Frozen showers and Skype calls

Well today..... amazingly.... is hot!!!! As of right now the skies are clear and out laundry has a chance of maybe getting dry for once! That would be nice not to wear wet clothes and wet shoes for once:) I had to give that elders jacket back, so I'm glad that it is starting to get warm again:)

Although the weather is warm.... the bucket showers are still... not warm. I imagine that the showers that we take here in Ballesteros, feel something close to what falling off of the titanic would feel..... but every single day!

We finally saw some progression in the area this week. We were a little tired of not having anyone progress or come to church, so we decided to bag everyone and contact all of our referrals.... the standard for new investigators in one week is 8.... we might have gotten 29. It worked a little, we had 3 investigators at church!!!!

The other sisters have been having a lot of success on their side of the area and have been having a lot of baptisms.... I think that I have sung more musical numbers here in the last two weeks than I have in my entire life!!! But as long as it is for a baptism, I guess that it is okay.

We had to check the elders apartments this week..... the apartment wasn't bad.... but man the travel was a pain in the butt! It took us six hours to check on the apartment!!! We are so poor now!!! I can't imagine back when it was Sister Woahn and Sister Tauti checking all of cagayan! Yikles! That is a lot of travel! They are great examples to me!!!

So..... I GOT TO SKYPE WITH MY FAMILY THIS LAST WEEK! It was really great but really stressful! I was supposed to skype with them at 1 pm.... we had district meeting an hour away until 12..... then we went and checked some other elders apartment, then we waited for a jeepney.... and waited.... and waited....FINALLY it came. Got to the Ballesteros Junction and got in a tryce. OF COURSE we had to be the FIRST inside of the tryce.... they wait until they have 8 to leave. more waiting...... after 45 minutes.... finally left. SLOWEST TRYCE EVER!!!!!!!! we were barely moving. I was thinking "can I get out and walk please? It will be faster."

Finally got to town and got to Skype with my family:) It was the greatest part of Christmas:) Last skype of the mission:)

Christmas here was something a little different.... seeing as how it was pouring rain and we still went out finding:) But our meals..... were plentiful. Every house that we taught at felt that they needed to feed us..... ugh!!! I was soooooooo full! I've never eaten so much in my entire life! We had 5 lunches and 3 dinners! I thought that I was going to puke!!!!! we ate: Spaghetti, Pancit, vegetables, fish, rice, graham cake, noodles.... and so so much more when we got home, we all looked at each other and just said.... would it be okay with everyone if we didn't cook dinner tonight? needless to say.... it was fine with everyone.

Everyone thinks that Sister Shrack and I are twins.... we are both white.... I guess that basically qualifies us.

The branch missionaries threw us a Christmas party! It was really great and we had a lot of fun!.... Another Musically number.

Love you all! Love Sister Schultz!

That moment when:

-I stopped worrying about not having tissue at the public restroom because I was busy worrying about how I had to go to the bathroom.... on the floor!

-You wear wet clothes everyday because they wont dry in the freezing cold wet weather.

-You dump a bucket of ice water on your head and scream.

-When you are walking into the kitchen, see a cockroach run across the table, but still continue doing what you were doing.
-You realize that it's not actually normal to walk across a river on a small branch to get to your appointment on the other side.

Merry Christmas

This week has been really great! As you all know, I was transferred to a new area. I really really miss Paoay. But I am excited to have the opportunity to be serving her in Ballesteros. Especially with Sister Gadiano as my companion:) She is the greatest! It is complete black and white change from the last companion:) Although the  companion is super great.... the apartment could definitely use some serious TLC. I've been scrubbing the walls since I got here, and I still can't tell what color they are really supposed to be.

We have one investigator here that is really ready for baptisms, Sister Sheryl. She is so great and she really wants to be baptized, she just cant see the relation between coming to church and being baptized... it's kind of an important part of the whole process.

OH!!! Here in Cagayan.... they call it America..... Why? You might ask.... It is FREEZING COLD HERE! It's always pouring rain and everything is frozen! How did this happen!?!?! I thought that I was in the Philippines! My feet are always soaked and wet and covered in mud. I finally stole one of the jackets that an Elder was wearing yesterday until I can buy one for myself. Poor Elder.... But at least I'm warm:) No packages for Christmas:( That's sad:( but at least!.... Sister Shrack is going to make no bake cookies.... I'm okay with that.

Everyone here thinks that Sister Shrack and I are twins.... not surprising since we both have red hair and white skin.... but still....

This week.... I want to watch Christmas in Connecticut.... I would say that that is mission appropriate.... I would watch it at a baptism:)

The Quotes that I always quote for Christmas all come from the Grinch who Stole Christmas. If you haven't seen it... repent. "Merry Christhmas Martha Mae" "The fires of love." Thith looks like a precious family air loom.... woopsy!"

Things that have become normal to me in the Philippines:

-Riding Side saddle on the back of a motorcycle

-Showering with a bucket

-Flushing with a bucket

-washing laundry... In a bucket.

-Cooking everything in a wok

-Going out to teach people with wet hair

-Men peeing.... anywhere and everywhere

-Wearing flip flops inside the house

-Sweeping everyday and still never getting the floor clean.

I had to think really hard about those things because they are so normal to me.

I hope that you all have a very wonderful Christmas!!! I will see you all for St. Patrick's Day!

Transfers, transfers

This week: Well!!! Where do I start!! I will start at Christmas Conference! It was amazing! I had sooo much fun! Man there were people there from all over the mission... as in the whole mission was there! That was the first time that the whole mission has been in one place since I have been on my mission. When we first got to the shindig, we had a really nice devotional! I was hoping that we were going to watch the Grinch who stole Christmas.... it didn't happen:( Sad day. But the devotional was really great. Afterwards we went and played sports!!! yes!! Oh yeah! I forgot!!! I hung out with Sister Tauti all through the conference:) Then when se played sports I hung out with Sister Woahn and Sister Lainhart. She is also from Idaho and she is way awesome. At night we had a really nice dinner and then we did skits and dances. Our zone was the BEST! Best in lahat.... or best in all:)

Then this week Shidel came to church!! Man!! I LOVE SHIDEL!!! She really has come to be like my sister while I have been here in Paoay! I Just love all of the people here so much! I am going to miss them all! That Is right I got transferred. I will be going to y new area tomorrow in Ballesteros. Sister Tauti served there and she loved it. I know it will be great, I just will miss Paoay so much!!!! But this transfer will make the next 3 months go by really fast.... that's right. I come home in 3 months. That's so soon! My dad got my travel information this week! I am pretty excited! My family is getting excited and I think that that makes me more excited than I am:) My new companion will be.... I forgot haha I was trying not to cry. That's what girls do when they get transferred:)

I read a really great article in the ensign this morning so I will share my knowledge with you all now:) well it was four different stories and they all were talking about how they had a plan A in their life. They were going to get married after their mission. Or get a job. Graduate from school, or study abroad or something. Anyway, in all four of these stories, their "plan A" fell through and they had to resort to their "plan B" in the end their Plan B ended up being better than they ever could have thought that their Plan A could have turned out. The quote at the end of the article said, "Sometimes when our Plan B is God's Plan A put into reality." ooooo chills:) I like that:) Enjoy!

This week I taught Sister Crook how to eat a fish. with her hands. She likes it now!!! I'll miss that Sister for sure when I leave!

Have a merry Christmas!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Keep on keepin' on

well this week there isn't that much to report. I feel like I am being obedient but Satan is just dragging me down. Why is success so hard to find and then so hard to hold onto? This week two of my RC's decided that they don't want to come back to church:( One of them moved to Manila and the other one runs from us whenever we come to teach her:( My heart breaks a little.

Studies are really good. It seems like no matter where I decide to study, the Nest thing I pick up always relates to what I was just studying. Gotta love the way that the Lord works sometimes:)... or don't, but either way you are going to have to endure it, so you might as well just learn to love it!

Not much else to report on this week. We had AN AMAZING MOVIE NIGHT AT TH ECHURCH THOUGH! we had ten investigators come! Success! We watched 17 miracles.... but then the next day at church we only had 3 investigators come.... and only one of them had come to movie night the night before:(..... but! I love the two new investigators that we have! They are older and they actually live in Canada they are just visiting their family here, but they are soooo funny! I love them so much! I hope they get baptized! Oh I hope I hope!

16 down... 3 to go.

Missions are hard

This week was really eventful? If by eventful I mean that nothing really happened, than I would be about right. We worked a ton and we have really been focusing on being exactly obedient and doing everything that we are supposed to, but we just aren't seeing a lot of progression in the area. Missions are hard. Even now, there are so many trial and troubles that always find their way in no matter how long you have been in the mission field. Time seems to creep by slowly until you realize that you have been teaching investigators that you love for months now and they haven't progressed.
Christmas is coming up soon, Another snowless Christmas, washing clothes by hand in a squatting position for hours and instead of roasting chestnuts on an open fire, it's actually your skin melting in the blistering heat. But despite all of the trials and heartaches, I am soo happy that I am where I am. I finally hit that point in my mission where you stop wanting to go home and you start dreading it. Don't get me wrong, I'm still DANG excited to see my family, but I don't want to leave this place. My home away from home. I truly love the people here and if I didn't have to b with the same person 24/7 all day everyday, I probably wouldn't mind staying here. But having companions that you don't pick yourself?.... I'll trade it in any day. Preparation for life.

Today marks 100 days left in the Philippines.

Kumakaway kaway Paoay

This week has been really good! We have been working really hard and fasting and praying for people and we have seen some good progress in the area. Of course there is opposition in all things, but This week I was really thankful for the members of the branch. Last week we gave talks in church about fellowshipping people when they come to church and this week we had a lot of less-actives and a few investigators come to church and the members really stepped up and took charge of everything. I was really impressed. When we came in they all hugged our Less Actives and sat by them and same with our investigators. Then last night, while we were teaching one of our investigator youth, ALL of the young women came to invite her to an activity and to invite her to join in seminary. Carole Abucay and Athena Baroweden headed the project, but it was very well-organized and I was very impressed.
I hope that the members can really see the change that comes from the Christ like qualities that they are showing.

This week we were supposed to have an activity/fireside at the church and watch a movie and stuff, BUt not of the leadership came so I guess it's bawal to have a fireside without presiding authority, so instead, we just watched a good church movie and then everyone went home.... at least the movie was inspirational.

Still working hard. we all have weaknesses, I just hope that mine don't keep me from doing what I am supposed to be doing with the time that I have left on the mission and with my mission here on the earth.

Chicacorn

This weeks funny story is probably not all that funny to anyone not in the Philippines.... but it's kind of like those "everything is funnier at 3 o clock in the morning" things... bologna sandwich! 

Anyway we were teaching on of our progressing investigators.... of course we had a plan and everything and before we started teaching her, the nanay came and gave us a huge bag of chichacorn.... not the most delicious stuff and she poured us a huge bowl of it and made us eat it... it was kind of gross to tell you the truth. Anyways we taught the lesson and while we were teaching we were just thinking.... she is getting this way to easy.... wow she is so smart! After the lesson and the day were over we got home and realized that we had taught her that lesson just a few weeks ago. We were like, UGH!!! Why did we do that.... and we were tired so we thought that it would be a good idea to talk in a British accent.... so we are freaking out with accents and stuff and we just get super quite after asking why we did that. Then All of the sudden my companion (who is Mexican so that makes it ever better) Yells out, "It. was. the. CHICHACORN!" It was so funny we were laughing so hard! Now whenever something goes bad or wrong we always so... it was the chichacorn!!!   haha baloney sandwich!

We had retention and reactivation this week, where we go out and work with the memebrs to teach less actives and recent converts... have I ever told you that I love Paoay?.... cause I do! They are just so great! Maybe this will be my last area....

I had to give a talk in church yesterday ... I chose to do it in Ilakano.... it was hard.... but they all understood perfectly... I didn't.... but they did haha.

for anyone that is interested, I only have 114 days left... that's 16 weeks... see you all soon!

I'm alive

To start off with just so that everyone knows, I am fine, my area wasn't affected at all by the typhoon. We didn't even see a rain loud it was clear and beautiful here! I really love it here, and we are still praying that all of the other missionaries over in that area of the Philippines are okay and safe.

My new companion is Sister Rico and I love her! She is a little ball of energy!  Definitely miss sister Smith, but change is good and hey! I only have 2 transfers left after this so who can really complain!?!! 

I played with a monkey this week... he is my new best friend!

On Sunday we had no power at the church! It was a long hot day! And at the very end... yes right after the closing prayer, the power came back on... curse you Satan!!!

We were followed by a creepy man with a machete this week... don't worry we ran away and escaped, so it was all good! I'm just glad that my companions is good at running! That's definitely another plus about our companionship! We go running every other day! I am so happy!!!

Sister Rico fell off a tryce this week... she is for sure my companion now!!! Love you all! Have a great week!!!

Typhoon Yolanda

Thanks to all of you who have shown concern for Julie during the Typhoon that has hit the Philippines, we just received this e-mail from the mission -
Greetings,
We would like to let you know that the typhoon Haiyan(locally known as Yolanda) did not affect any of the areas in the Philippines Laoag Mission.
All the missionaries here are safe. Thank you for your love and support.
Sincerely,
Philippines Laoag Mission
#50 Buttong, Airport Avenue
Junction Tangid Road, Laoag City 2900
Ilocos Norte, Philippines

Please keep the missionaries and the people of the Philippines in your prayers. There was a lot of damage and thousands and thousands of people are displaced or homeless from the destruction caused by the storm.

Again, thank you all for your concern

Halloween and transfers

The news of the week is transfers.... we were all completely shocked! We thought for sure that I was going to be transferred and that Sister Smith was going to stay and train.... sister Smith is training alright, but I am the one staying and she is opening an area and training! I'm so proud of my little child, she's growing old so fast! Hahaha I will now be companions with Sister Rico, she was Sister Walkers (My second trainee) companion in the MTC. I'm excited she is soo nice.

This last week we got to go on splits and it was really great! I worked with one of the LA Sisters in the branch and Sister Smith went with one of our fellowshippers, it was really good and I think that it helped pump up Sister Smith's confidence even more in herself that she can totally do this training thing! We actually ended up teaching a ridiculous amount of lessons this week, but even at that our progressing investigators and investigators at church dropped significantly:(

We have a zillion dinners this week... seeing as how transfers were coming up... luckily we have a really great lesson to teach to members so it was relatively easy.... except that we had to eat a ton... so much for that diet.... I got so fat. Most of it too was this weird sticky rice thing.... we probably each had about 4 pounds of it, its a traditional treat for all saints day.

All saints day is crazy here.... and then mix that in with the crazy elections that we had and the ridiculously strong bagio/typhoon thing that we had this week and it all mixes in for a pretty interesting week.

There is an old convent here that is abandoned and all creepy and stuff and they did like a haunted house thing with it and people from EVERYWEHERE came to participate in it! It took us like two times as long to walk home as it usually does. Fun Stuff.

On Thursday after district meeting we had lunch as a district and they told us that we had to go straight home and just do studies for the rest of the day because there was a big bagio coming.... not really seeing it, so we all went to lunch and spent a REALLY long time at lunch, that was fun:) We all had empanadas and just talked forever!!! Returned to our area and were doing studies, when the house began to switch, the roof to hitch and suddenly... okay I clearly don't know the words to that song off of the wizard of oz... but if I did! that would be exactly what happened to us! The lights went out the wind was so strong and it poured rain!!! It was crazy! So we barely got through weekly planning before it was dark, then we read about leprosy in Jesus the Christ by candle light in a creepy voice... it was our way of celebrating Halloween and getting scared! It was really fun!! We had a ton of candy too.... and tim tam slams.... delicious!
Some stupid man named nelson called us about 50 times at 3:30 in the morning one day.... so we got a new number.... but we are definitely sleep deprived this week.
Our baptismal candidate didn't come to church yesterday, we even went to go and get her after sacrament meeting... she wasn't there... hopefully that means that she has a grood excuse! She better or I'm gonna be ticked!

We taught a big group of like 20 year olds.... sister smith and I just thought how weird it is that a group of 20 year olds would spend their night listening to the missionaries teaching about the plan of salvation on Halloween with no lights....

Bananas bananas everywhere

Gonna be a shorter one this week cause pictures took a long time to upload.
 

On the way home list week there was a little boy in a red shirt on the jeepney and his shirt was Yellowstone national park. Awww. So I gave him a licorice and then he jumped across the jeepney and gave me a kiss:) So cute.... a little against the rules, but what can you do, I had no warning.

The highlight of my week was seeing SISTER WOAHN!!! yeah! We had fingerprinting in Laoag on Tuesday and So I got to see EVERYONE!!! and by everyone I mostly mean Sister Woahn and Sister Tauti, But it was way fun and I was so happy to get to see them! I love those two!!!

We had a great FHE this week... we didn't find out till 10 seconds before that we were in charge of it, but it was still really fun, we played Simon says... in English cause you have to go to fast for it to work and I cant think that fast in Tagalog, but they loved it!!!

We did another service project! Picking bananas! It was way fun and I had to go across a river on one tiny piece of bamboo! Etcha sketch! But it was way fun.... now we have 500 bananas... actually 498.... I counted.

Evidently.... ants like to eat garments... so..... ours are extra "holy" now haha.

And last but definitely not least! We had a baptism! Part memebr, her name is Nekee. She is so cute! I love her! Enjoy the pics!

Movie night and picket fences

well this week was another really great week. There was this one part that sucked way bad. So apparently they had like this great inspirational speaker come and talk to all of the missionaries in our zone and everyone was invited.... except for Paoay.... no one bothered to tell us about it, so we just slaved away and everyone else got to go to Laoag and be spiritually uplifted. But that's fine whatever! I'm  motivated on my own!

This week I went on exchanges with Sister Cabato in their area in San Nicholas. It was way fun and we taught a lot of lessons, but I was way sick and felt like crap the whole day. There was one way funny part though. Our last lesson, we were teaching their investigator about prayer and we asked him if he prayed. He said yes and so we asked him when he prayed. He said in the morning, at night and before he takes a shower..... I was like, "you pray before you take a shower?!?! He said, Yes Sister! I don't want to slip and die while I'm in there!" haha I laughed so hard.

This week we had a branch movie night at the chapel. Well we requested it last week to the BML and he said that he would get back to us during the week if we could do it. So he never got back to us even though we texted him a bunch of times. Then on Friday (the day that we were supposed to have the activity) The Branch President stopped by our apartment to ask if we could do a service project at the school. blah blah yes we can. And then we just asked about the movie night and he was like oh yeah! You are having that tonight right?   Well other than the fact that we hadn't told any of our investigators and so no one knew... I'm sure that it's going to be good right? haha so we ran around telling and texting everyone and we had a small handful that were interested. So it rolls around to the time of the activity and we get to the church with out investigators and no BML..... So we asked his brother where he is and he reports that he just went to go and get something but that the room was all set up. SO we go in the room and the worlds smallest projector is set up.... uh.... where's the projector? DVD player? anything? nothing. so we are freaking out cause the activity is going to suck and we have all of these investigators there and then one of our favorite members of the branch come, and we just say. Please help us! And bam! He saves the day! He just happened to have access to a projector, had his laptop and a DVD player thing and sound cords.... all in his backpack! Thank you Heavenly Father for helping him be prepared! Needless to say that activity turned out well and everyone really enjoyed watching The Testaments... I mean who wouldn't though?

On Saturday we had an FHE at one of our 15 focus families house's. I love that family! They just need to come to church! FHE is a little bit different here in the fact that instead of FAMILY home evening.... it's more of a "invite everyone in the branch" kind of thing. I love them! It's a great way or the less actives to feel fellowshipped!

This morning was the day of our service project! It was really great and most all of the zone was there! We painted a fence at the elementary school. When we say painted though, I don't want you to imagine a picket fence or anything, they are metal pain in the butt fences! You know that part in James and the Giant Peace where James is painting the fence white with like a white out pencil or something? That's basically what we were doing. We started out with 36 of us and ended four hours later with only six of us who endured to the end. Celestial kingdom is hard work, but you just gotta endure to the end!

Love you all! Write me!

Conference

This week was a really great and really successful week. Once again it seems that time has just flown by and I don’t know where any of it has gone! So Today…. Marks 150 days left in the mission! I’m pretty excited about it if I do say so myself! Don’t get me wrong or anything, I love the Philippines and I LOVE my mission… I just love my family more. J Luckily for me my family is just growing in this area because I love the people so much! One family in particular that I just love so much is Sister Anne and Shidel Dela Cruz! They are like our best friends! We love them so much! They just need to get baptized so that we can kita kits (see ya!) in Heaven! Sounds like a great plan!

This week we actually taught a really great member lesson…. I'm not really one for liking to teach member lessons…. Unless they feed me of course, but this one was actually to way less actives whose little two year old son just died. It was so sad, we fasted for him, but it was just his time. Lucky for us we knew that he went straight to Heaven, pero his mom thought that he went straight to hell because he was never baptized. We taught and read with her and she just cried the whole time! She was so happy!

Sister Smith has a knack for attracting bats here in the Philippines, they swoop down to her face almost every night, I secretly think that she is bat woman…. Which is okay because apparently I am Britney Spears…. According to like 30 Filipinos J Bat woman and Britney Spears…. Who could ask for a better team!?!?!|

Man! We were teaching this one slightly crazy family this last week and they were the last appointment of the day, so it was like 8:30 and after the appointment we started to walk home, and the 30 year old slightly drunken weirdy son started to walk with us…. We were like uhhhh… no that’s okay brother we can just go on our own…. Told him to get lost basically and he just wasn’t gonna give up. He “wanted to see where we lived…” That wasn’t going to happen. So we lied and told him that we had to go to town and get dinner…. He reasoned that there were no tryces so he would just walk us ALL THE WAY to town and then walk us home…. Praying praying…. We were about a block from our house when salvation finally came in the form of a late night tryce. Sorry brother! See ya! We took the tryce all the way into town…. Then…. Walked all the way back home. We were late to curfew, but it was for a good cause.

We are teaching a couple of less actives that I really love. Brother Madarcos was offended by the missionaries… he still won’t come back to church… we still love him. And Sister Percy was offended by her husband… so left the church. We are teaching her 15 year old daughter now and they are totally going to return to the church! And by return, I mean Percy is going to return and her daughter is going to be baptized. J

This week was a great week for the 4 of us in the house. J We were all so tired all of the time that we were just laughing so hard at dinner over nothing. Well, kind of over something, so here in the Philippines everyone has gates outside of their house. Why? No one really knows because they are all stupid gates that you can never open and they are awkward and large and just dumb. Well we started talking about all of the gates that we hate and we were just laughing sooo hard! Man! There are some things that I am going to miss about the Philippines, the gates here, are not one of them.

Conference these last 2 days was of course… AMAZING! I did almost start to cry there at the beginning seeing my home and everything, But the messages were soooo great! My favorite talk was Elder Christofferson’s, but of course they were all really good! It was a little awkward because two of our investigators were there and they are lesbians…. So Elder Oaks pretty much told them what was up! Thanks you Elder Oaks. J

After the conference this lady gave us some GIANT flowers to take home, they are called birds of paradise! They are beautiful and all…. But we had 5 appointments to go to after that! What the heck are we gonna do with giant stalks of flowers!... We just made the YSA’s take them home for us. J They weren’t happy about it, but we were!

Conference was really great! Especially lunch! One of the members fed us and oh boy was it delicious! We had some fried chicken with rice and these creamy sweet milky banana things and vegetables. J Not quite thanksgiving or cinnamon rolls… but I will take it! Also during conference we had some great snackies, thank to the awesomeness of Sister Smith’s Mom!!! Thanks Sister Smiths mom!!! Hey… If I’m Sister Smith’s mom in the mission…. And you are her mom in real life…. Does that kind of make us sisters? What does that make Cathy and Chelsea?

Love the mission! Love the spirit! Love conference! Love teaching! Love Finding! Love members! Love investigators! You only serve a mission once! But I’m totally loving it!

Short and . . . sweet?

Well the big news of this week was that I finally got my trunky letter! That's the letter that you get and they ask you for all of your information so that they can get your travel plans all in order and stuff. That's exciting! The time is winding down and I only have 3 transfers left! Hello Idaho!!! I miss you!!!

Things in the Philippines are not surprising to me anymore. That's what makes being a trainer so fun, because you get to see all of the things that are new to an American. Things that you forgot about. Sorry this letter is so short this week. My computer isn't working. I promise next week will be better.

Things to try if you ever come to the Philippines: Pinaktbet pizza and Soda in a bag....

Funerals, rain and falling off motorcycles

HELLO!!! This week has been a really great week and has flown by, as they all seem too. I love seeing all of the blessings that the Lord has for us in our lives as we are serving here. It’s hard, it always will be, but it is definitely worth it. I think that the event of this week was, well a long line of events actually. Last week we contacted a less active family on our 15 focus and the dad wasn’t a member. The father is really sick, he has lung cancer and it has come so quickly. He only had it for 2 months. So we taught them twice last week and the dad wasn’t doing well at all. The mom and the daughter committed to come to church and then on Sunday, they didn’t come. It turns out that the Dad past away last Friday. So then this last Wednesday we went and taught about the plan of Salvation and they committed to come to church after all of the services and stuff and how it was really heavenly father looking after them by sending us to them right before all of this happened. They asked if we could come back Friday at 2 with President Quebedo…. Weekly planning…. We worked it out with the schedule so that we still got it fit in. SO then on Friday (mind you this is family week) President Quevedo texts and says that he can’t come because he is too busy. SO we went to tell them and hopefully share with them and we got there and then President came we got everything worked out for funeral arrangements for them. President Quevedo was a little stressed but he handled everything really well. On Sunday after church they had the funeral service and we came at the end to show our support and the mom and daughter both just gave us the biggest hugs (hopefully it wasn’t too bawal in the circumstance) and told us how they don’t know what they would have done if we hadn’t have come when we did and they promised to come back to church. Hopefully it will spark the fuse for the rest of the less-actives in their family.

After the service they all walk to the funeral and we were asked to join, so we started walking…. In the pouring rain, with only one umbrella. I got a little wet. On the way home it poured!!! We gave our bags to some members to take to the church for us so that all of our stuff didn’t get all wet and then we just started to walk. When we got back to where we could take a tryce… oh yeah, we gave our bags with our money to the branch. Just keep swimming. Literally we were drenched! Finally a branch member came and picked us up and took us to our apartment so that we could change. The funeral was definitely different.

Shout out to David and Jamee! That song by one direction is playing right now in the computer shop.

I’ve been pretty homesick over the past 2 weeks…. Thought that that would be over with, it’s not yet. L but hey! Only 5 months left!

We were finally able to contact a long term investigator. We weren’t sure what to do in this situation because she says that her “asawa” lives in Bagio and that’s why they aren’t married but that she is pretty sure that he has another  asawa there too and so he doesn’t want to get married to her. We told her to drop him and get baptized. J We will see how that goes. But she was way awesome and we are all basically best friends!

On Friday night, they had a show at the church for family week and a big dinner with the Mayor. When she arrived at the chapel, they has Sister smith and I greet her and the vice mayor, and then we sang an ilakano song for them. J We didn’t have time to stay for the dinner, but the show/presentation went over really well!

This Branch and the area has a lot of potential, the leaders are really masipag and they know how to get things done. I know that as the work of the Lord increases in this area and we are able to cover more area, that the branch will really grow and hopefully become a ward.

On Saturday they had a huge dance show at the chapel the entire day! Well until 5, and there were people there from all over Ilocos Norte. It sounds like it was really fun but it was against the rules for us to attend. We did anyways. Haha but before you think that we are disobedient, really we only taught an investigator at the church at the same time that it was going on, then we recorded Paoay doing there dance and then we left. Not really disobedient…. Just clever. Then after everything was over we went and cleaned the chapel…. Oh man! It was sooo gross! Who knew that people could be so messy!!!! It was almost as bad as cleaning our apartment the first day that we got here after the elders left this area….sickening!

I fell off of the back of a tryce this week…. It’s easier than you might think! It’s basically just sitting side saddle on the back of a motorcycle, so when we went around the corner, I sort of just slipped right off…. For falling off of the back of a tryce, I was PRETTY graceful! I just sort of stepped off and ran along side of it for a second. The only thing that hurt was my pride…. So no worries there!

Love you al! You only have like 2 and a half months to write me to be sure that your letters get to me before I go home, so better seize the day!

The work will go on

This  week was a really great week, but kind of slow at the same time. It seems like the weeks always go by a lot slower when you have a couple of days when you aren't working. Monday night we had a really great family home evening at one of the members house. It was really good because we invited one of our investigators (her relative) and she came with her mom! we were so glad that we had prepared a really great lesson about the Plan of Salvation because they all really loved it! What we did is we met with all of the family members and everyone that was there, and then we presented a plan to them where they were going to go into the other room while we hid five pieces of paper for each of them (they each had their own color) and when they came back into the room, they had to find the pieces of paper to get a treat. They came back in and they were all really excited to find the papers. On these five pieces of paper we wrote faith, repentance, baptism, gift of the holy ghost, and enduring to the end. And for some of the colors, we took the pieces of paper so that they couldn't find all of them. The came back in eagerly searching for the pieces and some of them found them easily, while some searched hard, but couldn't find all of the gospel. At the end we gave out the glories (or size of candy- haha ) and explained to them that this is how that Plan of Salvation is and sometimes we don't know where the fullness of the gospel is, and we can't reach our highest glory in the kingdom of god. |Then of course we told them about missionary work and how we can  help others to receive this glory by giving referrals to the missionaries.... we didn't get any referrals.... but it was still effective because the mother of our investigator said that we could teach her now too.... self referral?

On Tuesday, the branch was involved in this walking this super early in the morning. I'm all about walking and stuff.... but whose idea was it to tell us that it started at 4:30 and then not start until 6... I definitely could have done with some more sleep, but it was really fun and it was a good opportunity for the community to get to see the Mormons and get a little more familiar with the missionaries too. I'm sure we were a sight in the back as it was me, Sister Smith about 6 feet, Elder Payne, about 6 feet, and Elder Erickson.... about 7 feet. And we are all super white! for those of you that know me.... I was probably the darkest out of us all....

 The other exciting thing was of course on Saturday. We were supposed to have a baptism, but the weather was super bad..... as in typhoon bad and so obviously we didn't go out to work. But at three, we were supposed to have a baptism.... no power, when there is no power.... there is no water. We spent the good part of the morning praying that the power would come back on.... At 5 PM, the power cam eon and we filled the font! Success!!!  Take the Satan! You can't frustrate the work of the Lord! Maybe he should have read Helaman 5:12 before he tried to mess with us.

This week we had ZTM…. Again? And it was awesome! Okay…. It was just okay, but we did get to see a ton of other missionaries and that’s always awesome! I got to see Elder Ostler and Elder Reber! Go batch! And Elder Castillo and Sister Webb! I love them! AND Sister Dillman and Sister Richards!!! I LOVE THEM!!!! Man! And what/who I love even more is Kristi! She sent me the best package ever! She is the best friend ever!

I was pretty homesick this week…. That sucked.

Haha yesterday we had a song practice at the church and some of our investigators were there so we were trying to figure out what they could do since they were just hanging out at the church and we had already taught them. So we remembered some of the YSA were in the family history room doing family history work of course! SO we went to ask if our investigators could come and join them, when we got to the door, we heard music and they were being loud….. we thought, oh maybe they are practicing a dance (cause there is some performance thing coming up) well we didn’t want to walk in if that was what was happening so we decided to go around and peek in the window to see what they were doing…. They were playing cards! In the church! Man! We told them all to repent. It ended up being gold fish, but it was still pretty funny!

Sister Smith was sick this week. She still worked though, She is the best!

Ilakano and 7/11

Beside from that we have been doing really well in the area, we have still been finding a lot and every now and then we find that someone that is willing to listen to us. J That’s always really nice. Sister Smith is still doing really well, she’s kind of hit that stage where she thinks she doesn’t know anything and doesn’t want to teach sometimes….. but I will always just make her anyways. She’s a trooper she can make it through anything.

Our branch said that this week they are having a getting to know that missionaries with all of Paoay at this fun walk thing, so I am really excited for that! I think that it’s a really great idea to combine it with an activity to really get the people’s attention.

Man it would figure that President finally gives me a good companion and an area that I like from day one and then tells me I will get a new companion after 6 weeks….. how is that fair?!?! Hopefully at least we will stay in the same area! I love it here in Paoay! The members are so great! And working with Sister Smith really helps to speed the time along as well!

And this week we had 9 investigators at church! They were all older too! Which is so awesome! 7 of them came from a family that we found the other week after we had been punted the whole day and just decided to take a tryce as far away as we could. It worked we found some interested people who were ready to hear the gospel!

WE learned a new Ilakano song this week! It’s so awesome! I love it so much! It’s super hard to memorize because we have no idea what any of it means, but it is super fun to sing! Also this week!!!!! SEVEN 11 opened! We are going there right after we are done emailing here! I'm sure we are working it up to be a way better experience than what it is going to be, but I'm still excited!!!

We have two baptisms this weekend! I'm sooo excited! Man I love Paoay soooo much!!

 

All good things must come to an end :(

The weeks are really flying by here in Paoay, although the work still continues to be difficult we are pushing through and learning a lot as we continue to work hard. This week, Sister Smith started taking the lead in daily and weekly planning and she pretty much did it like she has been doing it all along… she is a professional.
On Monday we got punted from about 6 appointments all within an hour so we might have been feeling a little bit on the bitter side and decided that we just wanted to leave! So we went to a barangay that has no 15 focus in it, no former investigators, as far as we know it has no members or anything in it! And there we decided to start planting. It wasn’t too hard because everyone there was super nice to us and after we got done teaching them…. The referred us to more people. WE like teaching over there. J
I think that Sister Smith was having a bit of a rough day on that day because she wasn’t feeling well, so that night we came home and rested a little and then we were right back to it on Tuesday!
We have discovered that our new favorite thing is teaching at the church when it is open. It quiet, the investigators can feel the spirit, and there are ALWAYS fellowshippers! Plus the investigators get to feel more comfortable with being inside of the church. AND our chapel has carpet! What more could you ask for!
This week we did get lost in the other sisters area…. It should have been a straight shot… but we definitely got lost. We don’t like to walk on the main raid because people always yell at us as they are driving by so we always take a back road. This time we were walking home and decided to take the sisters side because “It would lead straight to our house.” Well…. We ended up walking about a half a mile past our house walking out to the main road and walking back to our house. The moral of the story…. Don’t cross areas.
We had a really great ZTM this past Thursday. Elder Bledsoe and Elder Meyerhoffer really have a way of getting people excited about the work and trying to do their best to make the work progress forward! We have been applying what they have taught us to our personal and companionship study and we have noticed so much a difference that it has made in our teaching and our planning.
We also had stake conference this past week and we had a lot of really great musical numbers that we were working on. There was this one musical  number that Sister Smith and I would just laugh through every time because we thought that the words were so silly. After we sang the song though every speaker got up and cried about how beautiful it was and how that is their favorite song and then they pretty much just talked about that for the rest of the time…. Haha Sister Smith and I were dying! We also sang I am a child of God in Ilakano… that was pretty awesome we are pretty much profesh now. J
We finally taught WENDEL!! Haha he is this investigator that we met forever ago and have never taught yet but we always say his name because it makes us laugh and then we finally got to teach him and everything went really good and he was a really receptive…. Who knew all of these things that we laugh about would actually be the things that make our weeks go so well.
Speaking of the week going well we taught this one man named Chester…. We have been trying to teach him since we got here but only kinda sorta…. He’s afraid of the missionaries so we decided to kind of build relationships of trust first and not even try to teach him for the first couple of weeks, so that is what we did. THEN on Thursday or whenever that was that we went there we were like okay today is that day that we are finally going to get to teach CHESTER! (I know… the names here in the Philippines!) And we got there and his wife who is a member was totally ready for us! She coached us on what to say and what not to say (he doesn’t like to be asked a lot of questions. He just wants to listen) Then we tried to teach him and e wouldn’t come out of the house. So we set an appointment for the next week and his wife was way bummed. Then we went and tried their neighbor and she wasn’t there so we were about to leave when we see his wife Rona practically jumping out of her hammock waving us over because he was outside! So we hurried over there and said, “Ah ha! Here you are brother! We are going to teach you now!” Which sounds a lot less lame in Tagalog…. And he laughed and FINALLY let the missionaries teach him! He is totally gonna get baptized I just know it!
We have 2 baptismal candidates that are going to be baptized this nest week. J Ellen Mae and Maykene. They are so great! I love them!
I want to go to Disneyland so bad!
Man! At the stake conference, don’t get me wrong, I love other missionaries, but when they all flock around me and sit by me and latch on to me and Sister Smith, I get a little bugged. I told Sister Smith and I thought that she was going to be like, Wow you’re over reacting…. But instead she felt the same way! No culture gap there! I like Sister Smith more and more the more that I get to know her!
OH! One more thing sorry this is so long! Yesterday it was a zillion degrees outside and we were walking out in the blazing hot sun, And while we were walking it wasn’t so bad, but if you stopped walking the road basically burned your feet and your turned instantly crispy! Well there we are minding our own business when a crazy man in a tricycle comes up to us and starts talking to us…. Right in the middle of the highway! For like 10 minutes! He was trying to prove to us that he had lived in America and taught music and that he wasn’t crazy! Meanwhile we are standing there trying to be nice while our bodies slowly melt away! By the time that we got done…. We were both soaking wet with sweat and our feet were burned so bad! Crazy old man!
I miss you Sister Woahn and Sister Tauti! Take care of my RC’s for me!

Thieving magpie

Sometimes. Missionary work is hard! We have been going through all of the former investigators and everyone that is in our area book, but they are all coming up short. L There were definite reasons that they were all dropped. So we decided that it would be a good idea to do some finding but the problem is that our fellowshippers all hate finding and they will just take us to less actives houses…. Which is fine and all if they are on the 15-focus but most of the time they aren’t so it is a little difficult. When we got to the area everyone could only talk about how great our BML was…. Well I’m sure that at some point he was…. But at this point, I’m not too impressed with him. I think that he has a serious phobia of American girls. He will talk to Sister Buduan alright, but when it comes time to talk to the rest of us, it seems like we are the biggest burden in the world. He has yet to put forth any effort to accept our invitations for him to work with us. But despite that, we do for the most part have fellowshippers that always work with us. One of our fellowshippers, Sister Harline, she is the greatest! She works with us all of the time and she has such a love for the work! She is preparing to serve a mission.

This week we have had some pretty great planning…. And then it rained so we weren’t able to go out. It was a little bit of a bummer, but we were able to get through a lot of the training while we were stuck inside all day, and Sister Smith has started to take the lead in most o the lessons! She’s a rock star at missionary work! We are gong to have 25 baptisms in October! Prepare yourself… it’s going to happen.

We have one investigator… I think that he is an eternal investigator. We tried to get him to be baptized this weekend seeing as how he always comes to church and just wont get baptized. Sunday morning pops up and he doesn’t even come to church. After Sacrament meeting Sister Smith and I ran to his house to get him…. He was making pizza and said that he was just going to come next week…. He’s an unprogressing progressing investigator. :(

Then there is Denmark…. He was progressing…. Now he is persecuting. He hates us. But he did give us a great referral and she is gonna get baptized I just know it! Haha the other day we were down the road from his house and he yelled to us in a slight British Accent, “Mormons! I’m Here Mormons!” Well…. At least he is funny sometimes.

We contacted one of our 15-focus this week, Tatay Cu. Haha that’s actually a way funny story! So you pronounce his name, Tatay KO not CU and our fellowshipper said lets go and visit tatay ko… which means my dad in Tagalog…. So the whole time we thought that it was our fellowshippers dad….. nope…. Just the name hahaha we were very confused. He is the cutest little old man! I have never seen so many wrinkles in my whole life! But he is just sop great! The poor guy lives all on his own and doesn’t have a way to get to church. Luckily we have a really great Branch Missionary that will try to pick him up every Sunday, So that will help a lot. It’s nice to see that people are reaching out to others in all that they do.

One day we taught 10 lessons and did some finding at a really big house in our area. It turned out to be perfect! We were just there Tao-poing like crazy and then his son came and opened the door, he arrived at the same time as us. The Tatay turned out to be a college professor and he is very interested in our message and asked us to come back. Lucky to for Sister Smith and I that he speaks really good English! What a blessing!

Sister Smith is so great! I love being her companion! We talk like real friends and laugh like real friends! I haven’t had that since Sister Woahn in the MTC ( and of course a tiny when I shared a house with her and sister Tauti in Cam) but it really is just such a blessing! I love her!!! And she likes to go running! Which…. Let’s be real…. That alone could make me love her!

Church on Sunday was so great!!!! Everyone was being so funny! Even though we couldn’t understand a single word that anyone was saying, we were just laughing so hard!!! Man! I love some Filipinos! In Gospel Essentials the teacher taught in all English and he was like what is the one place that every Filipino wants to go? And the whole class answers, “AMERICA!” and he goes, “No. Croatia.” It was sooo funny! Sister Smith and I were dying!!!

We were also dying when I mouse climbed into our dish drainer. Which dish drainers here are a little different… they aren't just like a basket…. But its like a whole little plastic cupboard for all of your dishes…. So we had to carry the whole thing out with all the dishes in it and then I stood on a chair and poked at the little rat with a crusty old mop until he scurried out.

Sister Smith and I have just discovered how awesome our balcony upstairs is! We love it! We spend like every single night our there! It’s so awesome and quiet! All of our neighbors are working abroad…. So its just a lot of empty houses…. Always quiet. J I love it! I also love YEMA bread…. It’s the best! It’s so delicious! I don’t even really know what it is… I just know its good and super cheap!

We have been seeing these pink blob things all over everything everywhere that we go… it sorta looks like a big wad of bubbalicious bubblegum…. Turns out that they are snail eggs… I think there is going to be a plague of snails based on how many that we have seen!!!

We were looking for 2 two of our investigators this week. Josephine Duke, and Josie Pindoke. Take a look at those names….. yup we definitely should have played more mad gab before the mission…. Then we would have realized that they are the same person.

We taught a less active this week… I stole. His whole pack of cigarettes and his lighter. He was like Sister that’s against the rules for you to smoke! I was like freak I’m not gonna use it! I'm gonna dump em!!! Haha it was so funny! I am a little thief now. J I also stole some ashtrays from an investigator…. Oops!

 

 

 

Soda in a bag

Love you all! I'm about to reach my 6 month mark! I will be home before you all know it!