Philippines Angeles Mission: Elephant noise... a very useful skill for a missionary

One of my talents in life is I know how to make an elephant noise. I had no idea how useful it would be on my mission. I use it regularly in Family Home Evening games and talents, or just to impress little kids. If you are preparing to serve a mission that is a skill you should develop. Just kidding, there are more important skills to develop such as the following: asking inspired questions and really listening to people (and the spirit). I was super inspired with what Sister Wheat did to prepare for her mission; she talked to one new person every day. Talking to new people everyday is a very important skill for a missionary to have.

This week we had an amazing zone conference. There were five different zones who went, which means about 100 missionaries.

My favorite workshop was, of course, from President Martino. It was all about the Atonement. The first 45 minutes we watched the Bible videos (biblevideos.lds.org) about the last 24 hours of Jesus' life. We sang songs in between each video. It was super powerful. Afterwards we had a discussion about the Atonement. Then President Martino gave us all a Book of Mormon and challenged us to spend the next 6 weeks using it to study the Atonement. I'm super excited. I've already been so enlightened.

Another great thing about the zone conference besides the spiritual boost was getting to see so many missionaries. I got to see old zone mates, old house mates, and the best of course was seeing old companions. My two anak (daughters/trainees) were there, along with two of my apo (granddaughters). *pictures included below*

On the down side of the week, Sister Foukimoana has been pretty sick. For three days we barely left the apartment. I spent the extra time studying, catching up in my journal and doing anything I could for my poor companion. On the third day we were understandably pretty sick of our apartment. We were sitting outside on our porch eating ice cream when a 10 year old boy came to our house asking if we had any plastic bottles. We gave him our plastic bottles and a bowl of ice cream. We sat him down in a chair and while he ate his ice cream, we taught him a lesson and he said he would come to church.

Also. Our neighbors are from India and they have pet pigeons. After we taught the boy a lesson, our neighbors let us play with their pigeons. *pictures included*

Thanks for reading. Tune in next week.

Mahal ko po kayo,

Sister Abish "Elephant" Curtis

Pictures:

-Pet pigeon