Kumusta sa lahat!
Sorry I did not email on Monday- It was temple week so our pday was changed. Oh how I LOVE the peace that comes from the temple!
This week has been a PUNTED week! Almost every appointment we have falls through and so we are really struggling finding people to teach. I know that there are SOOOOO many people here in Cogeo who are ready to hear the gospel, but it is kind of difficult finding them! I wish Heavenly Father would just give us a radar so that we could locate all these people! I guess he wants me to just be patient though, work hard, and follow the promptings of the Spirit.
Mamboy is really progressing and doing really well! We are not able to teach a male if a female is not present, so Nanay Efondo has been kind enough to let us teach Mamboy in her home. We taught him about 4 times last week and has a scheduled baptism date for July 19. I have never met a man like him before.... He is 63, wears a big old sweatband all the time, plays basketball everyday in this bright yellow uniform, has like 5 teeth, and he likes to give me gifts, write me poems, and he calls me an "angel". Yup! That's Mamboy for ya! He is really good though and he is always sharing his testimony to nonmembers about how the church is true. And in our lessons with him, he basically teaches us! He's a strange one, but we love him!
Nanay Efondo is just the sweetest woman in the whole world. She is in her late 60s to early 70s and her husband is a nonmember. She takes care of her 3 grandkids (Nataniel, Jetro, and Wayne) all day everyday, while their parents work. Those kids are so hard to take care of and I feel so bad for her. She lives in a small house that is falling apart and you can physically see the burdens she is carrying. Yesterday after teaching Mamboy at her house, I noticed that she was not her usual self. I got up to shake her hand to thank her then asked her how she was doing. She assured me she was okay, but I knew she wasn't. I asked her if there was anything we could do for her and her response was, "Just pray". I looked in her eyes and asked her how she was really doing. She began to weep. Tears began to fall from my eyes as I empathized with her. She embraced me in a tender hug and cried into my shoulder. It broke my heart to see her like this but at that moment, I really was able to understand what it means to "mourn with those that mourn" and "comfort those that stand in need of comfort." I never will forget this experience.
Yesterday was a really emotional day in general. Sister Agcamaren called us while we were doing our language study yesterday afternoon and asked us to come meet her at a strip mall close to our house. We didn't know what was wrong, but knew we needed to go. We grabbed our things and raced over to meet her. We found her sitting on some stairs in tears, where she had been for the past 6 hours. She began to tell us that she just got news that her sister had a really bad heart problem and might not make it. She wanted to travel to visit her in the hospital, but had no money to make it there. We sat and talked with her for a while and then encouraged her to go back home. She said that she was having family problems on top of all of this and that she wasn't quite ready to go home. She told us to go to our appointments and that if she needed us, she would text us. After an hour, we got a text that her sister had passed away. We made it quickly over to the place where she had been sitting and found her sitting there completely numb and not moving. After a few minutes she bursted into tears and fell over onto Sister Alfoja's shoulder. I have never seen anyone cry with such pain before. I tried to imagine what she was feeling and it broke my heart. I just kept picturing the Savior as he suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane. How blessed we are that there is always someone who was been where we have been before and suffered what we are suffering. I am so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the opportunity that he gives us to be healed, physically, spiritually, and emotionally.
We are teaching a family who lives jut right down the road from our apartment, and they are amazing. We walk past their house on our way home each day, and whenever we do, the kids come running out of the house yelling, "Sisters, sisters!!" and then they walk us home. On Monday night as we were walking with them, Miguel announced, "Sisters, we want to be baptized!" Did he just say what I thought he said?! What?! We told them that they could and that they could come to church with us on Sunday. You should have seen the looks on their faces! They began to jump up and down and cheer and it was really the sweetest thing to see them so excited!!! We are so blessed to be able to be teaching them!
Well that is that for the week! Thanks for all your love and prayers!!
Ingat po kayo!Sister Anderson
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