Jaclyn's Birthday!

This is me on my birthday.  My awesome kabahay's (housemates) bought cassava
cake for me! ...  its really yummy and we had fun.

May 20, 2013

Dear Family (and friends)

Thanks for all the wonderful birthday wishes and love!  :) Since I know you're all wondering... Heavenly Father gave me a wonderful birthday. :)  It was a really happy, stress free day.  We had people show up to church that we weren't expecting to show up! :)  So exciting.  I got to enjoy the air con at church and it was ward council mtg so we got cookies! :)  And then when we got home that night my wonderful housemates had bought cassava cake.  I love cassava cake and they knew it.  We have been looking for a place to buy it because it is kind of hard to find, but they found it and it was delicious.  It is nothing like cake in the states. It is a gelatin type consistency but super good. :)  So my birthday was wonderful. 

At a service project we did this morning with the youth.
The thing I am holding is a walis ting ting.
It is the broom that everyone here uses for outdoor.
Today we raked up leaves with it.
(Trees here are always green but they still lose their leaves)

Am I tired?  So when we come home at night I'm usually pretty thirsty, and even if not, the cold water that I put in the fridge before we leave for the day is so nice that I usually drink a lot.  Plus I have had a cold so I have been drinking a lot to get over it. So other than waking up once in the night around 2am to use the bathroom, I sleep like a rock. :) We are all pretty tired every night but it is a good feeling to come home after working all day.  Most days we aren't too tired but you always have those couple of days when for no reason you are extra sleepy all day and that is hard because it is actually kind of easy to fall asleep during lessons sometimes!  Nako! But that is an unusual problem thankfully. :)

This week was really great.  We had some new ward missionaries work with us and we had a lot of fun. We also had some great lessons.  It is such a blessing to be able to feel God's love for His children.  You sit there and it's just like you know how much Heavenly Father wants to help them... and you know He will but the person has to make the choice to open the door to Him first.  So we are trying to help some people open the door. :)

Plan of Salvation (Plano ng Kaligtasan) sa Tagalog.  and my messy desk.
Because pride is hard to come by and my desk is "messy"
 (everything is neatly piled) so you can see that not much has changed. :)

Something mom said about studying the scriptures made me think of a conversation I had with Sister Rivero this week.  She said her mom used to tell them stories about signs of the second coming and about how the moon will turn to blood and the stars will fall from the sky.  Well, I don't know exactly how it will work but she talked about how dark it will be.  And immediately my mind went to scripture scouts and how at Christ's death, in America, everything went dark and they couldn't have light. ( I think Boo said the flashlight batteries died and the matches wouldnt light) But yea, they said even fire couldn't give light. And Sister R said that her mom said, " yes so you have to study the scriptures now cause someday you may not have them."  I thought about it.  What if there was a time when we had no light and we weren't able to read to scriptures.  And it was at a time when the scriptures were all being fulfilled and we would want the comfort and guidance the words bring.  Then I thought about how here on the mission like Josh said-- sometimes you think in scriptural language or scriptures come to mind a lot.  It just made me think about how important it is to really study the scriptures so we can have them written in our hearts and have them in our mind for when we need them - for when we can't reach for them but our hearts yearn for them. Made me appreciate scripture study time more and realize how important it is.  So that when we are out living hectic lives and suddenly we need a boost we can rely on the knowledge we built and gained through scripture study that morning even though we are miles away from our scriptures. (obviously for after the mission since my scriptures are pretty literally attached to my hip. haha)

I love you all so much and hope you have a wonderful week.  Don't skip daily scripture study.  Enjoy every moment (or at least most moments! haha)

Love

Sister Hamm