May 2, 2011

Hello Family!
Happy May!

Sorry to Katie and Kerry--I definitely remembered your bdays on the 28, 21st , but forgot to mention it on the big email. But I thought of both of you all day! And Happy Birthday to Spencer! Love you all.

This past week was great. We had two baptisms this week, Shania and Jasmine. They are really smart girls and I love them so much. They are really fun to teach. Cebuano J is usually pretty fun to speak and Sister Schneider are amazed at our ability to communicate, anything, ever. I have a feeling i'll really miss these languages. I've definitely seen the gift of tongues lately and I am so grateful.

We don't have a branch president which has been a little tricky and not good b/c we have been anxious to get things going with this branch, but hopefully we will have one by next sunday. Yesterday we had the District Conference via Satellite. It was really cool and I liked it a lot. We had some technical difficulties trying to get the cebuano translation, so it only worked for one talk, but it was good. We got to watch some concert of Music and the Spoken word and it was gorgeous. Our investigator, Crispin was amazed by the Mormon Tablenacle Choir as was I. We were both just entranced by it. I was leaning forward in my seat and the spirit was so strong. Then I look over and our investigator is doing the exact same thing. He is 23 year old , and his member friend made fun of him for it, but he couldn't stop being in amazement. Me either. The Spirit was so strong.
Then the program started and Elder Teh, the area president talked...love that man! And then the choir sang and I saw Sister Jones (the person that ran the Missionary REcovery Center with her husband up in manila) singing in the choir so that was fun. Then Sister Beck, Elder Cook, and President Packer spoke via satellite. IT was really good! They really spoke to the needs of the people here and I appreciated their remarks so much. President Packer shared a special experience he had in TACLOBAN :) after the war ended. He found one other member of the church when was docked in TAcloban and they had a special sacrament in the middle of all the blasted palm trees. It was a really cool story about my Tacloban.

The Philippines is celebrating its 50th anniversary of missionary work here in the Philippines! ITs called the Jubilee Celebration so they talked a lot about that. In 50 years there is 600,000 members in the Philippines, and 2 temples and 1 more being built.

This week was great. We have a little investigator/ part member family that we are concerned about. He is 9 years old and his name is patrick. He is really really really malnourished and their family is devastatingly poor. Please keep him in your prayers.

We had another really intense lesson with Sister Babin. When we talk and she listens, the Spirit is so strong and she knows it. When she prayers, its sincere and awesome and the Spirit is very strong. But when she talks about what ever else she has heard from her friends, etc the Spirit leaves. Its such a drastic difference and she keeps saying she can't feel it, but that cannot be true.

We have sisters coming to work with us this week (tomorrow), and then interviews with President. Next week more sisters will travel here and then we have zone conference and more sisters working with us. The next week more sisters, and then Leadership training conference and then the transfer is over. Time is going by way to fast and we have so much work to do!!

I focused my studies lately on figuring out our potential as God's children. Alma 18:34-35 was awesome. I related it to Luke 17 as well and being a profitable servant.

When we remember who we are, we realize what we can become.
God's attributes are a part of all of us because we are His children. The natural man sometimes makes those strengths/attributes dormant, but its time to Remember who we are and what our potential is.

The gospel is true. Life is good! I love my comp and I love this area. Thanks for all your prayers and support.
Love, your missionary,
Sister B.