ALL DAY P-DAY

Kumusta family!!

Oh my goodness has this been quite the week. First things first though. So, as you probably noticed, I'm emailing late right now...let me just tell you why. It's this little something called ALL DAY P-DAY!!! That is right, no district meeting. So that means, it is now 1 PM and I have already gone running (Yay! I convinced the whole apartment to join too! We headed to the cemetery and took a ton of pictures. I'll try to send them), cleaned my room, the kitchen, our bathroom, finished ALL my laundry, finished my plan of salvation diagram thing that I'm been working on for the past forever but haven't had time to finish, ate lunch, caught up in my journal and that was just the morning. Oh boy oh boy, has it been a great day! Can you tell I'm pretty excited :)

So...it's the weirdest thing that it's Thanksgiving this week. I almost can't even believe it. I feel like I'm stuck in a perpetual cycle of summer here. Honestly, I swear it's still July. Oh you lucky ducks with snow. Ha, just kidding, I'll take my island climate for now. I got Dad's email and I'll start working on it. Dad I was so happy to hear from you. I have officially decided I'm a daddy's girl. Not in the spoiled brat, "I want a pony way", but Sister Lorente and I always end up talking about our dad's and how great they are. So we've decided we're daddy's girls :) I'll get right on it writing that letter, don't you worry. I can't believe I'm missing my open house brownies...remember the last time when Chanae brought some up to Logan for me and little piglet Brett ate them? Bahaha, yeah, I was not too happy. Ah, those things are practically heaven.

Ok, so I usually end up replying as I read your email and I just got to all the missionaries headed out....wow. Also, can I just say, I wish there were a lot of Logan Huntsburgers out there too...man, that boy is good looking. And on that note, I just found out Twilight came out this week. Yeah, had no idea. That's how isolated I am. I found out because we went to jolly bees for an ice cream cone and the cups had Jacob's face printed on them. I'll have to break out my Volturi shirt when I get to watch it so I can cheer on my team. Haha. Also, I'll find some Christmas ornaments. That's a brilliant idea.

Ok, so now for this week's updates. Holy hannah, can I just say how crazy it is how quickly things can change for our investigators in a matter of days. Sister Jescel is struggling  big right now. Her husband has no idea to listen at all and she's stopped progressing because she won't read the Book of Mormon. Seriously though, it's the craziest thing. We start teaching them and you can see how their understanding just blooms. But if we teach them for a while and they don't read the Book of Mormon, their progress stops. It's like they just don't fully understand the importance of it anymore. And that's why the good old BofM is the best thing in the world. It works like that for members too. If they’re reading the Book of Mormon consistently, they understand the gospel so much better. Not necessarily because of what they read, but because of the spirit it brings into their lives that helps them to understand the things that they can't on their own. It's incredible to see the difference in investigators. Example; Sister Connie...my goodness, we have taught her for 3 months now, and oh boy, sobrang matigas ang ulo niya...that means, she is WAY hard headed. It's like, no matter what you say, it doesn't get through to her. Well, her house was down where the fire was and nearly burned down. She just prayed and told Heavenly Father that if he would save their house, she would go to church every Sunday and be obedient to every commandment.  And now she's ready to listen to us. That night she picked up the BofM and now she's in 1 Nephi 9. And it's like she all the sudden gets it now. Ha, last night she told us...I don't want to go to the terrestial kingdom, I only want to the celestial kingdom. Haha, you should have seen the look on my face. Utter shock...those words coming from her? Really? I love it. It's incredible to see what the power of the Holy Ghost can do. When people are coming unto Christ, they just desire to make those changes. That's how you can tell if someone is really seeking after the Savior. They desire to be better in whatever aspect of their life it is that they need to change. So awesome.

So I have a joke for you. It goes like this: 2 philippinos and one foreigner were in an elevator. One of the philippinos says to the other, "Bababa ba", and the other goes, "bababa". The foreigner just looks at them confused and goes, are you aliens? Haha, this is why it's funny. "bababa ba" means, is it going down? and bababa means, it's going down. So of course it sounds like jibberish if you don't know what it means. It made me laugh. I also have an assignment for you! Will you do me a huge favor and research the Iglesia ni Cristo church? I'm dying of curiousity over here. So this church is way popular here in the Philippines and the rumor is that the founder is an ex-Mormon who wanted to become an apostle, and well, of course it didn't happen for him. Let me just tell you a bit about them..it's crazy. First of all, their members are not allowed to talk to Mormon missionaries. You'd think that'd be a red flag for them. I mean, it's only the liar who says, I'll tell you this but don't talk to anyone else about it. The person who's being honest says, yeah, go ask them. No problem. Go figure. Anyhow, no one is allowed to own a Bible only the leaders (what is this, the dark ages?), every year they have to pay a fee to be a member like it's a gold club or something, if they miss church one week they also have to pay a fee, and get this, this is what happens with all of their tithing. The founder has 3 kids and the churches sign is a flag that's green, white, and red (our code name for them is the Italians. haha). Anyhow, each church has a different color of roof. If the roof is red, all the tithing goes to the oldest child, if the roof is white or blue it goes to the middles, and if it's green it goes to the youngest. Can you believe that!! Oh my heavens, and their members are way super dedicated people and totally believe it all! I just do not understand how that is even possible. But I think they must really have some ties to Mormonism. They were having a debate on their religion show (yes, that have those here. each different church has their own tv show that shows every day) and they were talking about the afterlife and the iglesia representative was talking about the three kingdoms, celestial, terrestrial, and telestial. But no where in the bible does it mention all three. That only comes from JST. So I'm just super curious, that's all. Let me know what you find out. Also, can I get the recipe for crepes. Sister Ramilo and I want to experiment a bit :)

So we have another investigator. Well, technically, his dad is the investigator but every time we've gone over there he hasn't been there. But his son, Leo is always there. He's born again, which means they're not allowed to talk to us either. bahaha, it is the funniest thing. Literally, he will not talk to us. He just shakes his heads and hands and won't respond, even if we ask a question that requires a straight up answer. It is honestly the funniest thing ever. Well guess what happened?! This week he actually spoke to us! We both just started laughing and go, “Brother Leo, you have a voice! So that's what it sounds like!" We've decided we want to be assigned to be his missionaries in the spirit world...I can just picture it now..."brother Leo, kumusta! Remember us?! We're back!". Bahaha, we laughed for probably a good hour :) That is just a little snipet of my week. Pretty much we're struggling to get new investigators, because, well, apparently it's bawal for people to listen to the Mormons. It's ok though, it's only because they know we're right :) It does make me a bit sad for them though. Hopefully their chance will come. But we did find a few golden investigators this week that I'm way excited about...they're what we call the honest in heart. But I'll keep you posted on their progress. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!! Send me a pic of our beautiful tree once you get it all beautified. And don't forget to put up the Christmas lights even though I'm not there to do it for you. Haha. Mahal na mahal ko kayo!! Have a great week!!!