Family!

Family!!! THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for your emails!! Wow thank you thank you so much! I just laughed out loud so many times while reading them. And Dad to your putting the Ute mailbox in the ground with cement... oh boy. I'm glad you love the U. Ha ha Savanna and Ry keep the BYU spirit at home for me and don't let all the red influence jr. Also Ryan!!! CONGRATULATIONS!!! NOTRE DAME!?! What??? That is soo cool! You'll do great! Wow Indiana. I've excited to come visit you! Ah man, that is so far away though. :( That's okay. Skype is fantastic. Savanna your baby bump is adorable! I wish I could feel Jr kick. Darla I'm jealous you got to feel him kick you. I'm also impressed that Jared finished the whole bathroom! AND that it looks great. And everyone had a great time at the Jeep Safari? Maybe not as much for Lance? But he fixed his bronco so good work Lance. And General Conference was good? I actually haven't watched it yet. With the time zone differences we will watch it this Saturday and Sunday. I'm excited. Too bad you didn't see me on TV. I guess I'll have to have my claim to fame some other way. Oh wait, I already meet Tyler Haws-twice. I'm good to go. Just kidding. :)

This week was so much better than last week. I live with another companionship and one of the other sisters (Sister Stone from Orem) reminded me to look for the tender mercies from the Lord. I did so and there are so  many things I have to be grateful for. There are so many tender mercies from Him if I remember to look I see them all around and feel His love for me, and for all His Filipino children. Wow the Lord is so kind to me, to all of us. For our investigators I pray that they will recognize the blessings from Him. I think if they are able to recognize the many blessings they will be more wiling to keep the commitments, and choose for themselves to accept His gospel. 

Speaking of investigators... we had a baptism this week! Brother Abcde (yes the first 5 letters of the alphabet is his name and you pronunce it Ab c de) was baptized on Saturday and confirmed on Sunday! It was such a great experience for me. For him as well. It was so so so exciting! Also all of our investigators are so kind. Some keep commitments more than others and they are all so kind. We had a lot of lessons fall through this week and we had a lot of unexpected lessons which was awesome. One Sister in particular (Sister EvaMarie) is so kind and willing to listen and she is hesitant to make changes in her life. 

I think pictures speak louder than words so let me see if I can send some...

I hope all these pictures send through... Yes the Philippines is great. Being a missionary is great. Also hard. But more great. I love you soo soo much. And I'm sure as soon as I send this email I will remember 100 things that I was supposed to tell you. Oh well. The most important thing is I love you all so much, I miss you, and I love being here. And the church is true! :)

Mahal Kita!

Love, Sister Davidson

Also... 

I will get DearElders maybe once every other week as we live in the same city as the mission office which is nice. I get emails once a week. Nothing day to day. 

Packages are really expensive to send. If you know someone going to the Philippines.. ha ha that's the best way to send packages.

I can get a lot more stuff here in Tarlac than I thought (as in shampoo, soap, etc.)

Elections are going on right now and so trikes are going around with loud speakers on them. Ha ha one of the songs playing for one of the candidates is "Call Me Maybe." Or at least the Tagalog version of that. It made me think of home. Except I don't know if the candidate changed the words to fit her slogan or something like that because I couldn't translate any of the words. Except it's probably more likely that I don't speak Tagalog so that is the reason I can't understand the words. 

Also the Gift of Tongues is SO real. Yes Tagalog is.. hard. However the Lord has blessed me so much. Some lessons I am able to teach so smoothly. The words, phrases, questions, old vocabulary, come out that I can't describe how. Those are the lessons that I know the Spirit is the teacher not me. I am so so grateful for those lessons. I'm also grateful for the lessons when I struggle so much. I'm grateful because I recognize the difference and the different feeling between the two types of lessons. It makes me strive to learn how to teach by the Spirit ALWAYS. The lessons when I am able to feel the Spirit teach rather than teach myself are so much better in so many ways. 

Oh tell Uncle Jon that I heard that Tagalog song he had me listen to at his house that sounded so funny. It still sounds funny and I don't understand it, but they really do love it here and they all know all the words. I heard it and it reminded me of him ha ha.

Also, when is Ryan's birthday? Did I miss it? 

It is getting hotter here! :) Dad I'm grateful you had me grab an umbrella at Walmart before I came. I don't use it for the rain, but we use it everyday as a shade when we walk. Everybody walks around with umbrellas. 

Also I just love you all so much. :) Don't forget to choose the right, remember who you are, make right choices, return with honor, don't do anything Satan would want you to do, and all that goodness. I love you!