Just Love this Place

Hello hello to my dear family!!

Honest to goodness, I feel like I just have lived here all my life. We sat in ward council yesterday and I ended up being the map. For reals though. It's hilarious. I just love this place.

So I have a story for you! So yesterday, we went to an appointment, but he was busy so we decided to contact one of the less actives in that area. So we figure out where she lives and go to the door and she's sitting there reading her scriptures. But she's not just reading her scriptures, she's actually reading the index. And marking it like crazy with all these weird dashes and lines. Wait, it gets better. It was like I walked into "A Beautiful Mind". So she gets super super excited to see us, invites us in and of course we start asking the usual questions..."kumusta po kayo?", then like the second question I asked,  I said so when were you baptized? And this was her answer, "Well, in 1972 is when I died. I'm a resurrected being"......yep. I sat there and went, hold up, am I translating this correctly?? Bahaha, it gets better! Apparently she's been given the priesthood and has seen the resurrected Christ....in the bishop's office. And she has a Urim and Thumin and she's had visions and revelations. Don't worry, she wrote a letter to the first presidency telling them all about it. She's prophesied to be the next apostle. At first, I was just trying not to laugh out loud! I couldn't figure out if she was being serious or not...but then as she went on, she just got creepier and creepier. I don't know how to describe it. She grabbed my hand and was getting real close to me and is like, you believe me right? We're the chosen ones. Brrrr, not even kidding. And you should see her scriptures....they're marked so creepily! Good thing I had my Phychologist of a companion with me....she said she had a patient like that once who was also a member of the church. Schizophrenic. Haha, oh my goodness. Definitely a first for me. Afterward, I couldn't stop thinking about it and as a result, I left my OYM bag in the tricycles with my Tagalog BofM that I've marked like crazy so I can actually find things and my Plan of Salvation that took me a month to make because there's no time. Shoot. I'm praying an honest person finds it :) Ha, it was quite the interesting night. 

BUT, guys, I have so many great stories for you this week! I know I've kind of been complaining lately, so I'm going to repent and tell you 3 stories from this week that were just so awesome and make missionary work the greatest thing ever. You ready?

 So #1:  So we've been working with a less active sister. She is seriously so great. She has a WofW problem, but she's working on it and she really wants to come back to church. Well this week we had an exhibit at the chapel, kind of like an open house about the history of the church in the Philippines and she came with us. So we were walking home with her and she just goes, "I wish I would have had a pen and paper. Our church is just beautiful, even from the start. I told that to my friend the other day. This is the true church". Ah, yes. So happy. Her faith is really starting to grow and it just makes me so happy :). 

 #2:  I went to a lady's funeral the very first day I got to this area. The poor husband is just heart broken. We’ve taught him a few times, but 9 times out of 10 he’s so drunk we can’t teach. So we finally caught him on a day when he wasn’t drunk. We taught him about the temple. He knows what the temple is, but he doesn’t know what it’s really about.  We taught about family sealing. He keeps asking why he is still alive. We told him  “This is why. Your wife is waiting for you to go to the temple so you can be together forever.”  He just said okay. How do I do that? We’ll be teaching the word of wisdom next time :)   

#3:  You all know one of my favs here, Jeyar. I swear I knew this kid in the pre-existance. He's practically a bestie here in Tandang Sora. Let me just paint a little picture for you. So we were teaching him up on top of his roof, it was about sunset at this point. And we're just doing a follow up, how's work, how's your reading, prayers, etc. And he goes, guess what? What? and he says, "I'm getting my patriarchal blessing tomorrow". About 3 weeks ago we taught about patriarchal blessings and challenged him to talk to bishop and work on getting his blessing, and yesterday he got his patriarchal blessing. As we were just sitting up there on his roof, it was a good thing it was dark because I may have shed a tear or two. I've just seen him grow from step one, I've been here the whole way. And now he has a patriarchal blessing and going to apply for a mission by September. I can't even describe how happy it makes me. It's honestly hard to explain.

The best part about all of this is these are people I’ve known for 5 months now and have been teaching, and going to church with, and helping for so long and so I've seen their growth and how much they're changing their lives and how much happier they are! Sometimes you don't get that lucky. You get to an area, and you start working, and then you get transferred before you ever get to see the results of what you're doing. But I've gotten to see the results. Even if they're still small changes right now. I just love it. 

Well, I'm out of time. I hope you're all enjoying the snow....it's getting summer time here....I think I might just melt. Haha. But I love you all and I'll talk to you next week! Ingat kayo diyen!

H.F. Knows Better than Us :)

Hello my family!!

I still can't believe there's no snow. Shoot, that is not good at all. I hope something comes in really quick for you guys and it just dumps. I'll start praying for it. So the sun here comes up around 6ish and goes down about 6ish...all year round. It was actually a really weird thing for me to realize coming from summer in the states where the sun was still up at 9 PM.

So can we just say this week has been about a million bajillion times better than the past month! Oh my goodness, I just wish you could see the difference. About the beginning of last week, I was thinking about it, and I figured out that there was a part of me that felt like in the MTC they give you a box and they say, ok, now fit into this box. And if you don't, you won't have the spirit and you won't be an effective missionary. Kind of a heavy expectation. But last week, it really just hit me, it does not matter what anyone thinks, what their expectations are of me, or even what my own expectations are of myself. If I can go to my Heavenly Father in prayer at night and tell him about my day and not feel ashamed, I did my job. And we have personalities for a reason! We're in a specific place, at a specific time, in a specific mission for a reason and our personality is part of that reason. Ah, I just feel liberated. I wish I could describe it.  And you know what's crazy, this week our work has started to really progress. I feel like it's actually making a difference because I feel happier and when I'm happier, I have the Spirit. We had 3 less actives come to church and they're progressing so well. They've been studying the Sunday school lessons and the reading assignments we give them. It seriously just makes me so so happy!! I honestly love the people here. I just know them so well and they know me. I have a special handshake with the young men and one of the members even offered to buy me HP7P2 as a remembrance gift. Don't know if I can handle that kind of temptations. Haha, but I really truly just love this ward, the people we teach, the members. How could you not after 5 months in the same place, soon to be six. I'm glad HF gave me a little while longer in this area. Oh boy, does he always know better than us. Too bad we don't ever see it in the moment.

So some stories for the week....I have a lot! First of all with the new focus. We had a broadcast this week from the area 70 on orders from the First Presidency. Their wording was light, but they were very bold and very much straight to the point. They basically said, enough is enough. There are too many people here that are no longer active in the church and it is time to do something about it. And as the members of the church, we are responsible. The question they asked was, if not now, when? And if not us, who? And I thought about it and it's so true. How many times do I see a problem or see someone who needs help or a visit and I go, "oh, no worries, someone else will take care of it." but if not me, who? If we're not actively  doing something, we're not doing our jobs as part of the covenant people and disciples of Christ. The church isn't there just for us to sit back and relax. It's there so we can be strengthened ourselves, strengthen our brothers, and build the kingdom. If we're sitting, it's not good enough. I just really thought…it's such a great motto to live by. I'm excited to realign our work with the wards and start to see some REAL progress here. I think that was one of my problems before. I absolutely refuse to baptize someone unless they are truly converted. It's a waste, and in the end, I am the one that is responsible. But of course, how do they measure you work? By your baptisms and the number of investigators and blugh. I hate it. I hate numbers. So I have decided to throw that out the window as well. I don't care what anyone thinks anymore. I just love the new focus because it's really about helping people solve their concerns and improve their lives, not about a stupid number. Yeah, I'm way stoked. 

So my companion is bomb. She's a nurse, but what she really loves is psychology. She volunteered in hospitals in the psych ward which makes the girl incredible at question asking and discerning what someone is really TRYING to say, not what they're actually saying. Sometimes I pretty much feel useless sitting next to her, but I don't even care because I'm just so glad she's my companion so she can take over when I'm seriously struggling.

Some stories from the week.....one of the less actives we're working with is an absolute gem, her husband actually opened up to us this week. Their whole family is inactive, but brother is a former branch president down in Leyte. What happened was, he was the branch president and something happened with the district president where the district president didn't ask any questions, he just instead blew the situation out of control. So brother didn't feel like he was respected in his calling so he asked to get released. They wouldn't release him, so what did he start doing? He started drinking again so that they would have to release him. Yep. How sad is that. And he's such a great guy. He wants to come back, but it's just dealing with so much guilt and regrets. It's just hard. My heart goes out to them. I really do love working with the less actives, more so than I do with investigators actually I think. But one other cool story and then I gotta go. We have one investigator that we've only taught 2 times. This week, we taught the restoration, but like I said, Sister Sojor is bomb and so good at making them come to the conclusions for themselves. So we got to the end of the lesson and were talking about knowing through the Holy Ghost and she goes, "I already believe you. I can just feel it here" and she just started crying. For like a minute I think, we just sat there. And she's going, I don't know why I'm crying, I'm so happy. And we're going, oh don't you worry, you just let it out honey. Haha. LOVE it! Love the power of the spirit. Love the gospel, and I really do love this work. Even though it's sometimes hard :)

Anyhow, that's all for this week. I love you all so so much and hope you have a fantastic week! Until next week! Ingat!

Finding Lost Members

Hello my dearest family!!! 

Um, so those pictures are absolutely crazy! There is seriously no snow at all. Such a sad day. Whenever I think of Utah right now, there's of course snow, pero pala, wala. Weird weird weird. There better be snow when I get there next year or else I'll be sorely disappointed.

I'm so glad that dad is so alert that he saw my email come in. It honestly made my day that I was able to talk to Chanaela! Holy hannah, Tahiti! I'm still dying. She'll be such a great missionary though, I have no doubt.  Seriously, I was just sitting at the computer with tears running down my face because I was so sad. Haha. Like I said, kind of a rough week. No worries though, I'm on the recovery. I had a minor moment on Sunday....don't try to fast when you haven't really eaten all week. Not a good plan. I'm just not hungry so I didn't eat basically all week. Yeah, my blood sugar dropped below what I think you'd deem as normal and healthy. Haha, so ridiculously embarrassing. BUT, right now..... no more sickness!...hopefully. It's not really sickness though. I believe, actually no, I know, it's stress. And it's not just me. You should see how many of our missionaries have gone down in the past month. Sister Lorente can't even keep food down because every time she eats she just pukes it up. It's not a sickness, it's mental and it's due to stress. And it's not so good seeming as she's epileptic. But it's just hard because you have absolutely NO outlet for your stress. You can't just sit down and watch a movie for the night, or listen to music, or go on a run (I'd kill to be able to just leave everyone and go for a run!). You get to wake up at 6:30, study, eat lunch, go out and work for 9 hours, come home, plan, go to sleep and start all over again. You don't ever get to have a second to just....collect yourself for heaven's sake. So it just builds and builds and builds til you get sick. And that's what happened. We actually talked about stress management at district meeting this week. I tell you, I think it's an epidemic in the mission right now. Mostly because we're all super young, most of us have only been out 6 months or less and we're already zone leaders, district leaders and senior companions. Makes for a lot of expectations and a lot of pressure, especially when you don't really feel like you know what you're doing. So I'm pretty sure it's not allergies, so no worries about the pills.   

 

So updates from the week! Seriously, I'm trying to think....the focus has really shifted toward reactivation and less actives. As in, they really don't care if we have baptisms. If they're not truly converted, they don't want them. So all week we just hunted down members. Seriously, hunting though. It's like Jeremiah 16:16 for real life. Haha. We were able to find a lot though, 18 for this week. We haven't taught them yet though, just sat and talked with them. Found out about their lives, their history with the missionaries, etc. With a lot of them, it's so sad because it was just little by little that they fell away. They stopped going to RS because they had a little kid, and then they would miss maybe once a month, then just little by little, they became inactive and now have a word of wisdom problem or other vices. Sheesh, I'm struggling typing this in English right now.  Wow, wish you could see the struggle to find these words. So yeah, it's crazy. Just a testimony to me how the little things seriously just matter. They don't seem like they matter, but they make ALL the difference. It's just like, through small and simple things great things are brought to pass....whether those great things be good or not so good. So that was about our entire week it felt like. 

So that's all for now. I hope I'm not forgetting anything....Haha, seriously struggling to think right now. I love you all though and hope you have a fantastic week! Mahal na mahal ko kayo! Ingat kayo diyen!!

Love me :)

New Years 2012

Hello my family!! Holy cow, has it only been a week since we talked on the phone. I feel like it's been a month.

I do not like all of you right now. I have 3 emails from all of you and I still don't know where Chanae's call is to and now I have to wait another week to find out.

So lets see, this week....So I've been sick for the last 6 days. Yep. I think I seem to contract about every virus or flu available in this place. I have honestly had a flu, fever, sinus infection, or cold my entire mission and I'm pretty much sick of it. Today I'm just still really drained and tired. We thought it was dengue at first because it was 3 straight days of a high fever and then I got rashes when it went down. But the fever came back, and the rashes are still here. (I look like a big cherry actually) We're not sure what it is, but whatever. I'm just ready for it to be done. But I guess to be positive, my companion has been an absolute gem and helped me out a ton. So nice. I think I'll learn a lot from her. She's totally focused on the people and actually helping them to understand and progress and I love that about her. She's going to be great I think. She did tell me though that I speak Tagalog with a Spanish accent. Haha, go figure, eh?

So New Years here is CRAZY!!! Honestly, the best way I can describe it is like WWII going off outside my window. As in, everyone starts shooting fireworks around 9:45 pm and they go non stop til about 2 in the morning. Anything ranging from firecrackers to straight up aerial fireworks. Absolutely insane, I wish I could describe it. Let's just say, super hard to sleep but way cooler than the Stadium of Fire by far. Next year hopefully I won't feel so stinking sick so I actually feel like staying up and watching. Missionary work is not so fun on the holidays, I gotta be honest. Everyone goes home to their families, or is drunk, or is with their family and they don't want the missionaries. And to be quite honest, I don't really blame them. Pretty much no work on the holidays though. Thank heavens they're over!

So we have a sweet new investigator, sister Nilda. She's the greatest thing ever. She's the caretaker of the patriarch and so they've talked to her a lot about the church and such. She's in her 40's, has 6 kids and her husband died last year, so now she lives here and is the caretaker for the patriarch and his wife. She comes to church every week though and she just goes, "your church is just something different". The first thing she said she learned in our church was that you have to dress decent. She goes, "they told me that I needed to wear sleeves and a long skirt when I go to church with them because I can't be dressed sexy sexy in front of God". Haha. Too fun. She's SUCH a sweetheart though and she's super sincere. I'm excited for her.

That's about all I can think of right now. Wait, one more thing. I don't care if Chanae told you not to say a word to me. I do love her, but if I open my email next week and I STILL don't know where that girl is going on her mission, someone's going to die. That's all. Love you all! Hope you have a fantastic week! :)

Staying Put for Another Transfer

Hello my family!!!

So......Transfers tomorrow. I just found out what'll happen to me. What's your guess? Am I staying or going?...................I'm staying. Yep. Sister Ramilo is training and is getting transferred and I'm not sure how I feel about it. Ok, actually, that's a lie. I know exactly how I feel about it. I don't want to stay. You know how sometimes you just feel like you're outgrown a place? That' me right now. I've decided to adjust the words to, "I'll stay where you want me to stay dear Lord". Definitely be praying for some patience this transfer. Bhhhhhhh.

The bagyio that happened here is actually down in Mindinao, in the city that my companion, Sister Ramilo is from. We text her aunt through an investigator and found out her family is ok, but the whole city is basically destroyed. About 20 members from their stake died, most of them little kids. We were pasaway for a bit and watched the news at a member's house. Absolutely incredible. As in the entire city is gone off the map. The flood was over 30 feet high. I feel so bad for all of them and right before Christmas. I'm just glad that her family is ok. And no we didn't have to move everything by ourselves, thank heavens. haha.  The office elders came with their truck and helped us move.

Sigue, so updates for the week. Pretty much it's just a bunch of random stories for you this week. First of all, this is specifically for Leona and Huss...I can't remember the guy's name, but you know the guy on Prison Break? The one that's super gorgeous? Well, there's an elder here that is so so beautiful and I figured out this week they are look a likes. As in, I sat there trying to figure out who he reminded me of and then it clicked. No wonder half the sisters have a crush on him. haha. This one's for Ryan....my next door neighbor is a Friends fan! Every morning about 10:30 AM I hear, "so no one told you life was gonna be this way". Bahaha, too funny. Sometimes, I have to be honest, I try and listen in and see which episode it is :)

So this week has been a little different. I feel like I'm on a scavenger hunt. For reals though. We started hunting down less active members. It goes about like this. We go to the place where the address says they supposedly live, then we ask people there if they know them, and they tell us to go ask down the street because the people there have lived there longer, then we ask them and they tell us the numbers have been changed to the houses and to go ask the guard who has the master list of who lives in the subdivision, then we go ask the guard and he tells us there is no list, and there's actually two subdivisions with that name and the other is at the other end of our area. Or we go to a member, and ask if they know this person, and they say, well no, but I think this member does, so we go to their house, and they give us an area where that person used to live and then we go there and start all over with the asking questions. Hahahaha. I wish I were kidding, but I'm not. It's seriously a scavenger hunt, like finding a needle in a haystack. Actually, more like trying to find one individual in an area with over 200,000 people. Oh wait, that's exactly what it is. It's gonna take a while, lets just say that. But we're sure to have fun while we work so we don't get too bored :)

We actually taught our next door neighbor this week. He started asking us questions about who we were so of course we were super happy to let him know :). My goodness, he has some seriously deep questions. We were just talking about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, as in the first part of lesson 1, super basic and Sister Ramilo mentioned that God has a body of flesh and bone. That's just routine. And he goes, wait so if God has a body, does that mean that he came to earth and had the same experience we have? Yeah, that's the first time I've ever had an investigator ask that. So crazy. they just moved this week, but we'll be sure to forward their address. We also taught the plan of salvation to another investigator this week....get this. They didn't like the plan of salvation. As in, they were sincerely upset. Ha, I couldn't figure it out. We teach them the restoration, no problems, which is usually where people disagree the most. But the plan of salvation, they can't accept. They were upset there was no purgatory and there should only be heaven and hell. Not kidding. Go figure that one. That's about all for this week. It's been kind of off what with finding less actives and the holiday's and such. Oh yeah, I forgot! Our ward Christmas party was bomb! Seriously, so much fun. Every auxillary did a dance and honestly, just so funny. Loved it. It was a good break to feel like there's is actually a holiday coming up.  

 Anyhow, that's all. I love you all and I’ll talk to you soon! Actually sooner, than I'll be emailing again!! Holy hannah's, time is flying. Have a fantastic week. Merry Christmas!

 

P.S. Holy cow, Kim Jong-Il died!! Who's taking over? His incompetent son or the 5 star general aunt who doesn't know a thing. I'm dying for the BBC right now. Go figure :) One more question...how's the presidential race going?  Love you!

Missionary service project. They helped demolish houses for a street widening.

Moving Day!!!

Candace at the temple with the Christmas lighting.

More Christmas lights.

Candace with her missionary roommates. I see she didn't wait until Christmas to open her presents! She is wearing the shirt I sent her!  To be completely honest,  I would have opened them too :)

Gospel Centered Converts

Hello hello hello!!!

So first of all, I just have to have a moment and say, listen to this....we went to the mall today to get a whole bunch of stuff, and, of course, we went to the National bookstore....did you know the last book of the Eragon series is out!!! WHAT?!? Are you kidding me! Oh my goodness, I just wanted to sit in that book store all p-day and read. And then, I was flipping through Sun Tsu's "Art of War"...ah, it nearly killed me. I've been wanting to read that forever! grabi I miss my politics. I flipped through a couple books on the economic crisis and terrorism in Africa too....I just couldn't help myself :)

 Sigue, so for this week...I'm trying to think of what happened. This week was pretty busy because we were the tour guides for temple tour and then we had other meetings so it was pretty nuts. But yesterday though we got some new news with the direction the mission will be going in the new year. They changed our key indicators, where our member present lessons are now way low and our Less Active lessons are way high. As in, they no longer care if we are baptizing people. Of course, we'll still take referrals and do finding as usual, but the new focus is on less actives. President doesn't want any more missionary converts, welfare converts, or church converts, only gospel converts, which means we will be thorough with our teaching with investigators and doing a ton of finding people who joined the church and went immediately inactive, instead of adding to the pool of less actives here. Which is kind of funny actually, because that's basically what Sister Ramilo and I have been doing. This week we found 3 less actives and have been teaching them. One of them is a family where their dad is a former branch president, one is a convert when she was 18 that just honestly does not remember a single thing (she came to church last week, yes!), and, get this, found out our next door neighbor is the former Stake president.  Less active too.  Although I think in this case it was due to getting offended. Anyhow, that's our focus. And let me tell you, it's actually a lot harder for find less active members than it is to find a new investigator. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. So this'll be fun and a new shift in how we do our work. I'm excited though! I think it's tamang-tama, meaning, exactly, or something like that in English. Ha, that doesn't translate very well. But I’m excited. 

So I'm learning to cook Philippino food! I haven't told you that yet, but Sis Ramilo and I have a deal where every other day we cook lunch. So she's teaching me Philippino food and I'm teaching her "American" food, whatever that means. Let's be honest, American food is just a rip off of everybody else's...lasagna, tacos, chow mein. But I cooked lumpia for the first time this week and the best part was, it was actually good! So proud of myself :) I've decided I'm practically Pinay now...cooking lumpia, have a hole in my gym shorts, "Ay" is my new expression. Hahaha, too funny.

So in your letter mom you asked if I had figured out why I'm in the Philippines. I don't think I've figured it out completely, but one thing I have figured out...I'm here to learn charity and how to be giving. Let me give you an example. We have a family in our ward that is struggling for money. They don't have electricity anymore and they're struggling to buy school materials for their daughters because they just don't have the money. But they're so awesome and so faithful. And every time we go over there, without fail, they will always buy us a merienda. We can tell them no a million times, but it won't make a difference. They just want to give, even if it's just a little bit. Whatever they have, they are willing to give it away. It's incredible. And there's so many people here that are like that. They will bend over backwards to serve a guest and make sure that you're comfortable. And it's like they don't even think about it. It's just second nature. My companion is the same way and so is sister Lorente...they just think of other people before they ever think of themselves. It's so good for me because we all know most of the time I'm in my own little world and I don't stop to think of others as much as I should. It's humbling and I feel like I've learned a lot about what it means to just give because that's what will make not just them happy, but you happy as well. The people here are awesome.

Anyhow, that's all I can think of for this week. Love you all! I'll pray for some snow for you Ry!! :) Have a fantastic week!