My week was good! We had a couple of WAY awesome lessons, crossed some ghetto bamboo bridges and found out why everyone has been punting us for the last two weeks! (It’s because their local pastor told his congregation to stop listening to us!)
Toby, I hope you had a fantastic
birthday! I was thinking about you on your special day! Have a wonderful year
as an 11 year old! Tell me all about it!
Not only did I celebrate your birthday with this caribou, I also had a super awesome day on your birthday Toby! Seriously, one story might
be “Friend” magazine worthy. Get excited!
We have been teaching an older lady and her 12 year old
grandson for a while. We’ve caught them home maybe three times. Last time a
couple of neighbor boys were sitting outside listening and when we left they
asked us for copies of the Book of Mormon. We only had one left, so we gave it
to Jim Jim and promised Jun Jun we would bring him one next time. Since then, we
have walked passed the house twice and both times Jun Jun came running after us
asking for a Book of Mormon. Both times we had already run out! Jun Jun wanted the
Book of Mormon so badly, he bought
Jim Jim’s for 2 pesos! This week when we saw him, we asked him how far he had
gotten. He ran and grabbed his Book of Mormon to show us! He is on page 15! He
said he reads every morning! He took us to his house so that we could teach his
family another day (they don't have electricity and it was already dark when we
got there).
Seriously though, how cute is that? Jun Jun, a 12 year old
boy, has such a strong desire to read The
Book of Mormon just from listening to the lesson from outside that he bought
the book from his friend! (Also, this explains why whenever we see Jim Jim he
doesn’t make eye contact or talk to us anymore! He is ashamed he sold his Book
of Mormon for 2 pesos!)
While tracting one day, we heard someone laughing super loud
which is rare, because it is a time of day when it is so hot out that everyone
takes a nap! So, I said we should try that house, and we taught a lesson there!
It was funny, we were actually surprised she let us in! When she said, “Pasok!”
(enter) I thought, “Talaga??” (really??) Ha ha. Hopefully since we know why
people have been dropping us, we can address their concerns better now.
Here in the Philippines, there were a lot of names of
members of the church without any contact information that just got sent to Manila.
As missionaries, we are trying to find these lost members, or AUNs (Address Unknown).
We have a list of seven names that might be in our area that we go around
asking people, “Do you know this person?” It’s a real life scavenger hunt! I
love that we then explain, "We are looking for this person because we are
missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” It’s such a
great get-passed-the-gate opportunity!
When we ask where some AUNs lived, most replies were “There!”
and we would reply, “Where there?” They would answer, “Straight, there!” Ugh. The
best directions we got were “Right at the bridge,” so we walked across two super sketchy bamboo bridges looking for
our AUNs. When I was crossing, a chunk of bamboo fell off! So sketchy!
We did not find any AUNs but we did find one really
promising potential investigator and one new investigator! It was totally worth
crossing the sketchy bridges. Sister Rose lives in a little Garden of Eden! She
has little rock pathways and tons of beautiful potted plants. It was gorgeous!
When we were walking up to the house, through the garden pathways, I said to
Sister Gerhards, “We gotta teach her a really
good lesson so we can come back here!” I’m terrible; I should be thinking that
about every house! All throughout the lesson I kept thinking, “How do I know
her?” At the end of the lesson, Sister Gerhards asked, “Do you know Violetta?”
YUP! THEY ARE SISTERS! Before we
found this out and closed the lesson, Sister Gerhards and I both kept pushing
for her to come to church. We really, really
wanted Rose to commit to attending church, but she wouldn’t. Later she told us
Violetta has been inviting her every week! Oh my goodness!
Violetta is such a good fellowshipper – and she isn’t even a
member of the church yet! (Violetta is getting baptized on Feb. 22!) She agreed
to come with us to pick up her sister Rose for church. They live on opposite sides
of our area, so we met on the highway and started walking to Rose’s house.
Along the way TONS of people knew Violetta! TONS! Sister Gerhards told me later
they were making fun of her for being with us.
After Sister Gerhards told me they were making fun of
Violetta, I was so mad! Well, not really mad. I am guessing it’s what you call
the “momma bear” feeling. How dare they!? But Sister Gerhards told me that
Violetta wasn’t bothered by it. She said, “It’s fine!”
Seriously, this is like Lehi’s dream, The Iron Rod, in real
life! We are on our way to pick up someone for church, people are mocking on
either side, but Violetta has tasted the fruit. She is holding on to the rod.
She is such a great example to me!
Thank you for all the prayers, love and letters! Keep ‘em
coming! I used to have the wrong address posted so my mail was being sent to
the wrong mission and took a really long time to get to the right mission. Here
is the correct address for mailing letters:
Sister Jorden Elizabeth Jackson
Philippines Baguio Mission
PO Box 115 National Highway
Brgy. Lingsat
San Fernando, La Union
2500, PHILIPPINES
Seriously, y’all are the best family, friends, ward family!
Mahal ko kayo!
God bless
Sister Violetta! I love this great lady! She is amazing!
Trike ride! The mirror distorts the image and makes it look big.
It's not!
Sketchy bamboo bridge!
Super sketchy bamboo bridge - "No Hands!" because the side railing was falling off/gone!
Our ward Relief Society President
Preparation-day walk on the beach! Today was the first day we had an activity that allowed us to wear non-proselyting clothes!!
Sister Latimer and I made this for our zone activity contest this
morning. We were given a bunch of random ingredients and we had to make a main
course and dessert using all of the ingredients. We used the watermelon as
the bowl for our fruit salad (that qualifies as a dessert here!). Elder
Alihandro took all the leftover food, put it in a blender he found, and made a
nasty watermelon-banana-cream-sweetened and condensed milk-smoothie. So
gross!
Sister Gerhard's mission is half way over! We celebrated with this lovely cake. I
look a bit crazy... it was the end of the day!
Happens to the best of
us :)
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