Sunday, November 24, 2013

WEEK 13: WEEK 7 AND STILL IN LOVE WITH THIS PLACE.

Hello to all my favorite people!! How are all of you?? I hope you are doing well! Things continue to stay amazing here in the Philippines!

Let me just start with saying what a great great blessing it is to be a missionary!! I cherish this calling more than anything in the world. HOW GREAT IS THIS GOSPEL!

Okay so this week was super super busy but not much to report on haha. Lots of teaching all day long. Most days we don't get home until just a few minutes before we have to be home. I love being busy because it means we have people to teach!!

So I'm sure you all are wondering about how our village is. Hahaha well if you aren't wondering, I'm still going to tell you so HA. So let me just start off by saying the village refers to me as "Miss Universe" hahaha and my companion corrects them and makes them call me sister so they call me "Sister Universe." It's so great. I LOVE THESE PEOPLE!!! So this week, we decided to split them up by families or separately so we could focus on them individually and their needs. It was difficult to really focus on them and what we needed to teach them to best help them when they were in a huge group. So that's probably why we were so busy all the time this week, teaching them separately. We taught the 4 different families 3 times during the week. So 12 visits to the village just this past week! They always ask us to teach them everyday haha but 3 times is the most we can teach investigators a week. But we visit them a lot! They are progressing a lot and really have a strong desire to learn more. They believe it's true, they just need to act on their faith haha. None of them attended church this week. We went to the village before church yesterday and reminded them, they said they would come, and then they didn't come. We went after church and talked with them and found out they didn't come because they were ashamed they didn't have any "decent" clothes to wear. So I'm going to take them some of my clothes this week and hope that we can get them to church! Their desire is strong!

There was a big boxing show thing on TV yesterday so church attendance suffered big time. But, our little investigator, Jonsen, he is 10, came to church!! He is the friend of Jorel, our recent convert aka our inspiration haha. We extended baptism to Jonsen and his brother JonJon this week and they accepted! Before I could even finish the baptismal invitation, they hurried and said yes and had the biggest smiles on their faces and said they were so excited! :) I love them!! We have lots of baptisms coming up in December, it's going to be a good month!!  

Yesterday at church, we met a little boy named Jarome. He came up and just gave me the biggest hug! He is 10 and the cutest thing. We noticed that he wasn't with anyone so we started talking to him. We asked who he was with and he said he came by himself. We asked where he lived and he said "Pier Uno" which is the beach. We found out through talking with him that his parents left him a few years ago and they went to Manila. He lives on the beach by himself. He goes house to house asking for food from people. All he has is the clothes on his back. But he found out what time church was and came! He just kept telling us "I really want to go to school and learn." Ah so so sad. He doesn't know how to read. So we told him we would try to find him this week and teach him how to read and he was SO HAPPY! We keep asking around to find out more about him but that is all we know so far. I will keep you all updated :)

Well anyways, I don't have much time today but MISSIONARY WORK IS AMAZING! I love being a missionary so much already. It is a time so special that I will really cherish for the rest of my life. What an amazing thing it is to get to witness this gospel changing lives right before my very eyes. I have witnessed the Spirit working through people. I have met people that were and are SO PREPARED for this gospel. They are all around us. We don't know who they are but there are so many so ready. So ready for the hope that this gospel is. When they have no money, no food, no house, when this is the only thing they have, it's okay. Because this is all they need. It is all any of us need! How grateful I am to be missionary!! I love this gospel. And I love all of you!!! I hope you all are doing well!!!! 

Mahal kita,
--Sister Reategui

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