"Praise Him in the Islands"

Kamusta!

I ate pig brains this week! In my defense, I didn't know that was what I was eating until my district told me AFTER the fact! I'm ashamed to admit that....it was delicious.

Work: 

The people here are very playful. They love pictures and engaging activities.So we set a companionship goal to incorporate more media into our lessons. We now sing, in Bisaya, hymns to open each lesson. It really invites the Spirit and the people here LOVE singing and music, so they really appreciate it! I love singing for them!!! They aren't shy to join in sometimes too. We used to sing in English, because that is what the members do here, but it's better if they can understand the words. We also use the gospel artbook to show pictures as we teach specific scripture stories or principles. We've also started bringing sticky notes. We give a reading assignment and write a couple of questions on the sticky note and leave it in their scriptures. It helps them to have a very specific assignment and it prepares them for our next lesson! We also are now bring a little DVD player into the investigators' homes to play the Restoration video. It's the only video we have that is in Bisaya!

I had my first "D&C 50:22 moment" this week. We've been teaching an old Catholic woman. On our second lesson, her daughter joined in. We taught about the nature of the Godhead, the focus of the gospel on families and finished with teaching how to pray sincerely, not from a memorized script. Then we asked the daughter to say the closing prayer. She offered a very sweet, simple, but genuine prayer. After, we noticed tears in her eyes and we asked her what she was feeling. She said that that was the first time she's felt she was really praying to her Heavenly Father. Beautiful moment! We are excited to continue teaching her.

Funny Story:

There was a storm a couple nights ago (blindly bright flashes of lightning and ear-splitting thunder...so scary!) The next day we went out to work. It was rainy slightly. While we were in the home of a woman we had just met that day, the torrential downpour started. We were in the middle of getting to know her and see if she's interested in being taught, and then the rain on her tin roof was so loud that we couldn't hear the sounds of our own voices! So we helped her shut her windows, gather her laundry inside, and we just sat in her house saying nothing for about 20 minutes, waiting out the rain. He son comes out, in his boxers, and starts cooking food. She falls asleep. We still can't hear anything or open the door to leave without letting in a flood of water. So we just sit and wait haha. So awkward. When the rain slowed down a little, we asked for plastic to wrap our bags and we left, after getting a return appointment, of course! We worked the rest of the day in the rain, but it wasn't as hard....there were some bent palm trees and corn stalks though, from the wind!

I love the Philippines. I love the warm wind, the ocean, the starfish, the seashells mixed into the farming soil, the loud music emanating from tiny huts at any hour of the day, the giant tropical flowers, the butterflies, the motorcycles, the people! Isaiah best described being a missionary here: 

"Sing unto the Lord a new song and his praise from the ends of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles and the inhabitants thereof.....Let them give glory unto the Lord and praise Him in the islands" (Isaiah 42:10, 12).🌴 

Well this has been a long enough email! I hope you all have a great week!

Love from the other side of the world,

Sister Bertoldo!