(sorry it has been forever since we updated Rachel's blog. We will get back on it promise! here is her most recent letter) 

Nah the typhoon did squat here. just windy. noooo problema. haha soooo um yeah. thanks mom. that's like actually just my problem. I have half a bajillion people that want to be baptize and they all live 30 pesos worth out side of town. haha. yeah. what am I complaining about. 

This week I learned that ALL missionaries. no matter how obedient or diligent or whatever aren't always going to baptize. *cough* laoag *cough* dead area... sorta. Man I worked HARD there. but then I come here and they're all yeah I want to go to church. yeah I want to be baptized on your birthday. pffft ok! We can arrange that. They don't even know me. These people are truly converted to the gospel. I didn't do anything. Heavenly Father just gave me a plot to reap like mad for now. YUP so that's what I'm doing. And its all cuz of the members. All of them are friends or family of members. SO YA'LL GET OUT THERE BE BOLD AND TELL YOUR FAMILIES TO REPENT AND BE BAPTIZED. then you'll see a bunch of happy missionaries like me *insert cheesey smiling face* at your house all the time. Want to know what else??? IVE GOT AN EXTRA HALF HOUR TO EMAIL. yeeeesssss yeessssss wen (yes) si (yes)

pichas

so yeah. this place is a whole tub of fun. Every few days we go to solsona. and we pass by these carribou (carry-bow) their names are bessie and tess. or at least they should be. Also every morning I wake up to.... (cuz we live in the parkinglot of a school and the guard likes to pump his music) ONE... you're like a dream come truuuuue TWO just want to be with youuuuu THREE I just want you to see that you're the onllllyyy one for meeee FOUR! ... and on and on.
 well good morning to you too! hahaha

yeah. ;hmmm what else. they call me sister barbie? haha one of the high couselmans daughters hath appointed that name to me. Yes I'm tall white and have blue eyes. I suppose you may call me sister barbie.  sorry no super cool stories this week but here's some picture. I'm going to go out and try to baptize a nation now;) with the Lords help. MAN  I am SO lucky. I love this work. I love the Lord. and I LOOOOOVVVVEEE YOU ALL. have an awesome thanksgiving!!!! whenever that is... 

-sister hansen

19 going on Jeffery Holland.

(sorry every body I am behind on the post but here is her most recent one)

Ok... hmmm ha what I typically eat... sandwiches. 

I know exciting eh? ha actually I eat pancit sometimes, and noodles. Rice is also big, it is also my enemy... I shall not conform to popular beliefs.  RESIST. Ha um I had sesame noodles this week. lots of pancit. sometimes pancakes :) yesss they still have pancakes. Basically food you can cook without a microwave or oven. Lots of veggies. Sometimes I like egg plant and egg, tuna and egg over rice is good. I'll just cook for you like chef tony when I get back :) 

Weather... uh rainy. We've got mountains near by. The real storms are up north in like sanchez maria. Lets pray I go there :) really I am. I want to see it STORM. 

Ha dad that made me laugh about moses and abraham because most people here haven't heard of them either. If they have its like whoa! ang galing po kayo! (you're so smart!) then they throw out a name like Isaiah and its like watch out here comes heart failure. 

OOOOK so you would not believe this week. FIRST: DID YOU SEE CONFERENCE (pardon the delayed reaction but we just saw it yesterday) MAN ARE THEY CALLED OF GOD OR WHAT??? wow. I went around asking what was everyone's favorite was and they were all different for everyone. 

Revelation is real. prayers are answered... speaking of... ha so our some leader in our ward are basically inactive. 2 of them haven't been in months. both rm's. So this weeks letter is entitled 19 going on Jeffery Holland. 

that's right. I went and taught them. I was praying like you would not believe. I said Heavenly Father. I don't know how to call out a high up leader. Help me. I kid you not words just come to you. All those scriptures about your mouth being filled are true. You just have to start talking and have the confidence in the things you testify. God takes over.

 I basically told them they've been breaking the law of the Sabbath  I know you need a job. but you need salvation more. I said "who's will do you value more the lords or your bosses" k. I've never been so bold; but it was the way they reacted that was the craziest. 

The one was like yeah... you're right. I'm going to start looking for a new job. The other got MAJORLY DEFENSIVE. I was like whoa. chiiiiilll duuuuude. 

Basically I offended one of them. Yup. I was freaking out so I texted president. He said "if he doesn't get offended he'll just be grateful that your reminded him. Crying repentance is just like giving a bitter pill to someone who is sick and take the bitter pill to be healed" so. yup. 

I hope he doesn't hate me but its like in mosiah 13. at the beginning. read it. Abinadi. He's the former Jeffery R. Holland. umm.. 

What else. I had another investigator ask if I had a boy friend (me naievely replying to that with) no... then he goes can I apply? (sound familiar barb ;) it resulted much the same way though) I was all uhh... no. and then a kid from the ymca here texted me saying he missed me. you're a dork. I've met you once. and you bible bashed with me. go. away. 

ha ok miracle for the week. so I hit 6 months and with it this mile stone. I. Love. This. Work. SOOOO SO MUCH. but I've always prayed to be transferred. I'm just thinking no one wants to be baptized, the leaders are all trunky and its struggle town. But for the first time this week I prayed... to stay. I beeeegggggeeed heavenly father to let me stay. I love this ward with all my heart. It's not about the baptisms now.

siyempre I want baptisms. but no its about blooming where you're planted (a quote from April conference). There once was a lady who was wondering why her grand son had gone off the deep end while she worked so hard to be good. Heavenly Father said I gave him to you because I knew you'd love him no matter what he did. Bring on the struggle. 

NO body knows this area like me and I want to stay and help them. there is so much potential. Heavenly Father is so great he let me be part of the change. DAAAAAHHHH THIS WORK IS SOOOOO COOOL!!!!! talaga. 

Funny story last night an investigator gave us pepsi. I don't drink pepsi so I'm like sister mcphie you drink it under my breath. so she starts downing hers while I stall the conversation talking about Avril Levine. She was on a poster on their wall. yeeeaah. she totally noticed I slipped her my pepsi. whatevs. not smooth. itsss oooh k! love you all. mom 3 nephi 18:32. keep up the work and your uphill climb. I love you all! I want to serve forever. No lie. this work is amazing. 

ciao!

hmmm... well. we have an investigator with 4 dogs?

Ha so this week wasn't soooo exciting. Not that the other ones were either but at least typhoid and dengue make for a good story. 

We had zone conference and I saw like 50 bajillion missionaries. including Sister Gadiano, Sister Storey, and Sister Porter again. soooo good. I love them. oh. ha k well since I'm sure you're DYING to know I'll just let you know what I did with my hair.

 I got it rebonded monday. Wouldn't recommend it in America. Its probably like half a bazillion dollars there. or at least over 100. but its pretty much a chemical straighten. Its suuuper convenient. 

So our star investigator who started avoiding us for like 3 weeks told us its not her time and pretty much not to come back. um. ok. blow off salvation. It's not your time?? This is eternity we're talking about MAKE TIME. Silly siya. So I hate it when investigators go former. but we found some new ones. 

One is named Maria. She has 4 dogs. Pretty sure they'd eat me if they weren't tied up and behind a fense. ha every time we go over its like where's our welcoming committee? "tao po! (what you say to knock doors)" BARK BARK BARK. Oh there you are. Seriously they go berzerk. but she is progressing good. And her son too. He's all how did Christ perform the atonement? Do you want me to try to get all deep in tagalog cuz I'm pretty sure it'd be ugly. but I tried anyway.

 This whole work is a miracle. Man I just want to be the boldest most outgoing missionary ever but sometimes satan is all. no. Don't talk to that person you just got a prompting to talk to. Be quiet satan. you're dumb. I've got work to do. and souls to save. 

Oh there was a typhoon. Thought you should know. This wasn't a drizzle. This was a rain flying directly horizontal so bad its like a white out... but for rain sorta deal. so we stayed in. we went to the eddingtons and google mapped our house. Ah. I miss you all. but you all are probably wondering. Why is she talking about the weather. isn't that what people talk about when there's nothing else? Well that's about where my small talking skills are right now so I'm going with it. 

I still love pinoys more then anything. Every day brings new adventures and challenges. So you face them. Hmmm... a good scripture for this week is in Jacob 6. about weaknesses. really we all just need to be humbler. Like the savior. True fact. weaknesses are a blessing because they give us something to work on. When you've got no goals or anything to work for you're digressing. Weaknesses are opportunities and they rock. So do you all. Party on!

-love sister hansen 

ha... and i thought it was chikungunya

yeahhhh..... um. Don't freak out. Cuz im still alive. I decided this last week. chikungunya? pffft llllaaaaaaammmmmmmmmmmeeeeeeeeeee.... lets go the whole nine yards. 

So I went and got dengue instead. oh. ha and then that wasn't fun enough apparently, for the hard core Sister Hansen. So I got typhoid fever on top of it. 2 virutally non existant diseases in the US. so I would've been hospitalized for one of them.. but then I had both. So yeah. totally hospitalized. 

Remember when I was like 10 and Hannah went to the hospital and I was jealous. What 10 year old doesn't want a moving bed and tv all day? I mean really. Well its a little different then I imagined. my blood platlet level was so low they were withdrawing my blood every 6 hours. No fear of needles now. thats a plus. and I got stabbed multiple times in my finger tips, and the typhoid started to fill my lungs with water... and it was hard to breathe... and I had a temperature of a 104... and ha.

 Mom and Dad. let me interrupt. k I'm FIIIINNNNNNEEE now. In case your freaking out :) but I'm hard core. Its how I roll. but lets just say it was probably the hardest most painful week of my whole life. I was SO homesick. I was all crying and like all I want in life is high school musical and a hot bath. *sniff sniff* is that to much to ask??? ha but Heavenly Father loves me. As do the other missionaries here and especially my mission president and wife.

 I got like 3 blessings, the one from president said that there were many souls still waiting for me. and of course that I'd recover and all. and I remembered stake presidents setting apart blessing that is all I bless you with protection from everything and it's dog pretty much... (see small print: apparently excludes needles and pain and suffering) but my testimony of the atonement has gone WAY up. Christ loves us all SO so SO so MUCH!!! its seriously unfathomable. 

This gospel is real. and I'm walking and shopping and living it up and pretty much back to normal health again. Party hardy in the pines. Don't worry about me. The lord has my back. I'll go out and baptize some nations now. party on like Donkey Kong  I love and miss you all so much! but I've got work to do

-ciao!

chikungunya. what a lame name

This is the story of how  I died... (tangled quote) so as I lay awake last night i tried to think of clever ways to start this, and thats is all I got. But yeah. Soooo chikungunya... chicken goon yeah!... chicken... birdflu!! DDDEEEAAATTTH!!! that's kinda how things escalate around here. 

So you may be asking yourself. What IS she going off about? Have you heard of dengue? Well this is its counter part evil twin. You get it from mosquitoes. But the best part is... wait for it... ITS NOT CURABLE! yayayaya. ha. no its just a virus so you have to chill and die while you wait for your body to kill it. 

anyway... yeah I got it. Friday night. I've been bed ridden like 3 days. ew. its like fever. check. chills. check. nauseous. check. head ache. check. rash. check. only thing I haven't done yet is vomit. so thats a bonus.

 ha but before you frweak out ( yeah that's totally a typo in freak but I decided that sounded cooler after all) just know my President and Sis Barrientos take good care of us. She's a nurse. And i have 3 of the most motherly missionaries in my appartment. Baby me to the max. Do my wash and make me lay down and make me soup. I seriously feel like such a pansy. I'll just be like will you peel my grapes now? ha joke. I love them all.

I got a blood test at the hospital this morning. She was the most magaling nurse I've ever met. (basically awesome) she found my vein in like 2 second and it didn't ever hurt. Yay for competent nurses. But yeah I'm feeling a little better now. I think im on the up hill swing now.

 but last night. (here comes the spiritual phenomenon) I was seriously done. The previous night I had had a panic attack when I took some medicine on an empty stomach so I was scared to go to sleep and Elder Eddington(senior couple next door) had given me a blessing (along with rice pudding and a liter of spirite... my neighbor is cooler then most of yours. its a fact) but in this blessing he blessed me with some things that I'd pretty much been feeling the exact opposite. So I was like what am I doing?? I'm just dying slowly in the pines. and I just started to cry. pitiful. Pretend it didn't happen though. but then we were saying our prayer before bed. sis mcphie goes who says it. and I said ako (me). and I folded my arms. closed my eyes. and just started BAAALLLLIIINNNNGGGG. It was seriously the most pitiful, desperate, begging, sincere prayer I've ever said in my whole life. I testify that Heavenly Father is REALLY there. and he really listens. 

I don't know if you all remember the talk given my Jeffery R. Holland  he talks about why isn't this(missionary work) easier. and why aren't people just lining up for baptism but then he says: this isn't easy because salvation is not a cheap experience. why should we expect it to be easy when it was never ever easy for Him. and he talks about that when we're struggling the most is when we take a few steps into Gethsemane and that's when we stand with the savior. My testimony grew last night. I know that the savior lived and died for us. He can enable us because he's been there. he knows what we need. I felt comforted after my prayer. not healed. but a little better. This church is true. I'll share more adventures next week. but just know I'm doing good. I'm not writing my last will and testament... yet ;) joke. but I love you all!

-sister hansen

ya'll... this week was fun

(here is the one from this week)

Soooo this week... hmmm... yesterday we had 2 of our investigators come to church. 

First our lovable bible bashing nanay ta(m)bis (we just recently found out there's an m in there) who's real name is Leomella,  who does nothing but read scriptures and pray all day I'm pretty sure and like to go off at least once every visit about the second coming. she's usually right though :) except when she interprets scriptures directly and thinks the true church BUILDING will not be burned in the last days. So her church is made out of stone. Oh nanay. I love you. I really do. She is the most valiant awesome person ever. 

We took her to church and on the way we run into one of our recent converts that has recently decided her job is more important then church. So N.Tabis goes off about how we need to go to church. And in my head I'm like this is why you need to be baptized. She follows the word of wisdom and think modesty means sleeves past your wrists and ankles need to be hidden (uhhh... haha whoops. my skirt is a bit sketchy i guess ;) she reads everything ever given to her. and now... she's moving. Eh. not my favorite. The missionaries of quezon are lucky. 

Then we have another investigator who I see as the future relief society president. She invites everyone within the vicinity to come listen to the word of God and come to church. WHY ARE YOU ALL SO AWESOME??? 

ha quick story about Tabis. So she likes to say praises during prayers so during the prayers at church I hear her start to mumble and im all huh? so its like *mumble mumble mumble* Jesusss *mumble mumble* and I'm like yes. you are so awesome. Sister McPhie's birthday was yesterday and president brought her her own birthday cake (reason number 1921832488 why my president is the coolest/chillest there is) and then we had cake at the Eddingtons (next door neighbor senior couple) and so long story short we have cake for days going on in our house. MAY WE BE SMITTEN WITH FATNESS AND NEVER RECOVER :) jokelang ;)

 oh and it flooded this week. That was pretty cool. so not many lessons but at least I can say I treked through... a couple inches of water. IM LEGIT NOW. ha k maybe not but I felt like it. My grammar is pitiful now in both languages. pray for the gift of interpretation of tongues as you try to decipher my letters. its real. as is my pitiful grammar. I LOVE YOU ALL ;)

-Sister Hansen 

eh. punted.

(sorry this letter is waaaay late, its been crazy this is her letter from two weeks ago- hannah)
So this week wasn't all sunshine and beaches. and peaches. theres no peaches here. and actually it rained like the whole week. one day we actually had to stay in because 2 missionaries somewhere got more then they bargained for when they were electrocuted walking through standing water that was it. lame sauce right? 

hmmm k. lets dwell on the positives. even though we got like no lessons and were punted beyond belief there was miracles! one: our bible bashing nanay (but not really a bible basher but she spends literally ALL day reading the bom and bible) bore her testimony of sorts to this random teen sitting in our lesson. I think we'll baptize him :) 

Lets just baptize everyone. The spirit really has been guiding me in this work. for example. last week I mentioned Jerry. yeah well we went to house once and we didn't really know why and then he was there so we're all we'll teach you! 

Then once when we were trying to give directions to a tricee driver he didn't really understand but under some miracle he just kinda went to the right place. I was all whaaaa? then jerry texted us bible bashing question,  and we were all "we really got to answer this face to face" and he didn't reply but then later we're walking by his house and guess who happens to get off school at the same time? well hello jerry... we've been waiting for you.. (ha not. we're not that creepy of missionaries... yet) and we taught him.

 Its seriously awesome what and who the spirit will lead you to if you let him. This latest picture is of me. creepin on my burrito. when mexico meets the philippines its truly a beautiful thing. ha we taught some other lessons this week and I really felt the spirit testifying through me... cool experience wont lie. im all brotha (or sister) THIS IS FOR YOOOU! (Like jullian smith hot koolaide) AND I DID IT BECAUSE I LOVE YOU! and then they're all IM NOT DRINKING IT (spiritually speaking) and them im like.... lame. gah. oh well. after the sunshine comes the rainbows. and pegasai (a popular myth here).  and butterflies. and cock roaches. but we'll ignore those. well thats all for now folks. Keep me in your prayers the whole 2 language thing is an adventure. party on! k well the picture I was GOING TO send was with a burrito. it didn't work so use your imagination :) love you. the work goes on

sister hansen