A lot of Success

Tuesday went with our Branch mission leader. The branch mission leader doesn't have that much trust in my Tagalog. Usually I speak and then my companion, explains some of the main points. Ha-ha but then the BML just said everything again hahah so we three taught him the same thing oh well. 

 Wednesday: we haven't taught some of our LA and I was feeling worried that they felt neglected but they have school so we couldn't visit but we went to their aunts house and they were there.

 Saturday:   in the morning we had a csp(community service project) helping one of our members clean the grass from her yard using machetes hahah. 

  Sunday was a good day. Three investigators came to church so it was good and one got a priesthood blessing to help him with his Word of Wisdom.

 Today: we had a lunch appointment with all the field workers. One family that owns a field invited us to eat. So when it is lunch time they have a huge pot of rice and ulam (just easy dishes to cook for a lot of people) and they eat and rest and then back to work. While there we saw our less actives that work on building the houses for the field workers. It was cool. 

Visiting Caves

We have a family home evening tonight, and sister Pavino has to cook for it. She is so good. 

Wednesday: we took a nap in the afternoon. It was raining like crazy and just miserably cold and we were both still sick but after that we were out and found out that our investigator is getting married with her husband and we visited another investigator without branch president we talked to her husband about getting married so that she can get baptized. She has been an investigator forever but her husband works so hard that they have no time to. So we talked and he sounds positive about it. We can only talk to him after their dinner at 8 and their house is in a sketchy part of town so we always bring the branch pres. 

Thursday: elder Volpe is the bomb, he gave an amazing lesson about charity that we shared with some of our less actives. It was with elder Holland about how peter just went back to fishing but Jesus told him no preach the gospel, you can't go back you have to love the people and me more than your normal life back home. And it was about how we can't just go back to the same life that we had, we need to continue. We also had a good day of work that day too. 

Friday: I read the D&C and was just blow away about how we are warned so we must warn others, and how that is our responsibility as members and not just missionaries.

Sunday: it was so cool. Sundays we don't have that much of study time so I just prayed in my heart that that day would be a good one and that I could have the gift of tongues. Then I didn't doubt. I didn't make faces at myself when I tried to speak Tagalog. Because by now I know that the Tagalog doesn't come from me it comes from the Lord, and we had an amazing lessons. 

We had a jeepnee to get to the caves there was no room in the inn hahah it was cold too. 

sister mat and me and sis pavino and our zl elder paraja (paraha) 

and me it was cold and i got a warm hat from sister diola. 

Over the river and though the crack to water falls we go

We had to crawl

Caves

the exit way

Our zone, the Alicia zone

this family rows their boat everyday to deliver their kids to school and for
a side job they row missionaries over to caves, one missionary stayed back
to get the water out of their boat. and their kid is super cute!

Lock Down Party for New Year's

MONDAY: FHE with a lady that is social studies major and teacher and I love her insight about everything! She knows about humanities and like everything about every country. I was like yes I want to become that. All of that interest me, I still don't know what to do after my mission but I know what I like and I know that if I just serve and not worry things will fall into place. 

TUESDAY: District meeting, our district is pretty chill. Then we had a mini FHE with Conny and Jason (they lost their baby just before Christmas).  She feels the spirit every time we come over and told us that they read the BOM that we gave them for Christmas every night. They feel it is good but they don't understand because it is old Tagalog. 

Then we told our forever Investigator that we want him to be clean of cigarettes by the 25 of January. It was cool we had companionship study and we both looked down at the calendar and both looked up and said 25 like it was bolded then and I went back to look and it was the same as all the other numbers. All his family is a member and his wife has gone though the temple and he had to wait outside. They all really want to be sealed. So we are going to give him a lot of candy to put in his pockets and a picture of his family in his wallet, and we told his wife to go on dates with him so he is never alone. We told him that if he gets down to 10 cigarettes by this next week we will buy them ice cream. 

Lock down party! So because there are crazy fireworks and gun shots to the air on new year’s (it is bigger than Christmas here) we had a party at our Branch Presidents home (our home) we ate a lot. Here it is bad luck to eat chicken on new years it means you will have little to eat because the chicken only pecks the ground but pig is really good. So everyone eats a ton of pig and they have a display of round fruits because round means money. This year is the year of the horse. It is lucky to have a picture of 7 horses in your house. The reason it is like a war zone for new years is that if you have a lot of noise it scares away the evil spirits for the whole year. 

The next day is the hangover, Karaoke, and family reunion day. No lessons but we ate all the leftovers of everyone. We couldn't teach because of the reunion but we could eat. I was going to burst. 

Thru: Trainers meeting in Cauayan, it is where we split up and talk to the APs and the President, and they review the mission rules and the BRCR (baptism records, and the trainers get reminded how to train. It was good. We had a really good lunch there, and it was fun to meet my batch and to ask them how their areas were.

Friday: We also visited a family and spent the whole time answering questions that they had, which was amazing. It was really cool they really think about the Gospel and are super happy family even if they have a little bamboo home that is in the middle of a corn field. They want to go to church but the wife is shy and has 2 kids and the husband works hard. 

Saturday: She is also shy so what we did was as we explained the importance of the prophet, we held the little girls hand and she was quiet through the whole lesson. It was cool. Before that lesson started I had the feeling to just reach out to the little girl and I did and the lesson was really good, her mom could concentrate and feel the spirit.  

She wants to get baptized but she and her husband aren't married. We told her to have the courage to ask her husband to get married so that she could get baptized. She knows the Gospel and that is the only thing holding her back.

Sunday: Went to our far area, there was a potential investigator there. She had her brand new baby boy and her husband was there and they were a cute family that was so good to teach about the importance of family, I really felt the spirit and they invited us back again. 

MONDAY: I have to do laundry like really badly. dang. hahah but oh well.