missionary is hard but it's also so worth it! It's hard to be away from family and friends and home and it sometimes seems like an eternity until you'll be able to see them again but I am so grateful for the time I have to serve the Lord. This is the only time in my life that I'll be able to dedicate every single hour of every single day to the Lord. And in the long run, it doesn't seem that long compared to the rest of my life. So I just need to suck up my homesickness and get to work!! Thank you so much for all of your prayers and love and support! I feel it every single day!! I miss you all so SO much!! Love you!! Only 11 weeks until I get to skype you!! Wooo hooo!! Mahal kita!!

Love, Sister Andersen!

(Below I have included extra posts from our extra time we had online....)

P.S. I completely jinxed myself with the bug bites because I am now being eaten alive!!!

P.P.S. There's an old lady here that we teach and she's a less active member. Her name is Nanay C. (Nanay means grandma) and she talks and laughs EXACTLY like the old blind lady on the Princess and the Frog!! It's so funny! And the recent convert that I talked about, she's literally a Filipino Barbie! I kid you not!!

P.P.P.S. Little did I know when I sent my umbrella home that it was rainy season here. Yep. Got an umbrella. (Still laughing about this one!  I sent her a news report on a typhoon right before she left the MTC! Live and learn.)  :)

(I asked her about mosquito nets.  I used one on my mission.  Drapes above/over the bed and tucks under the mattress. And I inquired about bug spray.) 

 We bought nets today!! I can't wait to put mine up!! Hahaha! Ummm sprays don't work on the cockroaches here. They don't die. OH and I get to go the Mall of Asia today!! They have Wendy's and Taco Bell there!! I'm STOKED!!

 (A favor.  She would love if you'd respond.  Feel free to email answers to me to forward as one, if you feel so inclined, or just send to her on your own if you prefer. Thx.)

 Also, ask everyone what their favorite Book of Mormon character is, or their favorite Book of Mormon story, or their favorite prophet!! And then tell me next week!! Thanks!!

Last week she mentioned cold showers, so I asked her if she has tried a "bucket" shower....heating water and mixing it with cold; also a reference to last week on oatmeal)

Haha okay I'll let you know. Right now I don't mind that it's cold because I'm always so hot!! But I'm sure I'll do that later on in the mission as I settle in! Haha it's kind of funny because I eat oatmeal every single day here. I love it!! They have brown sugar so although it's not exactly what I eat at home, it's pretty darn close. But it's been a blessing for sure!

(I asked what the colorful dessert was in the noodle lunch picture) Oh yeah!! That's halo halo! It's like a weird ice cream thing that has ice cream and then kind of snow cone and then fruit stuff and gelatin stuff and other....stuff! Haha it was kind of weird but pretty good!!

(A happy note:)  Just to let you know, the homesickness is getting better! Thank you for your prayers! Continue to pray for that though! And the language! Thank you for EVERYTHING mom!

(Told her I'd 'dearelder' missionary friends letters to her....)  They said that Dear Elders sometimes take longer than regular letters! Just to let you know! But I'm SO grateful for anything!!  (dearelder.com is free: just choose Philippines Quezon City Mission and submit it by Sunday midnight for it to go through the pouch service.)

Here is her mailing address written more clearly: 

Sister Hannah Lynne Andersen

Philippines Quezon City Mission

Aurora Blvd. Corner

J.P. Rizal St. Project 4

Cubao 1109, Quezon City, Metro Manila

PHILIPPINES