Bringing Out The Big Guns With A Smile

Mon, Mar 24, 2014 at 12:55 AM

LIttle boys doing dishes in Sta Clara - MAR 2014

Megan's seaside view in Gonzaga - MAR 2014

So Thursday we were supposed to work with a couple from one of our areas, they are newly weds and they are both return missionaries, so they are basically awesome. But we got a text from them after District Meeting saying that they could not come work with us because they had not found food for lunch yet, as in, they did not have any food. Fast forward to the next day, we go to their barangay to work and we are walking with Sister, because her husband is shy to work in his neighborhood, and the first thing she says to us as we start walking on the main road away from the house is “Sisters, we had a blessing yesterday.” She proceeded to tell us how there had been a big catch of fish (they live right next to the beach) and when there is a big catch, everyone goes to the shore to help pull in the nets and when you help pull in the nets, you get some of the fish that were caught. So they had food to eat, and they even fed us later that night. That story struck me for many reasons. First being, God really does provide, second, the people here do not operate on blind faith, they see miracles in their lives every day and third, it really does take a village.

Next, we had District Conference this weekend and the missionaries were able to go to the Saturday and Sunday sessions because we had a visiting area authority. Elder Peres is a boss. He is this small, hilarious Filipino man who radiates the love of God. Seriously. I wish you could have watched his talks. It was all about member missionary work and basically the gist was, whatever your excuse is for not hastening the Work of Salvation, The Lord does not validate it. He just whipped out the big guns, but he did it in a way that you really could not get offended because he said it with so much love. Also, President Barrientos and Sister Barrientos are the cutest things ever. Their talks were amazing too and President Barrientos came up with the fool proof motto for happiness: Lets Do Missionary Work! Do you want a happy marriage? Do missionary work. Do you want to have safety from natural disasters? Do missionary work. Oh man, it was just so good. Just what everyone needed to hear. No excuses, no qualifications, lets do missionary work ya'll!

We also have some really amazing investigators. We have had some spectacular lessons and just, yeah. I am really excited for the coming weeks because I feel some miracles a comin'! We also have a baptism on Saturday. One of the Sta Clara peeps is getting baptized. She is 12 and a rock star. One of the APs was talking to her at Conference and we came to get her for her interview and he was all "wait, Alexis isn't a member? You're not a member?" it was priceless. She passed with flying colors and will be baptized with three other people this week! Melchor is still waiting for his baptism because he has not stopped smoking for a month yet and is always late to sacrament meeting. But he is soon to follow. He even came to the Saturday session of District Conference and stayed for the entire time, I can just see him becoming a missionary. I just love the gospel.

I decided to start doing my Personal Progress since I was a lazy sack and did not do it while I was a young woman. I finished the first Faith value experience and the first Divine Nature experience this week. Ya! I also learned from 2 Peter 1, its really great. But the last four verses talk about Christ's Church and how we do not believe in some make up story (it says it way better than that) but that Christ really did live, he really did atone for our sins and his gospel is the path back to him. I read that and was like "yeah!" This is not some ridiculous thing that someone made up, its real and the more you study it, the more you live it, the more real it becomes.

Mahal Kita! and Lets Do Missionary Work!

Sis Be

I Stole A Child's Basketball

Sun, Mar 16, 2014 at 11:38 PM

So there is this RC in my area who is about nine years old and he
never reads his Book of Mormon, so we have been threatening to take
his basketball away if he does not read. This week when we went to go
teach him, he was playing basketball, so I went over and used the
advantage of my height--yes, I am tall here, also he is nine--to take
the ball so he would listen to our lesson. Then at the end, we asked
his mom if we could take the ball because he had been misbehaving in
other areas as well and she was like "sure, that is fine with me" we
told the little boy that we would return the ball the next day and we
walked away. He threw such a big fit that his mom came running after
us asking if she could have the basketball back. Epic fail. Next time
I am going to take it and drop kick it into the ocean.

This week was a little rough, we had to drop a lot of our baptismal
dates for various reasons, and some of our investigators have dropped
us. Sigh. But we are not letting it get us down! We will just have to
do a lot of finding this week, but its a challenge we are willing to
take to find those who are really prepared for us.

Sta Clara: They keep coming to church and brother Melchor was on time
this week so he is progressing again! Yay! Also, I think that Alexis
will be baptized this coming week, we just need to finish her lessons.
She comes into Centro for school every day, so we are going to set up
three lessons this week for her so we can polish her all up for her
interview on Saturday.

We had a nanay, maybe 65, run away from us this week. Literally run.
We were laughing pretty hard at her and decided that next time we are
going to run after her because we are younger and faster. Name that
movie D! (I think the movie is Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe)

We have had some really amazing lessons this week. We had a meeting
all about teaching the doctrine of the missionary lessons at Zone
Training, and it was something I had been praying for so badly. I have
been feeling like my teaching was really not effective and that I was
just spinning my wheels, but that training really opened my eyes to
what I was doing wrong. We have not been really teaching the doctrine.
So the past two weeks, Sis. D and I have been really trying to teach
these people the revealed truth, God has a body, you don't go to heaven
or hell after you die etc. etc. and we have really noticed the
difference. The Spirit has been more present in our lessons and it
shows in the understanding of our investigators. We have this one
investigator, Maryjane, she is so prepared. Every time we walk out of
a lesson with her, we are like, "wow, she just gets it, doesn't she?"
Now we just need to get her to church, which is always the hardest
part.

I have been reading in Ether this week, and when you get past all the
war and usurpation of power, there is some really good stuff in there.
Like in Ether 4:13 it says "come unto me...and I will show unto you
the greater things..." I read that and I thought of how many of the
greater things in life I have come to know because of the gospel.
Families can be eternal, this life is not the end, trials are for our
benefit, faith brings knowledge, I could go on. But it really is true,
that if we come unto the Lord, he opens things to us that we never
would have know before.

Next week is Zone Conference and that means I will see Sister Smith!
And Elder Leifi is now in my district again. Things in the Philippines
are just so masaya. I love it here more than I can say!

Megan & Elder Leifi
(Elder Leifi sent this photo to Grandma Karen. The two of them have been corresponding.)

Cheers,
Sis Bet

Teaching Filipinos Slang

Sun, Mar 9, 2014 at 11:33 PM

So we had a zone activity today, we went to the beach and it was awesome. We played this Filipino game that is hard to describe, but is really fun and I can teach it to yall when I get home. We will have all the fun! But after we all went to eat at this super delicious pizza place--I don't want to hear it Italy--and this one elder kept asking all the Americans to teach him slang. It was hard to come up with a lot after so long in the Philippines. I kept thinking things like 'ano ba iyan' and 'talaga' and 'lagarod'....not English. But we did manage to pull out 'n00b' 'fresh' 'dank' 'fly' 'ballin' 'sick' and several others. If you think of more, send them to me, thanks!

Megan's view everyday!

So we have this recent convert who has not been confirmed because right after her baptism, she had to go to Manila for a family emergency and she came to church last week, but for some reason they did not confirm her and this week she did not come to church. It was the worst feeling, sitting in sacrament meeting praying that we would see Emy run around the corner into the church. But alas, twas not so. We went to go visit her and she said she did not come because she had no money to pay for a ride. I just pray that she will be able to come to church this coming Sunday.

Sta Clara: Alexis just keeps coming to church, dressed in her Sunday best, on time and she has friends, she goes to the right classes and she will probably be baptized on the 29th if we can finish her lessons. Melchor has been late to church twice, so we have to start him back over before he can be baptized, but he walks into church like he is a member. Some people even think that he is a member. I didnt know them before, but you can just see how the gospel has changed them and changed the way they live their lives.

No one thing really stuck out this week, it was just a good week. Oh, transfers happened and I am staying in Gonzaga with dear, sweet Sister Dollete. It was an answer to a quite prayer. I really do love her, she is so funny and fun to work with and my Tagalog is improving so much with her. We are both excited to see some baptisms this transfer!

Also, update from Vigan: Melchor Santiago baptized his wife, Sandrei and he is getting the Melchezedic Priesthood so he can bless their baby Theo AND they told Sister Abelhouzen that they are getting ready to go to the temple. Squeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, the Vincent and Mark Balta got baptized.  After so long with no baptisms in that area, it was so great to hear about those three. I am so sad I was not there to see it, but I know it was a special day for all of them. Three more in the fold!

Mahal Kita!  Sis Bet                   

In Megan's words: "My companion getting all artsy on me!"

"Don't Take a Picture of It!" "NO! I'm Going To Get a Flashlight To See It Better!"

Monday, MARCH 3, 2014

Sisters Dollete & Bettilyon

So the other day, and by the other day, I mean yesterday, I had the most pleasant experience of cleaning up a horde of maggots out of our trash. Hooray life. Shout out to Gma for sending the rubber gloves. So here is how the story goes: we made fish soup the other day. We did not eat all the fish soup. We threw some of it away and trash day is not until Monday. Que gross. Sunday, we come home, and our apartment is rank. Like truly awful. So I finally decide to put on my big girl pants and do something about it. I go over to the trash and there are all these foaming, white maggots. Sigh. So I go put on a pair of rubber gloves and start taking care of things because something must be done. Enter the other two Sisters. Sister Keith comes over, looks at the mess and says "oh my gosh, I think I am going to throw up, how are you not gagging right now?" I say "I really need you to not throw up and help me, sometimes you just have to put your big girl pants on and clean the maggots." So that is what I did. Cleaned maggots.

Moving on. We had this really amazing lesson with one of our investigators Mindarose. She is 25, but she has a leg deformity, so she is only about three feet tall. She has not been progressing, but she always likes to listen to us, and she understands a lot. We went into the lesson without a plan really because we just wanted to talk to her about whatever it is that her concern is. So we start talking and we ask her what questions she has for God. She says that sometimes she wonders why she was born the way she is and she said that she still sometimes cries about it. We testified to her that God loves her and that he has a plan for her. We shared 3 Nephi 19:28-29 and told her that God loves her no matter what and that we need to trust in his plan for us. One of her big problems is that she is not reading the Book of Mormon, so we told her that she can know what God's plan for her is by reading the book. Her face was in a shadow because we were teaching her outside at night, but when we committed her to read the Book of Mormon, she took a second before she said yes, and I think she was crying. The Spirit was so strong in that lesson, and I know that God really does love all of us, no matter the trials he sends our way, its all a part of the plan.

I also taught an English class this week, and by I taught, I mean I struggled for about ten minutes and Sister Dollete swooped in to save the day. We taught it for the Sta. Clara people because we cannot teach in their area anymore. The class will get better, I just need to be more confidant and less aka-awkward. Kaya ko iayn. But the Sta. Clara people. They just are awesome. They come all the way to centro for us to teach them on Saturday, then come all the way back on Sunday for church. They could be baptized, but we have not been able to teach them all the lessons yet. Such faith and such patience. The people in Cagayan are really different. They are so humble and so willing to do what God wants. It makes any of the excuses I make for myself totally invalid.

 Missionaries and Filipino Friends

So the other day, aka yesterday, we went to a members house and the district president was there, and he had this issue of the Liahona that is all about temples, it is really so beautiful. Sister Cagahasian has one, and Sis D and I were talking about how we could order one, but it would be really difficult and take forever, but President Bote had TWO extra copies and he gave them to us. We basically floated home. #youknowyoureamissionarywhen. But temples y'all. I really did not appreciate them nearly enough before. You really do not know what you have until its gone. They are really the House of the Lord and how lucky are we that we have a place on this imperfect Earth where we can go and commune and be in God's presence. Being a missionary and seeing others lack for things that I took for granted in the gospel makes me appreciate my home, ward, stake and temple so much more. The gospel is true anywhere, but we have it pretty great in Salt Lake. If you can, go to the temple. For me. Thanks!

Mahal Kita!

Sis Bet

There Is Never A Time Where There Is Not An Ant On My Body

JANUARY 19, 2014

Yeah, basically. This is my life. Bugs everywhere. There are always random ants crawling around my desk and I have no idea where they come from or why they are there. I think they just live in the walls. They definitely have a nice little home inside the mechanics of my refrigerator, so why not on my desk and on my arm?

So I am guessing you are all dying to hear what happened with the random American man. Well, it was a bit of a roller-coaster, but the short of the long is that Nanay will not be baptized. It was such a hard decision to make--what missionary wants to say no to a baptism? But Sister Abelhouzen and I prayed about it and talked about it, and Nanay just was not ready. Baptism is not something to be entered into lightly, it is a huge commitment to the Lord and requires not just a desire to do good, but a burning, unwavering conviction to always have Christ's name on our heart, in our mind and in everything that we do. We explained this to Mr. American and he didnt understand at first, who really would, but once we really explained and assured him that this is not the last opportunity Nanay will have to be baptized, he began to understand. It was amazing to see how much people trust us. We are 19 and 21 and people trust us to make decisions for people's eternal salvation. They trust us to do what the Lord wants and to help people who are so close to them. I was really amazed at that this week. People really are putting so much in the hands of the very young, but with the power and spirit of the Lord, we can do it.

In other news, one of our new investigators deffs has a crush on Sis A and myself....not awesome. We got done teaching him and I thought he was just going to walk us to his gate, but he ended up walking with us all the way to our next appointment. Not exactly pwede....and on the way we encountered his uncle who kept asking us if we had boyfriends and if it was okay for us to court while we are on our missions. Haan brother. No way. But he kept being like, yeah you can and we just kind of walked away. Then brother investigator asked us if we like Filipino guys. Sis A had the great wisdom to just say, no, we have boyfriends. He also seemed worried about the man that we went to teach next and was being a little protective and was like, do you know this guy? And we just said nope, and went into his house anyway. Little does homeboy know how many strange people we meet and teach every day. Plan of action: always bring a Nanay to teach with us. ALWAYS. No one can have a crush when Nanay is Nanay-ing.

But the family that we went to teach right after that was elect. Seriously. There are like seven of them and at the end, when we asked the daughter who was most interested to pray, she just did it! And she prayed in the right way! Without us having to tell her how. She just listened to how we did it at the beginning, then copied us. Nailed it sister!

Other miracles of the week: a LA who has had three strokes is talking to us now! Before, he couldnt talk, but now we can hear and understand him! And he talked to us in English. Power of prayer! Crazy Emma who runs around naked has a real testimony of the prophet. If you just listen to her, she sounds active, but something is still off. I think there is something deeper going on there, but she does have a strong testimony, which I count as a miracle. Sandrei, wife of Melchor Santiago, is getting baptized in February! Jojo Real came to a baptism! He missed the actual baptism, but listened to the testimonies and stayed for the area broadcast after. He was not at church because his mom is in the hospital, but he is coming along, slowly but surely.

I just love this work! For reals, it is real work and I see miracles every day.

Mahal Kita!

Sis Bet

I Don't Know About You, But I Taught Thiiiiiirrrrrrrttttttty Thrrrrrrreeeeeee!!!!!

JANUARY 12, 2014

Lessons this week. Yeah. We taught thirty three lessons this week. And one day I was sick and had to go home (dont worry, I am fine now) and did not teach as many lessons that day as we had planned or could have. Yeah so basically we killed it this week and made up for the week of eternal punting. Wooo! Can you say 'hasten the work?' because I can.

Also, something that just happened. We were in this pizza place (dont say anything about Italy Katie, I dont want to hear it) and this huge white guy walks in and we are staring at him because he is A: huge and B: white and C: WHITE AND HUGE. We are eyeballing him for a second and he comes up to us and says "Hello Sisters, my name is Brother Richard and I am from Salt Lake and I am hoping to get my mother and father in law baptized while I am here, and Sister Bettilyon, they live in your area and they are former investigators who had a baptismal date in December who couldnt get baptized because they never came to church. But me and my Filipino wife are here for two weeks and we would love for you to come and teach them and get them baptized thanks." Okay, so it didnt all come out like that at once, but that is the general gist of the story and I was trying really hard to contain my excitement, but I couldnt really because I have been trying to teach his family for five months and they have always ran away or been busy or there was no adult there for us to teach the kids with. Holy freaking crap freak! This man and his family had literally just landed and what are the chances of us meeting them right when they get here and them being here for two weeks and being related to the Cabes?!?!?!?!?!?!? Okay Heavenly Father, lets do this!

In other, also awesome news, the adorable Balta family who was like "re-activate, just add contact with members and missionaries" well her husband is not a member and we just gave him a baptismal date this week with his son and they came to church by themselves this week. To frame this better, this man looks scary and mean, but is really just shy and nice. He came to church, didnt know anyone or anything that was going on, then we taught him once and he said that he has already been reading the Book of Mormon, then he came to church with his two young kids and his less active step daughter alone because his wife was sick and was, like, all kinds of awesome. Where did he come from?!

Teaching 33 lessons this week was awesome and we realized how awesome our investigators really are. We have so many people who are just so prepared and ready to follow commitments and be baptized and are just good people that its just so incredible.

So I spoke in church yesterday, my Tagalog was pretty good, so they told me, so that is a victory. But while I was talking, I look into the congregation and I see none other than JOJO REAL sitting there with his wife. I may or may not have lost my train of thought for a second I was so excited. He looked a little upset the whole time, but the fact that he came to church at all is a little miracle and I am taking it.

Also, Eloysa is back, we didnt get to talk to her much and she didnt come to church, but she is back home and that means we can teach her again! All good things this week!

Mahal Kita!

Sis Bet

Nanay, Merienda Does Not Qualify As An Emergency

JANUARY 5, 2014

So it is in the middle of weekly planning and we get this text from a nanay who lives in our area and her text read something like this "my children, please please please come now I have an emergency please please hurry something something something in Tagalog that I dont understand but I know is about babysitting kids blah blah" and I am like, "nanay, we are sorry, but we cant babysit your kids for you, but how else can we help" and she keeps texting, "please please please come now come now I am waiting please come now" so we go into panic/problem fixing mode and go text the Branch Pres and his wife and go to our land lady (RC) and ask if she can go to nanay's and help. Much to our disappointment, she is really lethargic about doing anything and is like "oh poor me, I cant, do I have to?" so I am all "okay, laters nanay, we have things to fix" and we end up calling the President Barrientos, and turns out there was a house fire behind our house, so while all of this is happening, there are fire trucks, fire men (who are just regular dudes in regular clothing that just happen to drive a giant, red, tank esque truck) and news people and yeah. So we talk to Pres. B and he says to go to nanay's and see what is going on because this entire time she is sending us text after text after text all very desperate and hurry hurry hurry. So we pack up, head out, walk 10 feet from our house and get a text from nanay that says "I made merienda for you, please come so I can go babysit my grand kids" in English. So a merienda is a snack. Yeah. All this for a snack. Filipinos take snack time too seriously.

So in other news, I hit six months this week, what the holy cow really?! I cant even believe it. Next thing you know I am going to be half way through, then I will be home and it all is happening so fast. Too fast. And happy New Year! My new years resolution is to learn Tagalog and Ilocano. Kaya ko iyan!

In other other news, Sis. A and I went on exchanges this week and learned so much about how we can improve our work. Like, we came back together and were like "BAPTIZE ALL THE PEEPS!" so this week should be exciting because we are implementing a lot of changes and pushing for fellow shippers and families and getting people to actually take some time to listen.

Holy, wait a second, Jojo Real, the Baptist preacher guy? Yeah, while I was on exchanges, Sis. A and Sis. Roselle invited him to be baptized and HE SAID YES. And his entire family. I came home, heard the news and almost died of excitement. This man has been so tough, we have taught him the restoration and invited him to pray for months and to no avail, but Sis. R was going to be a preacher too before she converted and she was just the push he needed to accept. We went to get him and his family to church yesterday and he was not there, so we are not totally out of the woods yet, but his family is so ready, he might be the last one to prepare, but oh my gosh I cant even really tell you all my emotions or details about this but just trust me that it is awessssssooooooommmmmmeeeee!

So Mac, the random guy that we found? Well he is basically great, but he is going back to Manila this week and we wont be able to teach him, but we watched the Restoration video with him and boy is that stuff powerful. He is just so willing to listen and read and learn. Great first steps. I hope the missionaries in Manila find him fast. Hello referral!

We taught a lesson to this less active couple who are just less active because Tatay cant come to church because he has had three strokes and cant really walk, it is so sad because you can just see how helpless he feels and Nanay works so hard to take care of them and they just love each other and The Lord and it is just really sweet and sad at the same time. But we taught them a lesson and asked them how we can help them and they asked us to come an keep trying to teach their less active grand son and as Nanay was saying the closing prayer, she and Tatay just started to break down and sob and you could just feel how earnest they were in pleading with The Lord for help. Tatay couldnt stop sobbing and, my heart just broke for him. But the beautiful thing is, is that Christ knows exactly what they need, what they feel and the prayers of earnest and obedient people are so powerful.

Mahal Kita!

Sis Bet