Hello hello!!!!! How are you all doing? I hope everyone had a great week. It was another great and sweaty week here in the Philippines. I feel like every week so much happens, and then I get on to email you all and I never have enough time to talk about everything. Just know that we stay SUPER busy and I only have time to tell you like 5% of what happens....
Monday - Nagselfie ba sila? HAHAHA this may have been one of the funniest days of my life. Oh my goodness. So we teach a family that is part member, and they have a boy that is 9 years old and a girl who is 7. The 9 year old hasn't been baptized yet, so we are teaching him and preparing him for baptism. Well this day we taught them about prophets. We showed the individual pictures of all the prophets and then the girl all the sudden just screamed out "Nagselfie ba sila?" which translates to "did they just take a selfie?" Hahahahahahaah we were laughing so hard. Great times. We also taught Cindy this day! The is the sister of Vincent, our recent convert. Her baptism is on Saturday :)
Tuesday - FIESTAAAAAA! Today was fiesta day in Tabaco. Which means one thing.....FOOD. EVERYWHERE YOU GO. Hahaha I love the Filipino culture because they love feeding people...and I love eating. So yes, it was meant to be that I was called here. We had breakfast/taught some of our recent converts in the morning. Then we went to a lunch at the Branch and District President's home. Then we went out and taught. Our work was cut short, because we had a curfew. Apparently people get pretty crazy for fiesta. Haha but that was the day!
Wednesday - EXCHANGES. We had exchanges again today. I worked again in the other area. I love exchanges because I get to meet so many more people!! We taught 11 lessons during our exchanges which was AWESOME.
Thursday - Examples. Guys seriously some days I feel like I'm just here to learn from the people I get to teach. They are all seriously SO AMAZING and such strong people. This morning was no different. After our studies, we went to the house of a member, Sister Rances. She is a single mother, and she is such a strong person. I think I've talked about her before and how much I admire her. She has to support her family all on her own. She works all day long just for them to eat that night. And then the next day she gets up and does it all over again. We shared with her this week about trusting in God....and by that I mean SHE shared with us. Hahaha I love learning from these strong people that go through so much every day. And what I love, is that they are just so happy. No matter what happens, they stay positive and really trust that everything will be okay. They are such great examples to me of pure faith. That day we also had interviews with President, and then taught a few more lessons that night.
Friday - May tubig na? Today started off early...hahaha well there was an announcement the night before that all water in Tabaco City would be off for TWO DAYS. Um what??? Yes. So we had to find a pump to pump water for our showers. So that day we woke up at 5 am and went to the other sisters apartment, and found the closest pump, and pumped water and carried it there. Luckily the Zone Leaders also came and helped us, so us sisters just had to pump the water and they carried it there for us. It was a fun morning. Well we finally got enough water...and then we all showered and went home....and then the water turned on. HAHAHA good joke. At least we got a good exercise in that day! That day we had weekly planning and we taught a lot of lessons.
Saturday - REALLY GOOD DAY. GUYS. Today was the baptism of Jaylyn!!!! Our investigator. She's 20 years old and basically like my best friend here. She has been through SO MUCH, I mean really like everything you could imagine. But she has changed so much and was baptized this week! It was a glorious day and I just feel so blessed to be a part of this work. That day we taught more and more lessons. Life is good as a missionary when you're CRAZY BUSY.
Sunday - WAHOO FOR SUNDAYS! As I've mentioned before...I LOVE SUNDAYS AS A MISSIONARY!!! It's just so exciting to stand at those doors welcoming everyone in. Especially when you see those people that you have worked SO HARD with and they finally come to church!!! We had one of our investigators that we have been working with so much....she came to church!!! WAHOO! And we had a couple others. For the returning members...we had over 20 at church!!!!! It was a happy day. That day, after church and our studies, we were able to somehow teach 8 lessons!!! Guys...usually on Sundays we get around 3 or 4 lessons....this day we got double!!! WAHOO! And we even got 3 new investigators!!!! YAYYYYY for happy and busy days.
Sidenotezzz:
>companionship unity = picking lice out of each others hair. (this is the third time I've gotten lice)
>philippines fun fact: they eat avocados here with sugar and milk like a fruit. it tastes like ice cream. try it.
>last night a man escaped from prison and he was in our area. everything was caution taped off and somehow he still escaped...cool. we still worked until 9:30. the Holy Ghost is more powerful than any prisoner...
>saw a man wearing a mighty ducks hat this week. #goducks
>just to give you all a visual of what i go through every day:
average # of cockroaches I kill in one day: 8
average # of cockroaches that I hit off of me in one day: 20+
average # of dead frogs I see on the road every day: 5+
average # of chickens I almost step on everyday: 20+
average # of times I am called Amerikana by a street kid in a day: 50+ (this is not an exaggeration)
average # of times people mistake me for a Filipina: twice (im really proud okay)
Well that was the week in a 10 minute wrap up. We were able to teach over 35 lessons this week, which kept us busy but happy. I love this work. Every day I really think to myself "wow I'm really here!" Because it's so real and so amazing. I am learning so much and really trying my best to become the disciple of Christ my Heavenly Father needs out here in the Philippines for these people. I am really learning the importance of "losing yourself in the service of God" and I have been blessed to see the effect it not only has on those I get to teach, but on me as well. I've grown so much and really realized the kind of person I want to be for the rest of my life.
I read somewhere this week a talk that I really loved, it talked about the power of the interaction of faith and character. It said "God uses your faith to mold your character. Your character will be the yardstick that God will use to determine how well you have used your mortal life." May we all increase our faith every day to make us better people!
I read somewhere this week a talk that I really loved, it talked about the power of the interaction of faith and character. It said "God uses your faith to mold your character. Your character will be the yardstick that God will use to determine how well you have used your mortal life." May we all increase our faith every day to make us better people!
I love you all and hope you all are well! You all are in my prayers always.
Mahal ko kayo,
Sister Reategui
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