Funny Stories!

Kamusta!

 P-days on Mondays from now on (Sunday back in America). San Remigio is termed the "wilderness" of Cebu East and for good reason! It is beautiful here. We often teach lessons in homes that just have a tin roof and maybe two walls. Chickens, goats and stray cats and dogs freely wander in and out of these homes.

 Top lesson distractions of the week: 1. We were teaching a fairly new investigator and a tiny, black puppy squeezed its way into the house between the dirt floor and the bamboo walls! He came right up and started licking me! 2. We were sitting on a bamboo mat and removed our shoes, and a goat came up and started to try to chew on my shoe! I had to chase him away but I saved my shoe!!! 3. the chickens are usually scared of us, but in one home a very bold chicken kept hopping up on the edge of the house we were sitting on. While I was sharing a scripture, he jumped up on my bag (which was in my lap) and flapped his wings in my face! hadlock kaayo! 4. We were teaching a sweet less active mother while her son was next door at some kind of band practice and then her husband came home super drunk laughing at everything. We talked with him for a while; he got up and left as soon as I said we wanted to share a message with them though. 5. Mosquito bites. I put tons of insect/mosquito repellent on, to no avail! The itching is very distracting! I'm being eaten alive! 

Coolest lessons so far: 1. We taught about the importance of prophets to a corn farmer by using the analogy of a farmer guiding a carabao. To plant corn here, they have a carabao (looks kind of like a cow) attached to a plow and the farmer holds the reigns and directs it to plow in straight rows. If the farmer isn't guiding it, the lines won't be straight and the farm land will be chaos.The farmer is like the prophet, the carabao is us (people) and the plow/farmland is the world/our lives on earth. 2. We have planned a "Surprise FHE!" It's where we schedule teaching appointments with all the less active members and then they all show up together and we're like, "Surprise! FHE!" haha. 3. I invited an investigator to be baptized for the first time and she accepted, so we have one baptismal date! They don't have a baptismal font here so if there are baptisms, they are conducted in the ocean! The language barrier is lisod gyud kaayo.....that's all I'll say about that! I feel like I'm in a really cool movie but I'm the only one that doesn't have the script! I always talk, but I rarely understand. Update on our porch cats: I fed them some leftover fish from lunch, so we're becoming friends.

 Motto for the week: Aspire, Perspire, Inspire! (written on my water bottle label and I thought it fit missionary work here perfectly!).

 -Sister Bertoldo