Crisanto

Pamily that I love!

And then there were two. I can hardly imagine what our house is like right now… for as long as I can remember there were kids and lots of noise. Between all five of us and our friends, soccer teams, YW groups, YM groups, basketball teams dance groups and everything in between; having only two kids at home will be a big change. But, after all the parties you have hosted, and the lbs and lbs of dads special chocolate chip mix that have been consumed over the years, I think you deserve a break.

We had a wonderful week! Crisanto was baptized!! It was perfect. We got there and the font was filled and the water was not dark brown and he was right on time. We taught one of our other investigators and her children (the padyak picture) at the church before the baptism so they were able to stay and watch - which was wonderful. I think it was neat for them to actually witness what could happen to them if they keep going on the path they are on. After Crisanto was baptized he bore his testimony and could barely speak due to choking on his tears. The spirit was strong and tangible. He is solid, especially for only being 18 years old. He wants to start filling out his mission papers right now so that as soon as he hits his one year mark of membership he can submit his papers and head out into the mission field. It is inspiring to see such devotion to our Savior in a new convert.

On Sunday I was the surprise speaker in church because someone didn’t show up. I have learned to carry the Liahona General Conference edition with me on Sundays just in case that happens and I can have the material to throw together a talk. I jumbled together a couple different talks and spoke about the Holy Ghost, which I felt was timely seeing as Crisanto received the Holy Ghost in sacrament meeting. I felt the spirit so strongly as I was bearing my testimony about the Holy Ghost in my life. I am grateful for the way the mission has allowed me to come to understand the promptings of the spirit after those first few exceptionally difficult weeks in the field when I spent what felt like hours on my knees at night praying for strength. Those difficult weeks turned to overwhelming joy and warmth the first time I extended a baptismal commitment, saying the words “will you be baptized by the proper authority of God.” Each time we recite Joseph Smith’s first vision I feel that same burning confirmation as the Holy Ghost directly touches my life. How grateful I am that we have that gift with us if we will only seek for Him.
 

We had Zone Conference this week and it was combined with the Naga Zone. At 5 am we all piled into a Jeenpney and started off on the 2 hour winding drive to Naga. I don’t know if I have mentioned this before but driving here perfectly resembles the way the night bus in Harry Potter drives; weaving in and out of traffic and I think they can even shrink sizes to fit between cars. Zone conference was wonderful and exciting. As always, President Bliesner inspired us to be better. We are really focusing on finding new investigators through the members. I have come to realize how important member missionary work is. The members take the role of a friend rather than a teacher and the lessons are more effective when the investigators don’t feel that they are listening to a presentation. Missionaries come and go out of wards but the members are always there and it is so important that everyone has a friend at church. I feel like our obligation to share what we know is part of the promise that we are renewing each week as we take into our bodies the emblems of the perfect teacher and missionary.
 

 

My relationship with the members here is getting stronger and stronger and I have worked to strengthen those relationships. We have a goal to teach every active family at least once and teach them about missionary work and challenge them to think of one friend or family that they can share the gospel with. I also want to plan a big Easter open house at the church for people to bring investigators and show them the church and who we are. We presented it yesterday to the ward leaders and they seemed excited about it but it is still just a maybe.

They are splitting our mission in July. The Naga mission will be in the north and the Legazpi mission will be in the south. Crazy! My last area and the area I am in now will be in 2 different missions starting in July!

The transfer on June 6th will decide which mission we are in. The irony of that is that I went into the MTC on June 6th last year. I could be starting a new mission on June 6^th.

The New Philippines Naga Mission President

L. Barry Reeder (55) and Sharon L. Reeder (53) from Perry, Utah. President Reeder is the Owner and President of Brigham Distributing in Brigham City, Utah, a wholesale distributor of books. He is a former counselor in the Stake Presidency, Bishop, High Counselor, Stake and Ward Young Men President. He is currently serving as a ward missionary in the Perry 6^th Ward. He served in the Hong Kong Mission from 1976-1978. He graduated from BYU in Accounting.

President Reeder said “The missionaries will love my wife because she is the fun one. I am just a simple farm boy.”

The New Philippines Legaspi Mission President

Jovencio A. Guanzon (61) from Manila, Philippines and has served as an area seventy since 2007. He is an amazing teacher and experienced church leader (and he speaks fluent Tagalog and English!).
 

Rope Bridge to our Investigators House

 

In either March or April I believe I will be training a new American missionary. I am excited and nervous to get an American comp because there will not be a native to fall back on with the language. I can hold my own in lessons but there are still moments when I really have no clue what they are saying and I have always had a comp that understands. Two white Americans will get sooooooo much attention  haha. If she likes to run - that would be a dream come true!

Our neighboring house is full of traveling massage sales people. We wash our clothes behind our house and they do too. This morning I had a group of about 14 faces peering out of their back door playing a game of 20 questions with me. Haha they are fascinated by the white girl that can jumble along in Tagalog. I thought I would get used to it but it still surprises me how excited they are to see a white face.

 I am glad you got the Speen off and running. If you haven’t heard from him it is because his P-day isn’t until Monday or Tuesday.  That is good that he was so excited to get going.

I laughed way hard at Megs’ story about fumbling with the language!  I know exactly how she feels and that was my experience too. They only speak to you in your new language and you have NO CLUE what is going on and then they tell you to teach haha. I think they have the gift of tongues more than we do because they can piece together what we were saying.

I got some fudge in the mail this week from grandma with a random assortment of candy. It was so great! I love her - she is a sweetheart. She is going to have her hands full writing all these missionaries.

Well, love you all hope you are not freezing to death!
xoxox from the Pines,

Sister C

Good Luck Speen!

Family!

Well, two kids in name tags and one to go. I feel like I was just reading about them opening their calls yesterday and now they are off and ready to teach and preach and work as missionaries do.

We had a wonderful week! Things are going great here. The time is going so fast and my companion and I are working well together. We have taught over 30 lessons each week we have been together and we have been able to find a big group of new investigators. The area is definitely prepared!  We are excited for a baptism this Saturday and we have zone conference on Wednesday!  So it is a busy and fun week.

The set up of the missions in the Philippines is inspired. We don’t tract but we are always talking to everyone about the gospel and a lot of the investigators come from referrals or part member families. We were at our investigator family’s home earlier this week but two of the kids were not home yet. We were sitting outside their small bamboo home on a fallen tree log and I was talking to the 17 year old, Jezrell. There are always kids running around in their area and I was asking if there were kids his age. We talked for a while and then he got up to go somewhere. It was starting to get dark and sister Abarabar sat talking in the twilight when a group of teenage boys started walking towards us…. Jezrell had rounded up all his pals to come listen to us. We both looked at each other and tried to stifle our laughs as 5 teenage boys sat down to hear the message of the restored gospel. We taught, they listened and I don’t know if they will be receptive but as I listened to our young investigator bare a simple and plain testimony of the gospel to his friends I was filled with joy.

Later that night we were teaching Jezrell’s older brother Crisanto – his baptismal interview was on Saturday and we were going over the questions he would be asked. He was nervous and felt like he needed to have memorized perfect answers. We would explain the questions and review the principles but he kept getting flustered. At the end we asked him to bare a short testimony of why he wants to be baptized. He was quiet for a few moments and when he finally spoke his voice was quiet and filled with honesty. He said when his mom was baptized he didn’t want to listen; he wasn’t interested and didn’t really care. He said this time from the very first lesson it was different. He said from that first lesson he wanted to stop smoking and he knew he wanted to be a part of this. He said he can’t wait for his baptism so he can stand in front of everyone at church and bare his testimony. He got quiet again and tears filled his eyes. He said, I just know it’s true and I am grateful for it……. He did great at his interview and he is the person being baptized on Saturday.

The testimonies of these two young boys have strengthened my own faith. I too know that this church is true. I know that this is the same church Christ established when he was on earth. I know that it is through this gospel that we find happiness and peace. How grateful I am for those first early family members that opened their hearts to the missionaries which brought the gospel into my life.

Thanks for forwarding the pictures of Meg leaving - so fun. I am glad she got her nametag before she left and you guys got to see her in it! I am jealous about that - I won’t lie. Our name tags are in English and it always made me so mad at the MTC when people thought I was English speaking.  I wanted to say, “oh if you only knew the stress I am going through.” Meg’s letter sounded great!

Exciting news for Hannah.  Tell her congrats for me. I saw the pictures Adelide put together - way cute!!!!!!!!

Speen good luck this week! I love you and couldn’t be more proud. Have a blast in the MTC – but not too much of a blast. I loved the MTC. It was so fun being around so many missionaries and the devotionals were incredible. Eat a ton –especially the ice cream on Sundays and the chocolate milk. Those were my favorites. Don’t stress TOO much about the language because it will come but stress just enough that it will push you to work hard and give your best. A special memory I have from the MTC was one day an Elder from Haiti who was assigned to learn Spanish broke down into tears, exclaiming in his thick Haitian accent, “I am not accustomed to learning Spanish.” A big Elder from Tonga who is assigned here in the Pines, stooped down, put his arm around this disheartened elder and said, “Brother I am not accustomed to learning Tagalog, but remember that with God all things are possible.”

Speen, I don’t think you will have cockroaches in your room in Provo but hopefully you can admire their diligence in Mexico. Haha love ya kid!

I love you all and am so grateful for your love and support.

All my love from the Pines,

Sister Meish

 

 

 

Good Luck Meg!

The Beautiful Place Where I Live

My dear missionary family,

Wow, all day I have been thinking that it is Sunday in Salt Lake and that my baby brother and baby sister would be bearing their testimonies at the pulpit before heading out to join the missionary army. I could not be more proud! I feel so grateful and proud to be a part of the “family with three missionaries.” I love you both and am so excited for you to dive into the mission; it is an incredible experience that I am grateful for every day. Speen –I am so glad that you were able to find the silver lining behind the cockroaches that infest our house….. I will be honest it has been over 6 months and I am still looking for that glimmer of worth haha. But thanks for your shout-out in your talk.

 

We had a great week! We are so busy I honestly feel that it is always p-day and there is never enough time to get everything done. We are teaching three siblings right now. There mom and older brother were baptized years ago but the other kids never showed much interest. The oldest of the three is Crisanto. I think I talked about him in my letter a few weeks ago. He is so receptive to the gospel. He really wants to serve a mission but what he doesn’t realize the importance of the missionary work he is doing within his family right now. He brings his younger two siblings to church every week. One of them is 11 and the other little boy is 5. We started teaching another of their siblings this past week as well and he is 17. I could not believe he wanted us to teach him; but of course we were thrilled! He has watched his older brother’s excitement about the gospel and has decided to find out about why his 19 year old brother is so willing to make big changes in his life. So yesterday at 1p.m., in rolled all three of them; the middle brother was in shorts, flip flops and a really shiny shirt and had a match in his mouth haha! I wouldn’t have cared if he had borrowed the chicken suit from the guy in the underground in London as long as he was at church (that’s not true, I am glad he was not in a chicken suit but still…).

Family Home Evening

Last night we had an FHE at their house and it was a great success! They don’t have electricity so we brought our big emergency light down to their house and then roped it to the tree and then there were candles everywhere. Sister Abarabar cooked pansit; which is kind of like pasta and we taught about reaching our dreams with God’s help and then we played games. Everyone was smiling and I felt so filled with joy and with love and gratitude for the blessings of the spirit in my life. I was reading a talk by President Eyring and he emphasized the importance of journal writing. He said before he writes, he thinks “did I see the hand of God in my life today?” I feel the love and help of my Savior each day but it is such an incredible thing to watch others feel his light and love in their lives as well. God is in the details of our lives and his loving hand brings us so much joy.

As you know, I am Goliath sized over here; all the houses and people are mini sized but I have become pretty good at watching out for clothes lines and low set roofs. Yesterday I was so focused on serving food to people after the FHE that I forgot about my giantism and smacked my head on the low-set tin roof. Although my focus on serving was the cause of my injury it also kept me from feeling too much pain. Later that night I was brushing out my hair and realized that there was a chunk of dried blood. Luckily it is just a mere flesh wound but I will make sure to be more careful around the tin roofs.

Family Home Evening #2

Happy Valentine week to all of you. On this week I am grateful for your love and support and I am especially grateful for the love of my Savior. I cannot fully comprehend the love he has for us; that he would give his life for us. President Hinckley said that “love is the very essence of life. I am one who believes that love, like faith, is a gift of God.” I too believe that it is a gift of God.  Love has the power to heal and to cure.  I am grateful for the love that the members of the church here show so openly to me, a complete stranger; making me feel at home and erasing my feelings of loneliness.

In this area, the members use Bikol rather than Tagaolog at church. I still feel super lost, but I am recognizing more and more words; which is good. Now when I ask what a word means they answer me in Tagalog and it makes sense - so that is good! I used to ask what Tagalog words meant and they would explain it to me in English.  Progress - but still a long way to go.

 

Mags, I couldn’t be more proud of you. I know the next few days, months actually, will be a crazy roller coaster, but try to enjoy every minute. I don’t know how the MTC will be in the D.R.; but in Provo they just started shouting out Tagalog to us and it was nuts. Soak it up. I want you to know that I know this is the most important work we could be doing. Each day we get to teach about eternal families. We get to teach about truth and happiness. The people here don’t have much and I am going to guess that in the D.R. and Mexico it will be similar. But we get to play a small role in giving them a pearl of great price. I know the church is true. This is the Church that Jesus Christ organized when he was on earth. Our loving savior will be with us each day if we invite him in. I love you all more than you know. You keep me going. You are in my prayers each and every day. Be safe and know that I love you and am cheering for you from the Pines!! Onward ever onward, you are called to serve a king! How great is your calling!

 

Love from the Pines,

Sister Meish

My Good Friends - The Ward Missionaries

New Apartment

Hello family dearest,

HAPPY 17^TH BIRTHDAY BUG!!!!! What a week it has been. We moved houses!!! Yay. Thank goodness, because the old one just could not hold on any longer. The land lady at our old house was so sad though she got a chair and came and watched with sad droopy eyes as we hauled our things out the front door. She said missionaries had been there for 10 years. We felt bad but were also very excited about living in a non moldy apartment. The elders from our district came and helped us move everything and we rented a jeepney from one of the members so we could take everything over.... it took 4 or 5 trips, I think one trip was filled completely with books, mormons have a lot of books i have discovered. Of course the day we decided to move the weather also decided to pour rain. We were all soaked but it was fun! There is no rain like Filipino rain, I love it!

Old Apartment

Our new apartment is newly renovated and when I say newly I actually mean not finished all the way. They finished up today but for the past 4 days we have been crammed in one room sleeping on the floor and living out of our suitcases. Sleepovers! It was fun but we are grateful to be slowly moving out of our suitcases and putting our things back together.

 

 

Our work this week was really great we have been going over time in working with our investigators to try to help them progress and progressing they are! One of them is a middle aged mother of 6 boys. She lives in a house out in the middle of a corn field, they are the only house out there. Her husband works in the city and cant come home very often. She has been an investigator for over a year but hasn’t really been progressing, receptive to the missionaries but not so much to the keeping of commitments. We have been really trying to focus on helping her understand the doctrine and why it is important for her. We had a family home evening with their family and a recent converts family and she had such a good time. At our next lesson she promised she would come to church, she followed through on her word. She was sitting in the relief society room before we even arrived. After Sunday school we climbed the stairs together and sat down together in the chapel. I am so grateful that it was fast and testimony meeting because it was a perfect atmosphere to feel the spirit. I know that this woman was prepared and was on God’s time table to come to church yesterday. As an elderly member stood to be the first to bare his testimony our dear investigator began to weep. The tears didn’t stop falling for the remainder of the meeting. The first man to bare his testimony spoke entirely in Bikol and I am not sure what he said but I can testify that the spirit was strong. After the meeting our I leaned over to me and said she cant explain what she is feeling, it is just wonderful and good. We explained that is the spirit and it is difficult to explain but it is comfortable and almost familiar.

I testify that this is the true church. I know that the spirit talks to each of us individually. Yesterday I understood for maybe the first time in my life why we have fast and testimony meeting, because our conversion is personal and our relationship with God is individual. I am grateful for the strength that the church gives to me – we all have had experiences that are difficult to explain but that are wonderful and are good. These experiences are what define our conversion and ultimately make up who we are.

I feel so grateful to be here and be a small part in helping people remember their relationship with our Heavenly Father. We are so lucky to be members and to know of the truth that is on earth once again. The miles and miles of rice fields, the climbing dirt roads, the small bamboo houses, teaching lessons around burning fires or candles held by empty food cans and constantly being amazed by the miracles of my heavenly father are becoming a part of me and my conversion to His gospel.

Hope you have a wonderful week! Good luck with the farewell.... send me a copy of your talks! I love you and miss you but could not be more proud that you two are joining the army. It is the best job in the world.

Love from the Pines,

Sister Meish

 

Goa City

Kumustamos mga kapatid, magulang and kailbigan!

I am sitting in a brand new computer shop that is bright yellow and in the middle of Goa City. There is a delicious smell coming in through the open door from the small cantina across the street. I have just finished my first week in my second area. I had become so familiar with the tricy drivers, the streets and the people of Ligao it has been strange to now be surrounded by unfamiliarity. It has been a good week though. Goa city which is in the north of my mission is pretty far from Ligao. I can no longer see the Myon Volcano.

My new companion’s name is Sister Abarabar. She is pinay (Filipina) and is from Isabella.... which is up in the top of the pines where Erika N served. She is 23 and is the youngest comp I have had yet. I don’t know if I have mentioned that all of my comps have been older than I am. It will be weird to have a younger sister haha... She just finished her training and knows so much more about missionary work than I did after training - so I am super impressed. I am what they call her "follow up companion" - very exciting to have a title huh? J

We are in an apartment with 2 other sisters and we have a little too much fun! I love it and we just have fun all the time. The funness is taking a toll on my journal writing - but that’s ok. Sister Abarabar does speak English.... most people here at least understand English and a lot of them can speak broken English... we speak Tag though... well at least try. One of the sisters is Filipina but has lived in Canada for the last 7 years so we may or may not have been catching up what has been going on in Vampire Diaries…. It is one noisy household with all of us which is great!

 

 

Speaking of households…. Our house is so nasty! I kind of love it because it meets every standard for missionary apartment horror stories that has ever been told. It is the most disgusting thing ever!!! We die every day laughing about how nasty it is! But President gave us the ok to find a new apartment so hopefully we will move this week... cause we might just die here from numerous causes of nasty if we stay.

Our sink refuses to drain. We have taken the plunger to it, sticks, warm water and chemicals, but it stubbornly remains clogged. We wash our dishes out on the side of the house because we can only use the sink so many times before there is water threatening to brim over the edge of our counter. On Friday our water stopped working and we didn’t have water in the bathroom or the kitchen or in our outside washing area. The faucet has to be perfectly in the middle of the knob to be shut off and the only way we know  when it is turned off is when the water stops running. Since there was no water we couldn’t be sure if it was turned off all the way. We did our best to guess where “off” was only to find out that our best guess was extremely off the mark. When I woke up Saturday morning to a swimming pool in our kitchen. Oops! I have gotten very used to having spiders, ants and yes, even cockroaches in our houses. However, it was a whole new experience when there was a mouse lying belly up next to our refrigerator. At least he was dead and we didn’t have to kill him, I would bet that he drank the water from our sink. To top this, the door handle to the front door broke and sister Abarabar and I held our weekly planning session on our front porch while we waited for the other Sisters to arrive home with the only key to our side entrance. The district leaders’ idea was for me to kick the door down. I asked him why he suggested that I do that and he replied “cause your legs are huge.” I told him he better be referring to length and not width. All in all - our house has character and we can endure - we are hoping to move in the next week or two!

Goa is wonderful so far, it is a small city with lots of people and even more rice fields. One day it would be fun to be assigned in Naga because it is a big city but for now I am super happy to be out in the country side. The ocean is in our district now so hopefully one P-day we will be able to go out and visit! We still walk a ton but the people live a lot closer together so we can get more lessons in during a day which is super nice. But I am still adjusting and learning the area.

We continue to work heavily on the reactivation effort. We have a young 18 year old boy that has a baptismal date for Feb 23. He has holes in his ears where there used to be earrings and a tattoo on his right bicep. One might think he should be hanging out in the ally with other 18 year olds and a few 25 cent cigarettes, but the conversion that has taken root in his heart is inspiring. He was nervous about attending church because he didn’t have anything to wear so the elders in our district gave him a white t-shirt and a pair of slacks. One of the single adults in the branch offered up a tie. Yesterday at church this young man glowed as he wore his new church clothes.

There is a ward here in Goa but the church attendance numbers are low. The members are so nice though and easy to love because they are so warm and loving. I will admit that I felt a little bit like I was arriving from the MTC yesterday at church. Some of this is to be expected because I don’t know the people yet or the area but mainly because the entire meeting was in BIKOL! Patay, ano ba iyan - the Tower of Babel definitely fell here! Luckily sister Abarabar didn’t understand either so I didn’t feel sooo foreign. My vocabulary list of Tagalog words in my planner is now along side a growing list of Bikol words. We teach in Tagalog and everyone here understands and speaks Tagalog but they are more comfortable in Bikol. I know that no matter where I am assigned the people will become like family. Each area will hold significance for me and represent a different phase of my mission life.

The goodbyes in Ligao went okay. I have received a few emails from a few of the members and two of the Datoon sisters - so it is fun that I can still keep in touch with them.

I hope you arrived home safe from PR? Thanks for the pictures.  Mom – you asked about my health. I am doing well. We eat tons of veggies on top of rice everyday so our food is healthy. We also eat tons of banana and mangos - their mangos are soooooo yummy! I could eat one for every meal. I eat rice everyday. I remember thinking rice for breakfast sounded so nasty before the mish but now it is normal. I actually love Filipino food! Of course sometimes there are things that are not good but for the most part it is great.

I am very excited for Kate Cowely to be coming to the Pines... we will be able to mag-tagalog when we both get home. How crazy that Meg and Matt and Kate and I are in the same places. Small world! She will love it and San Pablo is our neighboring mission. One of my friends from home is serving there and she is cute and tall and blonde. Maybe she'll be her trainer.

It is rainy and over cast. This is Filipino winter and I slept in pants every night this week – I don’t know if I will survive the Utah cold.

When is Cate’s Valentine dance? Wow, I can’t believe Feb is here already. I wanna see pics when she gets her dress.

Padaba ko ika!! Thanks for your love and letters. I am so grateful for you and for the plan Heavenly Father has given us to be together forever!

Xoxox,

Sister meish!

 

 

Leaving Ligao

Happy birthday to Mags!!! Twenty years old. So great! Makes me actually feel kind off old but that’s okay. My birthday wish for you is that you become fluent in Spanish while you are in Puerto Rico – actually nah cause then you won’t have the great stories from the first few months of mission life. Hah I think about those first days that I had no clue what was going. My trainer would look at me indicating that it was my turn to talk and I would realize that I had been watching the spider in the corner instead of pretending to listen. Haha! Oh mission life, so great!

Thanks for the updates on the trip to Puerto Rico! I am glad you are staying on the beach and can hear the waves. We are not near the beach so I listen to the rain when I go to sleep. Mom, I bet it is so fun to be in the area? I was thinking today how I have to get back here. I am so glad you have made it back to your mish. I bet the smells and the streets bring it all back. I wish I was there with you just because I would be so excited with you because now I understand how much those streets and those smells and especially those people meant to you. It is such a big part of you..... I was thinking the other day about how I now understand why you wanted us to go on missions. It becomes a part of you that you could never fully explain! It is so great and I am so excited for Meg and Speen!!!

Well I have been singing the tag line to the pull-ups commercials all weekend, “I’m a big kid now.” I am in the midst of experiencing my first transfer. On Saturday morning we received a text message saying, “Transferred: Sister Christensen. Be at the Ligao chapel at 9 am Tuesday morning.” Sister Dumo says your first transfer makes you feel like a real missionary because you pack everything up and move to a new place (hence the pull ups tagline.) They don’t tell us where we are being transferred. We actually find out when we step out of the van and they introduce us to our new companion. I think they secretly enjoy watching all the missionaries guess where they are going and who their new best friend will be. My guess is that I will go north and be the follow up to a Sister that just finished training.. just a guess though

Although it is exciting going to a new place, it has been a difficult weekend. It is almost breaking my heart to say bye to these people that I love so much. Yesterday I spoke in church and it was a water show for sure. I have learned so much here in Ligao and it feels like I am leaving home again but it could be years before I make it back here, if I do have the chance to return. For nearly 6 months I have prayed for my friends here daily and worried about them and now I have to say good bye. I remember in my first few weeks in the field I spent a lot of time on my knees trying to understand why I was sent to a place that I could not speak the language and communicate with the people. Although I have known for a while, this weekend was a strong answer to that prayer. I know I needed to be here because of the way these people have strengthened ME and MY testimony. I know I am supposed to be the giver, the teacher, but I have gained so much more from these loving Ligao saints than I could ever give to them.

Elder Antoine R. Ivins said, “The great value, I believe, that the church has for us is the opportunity it gives us to serve, for, after all, the great benefits of life come from service. Generous, open-hearted, full service to our fellows.”

After church one of our members came up to me, we embraced and in a quiet whisper she said thank you. We both stood there in that quiet chapel and cried. One of the most beautiful blessings of the mission is being able to serve people and love them. They have served me as they have been patient with my Tagalog, listened in lessons, fed us in their homes and treated us as family. It is hard to say good bye; more difficult than I anticipated, but I am grateful for the relationships I have made. I have been reminded how short the time is here and of the importance of giving my best regardless of how crappy my Tagalog is or how well I know the area. I am going to try to keep that in mind as I travel off to a new landscape. I guess it is time to put on my pull-ups and grow through new experiences.

On another note this morning I woke up early wanting to be organized and avoid the stressful midnight packing panic, I also wanted to wash my laundry so that it would have plenty of time to dry. For clarification: washing my clothes includes a process where I squat on the bathroom floor (our stool is broken) with two basins at my side. One basin is for my soapy clothes the other basin has clean water. After I scrub the soapy clothing they must be rinsed three separate times to remove all the detergent. It is quite the process. I will never again take for granted a washing machine and on this day a dryer. I hung the clothes out early so I wouldn’t have to pack soggy skirts for the transfer. This morning was sunny and warm, prime clothing drying weather, when out of nowhere the rain came, as only Filipino rain does and soaked everything. So much for trying to be organized - hah.

When you said Spencer and Owen have been trying to climb the coconut trees, there are coconut trees everywhere you look here... The locals are professional at climbing the coconut trees even though sometimes they are 30 ft plus high.... they are nuts. There are also hundreds and hundreds of banana trees. There are around 10 different kinds of banana, who knew! And over the last six months I have learned many creative recipes that include bananas or Saging as we call them here. I was not a fan of bananas back in the SLC but I learned real quick to like them here. My favorite kind are small and fat and you boil them and eat them while they are super hot. This week we were visiting one of our investigators, an elderly woman of about 65. She wasn’t at home when we first got there but after a few moments she came walking down the hill behind their small bamboo home with a 2 foot stack of banana’s on her head that she had just cut down. I could hardly lift the pile up and yet Nanay had no problem hauling it on top of her noggin. I am never ceased to be amazed.

We are having a good bye FHE tonight at the Datoon’s even though we were there last night for dinner, haha. It will be fun - just hard to say good-bye. President Datoon is our Branch president, his sister is in the RS presidency, and her husband is the District President. They are incredible.

Well that’s all the news from this week. As always I love you and am grateful for you. Be safe and have a blast in PR!

One last time - love from Ligao. I will write you next week from some new place.

Sister C

Water Buffalo Riding

Hello family that I love so dearly! It has been a great week! We are heading into the last week of the transfer which blows my mind… I am pretty sure I will say that every 6 weeks. Time just goes so quickly. We have a baptism this coming Saturday for a little nine year old boy. His parents are members and it has been wonderful to see his mother become active again in preparation for his baptism. The beauty of the Area Presidency’s goals to work with less active members is that we get to help complete families and help those that are not yet members join their families.

We try to split our work with less active members and investigators half and half and it has been really interesting to work on cultivating testimonies for people that are already baptized. We started working with a less active family this week that has not been to church for years. They are kind and welcoming which is a relief because a lot of times people hide from us which makes the re-cultivating of testimonies a little tricky. But we were asking this family about their testimony about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. The mom said she doesn't know about Joseph Smith anymore and it is confusing for her but even though she hasn't come to church for a long time she hasn't forgotten God. I thought about how easy it is to forget and become confused when we are not trying to remember.

Earlier this week in my personal study I read about patience in Mosiah. Elder Maxwell said, “Patience is not indifference. Actually it is caring very much but being willing, nevertheless, to submit both to the Lord and to what the scriptures call ‘the process of time.’” I was thinking about this process of time and how everything we do in life is measured by this process. My Tagalog learning is taking place in a process of time – it is taking patience and a lot of time but slowly, slowly it is coming. Our conversion requires the process of time. It requires us to patiently build a relationship with our heavenly Father and like Elder Maxwell has said, it requires us to care very much. Rather quickly and easily our conversion and testimony can fade away. We may say we haven’t forgotten our Father, but through that process of time – we do forget. Luckily our Father in Heaven is the most patient of all and if we are willing he will build us back up and we can remember. Hopefully, this family like so many others will be willing to put in the time to remember and patiently rebuild their testimonies.

Sister Dumo and I have been focusing on building the branch missionary force in our branch. The new mission leader is a young 23 year old boy and he wants to go on a mission and has been great in working with us. He is organizing the other single adults to work with us and just wants to help in anyway he can. His excitement reminded me that when we are willing to give people responsibility they will often exceed expectations. People like feeling needed and this calling has been such a great thing for this young man.

One of the most difficult parts of missionary work is having people decide they do not want to listen anymore, whether less active or investigators. You worry so much and care dearly for people and one gift of missionary work is the love you feel for people. So when people turn away from the gospel it breaks your heart. We had one especially difficult day this week were one of our investigator families told us they didn’t want to listen any more; one family hid from us; and we are having a hard time tracking down the birth certificate and birth date of a baptismal candidate, and so on….all in all it was a tough day. As we were walking to our last lesson I looked up at the sky, the beautiful sky makes me always feel at peace and remember my Father in Heaven is ultimately in control. Well on this night, there were no stars because it was cloudy and also the moon was not out. I thought how that was a great way to describe our day… dark and bleak. No light. As I continued to watch the sky I saw one tiny firefly sparkling in a nearby banana tree. One of my favorite scriptures is in Mosiah 16:9, it says “He is the light and the life of the world; yea, a light that is endless, that can never be darkened; yea, and also a life which is endless, that there can be no more death.” I was reminded by this one small firefly that even when there are no stars and no moon – we can still find light. We had a wonderful family home evening with our newest member and all of the leaders. Also this newly baptized member's wife, who is not a member came to church and sat in our lesson later that day. Even though people hide from us and people lose their way there is always light to be found. It was a great reminder for me that no matter how dark, we should always look for that firefly in the sky.

Our region keeps getting hit with bagio (typhoon) after bagio.... it is the climate of calamities.

If I am transferred next week, I would guess that I will be sent to either Naga or Daet... mostly because I will probably be in that area for awhile if I train there when the 15 new American Sister Missionaries get here. Daet is pure Tagalog because it is closest to Manila... Naga is a totally different from the bikol here sooo that will be exciting ha.

Mom, are you so excited to go back to your mission!!!! I am so excited for you to go back. I am sure there will still be people there but you may have to bring back your missionary skills of hunting people down. Being on a mission helps me understand how much this experience will mean to you!

I loved the picture of all the moms from the dinner party!

Well have a wonderful week in Puerto Rico! Meg and Speen the count down is on - yay!!! So excited for you! Well I love you all and am ever grateful for your love and support. Enjoy the white fluffy stuff outside and I will enjoy the white fluffy stuff in my mango shake in the sunshine.

Love from the Pines,

Sister Meish