Refiner's Fire

Hello my dear family! I'm happy to report this last week (well, half a week) has been much much better! After I vented to you guys for a bit (aw, always feels so good) I realized my problem was that I actually was just irritated because I hadn't said anything. I felt walked over. Shoot, is that not just the story of my life or what. So I gave myself an attitude adjustment and decided this was stopping now. Haha. I'm MUCH more bold with her. It's working much much better.

So can we just say this area makes me feel like I'm in the refiner's fire. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. I've never felt so on the edge of my patience for such an extended period of time, and not just with my comp, with the branch, with LAs, with myself, with everything. My heavens. This branch is a mess. But on the bright side!! Yesterday I was making a list of all the things I've learned in this area....yeah, it's a pretty long list. That's one thing about being here. Usually in real life it takes a few months for you to learn a valuable lesson, you know the ones that will change your life and how you look at things. In this area, it's about 2 a week. I'm in the Metamorphic process and it does not feel good. We can do it though, right? 

 We do have a new roommate. She's also Pakistani...Sister Joseph. She's doesn't speak Tagalog at all. And she also doesn't speak English. Ouch. It's made me very grateful for my comp who is  Pakistani as well, but at least has a grasp on the language. It's been a little rough I think for Sister Segovia, but she's great, she'll figure it out. Oh the joys of having a companion.

I'm not sure what else has happened this week. It's only been a few days right? We're struggling with our less actives. They get it, it seems like they know everything, but apparently they don't because they don't want to ACT. Which means there's kulang somewhere, there's something missing. Haven't quite figured it out yet. 

So I've decided to start to give a little short blurp about one person in my area that we visit, about their life and such and then a picture so you can check it out and see their life. For this week is Sister Riza. She is honestly my hero in so many ways. One of the hardest workers I've seen here in the Philippines. So this is her story. When she was about 17, she started dating a guy and got pregnant. They didn't want to be together, so she went and lived with her aunt and starting raising her son all alone. That's when she met the missionaries. She was living with her aunt and they were actually teaching her aunt. She wasn't interested at all, but then she decided to just read the Book of Mormon and see what they were talking about. Read it, prayed, got baptized. Still has one of the strongest testimonies I’ve seen. Then she was super active, but then met her next spouse and current spouse. Fell away from the church, then got pregnant. But they stayed together and are married now. About 1 year into their marriage, she started to get active again and wanted him to join the church. He had no interest. So you can imagine the gap that's caused. She pulls sidelines just so they can eat and honest to goodness, has the most incredible attitude ever. She knows what's happened to her it's because of her choices, but she ALWAYS has a smile on her face and is so welcoming and happy. It's incredible. And such a reminder to me that, #1, your choices truly do determine your destiny, and #2, you can also choose to be happy. I wish you could just meet her. She still glows, despite everything that's going on with her life. So that's sister Riza. I tell you, one of my favorites. 

That's all I can think of. Hopefully all is well with you and you're enjoying your snow. It's starting to get a little toasty over here with summer approaching. Wowsa! Pero mahal ko kayo, at sana maganda and linggo ninyo! Ingat kayo!