God id Mindful

This week is my last week of the 12 week training! 

"If sometimes the harder you try the harder it gets, take heart! So it has been with the best people who ever lived." Cherish your spiritual burdens because God will converse with you through them and will use you to do His work if you carry them well.

This week I got to work with a lot of people:

1. On Tuesday we had so many teaching appointments that Sister Fernandez and I split up with two members in the ward to cover more lessons! 

2. One of our investigators, a college student, had a day off of school and asked to spent it with us, teaching! He's curious about what it's like to be a missionary! So we took him and one other member with us to teach! It was like "reverse LTMP" because we had an investigator present to teach less-active members! I really prayed that he would have a spiritually-uplifting and testimony-strengthening experience! I loved hearing him add his testimony to ours during the lessons, even though he himself is just beginning to learn the gospel! Later that day he texted us and said thank you, and that he would never forget how he felt while teaching the gospel with us!

3. Then I went on splits with the Sister Training Leaders, which meant nakabalik ko didto sa San Rem! I got the opportunity to help Sister Detal find a whole neighborhood of investigators that they hadn't been able to find yet, and we even found 3 new investigators that day for them! 

4. District Conference, so we got to be in a Christmas choir!!! The branch hand-sewed matching skirts and shirts for our choir, so sweet! Also, we got to see President and Sister Tanner and Elder Vezencio of the Seventy!

This week was also great because I got to lead. It's scary to lead at first, mostly because of the language. But I noticed something:Here in the Philippines there are always people out walking around selling food. If you avoid eye contact, they won't bother you. But if you are curious and kind of actually want what they're selling, you'll look in their direction, even subconsciously! And they notice and they'll come up to you. 

Being a missionary is just like that. Because we wear a badge with "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" on it, people know we have something to offer. Some of them will avoid eye-contact. Or say they're busy, they need to laba and hugas, and hayhay and luto. But SOME people, catch our eye and smile....they are curious. They want to know. A part of them thinks, is what they have to offer, their message, what I've been subconsciously looking for?? And we notice. And we come up to them and invite them to listen to us. You never know who God has prepared to hear the message of the gospel.

We had one such experience this week. After being sent away from 5 houses, I still wanted to tract in that area. Finally we past by an older Nanay who was just laying down on a wooden board in her house. She was craning her neck to watch us walk by, so I didn't want to just walk by and I walked right into her house to visit her. She immediately pulled out a bench for us and fixed her hair. She said she has been visited by missionaries of other faiths and still hasn't found what she's looking for. SHE'S LOOKING! Which means she is a humble seeker of the truth! At the end of our lesson I asked her to read the first page of a pamphlet before our next visit. She told me, "Sister, ever since I had a stroke and my arm got paralyzed, I mostly just sit here in my house. I will read your WHOLE pamphlet." We are excited to go back to her and continue teaching.

I really love sitting on the floor of these humble homes and telling people things like: "Naa'y Dios og plano para kanimo" or "Ang sakripisyo ni Jesukristo mihimo malimpyohan sa atong mga sala aron makabalik ta sa presencya sa Dios." I would like to testify that there is NO better way to learn a language than by doing it teaching the gospel. The love you feel for the people is the greatest motivation....otherwise, I'd probably give up learning Bisaya haha.

I held a baby kitten this week. smaller than my whole hand! (see attached picture)

I saw a spider fight (favorite pastime of kids here)....gross haha.

If you get the chance, read "The Power of the Word of God" by Elder Michael John U. Teh of the Seventy (he is Filipino). It gives great insight about what I'm experiencing here in the Philippines!

"Yea, blessed is the name of my God, who has been mindful of this people, who are a branch of the tree of Israel, and has been lost from its body in a strange land; yea, I say, blessed be the name of my God, who has been mindful of us, wanderers in a strange land. Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth. Now this is my joy, and my great thanksgiving; yea, and I will give thanks unto my God forever." (Alma 26:36-37).

Butterflies and Balut

Kamusta kamo!

I finally ate Balut this week! If you don't know what it is, google it! It is a delicacy here. We had a Family Home Evening with a less-active member, her non-member husband, and her younger brother who is our investigator. They said, "Sister, we'll have an FHE with you if you eat Balut for us! So I did it!

When we showed up at their house for FHE though, they weren't home, just the investigator was there. So I suggested that we still hold the FHE with him at the chapel with the branch president and his family. It turned out really great because we got to show him the chapel and there was a youth institute class going on, so he got to meet all the youth of our branch. Then we had our family home evening lesson with him and his sister and her family got there just in time for the lesson! It was really great, Sister Fernandez had an object lesson with fire and everything (I would explain the object lesson, but too complicated! It was really cool though!) Then after we closed the lesson, they watched me and filmed me eating Balut.....

And it turns out that Balut is delicious, as long as you don't look at it.

We're really working on finding investigators through the members. Referrals are always the best way to find people interested in the gospel. We give "referral cards" now to every member we meet with and ask them to write the name and address of one person we can go meet and hopefully teach! But we also still continue to focus on strengthening the members, and we are see a lot of success! This Sunday, fast and testimony meeting, we had 2 investigators come to church and two of the less-active families we've been working closely with attend church!

One of our investigators told us, during the testimony meeting, that he felt so happy, that this was different than how he feels at other churches he's attended. He really felt the Spirit. He said "I want to be up there too, once I have my own testimony." We even saw that he was tearing up a little. My companion and I also went up and bore our testimonies. I have decided that I'm going to bear my testimony in Bisaya every fast and testimony meeting. That's 18 Bisaya testimonies. So far, I've given 4!

I'm really grateful to be in the beginning of my mission: I'm reveling in all the TIME I have left on my mission. I can already tell I'm going to miss this place so much, so I want to make all the most of my time starting from the VERY beginning!

I'm learning so many skills here that I probably won't ever use after my mission. These include:

1. opening cans with a knife

2. chopping wood with a blunt knife

3. cooking Filipino-style sud-an

4. catching butterflies with my hands

5. killing various kinds of bugs

6. hand-washing laundry

7. making keychains out of seashells

8. cleaning bathrooms that don't have proper drainage

9. taking apart and putting together electric fans

10. how to find and buy various delicacies of the Philippines

We taught a member about the Word of Wisdom last week and she said, "Sister's I've been selling cigarettes out of my tindahan, and as I'm listening to your lesson, I'm thinking maybe I shouldn't do that." We really appreciated her humility and honesty!

Funny story: 

We spent one day tracting in an area outside of Bogo city and to get there you have to take a little forest path through a thicket of palm trees and these little heart-shaped flowers. It was a BUTTERFLY SANCTUARY, millions of them! So naturally, we caught a few. Then we went and taught a few lessons, all the while holding the butterfly by its wings. It was a good way to meet people because they thought it was so funny. On the way back, Sister Fernandez was like, let's keep them and make bookmarks out of them! So we put them in a spare Book of Mormon I had and shut the book....I felt so bad killing it, with the Book of Mormon even! We caught a third one and I didn't close the book very hard. Then during our next lesson, I opened the BoM to share a scripture, and that third butterfly, still alive, flew out! The person we were teaching was shocked, like the scriptures really are "living scriptures" haha. I love the Philippines.

There's so much more, but for the sake of time, I'll leave it at that. Have a great week everyone!

"The opportunity to work is a privilege, 

The privilege to work is a gift.
The power to work is a blessing.
The love of work is success.”

-David O. Mckay