All I Feel is Gratitude

Oh my family!!! Another week gone by. We went to the temple today, which was awesome. I haven't been since august so it felt so fulfilling. Love it. One of the perks of being in the city, right :) About the clothes being made in Mindoro, I left the material there and hopefully (as in seriously hopefully!) she finished them and sent them up with president this last Saturday after Mindoro's zone conference. I went shopping at the mall today too. It's officially decided. I hate malls. I hate shopping. All it does is make you want all this stuff that you don't need and i just wanna go sit on my kawayan floor in a Philippino shack to remind me none of that matters. It's slowly breaking me in for sure so I'm not in complete shock in the states though. Good news though, I bought 4 pairs of shoes today! For a total of about 40 dollars. Haha, love it. I felt like pretty woman with all these service ladies bringing shoes to me. ahah. You think I'm kidding, but the service in the Philippines is pretty much top notch. But SO excited to get my hair cut!! Thanks for making the appointment ma :) Mom, I really don't think you need to worry about the ear. I've gotten this awesome cold this week that's just been draining everything out. Truly, don't waste the money. I'm pretty sure it's ok now. 

Thank you for the packages! I loved the letters. They're always my favorite, of course. I think Tyler’s was the most funny, but that's no surprise. And the milk. I've already drank half of it. Haha, and I don't feel a bit bad. And the countdown Joan sent was so stinking cute. We've been loving it. You guys are the greatest. 

Ryan's new ward sounds about like the entire Philippines. Haha, welcome to my entire mission. Maybe he's starting to see now why it'll be super important to make sure all his investigators are strong with their testimonies and that they're getting baptized for the right reasons, because sometimes, the wards can't hold on to them. Their testimony is the only thing that'll keep them going. 

I don't have a ton of updates, so I'm just gonna spill out whatever comes off the top of my head. 

This week was crazy. As in, I've never experienced an area like this. We're opening area right now. There's a total of 6 member families in our area, 2 that are active and 4 that are less active. And we have about 4 investigators.  No joke. Add that up, and then how many hours we have to use in a week and it makes for a lot of blank time. I've never tracted so much in life. As in, my mouth hurt at the end of each day because my companion knows how to say about 4 things in Tagalog. But Saturday I just couldn't help but laugh. The hard part is they're all INC and Baptist and they won't even give you the time of day. They just say, go to someone else (rough translation). I wanted to tell them, that's like me saying I hate Philippinos when I don't even know a Philippino. Come on people. This is not working though so it's time to take a new approach. Tonight we're going to go talk to a few members and find out who has contacts with the barangay. Then tomorrow we're going to go to the barangay and see if we can do a community activity on Family History, and/or service activity. Even pair up with some other churches. Try to just get people to open up a bit. This door to door thing is ridiculous and super ineffective.  

We have a sweet new investigator right now. He's a Baptist pastor and understands the atonement and other doctrine better than most members. Wowsa. He even asked us if we believe that Christ went and taught the spirits in the spirit world for the 3 days he was dead. And that there are actually 2 kind of deaths, a temporal death and a spiritual death. When Adam and Eve ate the fruit it was a spiritual death, not temporal, because they became separated from God. What the?! Next lesson is the apostacy. 

I talked to a few of my fellow Mindorians at the temple today....we're all missing Mindoro. Elder Quinton was hilarious. He goes, "Just kill me. Seriously. You're so lucky you're just going home. I told president, just to drag my face to the box back in Mindoro. I'm trying to figure out a way to get emergency transferred that isn't too disobedient". Bahaha, I laughed so hard. So apparently it's not just me. 

I've been super lucky to be here for the last few weeks. Like I said, there was a greater purpose in this and it was all for me. Just to help me out. I don't feel sad anymore, upset, nothing. All I feel is gratitude. And I love Sister Lorente. She told the ward her "twin" finally made it back to the main land. Haha. Pretty much every night I go over to their apartment and we just sit and talk to 10:30. She is my blood sister, I swear, even if we're different colors. 

For Christmas, I think I'll just call you. It's cheaper that way.  I'll probably call around 7 am here I think, so like 4 pm there. Will that be ok? Hope so. And Yay, there's SNOW!!!! Just praying it's stay and gets added to. Love you all and talk to you soon! Have a fab week! 

Transferred...to Pateros :(

Greetings from Pateros...I am no longer in Mindoro :( Long story short, Sister DeLaMare wanted to get my ear checked out and make sure everything was ok, and the best way to do that was to just have me come back to Manila to see the doctor here and stay here for the last 3 weeks of my mission. I found out last Monday night and then flew out early Wednesday morning. It honestly felt like my heart had been ripped out. Still kind of does. When she called, I just sat on the kitchen floor and sobbed for 30 minutes. I think it was the first time on my mission that it fully registered, "I'm leaving". I've been in such denial, I wish I could explain it. It doesn't feel real to me that I'm leaving the Philippines; that was the first moment that it felt real. It hurt. I went to the mission home with the zone leaders because they were having ZLC and after I went to the doctor (found out there's just built up congestion in my ear that hasn't drained from the infection/fungus. That's why I can still feel pressure and sometimes a twing of pain. It just will take a while to soak back into the tissue daw), I felt just sick. I had to leave my area for nothing basically. And I had tears welling in my eyes with 30 elders starting at me like I'm crazy. And I couldn't hug a single one of them for just a second. I just cried to President when he interviewed me. Shoot. 

But over the past few days, I've been able to see why. First reason is for me. Like I said, I've been in denial, so my head and heart haven't registered yet that I'm leaving the Philippines. I keep telling Heavenly Father to help me prepare because I know it's going to hit so hard. So what happens? I get transferred. Not quite as hard to leave an area you've only been in for 3 weeks and where you know no one. Especially where in Mindoro, I was with all my old companions.  I love the people there, the branch, my zone. He's just easing me into reality real slow like so I don't go into depression or something. And I feel at peace. My work is done in Mindoro. The Lord needs me here.

Second is for my companion. My new companion is Sister M. She's from Australia and has quite the story. She was originally assigned to a different mission, but was reassigned here because she had to have brain surgery. Her brain was swollen with water. The cause: her dad has beat her for about the past 12 years. Makes my heart ache. She's the oldest and her mom died in 2005. She has a hard time with remembering things though. She's been in the area 1 week, so we're basically opening the area together. There's so many sisters coming in next year, President told me she needs to be ready to train. We have much work to do. 

I got a tender mercy though. I got to be with Sister Suarez for 2 weeks and then here my next door neighbor is Sister Lorente. Yay!!! LOVE that girl. Shoot, I've missed her! So I get to be with her for the next few weeks and see everyone else at temple day and Christmas conference. And I'm heading back to my old areas the week before I head home. It just feels like my goodbyes are complete. walang kulang. I'm finally starting to feel like I can leave the Philippines now and be ok with it. 

So as for the culture shock. After being in the province for the last 11 months, wowsa, Hahaha, I just had to laugh at myself. These are the things that have shocked me the most so far this week. 

1: my apartment has a toilet seat! Honest to goodness, I opened the door and was nearly in shock. Busted up laughing. 

2: I also have a shower head. At first I assumed it didn't work, so I started looking for the bucket. When I couldn't find one, it finally dawned.....maybe the shower head works... pleasantly surprised when I turned it on and water came out. Oh my goodness.

3: Everyone's clothes match so well! I'm slowly becoming more conscious of what I'm wearing. Haha. Their outfits are so well put together with so much style, not the gym shorts, ripped jeans, pj pants and old t-shirts I'm used to. Seriously, I find myself staring at people because their clothes just look so nice.

4: So much technology. Everyone has a phone that they're on all the time. What the heck.

5: The ward is organized. Everyone knows what's going on. Ward council was a breeze.

These are the not so great ones.

6: so much gossip that goes around the missionaries. I hate it. I got here and it was like all the sudden this bombardment of chismis that I don't even care to know. I love that about Mindoro. You're in your area and you do your work. The end.  

7: people are pasay. That's means disobedient. It's like, they're lax about their work. Today our entire district meeting was about being obedient. Here it's like, "not cool" to be obedient. They call it being a "prophet". I hate it. That would never happen in Mindoro. Our motto there was, We don't have time to be disobedient. We have work to. Wasn't even an issue there. Shoot, it's hard to describe. Elder Froude and Sister Sanchez have been struggling with it too though. And I miss my zone leaders. They're such great Elders. Definitely set the tone for the entire zone. Kind of homesick for Mindoro. 

So we won't be able to skype on Christmas, but no worries, I'll see all your faces soon enough :) I think I'll still call at 8 am here, 5 pm Christmas eve there if that's ok. I'll let you know if anything changes. And I got your packages today! I haven't got to open them yet, but I'm super excited. When's the appointment for my hair? Just curious, I'm in that much dire need :) Also, don't worry about the ear. We're good to go now with that. I got my flight schedule today too, but I can't remember the times or anything. I'll look at it again and let you know when. 

Love you all much and I'll talk to you next week! We have a temple week next week, so it'll be on Tuesday, not Monday, just so you don't get worried like with Tate :) And I'm echoing Dad's statement.....I need snow! I'll starting praying, no worries. Have a fantastic week!! mahal ko po kayong lahat!

PICTURES!!!

Brother Exequial that Candace has been teaching. He has no teeth, as in, not one. Such a funny/cute smile.

The beach...Mindoro 2012

Love the beach sunset

Candace and Sister Abonitalla

Baptism this Week

Hello my dearest family and welcome to December!! Haha, I still feel like it's July. I'm seriously in a perpetual cycle of summer over here.

As for questions first, the fungus is still there I believe. Right now it's just like pressure in my ear with a twing of pain every once in a while. But who knows if it'll come back in full force. I started a new medicine last week, but walla. Nada. There's pretty much not much I can do. So we'll just hope it doesn't blow my ear drum or my equilibrium and pray it'll go away? I try not to think about it too much because there's really nothing I can do at this point. Gotta love being stuck in the middle of nowhere. The PAT ring, is the Tagalog CTR ring. It stands for "Piliin ang tama".  

I only have a few things to report this week. First of all, Sister Mariza got baptized on Saturday! Yay! She is honestly so amazing. She bore her testimony after the baptism and I found out things she'd never told us before. She said before she met us, she promised herself she would never join a different religion. She used to be Catholic. But then she met us and we told her just to ask God, and so she did. And after that, everything changed for her. She said, she sits and waits for us to come to the house because when we're there it feels different. She told her husband, it's a different kind of happiness, it's not a normal happiness. I think sometimes as people that have grown up in the church and have had the spirit with us much more on a regular basis than others, we honestly just don't notice, or appreciate it as much as we should. This week she asked us a question about polygamy; she asked why if in the 10 commandments it says to only have 1 wife, but Abraham had more than one wife. We explained to her a little bit, but honestly, if we would have told her, "we don't know", it wouldn't have made any difference for her. She doesn't need to know it in her head, because she can feel it so strong in her heart. Her faith is incredible. I feel priviledged to be the one to teach her.

You know the little kids that got baptized last month? Their parents are now fully back in the church. They just finished the Temple Prep classes and Brother Rodolfo has started saving for them to go to the temple. So excited for them. They're such an awesome family. And we're teaching Sister Felicia how to read. She's from the Badjao tribe where they literally build their houses on the ocean, hence, she didn't go to school at all growing up.

Brother Exequial moved to Pasig last Saturday :( It was a really sad day to say the least. But we made sure the missionaries there knew he was coming. His baptism is in a few weeks. Such a cute little old man.

I had an idea for us though! You wanna Skype on Christmas!?! The Whitings offered their computer to Skype at their house. That way you can meet my companion(s) and the Whitings too. I was thinking that if we Skyped, it'd probably be on Christmas day here, about 8am, so about 5pm for you on Christmas eve. I need to check with the Whitings first though and see if that's still ok. Also, if we did that, I'd need to have twit get my Skype ID and password off my laptop. I totally forgot it.

And one last thing....Can you send Grandma's Brownie recipe to me? I'm going to try and make brownies for Christmas, but if i can't figure out how to get them to cook, no worries, we'll just eat the batter :)

Love you muches! Don't worry mom, I'm going to buy material right after emailing :)