O man, all kinds of things happened today! While emailing I found out all kinds of stuff! First! George got baptized! :D He was able to get permission and was baptized! I am just so dang proud of him! I can’t wait to talk to him after my mission and see what he’s like as a member. (: Second! J and J have gone to church twice now! I am so incredibly happy that they are finally moving forward! And last.. But definitely not least.. I received an email from Brayden telling me that Sadie is pregnant! WHAAAT!? Woo Baby! (Haa! Literally! ;D) I’m so excited for them, especially Sadie! I just know how much she loves kids! But as fun and exciting this all is.. I don’t know how I feel about it. But I think I’m leaning on the side that I’m bummed I’m going to miss out on all this. It’s my ONLY sibling’s FIRST kid. It’s my parent’s FIRST grand baby. It’s my FIRST pumungkin.. I won’t get to see the baby as a cute little newborn. It’ll be about 7 months old when I get home.
** When I told her the baby will only be around 2 months old when she returns, she was very happy and excited. She misunderstood the due date.**
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| Sisters Alinton, Quijada, Latorre, ako, Diaz |
8-2-16 (Tuesday)
Sister Diaz and I contacted a referral today from a little girl we OYMd a while ago. And dang! Because we asked a random girl about her family and what her parents’ names were.. We’re now teaching a family with 3 kids that live close to the church; AND the parents are actually married! Oh man, I truly hope we will be able to help this family come unto Christ together and understand that they can be with their little baby girl/sister again after this life. I’m excited to see how things work out for them. (:
But honestly.. The best part of today was when Sister Diaz and I were walking down the highway street thing and this guy across the street just starts yelling “Sisters! Sisters! Come here!” And at first I was a little weirded out. So was Sister Diaz.. And he obviously realized he was kind of making us wonder what was going on because he’s like “Wait! No! Sisters!” and tells us he's a member! Haha! I don’t know why, but I found that absolutely hilarious! I guess that was his best and quickest way to prove that we could trust him. ;D So we crossed the road to talk to him and he introduced us to his inactive friend that sadly lives in a different zone and gave us a referral. Oh man, the people you meet in the Philippines and the ways you meet them. (;
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| Elder DaBell, Sisters Latorre, Quijada, ako. |
Since mom and dad are on trek this week, Sister Diaz and I wanted to join them so we sang as we walked and walked and walked and.. waaalked! Oh my heck we walked a ton today! But I’m not complaining because I like the exercise. It’s funny.. I have two thoughts about walking everywhere. First is “Yeaaah baby! I want to lose weight!” But the second is “Yeaaah! I’ll save money so I can buy better food!” Haha, I would (; Anyway!
We walked all day because Sister Diaz and I are trying to contact referrals that don’t seem to exist. But while looking for them we wanted to find new investigators but man.. It really was a struggle. We did end up finding the brother-in-law of a referral we were trying to contact so it all worked out because he’s awesome. I’m really excited to teach him and his wife together. He was just a lot of fun to talk to and made me feel comfortable so I was able to really pay attention to the Spirit and ask lots of inspired questions. We’ll just have to see what happens! Hopefully his wife is as open and friendly to us as he is. (:
8-5-16 (Friday)
Today was great! Even though Sister Diaz and I don’t have very many lessons a day, I’m still happy. I’m happy because I know how hard we worked and I know Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ do too. I’m still a little embarrassed to send in our stats on Sunday, but I shouldn’t be. We’re working hard! We are doing everything we can to find new investigators and so far we’re doing pretty good at that.
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| Here's a pretty rainbow just for your liking. (; |
But as we were walking back towards bayan [people] this guy [from another religon] started walking with us as he was walking to church which was fine! I thought he was nice at first but I slowly started to realize how good Stan is at his job. This guy would ask questions about the Doctrine of Christ and they were simple enough for us to answer but then he just would laugh at our testimonies. It was really hard to see how lost and confused he is. He truly thinks he has the truth.. But he doesn’t! But honestly the hardest thing for me to listen to was how he believes that we’re only God’s children when we accept Christ. It was really hard for me to hear that he thinks God only claims select people. That really hurt to know people that believe in God believe that He loves people differently. I promise you.. God loves us all perfectly and evenly no matter what we do or believe. We are ALL Gods children and He loves us infinitely!
8-6-16 (Saturday)
Today was pretty great! Work today was very fulfilling AND fun! I had a lot of fun walking and talking with Sister Diaz today. I like listening to her stories and getting to know her better. Language study was very enjoyable for me today because it was mostly me helping Sister Diaz with English instead of her helping me with Tagalog. It was nice being the teacher today. (: Maybe I can come back after my mission and be an English teacher. (; Nahh.. Dad would kill me! And.. we all know how much I love English.. And teachers.. And school. ;D
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| Here's a Jeepny for mom. Sorry I couldn't find one that was actually decorated all cool. But when I can take a picture of a cool one I will! (: |
A is K’s grandma that she has lived with for 7 years. Even though A is more of a mother to K than her real mom, she still wants K’s mom to give her permission. (Hopefully she will, but she very possibly could say no because we’ve never met her and don’t have a relationship with her to help her feel comfortable about all this.)
ALSO! I want you to know that you don’t know what craving something means until you crave a nice big juicy steak while living in the Philippines. Oh my word.. What I would give for some real meat right now! Hahahah! ;D I’m not sure if this is considered a first world problem because that’s what I’m used to, or if this is a legit third world problem.. HAHA!
8-7-16 (Sunday)
Sister Diaz and I also taught the D family again and this time two more of their kids were there. All I can say is I have never met a family so accepting of the Spirit and things we teach them. They asked all kinds of questions about how exactly we believe in God. We testified that God is our Father, Jesus Christ is His Son and our Brother, and the Holy Ghost is how we feel God’s love and come to know the truth. They liked our answer and then proceeded to act all giddy and said.. “We know it’s true. We prayed and it just felt right.” I kid you not, I have never felt a sense of happiness that sincere before. I truly believe that they really do want this gospel in their lives. Sister D’s only worry/concern is she wants her whole family to join the church. She doesn’t want different religions in her family. So.. hopefully all of her kids will be as accepting as her and her husband. (:
