Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Hello!!!!
Sooooooooooooo a lot has happened since I last wrote!

First of all I am transferred!!!We had transfers on Friday so we traveled to urdaneta. Transfer meeting was so stressful! Jjust waiting to hear where we are going and who we will be with. President has all the new sisters stand on one side of the chapel and the trainers stand on the other side. Then he called out our areas. So I am here in Lingayen Zone, Manat B area. I am training and opening a brand new area! I am also training of course. My first anak is sister Stokes! She is so so great! She is from mount Shasta Ca and worked at Disneyland! She is just like me it is crazy! Oh and she goes to byu-i.  Anyway we are here in our new new area. Some of the places in this area have never been visited by missionaries! We are excited. This area is very very very hot and it is basically all fish ponds where people raise fish to sell. The area smells like fish and so does the water we shower in. We live with two other sisters, Sister Caunca and sister Baluyot. They are both from the Philippines. Sister Baluyot is also a trainee.It is really beautiful here. I am happier to be surrounded by water instead of tobacco like in my last area :)

So they worked with us on Saturday so they could sort of show us the area. Basically what we will be doing is finding finding finding! New investigators and less active members and working closely with out church leaders! The problem is we have no branch mission leader! Hopefully we will have one soon.Our branch president is really nice and supportive.

My last few days in Caba were hard! I love all the people there so much and I hated saying goodbye. But I will hopefully see them all again someday. I know it is the Lord's plan for me to be here in Manat B. Even though it is hard to open an area and train, I know I can receive strength from the atonement of Jesus Christ.

So training is fun! Sister Stokes is great she is ready to work and has a great desire to serve. The branch members are surprised that president put two foreigners together but I like it :)

I am helping her adjust to the culture and the language here. There is a different dialect here. Last area I was in La Union where they speak Ilocano. Here we are in Pangasinan where they speak pangasinan. We just speak Tagalog though :)

I am pretty comfortable with the language now. Sister Stokes is very diligent at language study so she will improve really fast once she gets over the initial shock. We are following the spirit since we don't really know the area.

Anyways....ummm

I received dearelders this week from Kara and Samantha and mommy! I love your dearelders!!!!!
Sorry this is so short today! more to come about investigators and fish!
See ya!
Love you!
Sister Stapp

 sis Fernando and i with our trainees

 

Happy Easter!

 

Beautiful and Fishy