So We Are Back To That

JUNE 1, 2014

Back to pumping water every day, twice a day. Yeah, so you know how our water was brown before? Last week it turned black and Sister Deyro and I went back to pumping and carrying in water for our showers. The water in our tap went back to clear-ish, but the smell is still really gross, so we are just going to be rocking it old school for at least two more transfers here in Sta Te. #servinginthephilippines. Dont worry though, we got a filter for our kitchen sink, but even the three tower filter cannot completely erase the smell of nasty from our water. But we are still alive, so I think our dishes will be fine, we will just keep buying drinking water.

So this week is sad, but good. Our golden investigator Lorenz is moving to Tugugerao for school. Tugugerao is in a different mission. Boo. We will refer the missionaries to him there, but we are really just praying that his schedule will allow him to come home on the weekends so he can be baptized here. The up side is that his mom is really warming up to us. She has gone from not sitting in on the lessons to being at every one and on Saturday night we were walking by their house and she shouted hi and waved at us! Such progress. Next step is church.

Also this week, we had interviews and training by President Barrientos and it was such an answer to prayers. He talked about how we have investigators who seems really golden in the first two lessons, then at lesson three they all of a sudden are not interested anymore. We have had that a lot in the past week or so and it had been really confusing and frustrating to me and Sister Deyro. I just sat and took so many notes. It was all amazing stuff and it really makes sense. In teaching the gospel to people, we ask them to change a lot about their lives in a very short amount of time, it is completely reasonable for them to back out after only a short while. But it is our responsibility as missionaries to reassure them that change wont happen all at once and that the changes they make will make them happier. So we went back and visited Angelica Yere and she said we can still come back and visit her, hooray for inspired teaching!

We also met a less active pioneer this week. She was one of the first members here in Sta Te and now she is less active. It breaks my heart. She told us all about why she stopped going to church--kind of a long story, we were there for an hour and a half--but she basically was offended. But she also told us how unhappy she is and that she knows it is because she is not going to church. She said that every time she goes by the chapel, she feels so happy and light inside and how she wants to come back, but that she has no one to go to church with. Her neighbors are all less active too. She said she would come to church, and she didnt, but I didnt really expect that change to happen that quickly. During that lesson though, I just felt how much God loves and misses sister Cayari and it made me love her and miss her too. I cant wait to go back and visit her

So there is this old tatay in our area that lives by a recent convert and every time we go he starts talking to me and is like "you are an American" and I am all "wen tatay." but the other day we were taking to him more and we ask him how old he is and he goes into this whole long thing about how he is still young and looking for a wife. No tatay, I will not be your next wife.

I have been learning a lot this week about the cost of our discipleship. As disciples of Christ, we have a lot of responsibilities. Callings, missionary work, tithing, service, following the commandments, sacrificing our will for God's and so much more. It all sounds really difficult, but the more I learn about how much it costs to be disciple of Christ, the more excited I get. I love that my life gets to be full of sacrifices for the Lord, and I love that making these sacrifices means that I have his promise of safety and happiness. The gospel is great isnt it?

Mahal Kita!

Sis Bet