Sunday, August 3, 2014

Maraming Himala

August 3, 2014
Good day my dear family and friends!

I hope life is treating you as well as it is treating me! Things are going so well and there really is not a more exciting time than now to be a missionary!!! Can you believe that I have hit my 6 month mark? I sure can't!! It is going by tooooo fast!!! And I still know absolutely NOTHING!

Last Monday my kabahay and I went hiking in there area of Taguisan. It is totally jungley and  we got to walk overhanging bridges and a really sketchy bamboo bridge! AND we got chased by a crazy lady wearing a construction hat and carrying a saw!! She was completely mentally insane, singing and dancing all the way down the trail as she followed us. At one point, she got in front of all of us and out of nowhere pulled out a saw and said, "I just sharpened it!!!" and then started laughing uncontrollably and chased us back over the hanging bridge. BUT we are alive and well and I will never go back to that area again in my life:) 

This week was a week of maraming himala- or lots of MIRACLES. WOW! Heavenly Father is just DUMPING loads of miracles in our area. We got 12 new investigators this week, all of which are really potential. One of them is the 23 year old neighbor of Eunice and Shanin. She has three young kids, her husband is a drug addict, she probably weighs like 65 pounds, she used to be a prostitute, BUT she is SOOO AMAZING! Like wow!! She even accepted a baptismal date after only our second lesson with her! As we taught her the message of the Restoration, you could literally see a light turn on in her, and everything just made PERFECT sense to her. After I shared with her the experience of Joseph Smith, you could tell she was really touched and she is so excited to pray and ask if he's a true prophet.

Yesterday was one of the best days of my life! Sheen, Kevin, Richard, Dayanara, Mar Lou, Norma, Lita, and Augosto all came to church!!! It was better than anything I could have wished for!!!!! Sister Alfoja and I have really been stressing to Augosto (the 28 year old son of Norma) that he needs to come to church in order to know if what we are teaching is true. The past 3 weeks he has made excuses to come, but then yesterday he came!!! I cannot even begin to explain the joy that I had when I saw him walking up to the chapel in his red-checkered shirt. And he absolutely LOVED church and he felt the Spirit so strongly! We went and taught Norma and Augosto after church, and to our surprise, he had already read 2 Nephi 31, Alma 32, took a bunch of pages of notes and bore his testimony about some of the verses that he ready. He and Norma even accepted a baptismal date earlier this week for September 13th! We taught them the Word of Wisdom yesterday and they understood it so well! They are so prepared- Augosto has absolutely no problems with the Word of Wisdom which is so uncommon for a male here in the Philippines. Ah, they are GOLDEN!!

We hadn't yet extended a baptismal date to Norma's sister, Lita, because we had only taught her twice. We actually were planning to invite her to be baptized in our second lesson, but didn't feel prompted, so we didn't. After church yesterday though, Lita was talking to one of the members, Sister Saulan, and then Sister Saulan beckoned Sister Alfoja and I over. She explained to us that Lita wanted to be baptized when Norma and Augosto are. We were shocked! So right then and there we extended her a baptismal date- September 13th! And she gladly accepted!

After church we taught Kevin Dapena, who is the 18 year old nephew of the missionary who converted Sister Alfoja's family. It was only our second time teaching him, but he is so golden! He went to both the morning and afternoon sessions of church and loved it! He has so many questions and is probably the most sincere young man I have ever met. We also committed him to be baptized on September 20th and he also said "yes!!" 

We are also teaching Sheen who is a referral from the Wong Family. She is 22 and has a four year old daughter and looks a little rough around the edges, but she is so golden too! We were able to extend a baptismal date to her as well and she also agreed!!!!! I cannot even begin to explain how much the Lord is blessing this area!!!!!

Brother Richard Agana was able to have his baptismal interview yesterday and passed! Now he just needs to be interviewed by President because his situation in complicated... There is no such thing as divorce here in the Philippines, and so the woman that he is living with right now, Nancy, was already married before, so she cannot be divorced from her previous husband. This month,however, marks the 5 year mark since Nancy and Richard have been living together, and because they have been living together for 5 years, Richard can be baptized. Ya, the laws here stink, but he is going to be BAPTIZED!!!!

Maraming himala dito sa area po namin. I cannot even begin to express my gratitude to the Lord for how much he is blessing this area. The church is true!!

Mahal kita!!
Sister Anderson

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