Love

Mine and dad's name tags

 hello!
I am very short on time today....sorry. I wanted to email mom and dad and gibbons. hah!
but in a quick little report: 
we have been SO SO SO BUSY!!!!!!!! it has been unreal. lots of teaching and we come home exhausted every night. seriously! I fall asleep on the bus quite often as well.
we just had zone conference and that was amazing. I love conferences. they always leave you wanting to be a better missionary. this one made me leave wanting to be a better person. one thing that I wanted to share that I spoke to president a lot about was the difference between "faith promoting" experiences and "faith perfecting" experiences. at first I didn't know, but now I have most definitely come to believe in the difference. faith promoting is when you have faith, you ask for something, and you get it. that promotes your faith. you think, "wow! Heavenly Father does listen to me so He gave me what I asked." faith perfecting experiences are when you have faith, you ask for something, and you don't get it. maybe you ask for someone to be healed, and they don't get healed. maybe they get sicker. at this point, I have seen a ton on my mission that people get there and go, "Heavenly Father doesn't even care. this person is sicker. He didn't listen." and then they check out. they're done with the whole thing. but then there are some people, also that I have seen on my mission, that keep going. they keep the faith, they keep walking through the struggles, and keep looking to Heavenly Father for the strength. and they find the strength there, and they make it. and then on the other side, they tell you about how much they learned and how grateful they are that they were able to go through that and be stronger. so in that kind of situation, your faith becomes "perfected" or more perfected. I have felt on my mission as well, sometimes I get upset that I didn't get the blessing or the help that I thought I needed and I questioned my faith for a second. just a second. but I really believe that it's through the hard times that we grow. at least I have. and we talked about that at zone conference and how we can help our investigators understand the difference, and I thought it was very inspiring. 
okay since there is no time and I forgot my planner with all the funny things I wanted to say, I'll just share our last nights experience. so we were at Roslin and Hendrry's house, clear out in the deep boonies, when it starts to rain. at first, just a bit of a drizzle. but it's late, like six, and we had another appointment we needed to get to, so we knew we needed to leave. even though Roslin kept freaking out that we were gonna walk in the rain, we assured her it was no big deal. just a little drizzle:) so we start our walk home, it's very very dark at this point, when the rain starts to get a bit harder. and harder. and harder. and lightning. and thunder. and dark. and harder. and about this point I understood where the phrase "raining cats and dogs" comes from. I am the only one with an umbrella, which we are trying to share, but it's a little umbrella compared to those rain drops. so we keep walking, thank goodness it's like a forever long walk on the side of the road with no sidewalk, just a bit of mud and grass and then a big deep drainage system. a short walk with a sidewalk would make things not as funny. so we're walking and we're yelling trying to communicate with eachother and we are just DYING laughing because it's so hysterical, when I all of the sudden fall into a bit of a hole, and in the process, break my brand new sandals! so I'm down a shoe! I keep trying to walk and just make it work but basically it's ridiculous because as I tried to keep it on my foot and keep walking I tripped again. so by this point we are crying we are laughing so hard. I've basically put the umbrella away because it is no use, and I'm carrying a shoe and walking barefooted in the dirt/mood/flood/rat filled water thing. we finally get to a street corner, waiting for a car to cross so we could cross, when said car hits the puddle/flood on the side of the road, and sends a tidal wave of mud straight into our face and open mouths. hite was doubled over because she was laughing so hard, and I just gave up, threw my head back and was dying. anyway, we struggle struggle struggle for the forty minute walk to the bus stop, and by the time we got into the bus we looked absolutely disgusting, we smelled, we were dripping wet, and we were both so happy. I looked at her and was like hite, you have no idea how grateful I am that you are my companion right now. that could have been a miserable walk but with her it was hysterical. the night didn't end when we got onto the bus though, we ended up having to get off, find a taxi, still in the rain, still with one shoe, at one point I tried to put it back on because I saw a rat crawling on the ground a few feet away and I got freaked out, but that was a hopeless case so I took it off again. then we got to a mall where we were hoping to seek refuge from the storm, but I realized we couldn't go in if I didn't have shoes!!! so I put the broken sandal back on and had to slide my foot across the floor as I walked. I looked like an absolute idiot, and hite was dying even still because she was laughing so hard, and yes. it was just gold. we got to our next appointment and they said we looked like wet rats. not far from the truth! that's what you get for walking with wet rats!it was a good night though.
a good day.
life is really good, you know?
I'm very blessed out here. 
dad sent me the picture of all of you at the cabin with bee and tessbabe holding the "I miss you Lisa" sign and I started crying. haha! that picture is proudly on display on my desk now:) thanks for remembering and caring. I love you all so so much. to singapore and back. 

ps, I included a few photographs. in case you get bored with my writing:)

oh one more thing, for the world at home to know. I recently ate something even more disgusting than my previous days. 
chicken anus:) yep! little circular chicken sphincters, all grilled on a shishkabob. with the butt bones in them and all. :)