My 18 month LDS mission in the Philippines: surprise visit and balotapaloza

Week 24

This Week was PERFECT. But really- we had a great week. We had lots of miracles. Lots. I also hit 7 months this week...weird. Me and my comp had some solid heart to hearts this week and we reached almost all of our key indicator goals. YES. We also got a surprise visit from president Peterson at church yesterday which was literally the highlight of my week. I love him!

OH yeah. I ate balot this week! Well...I tried to. The video is hilariousm actually. Me and Sister hopkins were eating it first. So you have to crack open the egg, drink the juice which is like blood tasting then crack it all open and eat this baby duck who totally has feathers. I just kept telling myself to man up and eat it! So i stuffed the whole thing in my mouth and started chewing. Then gagging. I could not swallow it! Then i spit half of it out to see if that would work better...nope. still couldn't choke it down. So i tried to put it all back in my mouth which was a third fail. Then I tried eating it little by little but you can't really take that thing appart. The flavor wasn't as bad as i thought but man...that texture is WEIRD. I will win, baby duck. Some day.

Okay so just one cool story this week. We got a new training plan that is all about helping our investigators attend sacrament meeting. Which is perfect- exactly what we all need! So those 2 people who came to church last week are now our investigators and they came to church again yesterday. WITH their families(: We had some amazing lessons with them. One of them- Sister Gloria has a son who is a teenager. When we taught them together he was super engaged and really felt The Spirit in the lesson. Then he totally lit up when we commited him to baptism. We asked him to give the closing prayer and he gave the most beautiful prayer. He prayed about The Book of Mormon and about what we had taught them about the plan of salvation. He also prayed about his baptism and he sounded so sincere and grateful. He said: Thank you for all this that i've learned, please help me and my mom to be baptized on april 12th and to be able to eventually go to the temple to be together forever. I literally started crying. We had taught him ONE lesson. One! They came to church yesterday and had a wonderful experience. He was very curious about passing and blessing the sacrament since he's priest-age. I just loved that experience. I love those two. OH! other cool thing...they could be baptized on april 5th and thats the date we planned to commit them to. Then when my companion was commiting them to baptism she paused before the date. And I said april 12th. so we are both like wait what? Then she starts crying and says: Sisters, that's my 59th birthday. You have given me the opportunity to be re-born on my birthday. Thank you so much. It was the coolest thing.

I loved this week. Every I just woke up so happy! And we had such a great week with our investigators. We had 6 come to church last week. That's 5 more than have come in the last 4 weeks! The bishop and everyone was so excited. Our Gospel Principles class was overfilled. Between that and President Peterson speaking my ward is super excited about missionary work. This happiness that I feel from bringing people the gospel is unlike any kind I have ever felt before. I feel like it's so much more rewarding. My love for my Savior has grown so much deeper as I have been able to see and feel a tiny bit of His love for the people in the philippines.

Love, Sister Gaspar de Alba