November 18th 2013 " I love the Gospel, and the hope it brings into the lives of people."

Well, this has been another week of sicknesses. Just kidding, but poor Sister Rodrick got sick again, this time a stomach bug, so we couldn't work for a couple days, but we surprising at such high numbers this week! It’s amazing how the Lord blesses you with these miracles and makes up for our weaknesses.

We had a really good experience Monday night. We met this less active member a few weeks back that had just moved in. She had seen the other Sisters we live with and she told them to tell us to stop by. When the storm came, we told every contact in our phone that if they needed help to let us know. She texted us Monday and asked if we could have someone come and give her a blessing. We had to run all around to find, locate, and talk to 2 Priesthood holders in our ward, but after some time it all came together and she received the blessing she needed. It was a good experience to see them fellowship her, and help her feel welcome into the area. We felt the Lord use us as instruments to help her receive the blessing she needed.

Tuesday we had exchanges. Sister Sands and I went with Sister Simbol (this is my 3rd exchange with Sister Simbol- I love her). We were in their area and had a very good day. She is an amazing example to me. We went tracting for about 30 minutes and we felt prompted to cross the street and go to one house. The man we visited with was taught 3 years ago by the missionaries, and seemed very curious to know more again. He said "If I find your church to be true, I would convert. I will go where the Lord wants me to go". Such a neat experience for me.

On Wednesday I felt a very similar prompting. We were walking in one of our barangays and had extra time so we were going to stop by a potential investigator. We walked past this road and this woman caught my eye. I kept walking, but had an impression... 'talk to her'. I kept walking, then I was stopped dead in my tracks, and had to go back. I knew I couldn't walk past her! She invited us into her home, we shared a short message and she asked us to come back Sunday. We did, and I loved it. She asked us, "What can I do to strengthen my family?", or course in Tagalog, but she is so interested and wants to know so much. I am excited to keep teaching her (:

That same day we taught a woman names, Estrella. She lived in New Jersey for 45 years and had to come back to the Philippines. She is in her 70's and said to us, she wants to be Mormon. Sister Roderick met here when she was on exchanges with Sister Sanft, and she kept saying she wants to join our church. That was my 2nd lesson I have taught in the Philippines in English. She told us she understands English better than Tagalog, so we said okay....it was SO hard. I have somewhat converted many words in my head to Tagalog.

We had 3 investigators at church yesterday, and it was so good! The topics in church seemed to match up with what we have been teaching them at this time, so it was really good. The Lord is so mindful of all of us. I love this church!
Our one investigator, Ace... is so awesome! He has come to church 2 times now, writes down every scripture they say in church, and reads every scripture we tell him about. He has such a strong desire to do what the Lord wants him to do. We are blessed to know him. We have been studying the Plan of Salvation with him, and he texted us last night saying how beautiful Gods plan for us is. He also was able to come to a baptism we had in our ward on Friday. That was a good experience for all of us. I know that we all need to be baptized. It is the only way to enter into the gate to return to our Heavenly Father. Gods plan for us really is PERFECT! I am so blessed to be able to share this good message with others here.

I love the Plan of Salvation, and I know every single one of us here on this earth chose to follow this perfect plan from the beginning. I love the Gospel, and the hope it brings into the lives of people. The Book of Mormon is not just a book; it is the word of God for us. Read it, ponder it, and pray to know it is true. I know you won't regret doing so (:
I love you all so much xoxoxx  (Sorry, no pics this week.)

Nov. 11TH 2013 - Safe and Sound from Typhoon Haiyan, Please pray for the Philippines

I am safe and sound here in the Naga Mission. The Typhoon hit areas south of us, and we were not allowed to go out that day. The power was out all day, but we just had very heavy rainfall, some flooding of some areas, and pretty strong winds, but nothing to the extent of others in Tacloban, or other missions. We are praying and going too fast for all the missionaries to be safe and sound there, and all the people who have been affected. Please keep them in your prayers also. There have been many deaths, and so much devastation to the people here.

This has been quite the week in the Philippines and in our area also. As of now we are in a trio, Sister Roderick, I and Sister Sands. There was an emergency in her last area, my old area Goa, and the Sisters were pulled out. Everything is okay, and fine, but we will be a trio until transfers, which is about two weeks. It is very different being in a trio, and a little weird since I am training Sister Roderick, and Sister Sands and I are batch (we were in the MTC together), but we are making it work. And we are pretty lucky to have 3 of us, with strong testimonies bearing of the truths we know to be true.

So this week has been quite a different one, but there have been some great highlights.

We OYMed (Opened Our Mouths), to a lot of people this week when plans would fall through and had some amazing opportunities. One woman asked us what the book we were holding in our hands (which was my Tagalog Book of Mormon). She flipped it open and said a scripture I had highlighted; she started reading it (Mosiah 4:9). She said she would like a copy, and we said we would return with one for her the next day (of all days we didn't have one in hand to give her!!!). It just really made us both realize our image, and what we are holding in our hands, or carrying with us can be effective tools for talking to people. People notice the little things and we need to make sure the little things are what we want them to notice about us.

We taught a less active member’s daughter who we found a couple weeks ago and I felt this overwhelming prompting to invite her to be baptized. I kept shoving it aside, but then it kept coming back, so I did, and right away she said "yes", she just needs to ask permission from her parents first.

The next day, we had Trainers Training for Sister Roderick and I, and we separated the Trainers, and the trainees, and it almost became a vent session, or time to figure out what’s not going right, and what the trainers need to do better at, and what the trainees can do better. It made me SO grateful to be companions with Sister Roderick, and for the friendship we have. We have so much fun, and have loved being companions. I feel so lucky to be her trainer! She is an amazing missionary!

On Thursday, we had a service project with our district. We were almost to the family's house when we saw them driving up towards us. The Sisters had double checked the night before to see if it was still happening, and they said maybe another day sisters.... we didn't know quite what to do, but we decided we'd use our time/and bus ride there wisely, so we went and cleaned the stake center in case it would need to hold people who were evacuating their homes. (This was the day before the Typhoon). It was fun, and we were cleaning up the outside of the church. There were these grates for water, with so much trash down in them so we had the Elders hold it up and I volunteered to get in there and grab the trash. I started moving it around with my shoe and SO MANY cockroaches came running out. I squealed, and jumped out of there so fast! Cockroaches have turned into my least favorite thing here, especially after seeing little kids with puffed up faces from ipis (cockroach) bites. I refused to get back in there haha.

Friday, we were told we were not allowed to leave the house until further notice. We were without power for most of the day, and spent most of it having our weekly planning session and studying Tagalog. Being productive right ? (: The highlight of the day was when we texted in an order to McDonalds (texted hahaha) and he called us asking us to help him locate out apartment. We stood at our gate, and realized it was pitch black, so we talked it out with him on the phone and he dropped off our Big Macs, fries and drinks haha. We had ordered Sprites, but they gave us Coke (which as missionaries in the Naga mission our Mission President has asked us not to drink caffeine), so we decided let’s give it to our kabit bahay (neighbors). They told us come in, come in, haha I was wearing my hair in a big bun, my pajamas, and glasses haha.. Not the best missionary attire (but I did have my nametag (: ). They were 3 girls, and we started chatting a bit, and one said, "You know I am actually a member.". Haha. She told us she came here for her job a couple weeks ago and didn't know where the church was, then she realized she lived next to the Sister missionaries. So she said she would come to church with us when she didn’t\t have work. The Lord really places people in the right places (:

One big highlight of our week was when our investigator Ace showed up to church! We found him when we were looking for his uncle, who is a less active member. He is awesome, and is always sending  US scriptures to look up and read. He also is quite possibly the funniest person I have met! We love teaching him because he is serious when it’s right, but loves to live life to the fullest and laughs alot. At church he wrote down every scripture that was said in all the meetings. The topics were a little deep, about baptisms for the dead (which if any one questions about feel free to email, and ask me or look it up on lds.org), but he said next time we visit, he wants to talk about that.

I feel so blessed to be safe and sound through the typhoon that has affected so many people here in the Philippines. It’s hard not to think when events like this keep happening how close the Second Coming of Christ really is. These are signs of the times, and we really need to prepare ourselves not only physically, but spiritually too. I know that if we read the words of God, listen to His guidance through apostles, and strive to endure to the end, we have no need to fear the things that lie ahead. I love this gospel, and the joy it brings. Hope all of you are safe and sound. Count your many blessings ! :)

Vanessa   AKA

Nov 4th, 2013 "Wait, so we really do have a living prophet?" We are so lucky.

The good news, we are all better now, and I am so grateful our sicknesses have passed. It was so hard being confined to the apartment and like we were not using the Lords time wisely. I am grateful that we were smart and let our bodies rest so that we weren't confined for longer.

We were able to get out on Tuesday for half the day, and I am so happy we got to!
Our first week here we heard someone calling out "Sisters" at night and we looked towards the direction and saw a bunch of men standing around, so we figured it was just people yelling sisters at us like they always do. We walked towards that direction and this man said to us, "Sisters, I am a member, come meet my wife". They were active members no one had told us lived in our area, and it just so happens they live next to our 2nd Councilor in our Bishoprics mother, who is not a member yet. She is so sweet and we were able to go visit her Tuesday. She pointed out to us that she loves the high standards our church has in a falling world, and we have many "bawals" (things not allowed), but respects that. I hope we can continue to share with her our messages. She is so sweet, and loves to talk about Christ.

One of my favorite experiences this week was when we were teaching one of our investigators. The investigator who asked us for all the pamphlets we had, and a Book of Mormon. We have continually been teaching her Lesson 1: The Restoration, because she is so interested about prophets. We watched the Restoration movies, and she owns a tindahan, so we teach her there, and it was SO loud, we couldn't hear with the volume all up, but there were subtitles in English, and she was glued to every word! She is a very visual learner, and even though we couldn't hear it, the Spirit was so strong, and it was another witness to her that Joseph Smith was a prophet.
We have testified to her before that we have a living prophet, but it was this week when her eyes lit up and she said, "Wait, so we really do have a living prophet?" and we showed her a picture of President Thomas S. Monson and her response... "Wow... thank you for telling me this." She kept thanking us for telling her and we told her to go to lds.org to learn more, and read the Prophets most recent words for us online. This is something I feel so many of us take for granted being members of the church. We are SO lucky to know that we have a living prophet here on this earth to lead and guide the Lords church, with divine guidance from the Lord Himself. We are so lucky!

That same evening we were punted (no one was there), so we decide to look for a less active family we found out lived in our area. The two fathers, who are brothers, are members, live next door to each other and no one else in their family is baptized, but they all seem super interested! So we are going back there tonight. So glad we found them!

So I may have mentioned our awesome new investigator who we met. His uncle is a member and we were looking for him, and found our investigator. He welcomed us in and said "Okay you can start!” And we told him we needed a woman present in the home to teach, and he went looking for one. We got to teach him again, and we love teaching him, He is super active in his church, so religious, and sends us scriptures daily! He is so open to listening to us, and when we give him assignments to read in the Book of Mormon he does. This morning we invited all of our investigators to play basketball with us and the other Elders and Sisters at 6am, and he came! He has already been jogging around 5am and came to join in with us. It was so fun, and we hope he can come with us to church this next week.

Ano pa? Hmmm so we found another family on our list of less actives. Turns out people have not been to their house in 25 years!!!!! Yeah, I apologized for no one coming there. But it was kind of a hard place to teach at, and the Brother kept saying we are 19, 21 girl who have not had life experience yet. I felt this overwhelming Spirit come over me, and we testified to the Brother that even though we may be young, we are called by a Prophet of God, and are representatives for Jesus Christ. Great is our calling! I know that this is such a special time of my life I get to this, and I have to take every moment I can to testify, through words and actions.

We had no investigators, or less active members at church this week, but we had the most amazing thing to us before we went to church! The referral Elders texted us at 10am saying they had a referral for us and they wanted to be visited on Sunday mornings aka... in other words..NOW they said. So we changed our plans, finished studying and went... and found the most amazing family of 9 kid’s ages 15 to 1, and their parents so ready to hear the message we had for them. The Father was the one who is mainly interested and he said he used to be a missionary for his church when he was younger. We are SOOO excited to teach them again and I will keep you updated with them!

I know in the deepness of my heart that this Church, is the restored Church of Jesus Christ that He established when He was here on this earth. I have gained such a stronger testimony of the Atonement, and how much it encompasses. I know the Lord knows our weaknesses and we are not perfect, but if we try, and live our lives the way He did, we will obtain never-ending happiness with Him and our families forever in Heaven. I know this to be true. This is what gives me hope every day of my life, especially when storms, or trials come my way.  I know I am building my foundation on a foundation that will not falter, on My Savior Jesus Christ.
May we all try to do the same (:
Love you all. Until next week.