One Month in the Philippines

the baptism happened!!! we took a ton of pictures buuuut i forgot my camera today so you kids will have to wait a week to see how adorable we all are in our matching clothes lolz yeah that happened. E---n was baptized on sat, confirmed on sunday, which was Sister G---'s birthday!!!, and they also gave him the Aaronic Priesthood on Sunday... as a priest. do they usually do that so quickly?? we were kinda confused by that but E---n is suuuuper legit so it's all good. He just got a job (before he was pretty much just playing guitar and basketball all day) which is awesome cuz he's working to better his life but now he's super busy so it's way harder to meet with him. good thing we don't have to meet with him like every day now!! just once a week. anyway the baptism was good, a bunch of the ward came to support him and it started mad late which was rough cuz we had a meeting right after and his cousin baptized him (who is 19 and preparing for a mission as well) and he had to be baptized three times cuz it was his cousin's first time baptizing someone but it was great! then E---n came to the area leadership training meeting... not really sure why, but it was really good! they talked about all our area goals and so many of them are directly applicable to E---n that is was good that he got to see and understand what his role is now. 

That's sweet that you get to hear from Elder___________ and Elder __________. That should be really awesome. a lot of people here aren't super familiar with the leadership of the church, obviously the investigators have no idea who they are, but even the members sometimes. i guess that's the same everywhere. but it was interesting to introduce them to E----n because i kinda take for granted sometimes that i've grown up hearing these names and seeing them speak, but to investigators they're kinda random. 

anyway we thought no one could possibly be more prepared by the Lord to accept the gospel than E---n but then! yesterday we went back to that dad we taught a couple weeks ago and i was kinda not as stoked about it cuz he didn't come to church and last week he was sleeping. but! we taught him and he is awesome! he said he went over to his dad's place an hour before church starts but his dad had already left him! his dad is super enthusiastic about church and stuff :) anyway at the end of the lesson we challenged him to pray about everything and he said he would (actually he told us that later tonight he needs to pray with a sincere heart about whether this is Christ's church and if God restored his truth through Joseph Smith, it was pretty awesome) and we were like ok (super excited on the inside and trying not to scare him with our apparent enthusiasm) so what do you need to do when you receive an answer to your prayers? and he was like i need to read, and go to church, and be baptized. bam. committed him to be baptized when he receives an answer. oh my ready. it was awesome. and we had a member girl working with us and she was awesome and got way pumped about missionary work (except she's totes gonna get married and not serve a mish but its to a super legit member rm here so its all good) (ps that's in my opinion the best way to involve members. get them to work with you with specific people so that they love them as well, they are excited by their progress, by their church attendance, and they notice when the investigators aren't there because they want them to progress, but i've only been here a month sooo whatevs) 

yesterday was my one month mark!!!! and sister g---'s birthday!!! and E---'s confirmation!!! pretty much just a party all day. we went to a member's house for dinner and they are kinda rolling, they actually have an oven. so they made us a roticery (spell?) chicken and a cake. sister g--- said that's the first oven she's seen in someone's house since she's been here. it was pretty exciting.

people stare at us because we are American's and they stare at me cuz i look american. then they ask sister g---a why she doesn't look like me. lolz she tells them its cuz she's half mexican. there is a lil 9 year old boy that we visit cuz his grandma is suuuper inactive (which is lame cuz she has gone through the temple!) but he sits in on our lessons and he always runs up to me and says "so cute your eyes." and "so cute your face" its pretty much adorable. this week he figured out that i can speak tagalog (he's not super attentive when we teach and im not super good at the chatting before the lesson when he is paying attention and all i do is nod and smile) and it was hilarious.  he's not a member cuz his parents and grandma are inactive so we're trying to get his grandma to come to church and bring him! cuz he should be a memeber. he wants to but doesn't have anyone to go to church with. i thought he was just hanging out with us cuz we're americans but we were walking back to his house with his grandma and i was asking him questions about the scripture stories and he proceeded to tell me allll about the first vision and joseph smith and everything that happened with the restoration of the church. it was impressive. and i was like do you believe that? and he was like yeah totally! (aight he didn't say totally, but you understand) so now we're gonna start actually teaching him, cuz he's paying more attention than we give him credit for. 

aight, peace out.

love you, 

sister jones