Nakakanos Ako! (I will survive!)

This week was super hard! I feel like there are not words to describe why being a missionary is hard – you just have to experience it yourself. For those of you considering serving a mission, I offer a little advice: know why you are serving. Decide now that you will NEVER quit. Because you will probably want to. And you will need to draw strength from knowing why you chose to serve a mission. And you will need to go in knowing you will not quit.

Saturday, after tracting for 3 hours with no luck, someone let us in! We taught the whole first lesson to Susie (27), her nephew Luke (11) and her mom. It was so great! I didn’t really know what my companion was teaching (still), but the spirit was there and Susie could feel it. We invited her to come to church with us and she said yes! Everyone says yes when we invite them, because they don’t want to offend us, but then they don’t come. BUT GUESS WHO CAME TO CHURCH THE NEXT MORNING?! SUSIE!! It was so cool to see the fruits of our labors. It made the long, long Saturday worth it. J

We had a ward party on Friday night! Who would have guessed I would ever look forward to a ward party so much? It was super fun. The ward asked us (8 missionaries) to do an intermission act thing half way through the party. We did a “Carol of the Bells” number. It was so fun! Everyone in the ward is kind of tone deaf, so they were just so impressed with our beautiful singing and crazy gestures. Did I mention… it was SO fun!! I have a sweet video of all of us waving imaginary bells and singing random parts.

And now for the good stuff…

·         I ate meat that was covered with a blood chocolate sauce. It tastes as good as it sounds. J

·         A ward member was asking me if I was full, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying (shocker, right?) Then he said, “How do you spell it? F-O-L-L. I said, “Oh, hindi (no) F-U.” They understood what I said. So embarrassing.

·         About 300 mosquitoes flew out of my towel when I pulled it off the clothes line. I think I will hang it up to dry inside now.

That’s all for this week. 

I hope you are all enjoying the holiday season.

I love you and pray for you!

Pictures of my beautiful area

I got to reunite with these fav. sistas at a "New Missionary Training" meeting on Friday. It had only been 1 week, but it felt like forever since I had seen them.

My trainer, her trainer, and me. (3 generation photo)