Christmas Week! :)

Kumusta sa lahat!:) Maligayang Pasko at Manigong Bagong Taong! It's been a pretty slow week...and in all honesty I don't remember too much of it except for skyping home on Thursday haha. Is that bad? So, Thursday I was told that a girl named Kimberly added me on FB and she said that she saw talked to me the other day. I wasn't really sure who Kimberly was because I have met two Kimberly's while I have been here. So, like all week I have been like who is Kimberly. Well, yesterday at Church one of the Kimberly's that I have met was there. She is from Urdaneta 3rd Ward and was just visiting my ward. She is actually not a member, she is an investigator. She isn't being taught by the missionaries though, I want my second area to be Urdaneta 3rd Ward so I can teach her! That would be so awesome! Anywho, she came up to me in the gospel principles class and says "I met your mom" I was like "Kimberly! Ah tell me everything". We talked like all of sacrament haha and she showed me a cute message that my mom sent me saying that she loves me:) Thank you mommy:) I love you too! And she showed me a picture of somebody that really made me smile haha. And then we just talked about America, Books, pretty much everything that I said in my blog. So she knows how I feel about the Philippines and the differences it has compared to America haha. Like the dogs all looking the same and that I can't pet any animals haha. It was so nice getting to talk to her. She is such a great girl. She is only 16 and she is going to be attending college next year. And her English is soooo good! I wish I was that good in Tagalog. But it really gets me thinking. English is the hardest language to learn and if she can learn English then I can learn Tagalog. I do admit, being engulfed in it 24/7 is really helping me learn haha. Sige, well that has been the highlight of my week. This week I have curfew again tomorrow and Wednesday because of the New Year. Speaking of the new year. Happy Birthday Justin! I Love you and I hope you have a wonderful birthday:) Something should be arriving in the mail for you soon I hope:) Mahal Kita everyone!:) -Sister Ramsey

I don't remember which week it is!

So, this week has been suuuppperrr great! I had my first baptism this last Saturday!:) It was so exciting. His name is Wilfredo Tugare and he is 67 years old. He was so excited about his baptism, it was so sweet. I know that he was definitely missing something and now he has found it and his life has and will change so much now that he has the gospel in it. His baptism was a really difficult process because his job that he has is kind of like gambling and so our bishop here did not want him to get baptized, pero the missionaries before me got him set up with a new job that starts in January so he no longer has to do that one and we asked President Monohan (my mission pres) if it was ok for him to be baptized regarding his job and such and president said it was ok. So, now hes baptized...YAY!:) Other than that not much has really happened, we are working on getting some more IBD's, we have a few potential ones so we will just have to see how this week plays out:) We have a curfew this week on Tuesday and Wednesday because things get crazy here with fireworks and stuff so we have to be home by 6. So we get some me time. Look forward to possibly getting some letters because I'm going to have a lot of spare time haha:) I seriously love it here. It is soooo beautiful. I love all the wondering animals and all the ginormous cows haha. Literally there huge. And I love all the chickens that roam the streets same with the goats. I never get to pet them though because my companion gets after me:/ Which is sad:( but, it's ok! And we don't eat dogs...did I mention that in an email yet? I don't remember but I am so happy because we don't! They are actually pets here:) But they aren't as cute as dogs in the States...they all look the same. Only the rich people here have like cute dogs and stuff. I know that I am not going to be there for Christmas but I am really looking forward to Skyping home on Thursday because it will be Christmas there:) I look forward to seeing a lot of your smiling beautiful faces at around 6-7 pm haha. Love you!:) talk to you either Thursday or next week!:) Have a Merry Christmas! Maligaya Pasko!:) Love, Sister Ramsey P.S. Heres some pictures from since I've been here in Villiasis:) 1. This is our investigator/recent convert. Wilfredo Tugare 2. This is a picture of our Christmas party today!:) So much fun!!!:) We had a flour fight! 3. These are the Elders in my Zone. They are great. The one on the very end is my Lolo as is the one in the middle because they are my first Zone Leaders, and the one in the White tee shirt is my Tatay because he is my first District Leader. Hindi ko alam how that works but yeah haha. 4. This is Elder Sikat, Sister Alvarez and I today at our gift exchange. Oh and that's sister Briones and I...These are so out of order. Sorry:/ Sorry, I kinda forgot my other sim card so I will send pics of the area and stuff next week:) Well, that's all I can fit this week:) I'll send more next week:)

2nd Week in sa Pilipinas!

Holy...COW! This week has been sooo long and sooo hard. I hate to admit it, but, yesterday during our missionary meeting with the bishop to discuss our activities for this coming up week, I just cried. It's so hard not knowing what people are saying and what to say to them. And it stinks because I'm not going to know what to say or what they are saying for at least 6 months...according to all the other Americans. So, to say the least this week has just been really rough for me :( This last week, we were able to teach lots of people, so that was really good. Oh Ryan, I have a sister here who is going to be getting off her mission here in the next few months and she said that she really wants to marry an american. I recommended you...sorry haha. She's really pretty though. I'll send a pic with this email hopefully :) Anyways, We have a baptism this coming Saturday for a 67 year old man named Wilfredo. He is so nice, and so smart. He is ready to be baptized. He passed the interview and now it's just on to the baptism. I'm really excited for him. I have exchanges this Friday and I'm pretty excited about them. It should be fun. Last night, we had the opportunity to go to Urdaneta to watch the Christmas Broadcast. It was soooo gooooooddd! Did you watch it? Well, you should. It was really good haha. On Saturday we got to go to Urdaneta too and we brought a couple of our investigators dahil it was a youth activity and the only way we could go was if we brought investigators. The activity was watching BOM movies that the youth in the wards created. They were soooo good and sobrang nakakatawa haha. They were so creative:) Our ward did the Stripling Warriors. Well, I have to go now, i'm about to get kicked off the computer. Talk to you all next week! Love you! -Sister Halley Jean Ramsey

Unang Week Sa Pilipina

Holy Cow! I don't even know where to begin. Well, I arrived here on Wednesday December 4th, so I skipped the 3rd of December all together which was pretty cool. I feel like we discovered time travel or something. Anyways, we stopped in Hawaii too along the way which was exciting except for the fact that it was dark out and we couldn't see anything except a bunch of lights here and there. But, I can still say I have been to Hawaii which is AWESOME!:) When we arrived here in the Philippines my feet were sooo swollen...I was surprised my shoes still fit haha but so were my companions it was funny. I was actually expecting it to be hotter than it is here. Its hot don't get me wrong, but for some reason I was expecting so hot you can cook an egg on the sidewalk hot and its not that hot...yet. I am actually here in there cold season. Its like 90 degrees haha and thats cold here. I'm not really looking forward to there hot season, I am however looking forward to the rain! The people here are so humble its crazy. Our investigators are soooo cute and soooo nice and soooo yeah. I just love them and I have only met them all like once. But they are just the most humblest people I have ever met, and they are just so willing to listen and learn about the gospel. My companion is Sister Gonzales, she is a local. So, she speaks fluent Tagalog...yeah. The good thing is she knows English really well also. Shes a super great teacher and we get along really well. As for learning Tagalog, I was pretty surprised when I got here and the other sisters in my district told me that I am farther along with the language then a lot of other sisters were when they first got here. Which surprised me because I didn't think I knew anything haha. But, being here and actually having to SYL because I don't have a choice because the people don't understand English very well has really helped me realize how much I really do know. And it's pretty cool. I live in an apartment...its kind of more like a duplex. Our neighbors are another companionship of sisters so its pretty nice. I don't have a bucket shower (thank goodness!). We have a shower, the water is cold though, but I have come to enjoy it because it really does feel super good with the hot and humid weather. Church was great! I really enjoyed it. The primary had their presentation during Sacrament and it was soooo stinkin cute. Just imagine about 20 little madroneros singing primary songs and that is exactly what this was. It was so cute. I had to get up and introduce myself to the ward and I am happy to say that I said more than half of it in Tagalog...oh yeah:) I did take lots of pictures, but...I took so many pictures that I kind of drained my battery. So, now I have to wait to send them because my battery is dead. Oh, and there are sooooo many water buffaloes around here! ITS AWESOME! And dogs, chickens and goats roam the streets like its nobodies business haha. I saw a stampede of goats the other day, they were so cute haha. Oh my goodness, I just love it here. MY first day in the actual field was Friday and that was soooo hard. I just wanted to cry, everywhere I went. The air is so different, everything smells weird, and EVERYBODY stares at me everywhere I go. I don't like it. My companion tells me over and over again that it is because I am white and they think I am really pretty but it still makes me super uncomfortable. Last night, our investigator who is 8 asked me why I had green eyes. It was really cute but I had no idea what to say to her haha so I just said because my mommy has green eyes. And then on Saturday, we were walking down the road and literally everybody was staring at me. People even came to the street from their front porch to watch me walk by. And as we were just standing, talking to a lady, a girl and like 3 guys were like peeking out from behind a gate at me and so I looked over at them and the girl yells to me "Your so beautiful". It was super sweet and all I said back was aww thank you but no, your beautiful haha. It's just a super different environment that I am going to have to adjust to over time. But I am really starting to love it and I look forward to every day to come:) I hope you have all had a super good week and I am excited to hear from you next week!:) Love, Sister Halley Ramsey

Last Week Here at the MTC!

Nuka! This week has gone by so extremely fast. I feel like I was just emailing yesterday haha. No, not really. But, it really does feel like it was just the other day. Well, to start. This week started off slow. I taught my last "progressing investigator" (AKA my teacher) on Monday and it was super sad having to say that, that was our last lesson because honestly we came to love him as an investigator. And then we taught our other teacher on Wednesday and that was sad because she asked when we were going to come back and I was all um...labin pito months and she just laughed. Then we had to explain to her why we were leaving and everything and it was kinda difficult. I had such awesome teachers! They were the bomb, like seriously. They were sooo much fun haha. Thursday Thanksgiving was soooo much fun!!! Sister Erickson and I spent it with her district and a couple other Elders in another district. And it was just an amazingly spiritual day! Russel M Nelson came and spoke to us at our Morning Devo and it was such an amazing talk! He gave tons of advice and talked about the Philippines quite a bit. Actually, almost every person who has spoken at a devo since I have been here has talked about the Philippines. On Tuesday at our Devo, Brother Teh, who is from the Philippines spoke. And during his talk he asked everybody who is going to the Philippines to please stand up. Needless to say...I felt so cool standing up in front of everyone hahaha. It was pretty cool:) Oh and during Thanksgiving we did a service humanitarian project and it was so great! We made bags of lentil soup for people and we just had a blast while doing it. Every time we filled up a box, which was 96 bags we would all shout "WHOOO!" It was sooo fun haha. I love my district/zone sooooo much and I don't want to leave them:( Yesterday in class after 8 HOURS of in field orientation, we shared a tradition that our families do every year or whatever, in Tagalog. And oh my goodness it was so much fun. An Elder in my district, Elder Rogers was sharing his tradition with me and he was illustrating the entire thing...the tradition was shooting a deer and making biscuits and gravy on Christmas morning with it. Not the easiest thing to illustrate but he did and it was hilarious! I shared our new somewhat tradition of going to the buffet in Reno for Thanksgiving...but that's not really a tradition anymore since you didn't do it this year haha. Oh well, we don't really have traditions. Anyways, It's going to be so sad having to say goodbye to them all. I'm so excited to see what is waiting for me in the Philippines though. I have a strong feeling that there are soooo many people there right now waiting for ME. Like, that is so crazy to think that people are waiting for me to help them gain salvation. I never thought that I would be the one bringing people to Christ. But, I am and I am so happy! This is the best decision of my life and I cannot believe that I almost chose not to do this. What was I thinking!? Haha. Well, here is a picture of my favorite companion and I after our service project, cute huh?;) And then there is my kasama and me. And then there is me, Shelby, and Daniel. lol Then there is Daniel and me...its pretty blurry because my camera stinks! But yeah. So yeah. There't your pics for the week hahaha! Maybe next time there will be more because I will have a better camera lol. Oh mom! I need an adapter thing so that I can download pics on the computer...dont forget that:) Mahal ko kayo everybody! Talk to you next week!:) -Sister Halley Jean Ramsey These pictures are of