When there's a will, there's a way!

Area:  San Marcelino

Companion:  Sister Rowley

                                                               Monday, November 4, 2013

Helllooo my beautiful friends & family :)

What a wonderful week! I can't even begin to start on how much my Heavenly Father is aware of his missionaries, especially those that he calls to train. We have seen tons of blessings in our work this week. Each night I pray to see the blessings & miracles that I am blessed with each day & wow this week has just been outstanding. 

America in the Philippines: So pretty much the best week ever. I got a few tender mercies, a little taste of home. Sister Rowley pulled out a bag of chocolate covered acai berries the other day and I thought I was going to die. Best day of my whole life eating some of those bad boys. We were at an investigators house the other day & after teaching her she brings us out murrienda (treats), she gave us NUTELLA SANDWICHES. Okay what?! My jaw dropped after my first bite, I could've cried of happiness. Brother & Sister Wright (white/filipino couple from America) brought us homemade banana bread the other day-made me miss baking with you momma. Oh delicious tender mercies. 

Only in the Philippines: This week I was teaching Sister Rowley how to I2L-invite to learn, we were talking with this adorable 86 year old Nanay, I gave her an articles of faith card with a picture of Jesus on it, she immediately tried giving me money. I was like oh no Nanay it's free! She kept forcing me to take her money, I kept trying to explain that we just wanted to give this to her and she kept persisting. Finally she understood that the articles of faith card is free. Then she looks at me and goes, "oh my dear anak, taga saan ka?" which means oh my child where are you from? Then I tell her America. Then of course she asks where, I say California, she runs up to me and smacks me in the butt! Sister Rowley and I just bust up laughing, I just got smacked in the butt by an 86 year old, best part about it, I've never seen an 86 year old run so fast before. And even better, right after she did it she walked away, we don't even know why she did it! Ha. Oh another fun fact, here in the Philippines when it rains it automatically means karaoke time. Worst part about it, all the karaoke machines are at the bars, yeah you could say it's pretty painful to the ears, so funny too though ha. Filipino's are also extremely OCD about ironing..they iron EVERYTHING. All the way down to their underwear..yeah it's kind of interesting..Only in the P.I. 

Miracles Do Happen: When I was called to be a trainer last week I was a little bit overwhelmed with responsibility for both my anak, as well as all of the precious souls here in San Marcelino. Trying to be a good example for Sister Rowley, run the area, keep up all the paperwork in our area book, plan lessons & who to go to when, oh & maybe the most important part: both understand AND speak the beautiful language of Tagalog. I cannot tell you how many times I have just looked up and thanked my Heavenly Father for helping this week go smoothly, for the constant promptings of the Spirit, & for being able to recognize these promptings. This week was the first week in my entire mission that we achieved ALL of our goals, EVERY SINGLE ONE. It feels so good, & of course we know it wasn't us, it was all Him. 

Literal Harvest: Right now in the Philippines it is harvesting season for all of the rice mills & workers. It's actually really cool, they cut down all off the rice plants, and all of the rice is wet from the fields they grow in, so they get all the rice grain off the plants, then lay them out in the roads to dry all day, (the rice still has it's husk on) then after it's dry they bag them all up and take them over to the rice mill where they are then un-husked? (I have no idea how to say that) ha, and then out comes the beautiful rice that we eat EVERY meal here. (yes, rice belly's are a real thing unfortunately). But anyways, there is a literal harvest taking place here in the Philippines, but also a literal harvest in missionary work as well. In the past two weeks we have found 23 new investigators. Of course not all of them are ready to jump into the waters of baptism tomorrow, but they have all come across our path one way or another for a reason, whether it is to plant a seed and they act on it later, or if they are prepared for our message right now. I am so grateful for all the new opportunities we have to teach. 

Less Active Members: Unfortunately in the past three months I have been here in San Marcelino we can NEVER get less actives to let us in. They are all very hard headed or are "busy". Pero, this week alone we have found soo many new less actives. We have what is called the CMIS which is the membership records of all of the less actives in our area, Sister Rowley and I pray each night about who to visit, and then the next day we look at the list and see who we feel impressed to go visit. Every time has worked like a charm. One particular less active is Cyril Sabungan. We have visited him twice now. Each time we have taught he has just had this light about him that is absolutely contagious. He just loves to listen, but his only problem is he works on Sundays. We were teaching him Saturday night and I shared a scripture with him about faith, he looks at me and goes, "Sister, I know why you're here, you want me to come back to church, I really want to, but I can't, I work as a security guard on Sundays." All of a sudden I got this impression, "BE BOLD SISTER, BE BOLD". I opened my mouth before I could even think about what I was saying and asked if he could talk to his boss and try to switch schedules with someone so he could attend church. Who did I think I was trying to tell this guy to go talk to his boss and switch his days. But what came next surprised me, he said, I will do that sister! Then I asked if he has a desire to come to church, and he said yes. So I said, "Alam ko kung mayroon kayo ang nais brother, mayroon ng Diyos ang paraan din". Meaning, I know that I you have a desire, God has a way. He then goes and grabs his work schedule, there were NO SUNDAYS SCHEDULED for the rest of the month. He looks at me and goes, "sister, my schedule is always every Sunday, how did this happen..." I just smiled and said "Alam ng Diyos", meaning "God knows." What a miracle. He plans on coming to church this coming Sunday, I am so excited! What an awesome experience. 

Marjane: Marjane Desanjuan is what you call a GOLDEN investigator. She comes to our lessons with questions from her reading, questions from her own thoughts that she wants to know the answers about, and she takes NOTES when we teach. WHO DOES THAT?! She's incredible. She has been reading from her English Book of Mormon but really wants a Tagalog one. So this week we finally got in our shipment of Tagalog Book of Mormons. When we handed it to her, her face lit up as if I was handing her a million dollars. She was squiggling in her chair, covering her face, and when she looked back at us tears were in her eyes. I have never seen someone so excited and grateful. We should all be just as excited about the gospel as she is, it made me re-evaluate myself! She is incredible, she is getting baptized November 16 and I seriously cannot wait. I just know it is going to be the BEST day of her life. :) 

Well I think that one is long enough for the week. I love you all dearly & miss you more than ever! Hope everyone had a fun safe Halloween, there's no Halloween trick or treaters here, so sad. But I am living vicariously through all the cute pictures that have been sent to me! Please continue to send me emails & pictures & letters, I love hearing from all of you! 

Have a great week & Mahal Kita!!!

Sister Pilkington :)