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....