A great week- half way done training my cute little trainee and the epic 5 month mission mark!!!!
Our dear Barecante family is still doing just lovely. Tatay Barecante got the Aaronic priesthood last month, got ordained to a priest last week, and got to bless the sacrament! He was so nervous (old grandpa's here get that way really easily), said the blessing so quietly that nobody knew when to say amen, and had to do it a couple times, but HE DID IT! They are still progressing at lightning speed. Tatay is almost done with the Book of Mormon, and Nanay worked yesterday with the missionaries to go to her daughter and family in the next city over. She had a cute little part in the lesson, got to bear her testimony, and she said that it was such an awesome thing to help her family have the gospel too. She thinks her daughter's family will be baptized too! Ahhhh a cute family that can all go to the temple now (okay maybe I'm jumping the gun just a little early):):)
"Except in the case of Jesus Christ, all that God has to work with is imperfect people. That must be terribly frustrating to Him but He deals with it. So should we. And when you see imperfection remember that the limitation is not in the divinity of the work."
Funny story: We found a less-active last week that we taught once and then the second time he had brought all his friends to listen to us too. We taught them about Joesph Smith, the normal, and told them we would come back to teach them about the Book of Mormon. Oh ya, they are all in their early 20's, jokers to the highest degree, and they are always our last appointment around 8pm. So on Saturday we walk down the path, past the various houses and around the corner to his house. As we stop at his house, he runs out from the back, stops in front of us, and starts to babble in Tagalog but trying his hardest to speak English. He's telling us about how he read all the Book of Mormon, his dog is an American, we need to sit down before we sleep. As in nothing he said made sense. Looooong long story short, he was sooo drunk, all his friends were solidly drunk as well, and they had been for the whoooole day. But the best part is I found out that drunk FIlipinos are the funniest thing I have ever experienced in my whole life. Drunk FIlipinos are even funnier when we skip all the lessons and go straight to teaching the Word of Wisdom. Drunk FIlipinos are the funniest still when there are a lot of them (that are allll drunk) all trying to promise to go to church... I think it might be one of my top five favorite lesson so far on my mission.
We went ukay-ukay last week and I found the. most. epic shirt. As in it has Audrey Hepburn's giant, perfectly round face on it in all of her glory and gorgeousness. Even in the Philippines, in a tiny thrift shop, speaking a language that sounds slightly Chinese (I for some reason spent a lot of time this week thinking about what Tagalog sounds like...), my dear classic movie star still lives:). I put her in my suitcase to bring home and wear after I'm home. An oversized, gold sparkly shirt with a giant face on it probably wouldn't look super classy with a skirt right now. But I put some normal people pants on and took a picture just for you!
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| This is theeee Shirt |
Oh and yesterday she said that I'm their adopted grandchild while here in the Philippines. Yessssssss.
We had an interesting week, it wasn't exactly as good as we wanted it to be. Obviously those weeks are to be expected and they probably happen more than the good weeks. We all know things aren't always easy, yes, well aware of that but goodness, you would think that just one thing could have worked out.
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| One of My Favorite Converts in the Whole World-Janessa |
Well, thank you Elder Holland.
So many times we come home at night and I go right to my broken, fake wood chair to plan for the next day, exasperated to the highest degree because once again, investigators aren't doing what they need to or I don't feel like we are getting anywhere. JUST DO WHAT YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO DO PEOPLE! Hmmm, ya that sounds familiar. I sure that's what Heavenly Father wants to shout at me sometimes. Sometimes He is probably so annoyed with me that I won't just listen to Him. I don't do just the couple things that He's asking me to do. Hee oops.
But the best part of that quote is that it says that when we see the imperfection, don't look at the limitation but see instead the divinity and infinity of the work. So obviously we all have limitations, but think of all the things Heavenly Father does with us here because He probably see's the divinity of our work and not all our many, little, annoying imperfections.
And with that, I bring you the best funny story for the week. It probably won't sound as funny as it really was, but trust me, I was laughing so hard it was hard to get words out of my mouth enough to teach the lesson.
Funny story: We found a less-active last week that we taught once and then the second time he had brought all his friends to listen to us too. We taught them about Joesph Smith, the normal, and told them we would come back to teach them about the Book of Mormon. Oh ya, they are all in their early 20's, jokers to the highest degree, and they are always our last appointment around 8pm. So on Saturday we walk down the path, past the various houses and around the corner to his house. As we stop at his house, he runs out from the back, stops in front of us, and starts to babble in Tagalog but trying his hardest to speak English. He's telling us about how he read all the Book of Mormon, his dog is an American, we need to sit down before we sleep. As in nothing he said made sense. Looooong long story short, he was sooo drunk, all his friends were solidly drunk as well, and they had been for the whoooole day. But the best part is I found out that drunk FIlipinos are the funniest thing I have ever experienced in my whole life. Drunk FIlipinos are even funnier when we skip all the lessons and go straight to teaching the Word of Wisdom. Drunk FIlipinos are the funniest still when there are a lot of them (that are allll drunk) all trying to promise to go to church... I think it might be one of my top five favorite lesson so far on my mission.
sa buong puso ko,
SISTER TAYLOR