Barugo Pictures

Barugo Week 7

YES! I CAN UPLOAD PICTURES!!! Yay!

So I've included pictures of my companion for the last six weeks, Sis Sacayanan and I in front of the Carigara chapel.

A picture with Mark, who was recently baptised and the branch members.

Our thanksgiving dinner! Sis Sacayanan said 'Thanksgiving is delicious!' haha.

Thank you for the packages and the love that was inside!

In order to form a branch here, we need a minimum of 15 Melchezidek priesthood holders who are full tithe payers. We probably have like 5 active Elders in Barugo area. There aren't even 15 potential, INCLUDING those that are inactive right now. So I am about 100% sure that I will not 'live' (in the mission) to see Barugo actually become its own branch. The next city, Carigara is about 7 kilometers away.

I really need to practice Waray Waray. The first 3 days I was here I just asked Sis Sacayanan how to say this or that in Waray, and I picked up the transition really well. I just am lacking in vocabulary, because I haven't been putting new words in recently.

I'm totally fine with my needs Mom, don't worry. :) In fact, I received FIVE toothbrushes in total from the ward Christmas box. FIVE! That's a lot. o_O I'm totally just going to give them to the Elders. Haha.

Maybe you won't recognize me when I come home! I remember taking a double look at Eva when she came down the escalator from the airport, cuz we weren't sure if it was her. haha. I think you'll all be fine.

Filipinos love basketball. They love it! There are makeshift basketball courts everywhere. On trees, on big poles, or suspended from other things. Most of it isn't even standard sized hoops or basketballs. They just love to play. So when there IS a standard sized court, it tends to be a really big hangout spot. Sometimes if the churches are open, non-members will ask permission to play on the church court cuz it's so nice.

I don't know if I wrote about this. Filipinos love to talk about tall noses. Meaning American/European noses. They say their noses are not attractive because they are short. I just laugh. I tell them we don't care about noses in American, because there are lots of different kinds of noses there.

Sometimes people call me Sister Lovely. And then laugh really hard. I generally don't respond to people unless they call me by my full last name, just so they know that that's important. Sometimes they call me Sister Love, and then I ask: Who's that?

So we have a recently new investigator named Liezel who is pretty awesome. We've only taught her 3 times. The first time, a short Message of the Restoration, the second time a full MR and the 3rd time all about the Book of Mormon and her prayer to know if it's true scripture. I felt like it was TOTALLY guided by the spirit! We asked how her prayer was to know if it was true. We asked if she felt different. She said yea, but it's difficult to describe. So we asked: Well, is it a good difference? She said yes. So then I sat there and thought about what to say next. I thought "I need to know what to say!" So I was silent for about 15 seconds just thinking and I thought: Did she get a desire to read the Book of Mormon while she was praying? I was kind of happy and hesitant at the same time because I thought: Yay! I thought of a specific question that could have some good results. On the other hand, I was thinking WHY would I think of that question? What if she says no? So this inner battle of sorts turned over I should ask the question, because I won't know until I try, right? So I asked her: "Did you get a desire to read the Book of Mormon while you were praying? And she said yes! Of course, I was so excited. I told her that was definitely an answer to her prayer. But I personally, was rejoicing inside because I feel like maybe I am starting to understand that the Spirit IS using me. I still have a lot to learn though about understanding the language of the Spirit. Whew.

We met a recent convert of another religion (Yikes!) that refused to accept the Book of Mormon we offered (haha.) But the funny thing is that when we told him it was our Christmas present, he just looked at us. "Oh. So you have Christmas in your religion." "Uhhh yes, cuz we celebrate the birth of Christ." "You don't need 1 day to be nice and kind to your family." He told us that if we believed that Christ was born on the 25th of December, we were mistaken. We agreed, because we DON'T believe he was born on that specific day. haha. But honestly, I see nothing wrong with spending a certain time of year to celebrate the birth of the Savior. Honestly, this time of the year is a time when all Christians can really unite with one another, regardless of certain doctrines and remember Jesus Christ. And even people who are not religious spend the Christmas season being able to spend time with their families and be reminded to show more love. I feel like if there was no Christmas, there would be less joy in the world and less unity as a people and families.

Christmas conference was lovely! I love how Elder Uchtdorf quoted 'The Grinch' in his talk about the true Christmas spirit.

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~the end~

Barugo Week 6

Eva~
I read a nice article in the recent Liahona about giving kids assignments so they can feel like they have a responsibility, and gives them something to do at the same time. I don't know, but maybe that will help a little bit?
It may be really really hard teaching Primary, but I know that I will FOREVER be grateful for Primary teachers from now on. The branches here usually do NOT have a strong Primary organization because Primary seems like the last priority for the branch. There are ALWAYS kids running around during church. Running down the halls, in and out of Relief Society, even during Sacrament meeting they just run in and out of the chapel. X_x So yea, I thank you Eva and Morgan for your good work!!

The date we're allowed to have phone calls is December 25. I'll email you with more details later about that, like the phone number you can call.

We had a little Thanksgiving of sorts because I really wanted to have SOMETHING to show Sister Sacayanan, about this crazy American holiday where everyone just EATS. I ended up making mashed potatoes (FOR REALZ! FROM REAL POTATOES!), some pork and beans, corn, and lechon manok (rotisserie chicken basically). We got a really cute picture of the two of us with the food, but the internet cafe doesn't let me hook up my camera here to upload pictures. :(

Don't worry about those packages you sent! I got them already! Wow super fast. ;) One reason is because our zone is somewhat close to Tacloban, so the Zone leaders go to Tacloban fairly often. I haven't actually SEEN them yet (there are 3! oh my!) because they are the Elders apartment, but they've arrived here safely. :) The Elders told me that they were reeeeeeeeeeeeeeally tempted to open them, just because the boxes are so big and inviting and probably full of candy. Haha.

I don't know if I told you about Athena, She's the niece of a less-active member named Liberty. We just talked to her the second day I was here in this area and said: We'd like to teach you. She said sure, and she committed to baptism on the first lesson! ;) The only reason she hasn't been baptised yet is because she hasn't come to church. She has a 2 month old baby and it's been raining a lot. We've also been working on re-activating Liberty. She has a really crazy conversion story. She was working at the most presigious Catholic university in Region 8, which is Samar and Leyte when she decided to get baptised. (She had been attending Institute! haha) So it caused quite a stir at her school, because she was a gospel doctrine teacher there. HAhaha. I think the only problem is that her fire for the gospel might have dimmed a bit. She says she knows its true, even if she hasn't come to church in a while. So this ENTIRE transfer, we've been working on getting them to come to church. We taught Atuz, who is a 9 year old boy that Liberty basically adopted as her son because his dad died. We asked him if he thought it was important that we go to church on Sunday. He nodded yes, so Sis Sacayanan and I just looked at Sis Liberty and Athena with a smirk. Heheeeeeeee.
The great end to this story so far, is that we were sitting in Relief Society and I was again thinking that they didn't show up, when Sis Sacayanan turned to me and said: Athena's here! And the first person to come through the door was Sis Liberty!! I jumped up and gave her a hug in front of everyone, cuz I was HAPPY. I know Liberty had a good experience because at the end she asked about the last General conference and remarked that she should get a subscription to the Liahona. :)

We taught the Baquiran family and showed them the Restoration video. They hadn't read their assignment in the Book of Mormon, so my heart was broken. They are just such wonderful people, I want to help them GET THE BLESSINGS OF THE TEMPLE. After we watched the video we testified we knew it was true. Sis Sacayanan started to cry. The Spirit was just really STRONG. The Spirit is always especially there when we teach the Baquiran family. I'm not sure why, I've just been thinking that it might mean they're ready to accept the gospel. They've been taught for 15 years by Baptist missionaries, and we've only taught them for 1 month. But I believe in miracles with the power of the Spirit. After we left the lesson, the feeling came to me that the thing that might be stopping them right now, is Sister Becky is scared of changing, because she's felt the influence of the Spirit and understands that what we're teaching them is very important.

Sister Merlita is having a lot of personal problems, and she said the time isn't right now for her to be baptised or continue the lessons. We're heartbroken. We still need to talk to her about everything to see what we can do to help.

Mark was confirmed a member! YAY. A week late. haha. Oh well, it's all good. He knew he didn't have the gift of the Holy Ghost yet, so we were happy that he at least knew he needed to be confirmed to be complete. During fast and testimony meeting, he got up and bore his testimony! AHHH. It made me so happy to see him smiling so hard and talking with his new friends in church.

We taught Abraham 3 times this week. He's DIFFICULT to teach. He's very well educated in lots of things, so he tends to go on a lot of tangents. >_< There are points in the visits that I look at sister Sacayanan and SMILE because what Abraham is saying is REVEALED truth! He says a lot of things that are consistant with the doctrine restored in clarity in the gospel. Like eternal progression, that the righteous will become HEIRS with Christ not just angels in a heavenly place, the gathering of Israel, agency... it's alot. But he has a LOT of other stuff that's not right. Like, God the Father is JUST a spirit, Adam chose to follow Satan and FAILED in God's plan, that there were no Prophets after Christ... He really loves his Bible. And I can tell that he really loves God too. I was mistaken when I said he was 7th day adventist, because he told us he has no religious affiliation! o_O I guess he hasn't found the "right church" yet. Hahaha. Anyway, it's really slow with him just because it takes FOREVER to go over one principle because he always has a lot of things to say.

There are various reasons why I'm glad that I did go on a mission. I feel that I am more appreciative of everything, that I can be more considerate of other people, that I can really try to truly love EVERYONE. I feel more influence of the SPIRIT. I am not very well versed in understanding the Spirit, but I feel that I made progression this week. We had interviews with President Malit, and I ALWAYS feel the spirit when I get to talk to him. :) I was able to have some really nice prayers too this week. It's just hard to stay on the high sometimes.

I love you all! I pray for you! I know you pray for me too. :) Thanks a lot.
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~the end~

Barugo Week 5

Hi my family!

Our Branch Mission Leader is looking for a wife, so he keeps teasing me. It's worse though because Sister Sacayanan teases me too now. But she told me that he did the same thing to Sister Garcia, who was her companion before I got here.

I saw a 4 year old smoking a cigarette last week! That was HEARTBREAKING. All his little friends were laughing at him. Hehee cigarelyo! Sister Sacayanan and I just looked at each other with open mouths.

Mark was baptised! :) Mark is 16 year old young man who really wants to do whats right. He was found by Sister Sacayanan and Sister Garcia last transfer. Before he met the missionaries, he would drink and smoke with his friends. But not anymore! Whenever we ask him a question while we're teaching him, he looks down and holds his head with one hand and makes little noises like he's thinking REALLY HARD. hehe. Whenever we would ask him how he feels about his baptism he would say... I'M EXCITED! So of course, I was so sad when I thought that he wasn't going to be there on Saturday. Someone told us that his dad was making him work and he was going to miss his baptism! But he showed up! (apparently disobeying his dad) So I started thinking, what's better to do, disobey your parents by being rebellious and drinking or disobeying your parents by going to church? o_O

We currently have about 12 people that have agreed to be baptized. The hard thing is that most of them don't have transportation to church. We didn't have any investigators at church on Sunday, including Mark! AHHH. HE HASN'T BEEN CONFIRMED A MEMBER YET!! But I'm mostly scared that his dad might not have let him come to church.

We gave Laura her Book of Mormon! She was excited that we found one in German for her. (It was hardbound too!) She asked how much it costs, and we said: It's free. o.O She just sort of looked at us for a second not really believing us. haha. So we said that we hand it out because even poor people who don't have money deserve to be able to read it. We gave her 3rd Nephi 11 as her assignment, so when we went back to teach her, we were a little surprised at what she said. "I read what you told me to read. It was kind of negative." "Huh?" "It was talking about how... if you do this, bad things will happen." So I asked her where she read, and it was page 66-69. But her assignment was actually 566-569. So she started laughing. She actually read the end of 1st Nephi and the beginning of 2nd Nephi, where Nephi is exhorting his disobedient brothers to keep the commandments of God or they'd be cast off. So we just all started laughing. We read the beginning of 3rd Nephi 11 with her, and it was a really nice experience. In the part where Christ invites all the people to touch the wounds in his hands and feet, I asked her how she would feel if SHE was being invited by Christ personally to touch his hands to know that he died for us. She said: "Wow. I can't really describe that." It's really weird teaching in English. hehe. When we read the BoM together, she reads her German book and we read our English books and follow along with each other. :)

We also taught a VERY active 7th day adventist church member named Abraham. He and his family are basically the reason why there is a 7th day adventist church in Barugo. His relative in America gave them the money to build it. So in other words, YEA they are active. Our second visit, he basically told us when we got there: "I don't think there's a point in us continuing, because this is not the gospel that's found in the Bible." I thought: "MY GOODNESS, all he's read is the Restoration pamplet!" He was very advent about not accepting the Book of Mormon, because he says the Bible is perfect, in terms of doctrine. We spent almost the whole hour just trying to use scriptures to help him see that the Book of Mormon is ANOTHER WITNESS. It felt like going against a wall for a short time. Sister Sacayanan turned to me and said: "Gahi siya" (meaning, he's hard [not accepting]) My only worry though was if he was WILLING to read the Book of Mormon or not. So I did my best to just TESTIFY and ask him to read it. He said he would. Wheeeeew.

We also taught a woman named Jenny, who told that she's a member. It turns out though that she is not all there in her head. It seems like she has the mental capacity of a 5 year old or something. But she says her grandma is a member in Tacloban, so it's likely that their family are members. Anyway, near the end of the lesson, the following conversation happened:

"Does your husband have time, so he can join in on the lessons?"

*She shakes her head no*

"Oh, he's always busy then?"

"We don't have a clock."

Yea, they don't have time because they don't have a clock. hahah. It was just really funny. :)

I love you! I think about you all alot! Maybe too much. Agoy! Miss you. I will get to hear you in December! Yay!

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~the end~

Barugo Week 4

I wanted to send pictures this week, but the internet cafe has
restrictions on uploading pictures here. :( Looks like I'll just have
to try next time.

Grandma Edy sent me a letter! It was a really nice letter, but she
told me that she hasn't gotten to read any of the emails I've sent! :(
Sooo... who's going to convince Jesse that he should print off the
emails for her? :)

I'm trying to figure out what to do for Turkey Day. I want Sister
Sacayanan to have a good experience. :P Haha. I think I'll have to
wait until next week though, because then we can buy mashed potatoes
and other things in Tacloban supermarket. The grocery store here is
so small, so the selection is kind of limited.

You don't have to worry about me sending things home mom. Sending
stuff home is expensive, so I'm not really going to send presents for
Christmas. You can all wait until I get home so I can give you some
neat stuff. :) I'm probably going to just leave a bunch of stuff
behind when the time comes for me to leave (like certain clothes and
my towels and stuff), just so I don't have to freak out about weight
restrictions. But I'm still going to have a lot of neat souvenirs!

We found a German Book of Mormon for Sister Laura! I think I might
have mentioned that already. haha. We're going to teach her on
Tuesday night.

I got my hair done again! (Permanently straightened) So now I won't
have to worry about it for another 6 months! woo! In the salon, they
started playing some Japanese songs I used to listen to. I thought to
myself, YAY! I didn't forget Japanese! I just had to hear some words
again and now I remember what they are. :) Last night, Sis Sacayanan
was asking me what some words in Japanese are and I couldn't remember
some! It made me so sad. Cebuano really kicked a lot of things out
of my head.

How was Harry Potter?! Haha.

We had an investigator come to church on Sunday, Sister Merlita Avila!
She's accepted everything we've taught so far, she reads her
assignments, and she's agreed to prepare for baptism on Dec 18! And
then SHE CAME TO CHURCH! OHHHH. She's visited the church before when
she worked in Manila, because her boss was a member. We actually met
her by talking to her daughter on the street, who is named Glyzia.
She went home and told her mom that she has an American friend now.
Of course, her mom had no idea what she was talking about. And then
she told her mom that the American wanted to interview her. Sis
Merlita thought that might mean we were from Census. haha! Until she
actually met us, then she knew what it was all about. She told us
that when Jehovah's Witness missionaries would go to her house, she
would always tell them she's too busy. She said she doesn't know why,
but she didn't do that to us. She just let us in.

We have a baptism scheduled for this Saturday! His name is Mark
Anthony and he's 16. Whenever we ask him a question while teaching
him, he always grabs his head and makes a little noise as he's
thinking. It makes it look like it's really tiring to think. Because
he's a young man, I was pretty sure that at some point he's going to
get ridicule from his friends for getting baptized and following the
word of wisdom or law of chastity. So I shared with him how I have
friends back home that tease me about word of wisdom. But when it
comes down to it, they know I don't, so they don't even try or offer
me coffee or alcohol anymore. Mark looked at me and said:
"Eventually they understand?" Yes, Mark. Yes!

We went on splits last Tuesday. The Elders didn't really tell us
about the splits until the last minute. Bah. I guess I just like
knowing beforehand. We went finding for two hours, by asking a member
family all the names of their neighbors and then walking around with a
member. "Soo... Who do you know that lives on this street?" We
taught one Tatay that is really working towards getting baptized.
He's been off his cigarettes and drinking for at least 2 weeks. He
has a hard time hearing, so we had to be loud when teaching him. Sis
Quimson is really cute. It was good having splits with her. :)

How's your Book of Mormon reading? I'm in the part where Jesus Christ
is quoting Isaiah. Isaiah really makes me sleepy.

I miss you! I pray for you. Love you all.
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~the end~

Barugo Week 3

Grandma Edy~

I got your letter today!! But I haven't had a chance to read it yet! :) I'll write you a little note too!

Mom, Dad & Emily~

I love you!!

Eva~

I remember when Elizabeth would scream because she hated baths as an infant! Now she loves showers? Haha. :)

Jessie~

Cafe Rio is in Lakewood now? Haha... Now you don't have to move to Utah! ;)

I got my "trunkie" letter. The letter that tells me I have to get all my information together because I'm going home in 6 months. Wowie! I need the Stake President's name, contact number and email address. I also need to know Mom's phone number. I'm not sure if I remember it anymore haha. My release date from the mission is on my birthday! Haha! How cool is that? ;) I also need to know what your plans are. Are you planning on coming to pick me up? Or am I just headed straight home? I know that Jessie was thinking they might come. I need to turn this form in in the beginning of January. So... start thinking about it, k? :)

Yesterday was the Pacquiao fight. You probably don't know who Pacquiao is. He is a Filipino Boxer. The people here are really proud of him. Sis Sacayanan told me that there wouldn't be any trikes to take us back to Barugo after church because everyone would be watching the fight. Haha. She said the TV stations would be showing replays of it for the rest of the day, and the other networks would be broadcasting it all today too. The only thing I can think of that would compare to that is the Rose Parade. That's an all day thing too.

We had almost NO ONE to teach when I first got to Barugo. Sister Garcia was sick for a week before she transferred, so they missed all their appointments and didn't make new ones. So I felt a little O_o. We ran around that week and found 25 new investigators by teaching everyone we could come in contact with! We've been blessed with a lot of people to teach now. :)

There have actually been 2 people that have approached us this week asking if they could have one of our pamplets! One of them was a really old man riding his bicycle that speaks REALLY good English. The other was a man that lives near our apartment (His mom told us to not come back! Agoy!) But we still have to follow them up.

One such family is named the Baquiran family. We came from a member's house where we had just taught her niece and we saw some teenage girls sitting around their house outside. So we talked to them and found out that their families were taught before. So we made an appointment with Hazel to go to her house (which is just next door, haha). We met her mom and dad the next time. They all just immediately gathered around to listen. Sister started off by making sure that we knew that they were Catholic. "That's okay Sister. We teach everyone, including Catholics!" So we taught them the Message of the Restoration (MR) and made an appointment for next time.

President Malit had promised me that if we committed our investigators to be baptized as soon as we felt the spirit, that would we have a lot of baptisms. haha. Well anyway, when we first taught them the MR I was feeling the spirit and I TOTALLY wanted to commit them to be baptized when we were teaching the second principle! But I had NO idea how, so I just ended up waiting. The morning of our next appointment, Sis Sacayanan and I spent our companionship study time by thinking up of ways to connect each principle of the MR to baptism. When we came back to this family, Brother Benedicto had completely read the MR pamplet and he said: "Joseph Smith was given the Priesthood by Peter, James and John, the original apostles!" Sis Sacayanan and I were almost shocked with happiness! WHAT a thing to remember from reading! So we talked a little bit about how the Priesthood is used in TEMPLES and families can be together forever! And we taught the Book of Mormon because we wanted to give them one and read it for next time. :) We committed them to be baptized. They said they weren't sure yet. But they are totally excited for us to come back and WE are totally excited to go back tonight! :D

Laura came to church with us yesterday! The girl who is from Germany. I sat next to her and did my best to translate everything. She speaks good conversational English so a lot of the members who know some English were estatic to talk to her. ESPECIALLY some of our returned missionaries from here who are looking for girlfriends! (Like our BML) haha. I just hope they didn't scare her away. She says she wants to do some research about the church because she had never heard of it before until we met her.

Remembering these good experiences make it all worth it! I love teaching someone and then feeling like the Apostles in the New Testament where they "went away rejoicing."

I love you all! I'll see you soon enough. :)
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~the end~

Barugo Week 2

Thanks for the recipes everyone, but I'm not really sure how I can use some of them here. Haha. The ingredients are so different here! Dairy is available, but it's kind of expensive. We always buy 2 liters of milk for the week, but it's expensive (imported from New Zealand). And the cheese here is not really CHEESE. It's like some processed yellow thing. We do have peanut butter available, the expensive imported kind from America, and Peanut butter from the Philippines (way cheaper), but its got way less sugar so it tastes different. We don't have a crock pot. We have a rice cooker, but I'm not sure how well that would substitute... o.O The bread here is a super white bread. My first area was the only one that had wheat bread available. Haaaa...

Last week I asked for toaster oven recipes (because we have a toaster oven) or rice pudding (cuz we have lots of rice), or the no-bake cookies that we love to make, so I can make them for my companion. :)

Sis Sacayanan and I had the craziest day on Saturday! We were just talking to EVERYONE and teaching them a 10 minute lesson and making return appointments. The requirement for a new investigator is they are taught 1 lesson and they agree to a return appointment. Well, we got a lot of return appointments with them, so they all were new investigators! A total of 20! (That's the standard of excellence by the way for 1 week) So we found 20 new investigators in 1 day, plus 5 from other days of the week, for a total of 25! Now the real question is: Who will actually be there at the return appointment!? Finding people is sooooo important. Nothing happens in missionary work until you keep finding new people to teach. Even if you've been teaching the same people for 6 months, you still need to keep looking for those who are ripe for harvest, right?
A couple times, we've asked people where we can find somebody when we knock on their door. We tried using it as a tracting technique for getting people out of their houses. But it really feels like it works best when we're not actually trying to change the topic into the fact that we're missionaries. We met three 7th day adventists in a row in one day! We get a lot of return appointments cuz we're real persuasive! ;) What time are you available so we can come back? Afternoon or night? "Oh I'm busy" Oh, but you get back from work before night, right? "Yea." Oh okay! So would you like us to come back at 6 or at 7 at night on Tuesday?

Elder Tenney, our District leader was telling us some of the experiences he's had with people. It is really true that people are generally more nicer to women than men. Just as an example, in the Philippines, you might see an American man every 5,000 people. I've seen a couple American men in every area I've been in. But American women? I dunno, maybe 1 in 100,000? I am a rare species here. :P But Laura is here too! (Even though she's from Germany, they would still call her Americana.)

We were able to set up another appointment with Laura, the girl from Germany because we didn't see her last week at the appointed time. But at least we know where she lives now! She's Protestant, but she said that there's no Protestant church in Barugo, so she just attends Catholic church. So of course, we invited her to come and visit the church. ;) She is really sweet, we're excited for our appointment with her tomorrow.

I got Dad's letter, so don't worry. :)
I love you all! I include you in my prayers

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~the end~