Sister Eveland: Week 2 in the MTC

We got another letter from Sister Eveland Today.  Looks like we should get one every monday.  This is her p-day.

Kumusta, pamilya at mga kaibigan.

The things people have said about the MTC are true. The Days are long but the weeks go by fast. The food is alright, I pretty much stick to the soups and salads, they aren't too bad. The Spirit is the strongest I have felt it in a very long time, and it is only by the gift of tongues that we are able to learn a new language!

This week was mostly spent working on Lesson One: The Restoration of the Gospel. Also working with my kasama and helping her on her teaching skills and how to ask good questions when meeting with an investigator. I am so glad I had all that practice with Sister Gainer and Sister Stradling. I feel like I am a bit a head of the game which is really good, because this way I have been able to help my kasama out a lot and help her get over come her quietness. We had our first Wika(language) Task this week. I totally blew it, I forgot everything in Tagalog that I had learned about getting to know someone and testify to them. But I have worked on it and it is coming now. We also taught our first 30 minute lesson on the Restoration (in English), I think Sister Brown and I did a pretty good job. I was proud of her because she used some of the techniques we had been working on during companionship study. We have to teach the same lesson on Thrusday and I think in abuot three weeks we start teaching 30 min lessons in Tagalog. It's still kind of crazy to think that I am going to become fluent in this langue. I am so glad I took Spanish last semester at BYU-Idaho, the two languages are similar and it has helped to have a basic knowledge of spanish.

Sister Schardt got back from isolation on Weds, I'm not going to lie it took a bit getting use to going back to just the two of us. It was a bit rough for a day or two, but things are looking up! I had an interview with my Branch President yesterday, he gave me some encouraging advice and shared a story with me from his mission. He is a great man. Everytime I see he tells me, "Sister Eveland, you just shine". Everyday when I get out of bed I hear those words and I try to live up to them.

I love this work, I love learning another language. (Dad that little quote you put in one of my letters this week. I needed that the day you sent it!)

Nothing really exciting happened this week that I can think of. We are growing closer as a district, we have a lot of fun together. It's neat to hear everyone's stories about coming on a mission, and where they are in life. We have one Elder in our district who will be turning 23 in May. I have met a lot of Elders that are older, it is really cool to me that are here now. It just goes to show that they are here because they want to be!

Well I love you all, I hope you had a great week!

Napakahalaga ng mga pamilya sa Diyos. Alam ko na babibiyayaan ang mga pamilya ng ebanghelo. Alam ko na puwede walang hanggan maga pamilya sa pamamagitan ng templo. Totoo an ebanghelyo ni Jesucristo at ang Aklat ni mormon. ( Families are very important to God. I know that the gospel blesses families. I know that families can be eternal through the temple. The Gospel of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon are true.) These phrases are simple but I know with out a doubt that they are true!!!

Love,
Sister Eveland
Please write!!

Sister Eveland: Week 1 in the MTC

It has taken me awhile to get this posted, but here is the first letter we recieved from Sister Eveland.  I will post all her letters on here so that family and friends can hear all about her mission.  If you would like to write her take a look on her facebook or leave a comment with your email and I will give you her address. 

Kumusta, Pamilya ko! (and friends)


I still cannot believe that I am here at the MTC. The past few days have been so crazy, but I love it here. The spirit is amazing. I am going to use numbers so I can keep my thoughts together better. I only have 27 min left to e-mail.

1. I love my district. We are all going to the Philippines but not all to the same mission. My companion is Sister Brown, she is from Virginia. She is really nice. Then there is Sister Schardt and Sister English. They are our roommates as well. All of the Elders are from either Utah or Idaho, except for two Elder Tangi is from New Zealand, he is Tongan, and Elder Teo is from Samoa. They are really cool. There are 10 of us total.

2. Sister Schardt got sick on Friday, she had flu symptoms. They take this stuff serious here. She was tested for the flu and the results came back negative, however she is in querintine until later this week and they had our whole district go down to the health clinic to get some antivirus medicine called TamiFlu. It is $100 dollars a box and we have to take it for 10 days, but the church is paying for all of us to take it. I couldn't believe they would spend $1000 just as a precaution. When we were there the Elders gave her a blessing, it was amazing, non of them had given a blessing before!

3. Friday after lunch Sister Brown and I were leaving the dinning hall and we ran into two Elders that are serving in Italy. It was really cool because I was actually told by Elder Matt Gammel that an Elder Packer had something for me. He just happened to be the Elder that I ran into! Matt had boughten me a tape recorder and blank tape, but inside the tape recorder was a tape from him. It was cool. So if you want to send me a tape you can. However it is a small tape recorder. (Smaller tape than Jason's)

4. Our Distict leader is the only one who can pick up our mail and we don't get it until 9:00pm every night. However if we get packages he is supposed to give us the slip right away. Well friday we got done with dinner and went back to class and Elder Tangi told me that I got some DearElder letters and a package. However we just happened to have a sub that night, I told him that I could wait to go get the package. But then everything happened with Sister Schardt and I had to go with Sister English to dinner because she hadn't eaten yet. By the time we got back to class and had a break, Sister Brown, Sister English and I ran to the Mail room. Much to our suprise they close at 7:00pm, it was 7:04. I didnt' think I was going to get my package until monday because of conference. However they were opened between sessions. SALMAT mom, I appreciate it. I went to take a shower on Thursday and realized I must had left my shampo and stuff in the shower at aunt Kay's. (p.s. Salmat means thank you!)

5. Wasn't conference SO good. It was awesome watching it with over 2000 missionaries! During the first session I kept thinking that my family and friends were doing the exact same thing. Isn't that so cool. Even though we are all over the map we can all recieve the exact same messages from General Authorities?!

6. The language is starting to come. Because of conference this weekend though we haven't had much language class. Our class for everything just consists of our district which is really nice because we get a lot more accomplished I think.

Sorry this isn't really a lot. But know that I love you all. I am grateful for this opportunity. I know that the church is true, that I am doing the Lord's work. He loves each of us and He wants us to return to Him. I know that Joseph Smith is a prophet, that he, through the Lord, restored the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know that he saw God the Father the and our Savior. I love this gospel and there is no where else I would rather be at this moment in time!!

Love you,
Sister Eveland

p.s. Send letters I love hearing how everyone is doing!

"STAY"cation Destination WINNER!!!

First I want to give a big thanks to those of you who played along with our "STAY"cation Destination contest.  Those of you who didn't can play along next time and believe me there will be a next time!! We had so much fun going to various places around us.  There are more places we wanted to go to but with the weather it was a bit hard.  And I will have to be honest.  I think I bit off alot more than I could chew by taking the kids to all these places ALONE!!! It would have been more fun to have daddy along with us that is for sure.  However, we had a blast and the kids loved going on the adventures that we went on.  THANK YOU CARMEN for the great idea!  It made me realize that I LOVE where we live.  Mountains, Ocean, Beach, ect. all within miles of eachother.

So without further ado... the winner of our "STAY"cation  Destination contest is CARMEN!

Carmen guessed 3 of the 8 destinations right. That means I must have made this really hard.  I really didn't mean to.  Becky, Carli, Amy and the 3 Amigos all had 2 correct. And Emily had one correct.  I know she would have gotten a couple more if she would have guessed on them.  Next time we do this I will have to make them a bit more obvious. 

Below are the answers to the Contest. 
 If you click on the answer it will take you to the original post
where you can take a look at the destination again.  

Destination One
Salt Creek

Destination Two
Falls View

Destination Three

Troll Haven

Gardner Beach

Destination Four

Dungeness Valley Creamery

Destination Five

Railroad Bridge Park

"The Tressel"

Destination Six

Our House

Destination Seven

Our House

"Camp Judd"

Destination Eight

Duema's House

Thanks again for playing along. 

Definately come back to play the next time.

"STAY"cation FINAL CALL!

Final call for our "STAY"cation Destination contest.

You have until today at 3pm pacific standard time to make you guesses.  Pass the word along to your friends.  I will post the winner sometime after 3:30pm.  GOOD LUCK!

And thanks for playing!

EGGS, EGGS, EGGS!

Doble was spending the night with Papa when we took pictures of our cookies.

Just some pictures of the Easter Egg cookies and our Easter Eggs we made for our Easter dinner. 

Our eggs are from our chickens.  They lay nice brown eggs and they came out pretty cool. 

 Kind of Martha Stuartish.

"STAY"cation Destination 8

This is our last Destination. 

Make your guesses for this destination as well as the others if you haven't done so already.

GOOD LUCK! 

Huntin' for Easter Eggs!

I found my golden egg!

Lil' E found his golden egg just a quick.

It took him a bit, but Doble finally found his.

Doble and Macy finding eggs together.

So today we headed to Port Townsend for a Easter Egg Hunt at JBody's Parents house.  For todays destination guess tell me what the kids call their Grandma (JBody's mom).   I have put it somewhere on the blog you may just have to look around a bit.

You have until Tuesday, April 6th (at 3pm) to make all your guesses.  I will tally up the answers and on Tuesday night post the winner!  Good luck to everyone.

"STAY"cation Destination 7

Time to use our imaginations!

  We decided to adventure close to home. Today we roughed it in a local campground. 

Going on a bear hunt...But I'm not afraid!

Doble spent the night at papa's house tonight, but Lil' E and Razy slept in the tent with Bella cuddled up alongside them.

Do you recognize this local campsite?

"STAY"cation Destination 6

Where did our boots take us today?

Here Chicky Chicky!

BLUE tongue

Sportin' the no shirt look!

I was telling Doble that Razy was getting pooped out from our Adventures. 

He said to me, "Then you should change her diaper."  Silly Boy! 

 Razy was pooped out and put herself down for a nap.

APRIL FOOLS!!! Trick #3

I have been waiting all day to do this last April Fools. 

Sweetness!  We get cupcakes, milkshakes, suckers, and fruit snacks for dinner!

Cupcakes= meatloaf with colored mashed potatoes on top.

Suckers= cucumbers wrapped in plastic wrap with stickers on them.

Milkshakes= jello salad with whip cream

Fruit Snacks (not pictured)= when opened they had carrots in them.

Now onto dessert!

Mashed Potatoes and Gravy= icecream with caramel sauce

Fish Sticks= twix covered with toasted coconut

Peas and Carrots= orange starbursts and green airheads

"What the...."

A close up of some of the "suckers"

I had so much fun putting this meal together and the kids had alot of fun eating it.  I got some of their reactions on the video camera.  This April Fools was alot of fun!

Happy April Fools!

APRIL FOOLS!!! Trick #2

Today for Lunch the kids enjoyed

some yummy Dog Biscuits and Doggy Food!

APRIL FOOLS!

For this fun trick all I did was thicken up a can of Vegetable Beef Soup for the doggy food.

The biscuits were slices of bread cut in the shape of a doggy bone and then toasted them.

APRIL FOOLS!!! Trick #1

So I have decided to play some cute little tricks on the kids for April Fools.  Nothing mean.  Why cause more work for myself by getting them all worked up and upset?  This morning I poured their cereal and viola...THE MILK CHANGED COLOR!

For this little trick you need food coloring and a bowl of cereal. 

1. Drop some drops of food coloring at the bottom of the cereal bowl.  The more you use the better and faster the color change. 

2.  Cover coloring with cereal.  I think the cherrios worked better than the life.

3.  Pour milk and watch the color change from plain old white to new color.

4. Enjoy!

Lil' E got BLUE milk

Doble got GREEN milk

Razy got PINK milk

Check out Doble.  He was upset that his milk changed color.  He wanted white milk.  APRIL FOOLS!

I didn't think this little prank would cause drama.

(Ignore my table. It needs to be refinished.  Those spots are from polish remover, and steam stains. It was a hand me down from my parents so it has seen MANY years of usage.)