Week 17 - Getting ready to train

Week 17

This week was so good! It has been ridiculously cold here. I refuse to shower without boiling my water first. We did some ukay-ukay shopping this week and I literally have paid like 5 American dollars total for all my new clothes. LOVE IT. I went to the meeting for trainer's last week and got a little nervous to train. But President Peterson thinks I am ready, so I trust him.

 I have been doing this new thing where i write down every word I don't understand that I hear. It has helped me learn so many new tagalog words! I tried it before, but I got too overwhelmed because I was writing down like a hundred words. Now it's about 10 a day. Anyway, I gave a talk in church yesterday and the members told me i have been getting better so that's good news!

This week we have been following up on all our referrals from members. And teaching our new investigators. YES. My area is officially on the up. We are seeing so much excitement and progression in our investigators and our members. We had a really awesome ward council meeting yesterday and our leaders are doing so much to help us! They are the best. We have lots of hope for our investigators(: Hoping and praying for 3 baptisms in February.

Okay so cool experience this week: I taught a lesson in english! To a guy from California. He just got married to a filipina and it going back on monday. Okay so we OYM'ed this guy back in October and have not been able to get ahold of them since then. Which we were really sad about because they actually approached us and explained how they are looking for a religion but really want to try it all before they decide. Anyway, so we finally taught them this week! And it was SUCH an amazing lesson. I basically taught it all because my compie was a little nervous about english. Anyway, it was interesting to see how different his concerns were than all the fiilipinos. But they both really felt The Spirit and my companion bore a beautiful testomony about coming to know the truthfulness of the Book Of Mormon. It was one of those times where The Lord guided us to them at the right time for them. I love the feeling I have when I am an instrument in his hands. I am so blessed to be here!

Have a great week all! Wish me luck with my new anak!

-Sister Gaspar de Alba

me & this one have been in the same district for the first (almost) 6 months of our missions! She is such an example of motivation for me. She is a great missionary, I am so lucky to be her friend

me&my kabarkada (posse) thats my new fav tagalog word p.s. i saw my nanay last week! and my batchmate- sister williams! 

this is my companion- poor thing. We were all 4 of us sick this week with fevers, and coughs and all that nonsense.

this ones for you dad! this is  hot pina pandesal. SO DANG GOOD. its hot sweet bread with pineapple sugary goodness inside. 

the lunch crowd! i love Filipinos! They set up tables outside after church to eat all together before all the meetings. and they always insist on feeding us. Definitely no complaints from me!

me and brother Anthony. He makes my day every time we see him. I love talking to him. He always wants to give the opening prayer in our lessons and The Spirit is so strong when he prays. The first time He prayed, i totally cried. I told him: Anthony, thank you for praying. Heavenly Father understood all that you said and He is so happy to hear from you.