Hey Family. Man I am getting eaten alive out here. I'm in a constant war with the bugs, and considering sleeping with one eye open. and I'm either allergic to my mosquito repellent or I have a million tiny bugs living under my skin screaming bloody murder each time I spray. I haven't figured out which one it is yet, but i'm leaning towards the second.

Anyways. I don't have much time to write today, so I will just share a short story of another lesson I learning from the Philippines. This lesson is that things don't always have to go your way. My companion Sister Batacan always cooks way too much food, and each day we end up wasting a lot. Throughout growing up, I was raised not to waste food, and just to "take a small scoop of ice cream and you can always go back for more". Although each meal, Sister prepares large amounts of food for just the 2 of us, and we usually are low on funds with our limited budget. I haven't said anything for fear it might offend her. I'm grateful to apply my patience, to analyze the situation a bit more. I want to share with you my realization. One morning I woke up, and my sweet companion had cooked breakfast for us. I had bought myself a prized loaf of bread to last me the week, because having rice with every meal can be very tiring. My companion cooked herself a meal, and then she had toasted me 6 slices of bread. I almost said something, because I could only eat a maximum of 2 slices, and now my bread was wasted. I'm glad I didn't say something, because right then I had a culture realization. Even though everyones poor, they always want to make sure you have enough to eat. Sure it makes sense logically in my American mind, that if I wanted more, I could have toasted more. Although this was Sister Batacans way of showing she cares. She just wanted to serve me and fill my belly for the day. She wanted to make sure enough was available. Of coarse I couldn't eat all the slices, but I got the returning reward of having my still hungry companion eat 3 slices. Sure 1 slice still went to waste, but the fact that I had conquered patience, and that we showed brotherly kindness to one another was a greater price than the cost for the loaf of bread.

I love you all, and just remember, that when you sacrifice something for another, you'll always gain more than what you lost. Whether your sacrificing your time, money, or even pride by saying sorry to another, its always more rewarding seeing other peoples points of view and forgetting about your wants and needs.

Take care!

Sister Hancock