Week 68: Transferred, to Magapit, Peeping Toms and Scary Rodents

Sis. Abdul Haq (new companion) and Me Traveling in the Bus

The Elders Are Sitting on the Roof of the Bus as We Travel

This week took forever. So last Monday I was in Vigan, then traveled up to Laoag and stayed the night there, then traveled from there to the bus stop where I met everyone who would be traveling with me: Elder Anderson the new ZL, sister Hicks who will be living with me but will be Sister Ganaden’s companion (they will be opening a new area) and elder Wineberg from Vigan district, and his trainee Elder Saplan. We rode a hecka long bus ride that I'm sure could have been much longer but they played the same dumb Jurassic park rip off movie at least 3 times before they realized and swapped to a Marvel movie and a Korean movie. I wrote in my journal basically the whole drive and patted sister Hicks on the head because she gets car sick and the road was going up and down the tiny canyon road like no one’s business.

Magapit, my new area, is actually just one road out of a whole town and this road has more rocks than people. I keep reminding myself that this is really cool that we get to see the work progress here because there are two (almost three) church buildings in this one town (Lalo) but I have about 20 people who live in my area and they have already met with the missionaries. So we are going to teach English as a second language here so that will be fun as three of the four of us are foreigners (two Americans and one Pakistani, and one Filipina)  as a way to meet new people.

I have two funny stories for this week. Our new apartment is incredible. I swear every time I move it's to a better apartment and this one is huge and easy to clean and has sooooo many windows. The funny parts of my week however have to do with the apartment so just realize that I’m not complaining about the apartment.

I was doing my laundry as after transfers you always have a crazy amount of laundry left over and I’m sitting next to this open drain thinking about how I had just told Sister Banham- my previous companion who is now training- how rats can swim through piping and even come up through the toilet and how she didn’t believe me, when, I kid you not, a giant rat crawls out of the open drain next to my foot. I jump up and run to the door to escape inside the house (laundry room is outside) only to find that my companion Sister Abdul-haq had locked me out of the house!!! So I’m banging on the door freaking out and she finally comes and lets me in and she is laughing so hard at me and I can't remember any Tagalog so I throw my flip flop at her but she just dodges it and keeps laughing at me. So then I go back to finish my laundry BECAUSE I DON’T SCARE EASILY and so I sit down to finish and sister Abdul-haq starts screaming and pointing to the ground behind me and so I jump up again only to see it’s a sock so I chase her around the house with the other flip flop I hadn’t thrown at her yet. I locked her in the bathroom so I could finish my laundry in peace.

Then the other story was just last night. Here in Cagayan we have to return to the apartment before the sun goes down so we do all of our studies at night. So we had finished our studies and were chatting in the other sisters room (all in our pj’s) when we hear rustling outside our window. I panic and tell everyone in a laughing fun voice in old English that there was someone standing outside the window and we needed to leave the room and go to my room because I have curtains. Im speaking like “Forsooth doth yonder window break a perv doth entrench there.” So only the other American understood me because I’m speaking nonsense English so if the guy outside the window hears me he thinks I don’t know he is there but I know he is there. Eventually everyone caught my drift and we all dragged their mattresses into our room and had a slightly scary sleepover where we called out leaders and asked what to do. They basically told us to do what we had already done and to text if anything changed. Oh by the way the power was out and had been out for two hours. So we are sitting in our locked room with all the curtains down and windows closed dying of heat when we hear “Sisters.” Out our window. I'm all primed to taze someone  but I peek out the window and it's just our District leader who came all the way over to check on us because his phone didn’t have any calls or texts so he walked around the border of the house (I handed him my taser first) and didn’t find anything. So we all went to bed… kinda. But this morning I went outside to check if I could see footprints- because I took a forensics class so that must mean I’m a genius- but I found a huge depression in the grass (our house is next to an open field) and cow droppings. So we were all so scared because of a freaking cow. It was so dumb but looking back on it I was speaking Shakespeare so a cow wouldn’t understand my English. That is ridiculous.

Anyways this has been the weekly funny story with Missionary Mormon Mikella

Till next time!

Sister Eldredge

Our Peeping Tom

Week 67: I Flooded the Font

This week went by very quickly… isn’t that what I said last week? My brain is just in a scramble right now, but it's all good. I got to start my week out with what turns out to be my last MLC- as usual it started about 5am as the sisters in the mission office apartment always insist on getting up early to shower… but being noisy about it. I got to see one of my utmost favorite people in the world, Sister Bernards who is working in the office. The meeting itself was incredible and I am going to really miss going to MLC, but I will not miss going on exchanges with all the sisters in the Zone! I love them but I have a happy place in my area- that I am now leaving. I’m pretty excited for my new area as Sister Banham served there in the past so she keeps telling me about all the things she loved there. I kinda felt this coming actually. The thought that I would be sent to Cagayan kept running through my mind all week so I know this transfer is revelation from God.

We worked with some incredible members this week and even extended 10 Baptismal Goal Dates this week which was NUTS. The members we worked with (Ritzmay, Daniel one day and sister Rabang and brother Florentine on a different day) were very in-tune with the spirit and honestly they were the best part of the lessons!

We went to visit a 2-year investigator family of 6 who have been wanting and trying to join the church ever since they first heard it but due to some restrains have as of yet been unable to and were starting to loose hope. This week we got to meet with the whole family-which is rare as basically everyone but the youngest works- and in the lesson we talked about the story of Samuel the Lamanite and how despite how it was hard and sometimes scary he followed the commandments of God (see Helaman 13 in the Book of Mormon).  But that wasn’t even the best part. The best part was how the members talked about how when they were baptized into the church all the things they had to overcome and were still going through but the strength they gained through the Holy Ghost, which they received after their baptism, and it was like a light switch went off. Where this beautiful family had been enshrouded in darkness of hopelessness they were filled with the hope and light of Christ and the best part was I had nothing to do with it. It was the members’ love for them, and it was God’s love for them. That is the coolest.

We also had a baptism this week- but not for us! It was for the elders who are also serving in the same branch as us. But we showed up early only to find the font empty!! So we started filling it and then went out to greet people. The baptism started and we had some incredible talks that were all in Ilocano so I have no idea what was said but I felt good about it. Then as we all went to the font for the actual dunking part we noticed a problem… I had forgotten to turn off the pipe!! The baptismal water was flowing in a river down the steps and into the hallway!!! So we had an impromptu team building experience as we scooped up the water with dust pans and paper towels after I shut off the water. After the baptism our investigator Michaella got interviewed for her baptism next week and it was great! We met with her before the interview to  make sure she wouldn’t get scared of the District Leader- who is a very nice Elder. And she passed!!

This Sunday we had so many investigators come to church and I’m pretty sure all of them will get baptized, the question is when. We Know Michaella will be baptized (she does a dance when she thinks about it) and Cherymay (who we found this week due to a referral from a returning Less Active) is waking up in the middle of the night to read and her husband is too, she was sick and the baby was sick but they came to church and she felt 100% better and her baby’s cold went away. She told us the church has power- and although we watched a broadcast in English she said she felt all warm inside like when we teach her and she wants to feel that all the time. So she’ll be getting baptized!! Ahaha Then Edita came her third time and was just as amazing and participated in the classes! Then two out of the 6 of the potential Abang family came and they were greeted soooo warmly by the members- brother Florentine about jumped out of his chair to greet them!

Life is good and it's sad to think I won't be here to see them all be baptized.

Ta ta for now!

Sister Eldredge

Week 66: Intoxication 101

Good morning Neverland!

So because of MLC my letters are always late the first week of the month. So no I’m not breaking rules by emailing on a Tuesday. Anyways. This month went by really fast. I personally have never believed when people say ‘time goes faster than you think’ as if time is passing quickly it's due to you not paying attention or remembering the moments. Yet, I remember the moments and I am paying attention- though my companion thinks that I have alzheimer's as I can remember the name of the dog but not the investigator. But I was always like that; remembering useless information and forgetting the crucial things. Like giraffes have the same amount of vertebrae as humans, but I can't remember how to get home. Anyways, the best things that happened this week was having 11 people in church this Sunday. We only reported 10 because 1 we had never met before and she came to assist her boss, so not technically an investigator. Also this seems to be the week of the drunks.

We were walking to an appointment when Elderberto Javier- mr.i-don’t-want-to-listen-to-you-anymore-because-the-dating-daan-prophet-says-so guy I talked about last week. He comes running up to us and this is the conversation:

Javier: Sisters!!!

Us: hey! What are you doing?

Javier: I was just weeding my garden. Don’t you guys want to teach me?

Us: You said you weren’t sure if you wanted to listen to us.

Javier: oh that *laughs* I was disillusioned! I wish I didn’t like you two but I can’t sleep because of what you said and I want to listen now.

Us: are you drunk?

Javier: *swaying slightly* you drink wine to open your mind! You should write that down.

He insisted we talk so we sat down on some lawn chairs in his front yard and gave him a very brief overview of the Plan of Salvation, during which he sobered up a bit. He actually had a lot of questions and insisted he would come to church and not work the whole day of Sunday. He didn’t actually end up coming but besides the fact that he was slightly drunk the spirit was in the lesson and he has been reading from the Book of Mormon.

Another drunk story:

We were teaching one of our potential investigators about the Book of Mormon and one of the drunks from her neighbor’s graduation party came over and joined in the lesson. He was seriously drunk, and could not remember 1 +1 sort of thing. I did get a little scared when he stood up from where he had been sitting on the ground but he was almost completely unaware of his surroundings. If he had not been shouting “I love Jesus” and “That’s like Catholic!” and “The dog told me that!” I would have thought he was completely out of it. Then as we were walking home from that lesson we ran into a Less Active who was wandering the street seriously drunk.

Brother B: Sisters! I am sorry. I am already drunk.

Us: then go home and don’t drink anymore.

B: ok just one more

Us: no you are done. Go home.

B: *pouts*

It's sad to see grown up people reducing themselves to nothing like this, but it is funny to see full grown up people acting like children.

Also! Our investigator Edita came back to church! This is two times in a row now and so we are hoping she will be ready by the end of this month for baptism. She even paid her tithing without us ever teaching her about it! They just talked about it in church last week so she paid it this week! She is amazing.

That’s all from my neck of the woods!

From the Taser-carrying Sister,

Sister Eldredge

Week 65: Teaching the Word

The weeks go by fast but the days have a way of dragging their feet. My companion says it’s because I'm counting the days, but that doesn’t really factor in as I don’t know what number I'm supposed to be on right now. I've never been very good with numbers… anyways we got punted (had appointments that fell through) so we did a lot of finding this week. Like 60+ finding… which is fun to say but it's killer on the feet and the shoulder. I got to weigh my bag today and apparently it's about 5 kilos. That’s heavy. And it's just sitting on my shoulder all day because we can't seem to get a sit-down teaching appointment. But it's all good, its a vocational hazard.

I’ve got a few fun stories for this week one about Honey Rose, Michaella, and one about Edita. So Honey Rose is just taking off! She is reading and praying and had a rather interesting question. So before I get to her question I should explain at the beginning of every lesson we always ask how they enjoyed their reading and if they have anything they learned or wanted to share. There are two usual responses:

·        

Investigator “Oh yeah I read, I learned a lot.”

Missionaries: “What would you like to share out of what you learned?”

Investigator: *suddenly gets shy and has nothing to say

Or

Investigator: “I'm too busy, I didn’t read.”

Missionaries: *begin to read with them where the assignment was for them to read and explain we are not here to push our religion down their throat but if they want to know if what we are saying is true they have to try it out themselves. *

However, this is how it went with Sister Honey Rose:

Missionaries:  “How was your reading?”

Honey Rose: “Great! I'm on page 12!”

Missionaries: That is awesome!! Do you have anything you’d like to share, or do you have any questions?

Honey Rose: …actually I do. Why did Nephi kill Laban?

Bam. Sister Banham looked over to me (Honey Rose was flipping to the verse where Nephi beheads Laban) and the look basically said “awe heck to the yeah” which was how I was feeling. We went on to tell her about how God had commanded him to do so to ensure that they had the scriptures- which turned into an incredible discussion about the scriptures. She even said “When I feel bad I just go and read and I feel so calm.” That is the spirit! So you can imagine the lesson was just incredible. We actually ended up teaching about The Word of Wisdom (how we are to take care of our bodies by eating healthfully, and not using certain things such as alcohol, cigarettes, coffee, tea, and harmful and illegal drugs.) She was surprised we included coffee with alcohol and illegal drugs but said “I used to just drink hot milk in the morning- I think I’ll just do that now.” She felt the spirit in the lesson and was immediately able to choose what she wanted. She may experience some withdrawal but she is very determined to follow the commandments of God. She just amazes me.

Then there is Michaella, when she told us about her reading she went on and on about what she learned and how she applied it in her life already and the blessings she has already seen. And she had a big karate tournament planned for Sunday and her mother was arguing with her trying to get her to go but she bore her testimony to her mother that no matter what she was going to go to church because of the feelings she had there and she prayed about her choice to go to church and on Sunday morning as she was dressed and heading out the door to go to church she got a text from her sparing teacher saying the tournament had been moved! When she told us about it she cried saying how she knows this church is true. It was a super powerful lesson, and she is teaching us more than we are teaching her! *see attached picture. She is just awesome.

Editha also amazes me. She is a bit older and is hard for her to read but she reads every day and she said at first reading caused her a slight headache but now it's easier and she feels like she is being strengthened. She is good friends with a part-member part non-member family that we are teaching/activating and she had planned to ride with them since they have a car (having a car in the Philippines is an extreme luxury) but that family went down to Manila and so she walked about ½ a kilometer before she was able to catch a trycee to get to church. She said she enjoyed the talks and recognized a not of people- I believe she listed off 3 names, and is excited to come back! She is awesome and I hope we will be able to teach her grandson who sometimes ‘steals the book of Mormon and reads all night.’

Over all it's just that once you start reading the Book of Mormon and really try you will receive the blessings. I don’t convert, I just try my best to get people to read.

I should also mention that we had a fun time… yeah so we walked up to one of our investigators we have been teaching for a week or so and he just straight up said “This will probably be the last time you come here.”

“Why?”

“I was listening to the radio and this guy said Mormons weren’t true and I felt enlightened so I don’t want to listen to you anymore.”  We bore our testimony of Joseph Smith and invited him to keep reading from the Book of Mormon and he said he would. THEN we ran into him again later that day and he said “I keep thinking about what I said and I can't get this bad feeling to go away- so I guess you can keep teaching me.” Then he just smiled.

So life is just all hekkledy-peggledy and I have tons of other things I’d like to say but I’m flat out of time.

From the sister who can't think of a way to sign off

Sister Eldredge

Week 64: So Hungry, So Grateful, and So Stinking Wet!

"You're still out in this weather?"
"Oh, it's just a sprinkle!"

So hungry. So grateful, and so stinking wet.  The rainy season is not supposed to start until next month but apparently Mother Nature is in a mood or something so it's literally raining buckets (it started raining during one of the lessons and by the end of the 10/15 minute lesson the bucket the investigator had placed under the rain spout was overflowing. So, I'm not exaggerating when I say it's raining buckets. We had exchanges with the Santo Domingo Sisters this week and didn’t take that into consideration when we bought our groceries last Monday so about Saturday morning we realized we had no food. We thought ‘oh whoops no food!’ and then went back to work and forgot to address the problem. We do have about 20 green mangos in the fridge that our neighbour keeps giving us but they are super sour (like it gives me a headache it's so sour) unless you eat it dipped in vinegar or soy sauce  or salt but we ran out of vinegar and soy sauce and salt so I was out of ideas. Luckily the mission has had us prepare 72 Hour kits of food and that was extremely helpful.

This week was fun as I got to prove some people wrong about missionary work. I got into a light discussion/ argument with a few elders in the past about golden investigators. That elder posed the idea that they do not exist.  I proposed otherwise as I have been able to work with several. This week I'm adding two more to that list. Kennedy and Michella. Kennedy is a professional football (soccer) player for the Ilocos team and he is actually a referral from the other sisters who are working here in Vigan. He is half Filipino half Nigerian and when we extended a baptismal goal date his reaction was “Yeah! What day?” and he is always asking great questions about the lesson and how to get to church. For example:

“So brother Kennedy, do you have any questions about what we just talked about?”

“Yeah, what time does church start?”

So he is great! Sadly he couldn’t make it to church this Sunday because he got in a motorcycle accident Saturday night and injured his hip. (don’t freak out it's not serious) He kept apologising about not being able to make it and even said he had tried coming regardless but that his motorbike would not start anymore. That means he honestly tried! Oh, did I mention he speaks English? It's so fun to teach in English as my companion keeps speaking Tagalog at him.

Michella is dating a member and technically the elders should be teaching her as she lives in the elders area but she is too shy to talk to the elders (she gets really flustered if we suggest it) so we teach her after church on Sundays. She accepted a baptismal goal date the first lesson and this last Sunday her boyfriend came in to the lesson and wanted to ask her something and she just put her hand in his face because she wanted to listen to what we were saying. It was quite funny as the expression on her face was ‘this is life changing and I won't be distracted by anything.’ Her boyfriend’s mom has the best comments during the lessons and I can tell they are super close.

This is where it gets good. Remember how I said I had a discussion with a few elders about ‘there is so such a thing as golden investigators’? One of the things they said never happen is that after the first meeting investigators never remember Joseph Smith or the First Vision and both Kennedy and Michella remembered it. Kennedy almost recited it to us.

So life is good and beautiful and rainy.

From the sister staying dry

Sister Eldredge

Week 63: My Motto is Basically: Does This Absolutely Need to be Done Now or Can I Sleep?

Also If it doesn’t move me towards baptism then I'm not doing it. 

It's rough keeping up to date with all the paperwork that comes with missionary work but I'm mostly on top of it. I'm just not up to date in my journalist but that is something I have to live with… 

The best part of my week was me and sister Banham praying to find a family  and then finding two very promising families! We are trying to talk to everyone- even slightly scary looking guys- and its paid off!

Sometimes the guys don’t want to talk so they give fake names but its chill, we are just learning patience. Actually it doesn’t make me mad that we spend an hour looking for someone who gave us a fake name and then when we finally do find them they basically tell us to leave. I was surprised by how well I handled it and my companion did a good job bottling her anger. 

We did find this family who we first met the dad and he jumped off his motorcycle and then showed us where his house was and introduced us to his whole family and got a return appointment and they live next door to some members and it was great|!

We also had 17 people in church today that we have been working with (RC/ LA/ Investigators) so that was super fun. The sacrament meeting was pretty good and we had about 100 people there. I even gave a talk on Revelation and got to bear testimony how we believe God is a God of order and He establishes Truth through those who are of authority (they have a licence from Him- not from people or from their own understanding) and how our church not only has that authority but God's Power- that we call the priesthood. And it was fun to look into the eyes of my investigators and bear testimony of that to them in the sacrament meeting.

We are just trying to talk to everyone and so far it's paying off as we find those who are interested and those who want to be left alone. It's fun and stressful but that is life!

Sorry it's so short I have no time!

From the sister who is apparently patient now,

Sister Eldredge

Week 62: God Knows What is Needed

Oh how I love the smell of mangos in the morning. For some reason Mangos are very expensive here even though they are everywhere. It’s like you live on the beach and they sell fish… they are everywhere but not everyone has a boat- and in the case of mangoes a long bamboo stick with a net to both harvest and catch them. Luckily we have amazing members here who give us free mangos because I’m too cheap to buy my own! Haha

Nothing outrageous happened this week besides the fact that it’s me and Sister Banham, so there have been a lot of kids yelling “Americana!” and people thinking we are tourists, so they are surprised when I speak Tagalog and Sister Banham is close to fluent in Tagalog and the village language Ilocano. I also realized that I’m not as fluent as I thought! Throughout my mission I've asked my companions to correct me if I say something wrong and I guess they didn’t… But now I have a companion who is not afraid of correcting me and knows what I’m actually trying to say so corrects my grammar. It's humbling, slightly, but I’m just so grateful I have a companion who is willing to help push me to be better.

We are getting a little rushed to find a baptism for this month as no Investigators came to church and they have to have 4 consecutive Sundays in a row (with one-week allowance) and since no investigators came last week I knew that if we didn’t get any again this week we would be sunk, unless a miracle occurred and we found someone who had received all the lessons previously, had the consecutive Sundays… and remembered everything. So that is a possibility because God is in charge but percentage wise… it's rare. So we fasted (skipped two consecutive meals with a purpose in mind) praying that God would accept the fast and that we will be able to bless the specific investigators we have, and that they will have the desire to go to church so we can not only help them but help the members get excited about missionary work. So it was a bit of a downer when we had no investigators in church. After church though we had a sister walk up to us basically saying ‘hi I’m an investigator, teach me and my three brothers’ so miracles do happen! Sadly, her brothers are not in our area but we can teach her, so the elders are super stoked as now they have three priest-age (16-18 years-old) men they get to teach and our branch president is getting excited! Not to mention one of the Elder’s investigators was interviewed this last week so even if we (the sisters) don’t get a baptism at least there will still be one in the branch.

I have learned a great deal of trusting in the Lord’s plan. It makes life a LOT less stressful. I can trust He has got the reins, He knows what is needed and gives that, not what is wanted.

Love you all! Sister Eldredge