Palompon Week 5 (7/26/10)

Hi family!

The week has gone by as usual it seems.
I included some pictures. (You better appreciate that! It takes so
long to load it. :S) That is me and Sis. Farnworth and the other one
includes our BML, Jetro. He's working on his mission papers right
now!! :D

We did have some investigator children sing a song for us yesterday.
Hahaha. We were really happy because it means that they think about
us when we aren't even there. Their family was really open from the
beginning, but now they're just like friends. This family, the Alayon
family is actually one family and lots of the neighborhood
youth/children. They are sooo welcoming and all love to listen, week
after week. Usually the kids would get tired you'd think, but they
come every time! And some of them actually read their assignments. :P

We had one investigator FINALLY BAPTISED AND CONFIRMED these past two
weeks. Joselyn Hylo. Her first baptism scheduled (The day after I
arrived here in Palompon), she forgot to come! Her second one, the
week afterwards, she was all ready and dressed up and she even arrived
2 hours early so she wouldn't forget. But it didn't go through
because we had missing priesthood! One person to baptize, and one to
witness, but no one else to witness! Agoy! So two weeks later, her
baptism goes through! But her fellowshippers didn't come because they
were doing laundry. Agoy. Then she didn't come to church on Sunday
because she said she didn't have a skirt. (she would always wear pants
before) So this last Sunday, she was FINALLY confirmed and given the
Gift of the Holy Ghost. Whew. She's had a lot of trouble getting
that to happen.

There's this philippino culture that I really don't understand.
Filipinos are really SHY. The word they have for that is ulaw. It
can mean, embarrassed, shy or ashamed or anything like that. You
invite them to read, or pray during the lesson and they say: Not mee,
I'm ulaw. Or this week we asked a youth to come with us to a lesson.
She was fine saying hi to us and talking, but as soon as we asked her
to come with us, she attached herself to a wall, wouldn't look at us
or say anything and busied herself with drawing on the wall with her
finger! ?! Then as soon as we found someone else was coming and she
didn't have to come, she came off of the wall and walked away like
normal. It's so umm... DIFFERENT. And the general populace of the
Philippines tends to just be ulaw. America is just so loud in
comparison. haha.

Haha I want to do a short term mission (One transfer) in California
when I get home. Just to see what it's like in the States on a
mission. :P

KK, I hope that your Book of Mormon reading is going well. Tell me
all about it. :)

It's been hard recently. Those ups and downs of the mission are really
starting to become clear to me. But I know that I'm supposed to be
here in Tacloban mission. I could feel it right as I read my mission
call letter. There's more to be done. I have a long way to go before
I become like Christ. Thanks for your support and love. I miss you
too and think of you. But I also know that I need to be out here for
the people here, for you, and for myself. Everything in it's proper
time frame. :)

Love you all. <3

--
~the end~

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