Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Near Death in Danao

Right now I'm in an internet shop and there is a little Filipino boy touching my arm asking me for pesos...I have no pesos on me and I keep telling him, but he won't stop so I'm just going to keep emailing you all, haha!

This week was great- 2 STL exchanges, and 2 new IBDs! Our IBD's are Ruby and Ken, a young couple that has been wanting to be baptized for a while now, but are still trying to get their "kasal" figured out....but marriage papers cost money, and kwarta is hard to come by! I'm trying to help by paying her mother, a recent convert, to do my laundry for me (she's much better than I am at it anyway, I'll be honest!) and a member has also offered to help them out. Last night we set a baptismal date for them for May 28! I'm feeling pretty hopeful for them!

Also this week, I taught the most lessons EVER in my mission in one week, so that feels good! We found 5 new investigators, discovered an entire barangay of less-active members, and contacted a referral sent to us all the way from SLC, Utah! 

Danao is not as much of a "tourist" city as Tagbilaran was, so people are a lot more shocked here to see 2 young American girls....it's fun though, we always have a trail of children following us and saying "Sister Bertoldo! Sister Allen!" and one day we stopped to buy some mangoes off the street on the seawall, and before we knew it we were surrounded by about 20 kids all watching us eat mangoes....haha, but we were able to talk to some of their parents too- we called it "BRTing the neighborhood"!

On a more worrisome note, I now have some kind of "virus" that gives me a "roaming rash". There are no other side effects so it's not too concerning, and Sister Tanner, the mission president's wife, was kind enough to get me an ointment to help me get rid of it...so it's all good!

One funny story: one day we were trying to find a referral and while we're asking around for her name, this young Filipina invites us in her home and calls her cousin, a sikad driving, to come pick us up. Then Alvin shows up and takes us all over the barangay looking for our referral! Sister Allen and I were just sitting in the sikad like, "what is happening? He's finding our referral for us!" Then Alvin leaves us on the side of the road to go ask some people, and then a giant garbage truck starts backing up and almost ran us over, and we screamed and all the people on the streets screamed, and then Alvin ran over and wheeled the sikad bike out of the way JUST IN TIME. Then he got reprimanded by the onlookers for almost killing his "American passengers" haha, and then we never ended up finding that referral anyway, but we tipped Alvin because we felt pretty bad for all the trouble he went to! Filipino people are possibly the MOST hospitable people on the earth!

I'm sorry, the computer is just not letting me upload or send pictures, but maybe next week!

Love you all!
Sister Bertoldo

No comments:

Post a Comment