don't wanna go home mom :/

my 20th birthday. made the cake from the mix and candles you sent me.this man just turned 26!

NAY! 

so its been a good week with some treats. i got a new companion, Elder Uy (pronounced oi) from Bulacan. not gonna lie were pretty divine. we are fore ordained. he reminds me daily of Tyler Steele and also very similar to lots of Kearl uncles and even a lot like dad. nice to be with family again :) but yeah, he is a funny guy. speaks english like an american bc he has seen so many movies and we are livin and lovin. but also got a good hold on the White Handbook bc i learned a thing this week: exact obedience is the only way to be happy, progress and become converted. i do not like the natural man and obedience is the only way to change your nature. i'm doing things bc i want to do the things the Lord wants me to do and the days have been sunnier bc of it. good learning out here. 

an interesting thing is bc we are in the Assistant to the Presidents apartment, when the missionaries are going home, there is a little program/workshop thing at the mission home so they stayed with us. it was fun but it was seriously tough too. my mood was affected so much tbh. it was such a breath of fresh air to get my new comp and feel this kind of hope and determination again. im terrified for this time in one year when it's my turn to go home. don't wanna go home mom :/

a good scripture to describe the weather right about now is in 4 Nephi 1:32 for those curious enough to take a peep. 

But the new guy and I are spending alot more time to work smart and its got me pretty excited to be honest. theres a lot of good potential here and im excited to focus on completing families and working with their realatives since everyone just lives in compounds with there families so its easy pickin :) 

not much else to say other than this place freaking loves Korea. not sure why but every one is into Kpop and Kdrama. 

and just want to reccommend a talk for all to read and take 15 mins to do: "It works wonderfully" by Uchtdorf. 

thanks for all the birthday love,

ELDER KEARL 

a legends suit jacket

visiting some legends

one good nanay. she always says "hey hey hey whats up?!"

baptism of Leonard and Tatay Dela cruz

realized i miss larry kearl a lot!

birthday banner from all his loved ones back home

NAY 

i got record breaking low amount of time and no time to send pics but dont worry i have em, they just aren't in canada. they will be there in just over a year tho so quit stressin. still me. just more acne bc of that sweat! 

so i got the package with the birthday banner from emily! BUT it had a notice that somebody tampered with it. i still got the pics and that's all the package said it had so i'm not stressin too much bc man did i love those pics. lots of good looking people over there. and i got that package right after we skyped and that night i felt some heavy but good emotions thinking of all the good people in my life! MADAMI! so many good people in this world. also realized i really miss larry kearl alot. how blessed are we? 

i realize recently that i can understand pretty well what's said to me but some times its pretty funny when i understand all the words in a sentence but am unable to comprehend the meaning of the sentence. people say some rowdy stuff out here. Example: a chair in tagalog really just means butt holder. hahaha love it so much. 

had lots of good opportunities of working with cool people this week, i went with one super fun and exciting narrie who is brand new and his first splits. we cherish each other. also got to work with youth. like i go with 2 other youth and it's super fun. i really really love youth. so fun seriously. just butt heads being butt heads.

ALSO! we baptized my favorite investigator ever on saturday. Leonard. he is so humble. wants to serve a mission. his mom is overjoyed and he is funny. like 20 years old. great guy and called us like a couple hours before the baptism asking if we could just do it already! great experience.

"eyes closed, head first, with a smile on your face" 

LOVE YA 

IM OUT!

KEARL 

can't remember a happier day in my whole life...smiled the whole day!

NAY,

just finished talking to you so i'll be quick. amazing weekend with some cool highlights: 

President Hiatt worked with us for a day and slept the night. he is the best! super funny and quirky and can't remember a happier day in my whole life! he really loves teaching and even tho i kinda have to translate for him, people get what he is saying and i smiled the whole day. the best. also ate big! thanks pres.

got ANOTHER letter from oma. she's the best!! sent a cool email from joel. love hearing that. its nice when she sends other missionarys blog posts. 

on satuday we had a fun time cleaning pigs and also their pens of mud but it was mostly poop. just spray em down and use a wallis (dont know the english for that one) to clean it. there are some big pigs out here. super funny. 

saturday night our my most favorite investigator ever on my mish passed his interview and his member mom was so happy she cried and hugged me :O. love that woman. i felt really special bc of that.  just seeing the blessing this work does for others. 

sunday morning an old man had a heart attack and died while speaking in church. all i saw was that they were loading him into a tricycle and rushing him to the hospital. heard the rest of the story and he was dead on arrival. super sudden and unexpected. not such a good mothers day for that family. 

and i loved every minute of skyping ALL of you. it was wonderful to see so many of the people i love and have dan and em join in too.  i always feel a little closer to you guys and more motivated to work harder. thanks for the love! nice talking to dad a little more this time!! 

thanks mom, your a super hero,

KEARL

mothers day Skype

it was an exciting mothers day at our house because we were able to skype with scotty boy.  when dan was on his mission we were only able to phone him.  derek set it up so we could have dan/natasha and emily/eric join in too.  technology is absolutely amazing.  it was crazy to think he was so far away in the philippines, 14 hours ahead, making it monday morning for him.  we invited the wolfs, kaitlin, braden and larry's crew to surprise him with a hello.  he emailed me and said how awesome it was so see so many faces he loved.  we also facetimed grandpa rosenvall and mulhollands to visit with scotty.  a few highlights from our conversation:

-hearing scott bear us his testimony in tagalog
-scotty being so obedient and ensuring our call was only one hour.  he ended it himself at 59 minutes and 54 seconds.   when i asked him why he had to hang up, he said, 'because it's the right thing to do'.
-he loved seeing joey (although joey could have cared less)
-he loved seeing the backyard and ravine and his bedroom
-scotty telling about his diet of hotdogs, eggs, rice and ketchup daily
-updating him on what's going on at home (really nothing)
-meeting his companion
-him showing us his surroundings (he was at a members house)
-his optimism and love of missionary work
-him not complaining about one thing about his mission (except the heat)
-just hearing him laugh and share stories about his mission and his experiences
-him telling about how people there speak tanglish, where they speak tagalog but then you hear english intermittently
-church is conducted in english but people give talks in tagalog
-he loves the older women in the ward who take good care of him, but he finds it awkward that they shake his hand initially and don't let go throughout the whole conversation
-derek was eating some honeycomb cereal and scott was so jealous because he doesn't get that there


i feel so blessed to be his mama.  that kid came SOOOO good.  i am envious of his abounding optimism and enthusiasm for life.  it will serve him well his whole life through.  he loves people, he loves the people in the philippines whom he serves, he loves the Lord and the gospel and he loves his family.  what more could a mom ask for?  NOTHING.

little clip from scotty boy

dad is the man....hope to follow in his footsteps when i get home

trt

NAY!! 

i saw the pics from youth conference of dads 'band' performing.  loved it.  dad is the man. hoping to follow in his foot steps when i get home. great guy. glad to hear when youth things go well! do you have a calling mom? 

i got your birthday package.... got tempted pretty good by my roommates and made a grown up decision now that i'm 20! i can choose my own birthday! so i opened it instantly on friday and cherished it :) you really are the best mom. almost got a full collection of my instagram pics now and i'm hyped to have that for my own personal history type thing. so thanks so much for being super thoughtful!!! best mom award goes to you :) 

so came to a hard than beautiful realization the other day. one day after visiting a great family i felt a new kinda discouragement as i was going home to our nice apartment but my family wasn't going to be there.... really all of a sudden missed coming home to you guys BUT THEN almost instantly i realized the branch is my family. i may have lost 1 mom (maybe 2 or 1.5 bc of Erin) BUT i have like 9 in this branch! people here freakin love missionaries so your really family with everyone here. so much love from all the old ladys. its so refreshing :) 

also the lightning here is nuts. it'll flash multiple times every minute for a whole evening and the thunder lingers for like 30 seconds. during a heavy rainstorm, i saw a flash that made the night turn into day for like a second and then instantly loud thunder that made my body rumble. exciting. then the power went out. :/ still sunny 

an exciting thing this week was my first MLC! Missionary Leader Council. all the Zone Leaders and Sister Training Leaders show up and discuss things and are instructed. but i got super embarrassed bc i showed up and forgot my name tag. oh man, so it was a quick dash back home to get it and we made it with only a little bit of ridicule but i also got to see my tatay (trainer) Elder Briones :) we had lunch and i talked to him the whole time. i didn't realize how much i missed and cherished the guy. he really is an amazing person. while talking he asked me how Joeys doing, Caleb, Joel, Matt etc. and remembered them all by name. just super super good seeing him and other friends. 

something i learned this week is interesting but i realized in the church we always invite to pray to know if the Book of Mormon is true and how essential it is for us to receive that witness and use it to fortify our testimonies but what about the Bible?? Moroni 10:5 doesnt just apply to the Book of Mormon.

that should be good. no time :)

ELDER KEARL

first pic on the new cam and first ceral in months :)

a boy 

not actually his birthday 

Elder Olsen 

never forget it

blackout chillin

:') spending lunch with my first trainer

good find

birthday parcel :)

mountains 

turtle find

snuck a quick one of this angel. he always helps me wash my hands. great less active family.

the hiatts......love em. support em. sustain em.

NAY!

great week! one of our amazing investigators, norein, 9yo, got baptized! super cool. we have been teaching him tons and he's more receptive than most of the people we teach. we usually teach him with 3 other kids and they love it. always answering with faith and repentance to questions that don't relate to that, always fight over who prays but my fav is the 6yo who is like identical to josh wolff who says "Heavenly Father, thank you for the food, it's delicious, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." literally, that's all he says. his name is angel and he sure is one. hard to tell you how much i love that crew. great baptism and the whole time our Branch Mission Leader who is like 35 scratched my back which ngl i thoroughly enjoyed. no such thing as awkward here btw, its nice. than the following sunday i confirmed the girl, 8yo, who got baptized with our investigator!  now that was a great experince. it was amazing giving her the holy ghost and i really felt my priesthood power grow as i blessed this amazing girl who is going to have a bright future. a huge highlight on my mish. hard to explain. but later that day in church there was a bird in the building and when i tried to help it out, it flew straight to my comp who casually just stuck out his hand and caught it. i'm telling you, he's a wizard. 

also, bc of time i gotta be quick but President Hiatt got an email asking him to extend their mission call from 2 years to 3 years. meaning by the time they get released now they will have spent 5 of the last 6 years in the philippines! amazing people. they reacted very humbly to it. another similar situation was last week we were in a training for new leaders and sister hiatt got a text, exclaimed "we have a new grandson!" President says "that makes 18!" and then they put their phone away and finished the meeting. it really was a powerful moment for me to see that kind of dedication. just a complete switch! love em. support em. sustain em. 

yeah, that should be good.

KEARL