My 18 month LDS mission in the Philippines: Week 12

Week 12

This week flew. Pretty much no new news...we have our Christmas Zone Conference tomorrow, I am WAY excited. We had our house party last week. It was the best (: I love those crazy sisters. Literally everyone and their mothers are feeding us right now. 3 dinner appointments last week, and 4 this week. Everyone wants to feed us for Christmas week. I literally have the best ward.

Our ward Christmas party was last friday. It was so good! Crazy and super loud- just like here. Lots of dances and presentations and crazy minute-to-win-it nonsense. Some sisters did a cultural dance. I'm kinda sad sometimes because we don't really have time on p-days to go explore. I love learning about the culture and history here. Their dance was really cool...the music sounded so pretty. Lots of spanish guitar. We had 2 investigators come and 2 Less-Active members we have been working with. Definitely my favorite part of the while night was seeing how much fun they had and how nice and welcoming all the members are. Gram wrote me something in my email this week that is SO TRUE. She said something about how too often we have newly baptized members and expect them to get everything and adapt right away. This is also so true for less-active members who haven't been to church in a long time. It makes such a difference in their feeling comfortable if we really help them and care for them.

We are really hurting for progressing investigators right now! Rough life. But we have a few and are really working with them. Last week we met with bishop to discuss our ward mission plan and talk to him about visiting all the auxiliaries in our ward to work better with them to re-active the families we are focusing on. SUCH a good meeting. Our bishop works so hard- he's the best. Right now my companion and I are focusing more on those families and working with the auxiliaries to try and take better care of our recent converts.

I had a really neat experience in a lesson this week. We went to visit an older couple yesterday. His wife has been coming to church for the last 5 months or so but he has not. His wife has a lot of health problems and has been sick the last few weeks. We hadn't seen her so we decided to stop by yesterday. I finally got to meet her husband. He is such a sweet old man. He was one of the first bishops here in the Philippines. We were asking him questions and talking with him about his experiences to kinda see why he hadn't been to church in so long. He hasn't been fully active in years. He looked at us really kinda sad and serious and said, " Sisters, I don't have a white shirt. Priesthood holders need to wear white shirts to church. I used to be a bishop, I know." I literally wanted to cry! That was his REAL concern. He did not want to be disrespectful to the priesthood he held. So sad! I said, "No Brother! Come to church this sunday. We will ask the members and find you a white shirt next Sunday." And my companion went on to teach and help him remember why we need to take the sacrament every week. I can't explain the love I feel for the people I teach. Sometimes it's just so overwhelming. Because that love is not mine, it's Heavenly Father's. I'm continuously so grateful for the chances I have to feel that. I feel like He's saying to me, " I love this person, more than you can understand. I need you to make them see and feel that with whatever tagalog you can come up with." It was a really cool experience for me, that lesson yesterday.
Merry Christmas to all! I hope you have a really good Christmas day (: