Exciting week! Baptism, and some scary stuff...

hellllllo

so sat we had temple tour and then cat cat got baptized with two other young men. she is 16 yata and super excited. her family all investigated the church a couple years ago, she wanted to be baptized then, but her parents thought she wasn't old enough or something. now she has permission so she's stoked. her family is supportive and it sounds like her dad is interested, he just works all the time so we'll see if we can find to teach them all. 

We just found out you have to live the word of wisdom a full 4 weeks before you can get baptized. which is good. but also lame. we have a ten year old that was like born ready to be baptized but we just taught him the WOW today and his bap was supposed to be on march 9th but we'll probs have to move it cuz apparently he drinks some drink that has tea in it. lame. 

That's our biggest problem of late. but james is doing great, no alcohol or cigarettes for the last two weeks so he's getting baptized the 16th! and Maricon we just set a bap date for the 16th buuuut she like lives off coffee when she has her night shift job every other week. rough. i have no idea what the average baptism number is in my mission, i only know that my lola (trainer's trainer) had 12 when she went home and before i came sister garcia had one yata and she had been here 8 months when i got here. this area is definitely on fire and it has nothing to do with me. all of our baptisms are just people that were really prepared and really excited to live the gospel! most of them are referrals from members too! 

Malou (Mariz's mom) is getting baptized on Sat and she's way ready buuuut she still wears pants to church every week. idk what that's about.

people are starting to talk about transfers which is crazy. we really have no idea what will happen this transfer. it should be exciting though.

I swear you're secretly in communication with my mission president. at our zone conference our mission president's wife printed us all off two pages from that book and talked about it a bunch. seems like a good un. [Greg had just emailed her about the book "The Power of Everyday Missionaries" by Clayton Christensen]

This weekend was naked weekend. we saw way too many naked people. mostly kids....

We also had a really disturbing experience yesterday on the way home from church. we were walking home and a man that we see everyday just fell straight back off the sidewalk into the street. he cracked his head open on the street and was lying there with blood coming out of the back of his head. by the time we got there he was moving again but still bleeding a lot. we had no idea what to do. we don't know the emergency number here to call an ambulance. there were a ton of people around but no one was really taking any action. we told a tricycle driver that the man needed to be taken to the hospital (implying that he should take him on his tryc) and he was like did someone kill him? is he drunk? ooooohhh. that's all! then just went back to what he was doing. by the time we came back that way it was all cleared up and the man was gone, i have no idea if he lived or died. everyone was just like he's a drunk, whatevs. the whole thing kinda made me sick. just glad i have a companion with me all the time that would do something if i was bleeding out of the back of my head like that.  

On a happier note, yesterday we went on splits for the first time. so i was with a rm sister in the ward the whole afternoon! it was super weird to have to teach without sister garcia cuz we totally have a system down pat. but it was good to see what i can do on my own. pretty much the member just testified of what i said or shared an experience. so i taught a lot. it went pretty well. and we got so much done! we might be going on splits every sunday from now on. 

This morning we got roped into helping the elders make some mormon message.... we'll see how that goes lolz

That's pretty much all that's happening over here! we're having a ward missionary fireside on sunday and President Sperry is coming to speak. im kinda nervous about how it's gonna turn out, imma be honest with you. but we're not in charge of it sooo i can't control that. tell you how it goes next week!

peace out, 

sister jones

previously in malanday 2

So this was a long week cuz today was temple day! and tomorrow we have zone conference, which is apparently a party.

here's the top ten for the night, in order of when i remember them :)

*insert espn du nu nu du nu nu!! music*

1. the family that we extended our curfew for to teach the dad is..... not even in our ward slash area!!! yaaayyyy. so we had to give them to the elders which is super lame cuz he just started coming to church. not stoked about that. the elders went to see them and he hid in his room and had his wife tell them he was asleep. rough start.

2. we found a new apt!! check that off my bucket list: find an apartment in a foreign country. done. its gorgeous, we'll probs move in before march. just in time for sister garcia to love it and leave lolz

3. we went to the temple today and this time we were late! so we still got to wait for an extended period of time buuut that's ok cuz we were more awake and stuff. 

. 

5. our five baptisms this month turned into a baptism every sat for the next five weeks! sooo bummer cuz we had to move some bap dates but awesome that they're still getting baptized at all! but now we measure bap dates by whether or not sister garcia will still be here :/ 

6. i ate muscles, they're surprisingly delicious. also crab and every fish around. not too shabby. my favorite food is officially bread. sister garcia and i decided at lunch today. with mangos coming in at a not too distant second.

7. this week we chose a pick up line a day and a demographic for who we were going to oym. it was great. the winner doesn't have to cook the mac and cheese we've been hunting down all week (fingers crossed we'll find some today) for valentines day we went up to all the single ladies and asked if they had awesome plans for valentines day. then the next day we went up to all the guys and asked how their valentines day was. it was a lil bit hilarious. we're getting better at oyming though! 

8. baptism ni catherine this saturday and she's coming to temple tour with us in the morning! she's so excited to get baptized. and two young men are getting baptized as well and the youth are having an activity right after the baptism at the church sooo it should be really good! 

9. our new curfew is going well, we're still alive and stuff so that's good 

10. last and probs least. you know that moment when you're like "i just love the color of this shirt, i wish all my shirts were this color!" yeah. apparently that's how i was feeling whilst i did my laundry last. now i have some fun colored clothes!!! it's like getting a new wardrobe, diba? ;) 

anyway the work is great, the area is great, sister garcia is great soooo yep! 

go to church, it makes life better. 

peace out, 

sister jones

A Baptism, A braid and Pasma...

We had a baptism on thursday!! it was great!! everyone was there that was supposed to be there!   Our recent convert did a great job baptizing her, even though we forgot to tell him to say the word of in the prayer soooo he had to redo it a couple times... other than that though he did great! she only had to go into the water once! which is good cuz she also has an intense phobia of water.... good times. and it was her 21st birthday!! great way to celebrate turning 21, eh?? she was so stoked, it was awesome. we had a couple speakers from the ward including a girl we didn't really know before but turns out she is awesome and is gonna start working with us a bunch! 

We got a new mission leader, this kid that just had to come home early from his mission for medical reasons. he is great! super enthusiastic and working hard. he wants to have a coordinating meeting every sunday with all the auxiliaries... bishop talked him down to once a month. and we're having a monthly missionary fireside. our first topic will be: home and visiting teaching!!! yayyyy.

This week was cool cuz i feel like my language is coming more fluidly now and i don't have to ask sister garcia for as many words as before (i'll be like in the middle of teaching and i just ask sister garcia what a word is in english, which is kinda weird cuz they probs understand my english word and sometimes she doesn't know and then i ask our investigators and they tell me and i move on.) anyway that's happening less now which is cool. and understanding is going way up. i can pretty much understand everything, as long as im paying attention. but that's super tiring, so it pretty much only happens in lessons slash OYMs. 

So i always do my hair in braids here cuz im lazy, obviously. but people are like really impressed by them which is hilarious cuz i just like stick a flower in to cover up the bumps and call it good. anyway! somehow im doing a member's hair for her wedding in two weeks. so that should be interesting. i told her i have to practice on her hair before then to know what she wants. mostly i just don't want to try and do her hair on her wedding day and fail and have her hate me forever and her whole family go inactive.... that would be awkward. 
she just wants what i do like erryday though so it should work out ok :)

it went well :)

Elder Bednar gave that talk to the MTC awhile ago and called it "The Countenance of Christ" it was definitely my favorite talk that i heard (it was a Sunday night video thing) while i was there. sooo good. and this week i started studying chapter 6, characteristics of Christ! (family unity or what? lolz) anyway so far i've only done faith, hope, and charity but! i've decided that it all comes down to faith is what we do, hope is how we do it, and charity is why we do it. and that's why charity is the most important and without it all is lost because the goal is to be doing everything right for the right reasons, aka charity. 
those are my thoughts, thank you, i'll be here all week. ;)
love
sister jones 

ps we went to a one year old's birthday party this week that was more intense than all of my birthday parties combined, It was ridiculous. word on the street was the congressman was making an appearance later. what up. good thing the birthday girl was asleep for the whole thing! the food was really good though :)

also we got instructed about pasma. (mysterious sickness that affects everything and everyone) moral of the lecture was that when you get home you can't wash your feet for like 3 hours until your legs have had a chance to rest or else you will get pasma. bummerz cuz that's pretty much the first thing we do when we get home! 
we had dinner at a member's house last night and randomly like the whole young men's group was hanging out at the house so we shared to all of them about missionary work. it was a party, they're legit kids. 
umm yep i can't remember anything else.... next time na lang!

It's getting hotter!

wow hello to everyone! 

this week was pretty chill. nothing too ridiculous went down.... lots of people whispering americanas as we pass by, lots of people promising to come to church and then not (lamest thing ever btw) lots of people actually keeping their commitments and doing great! 

we just met a new investigator earlier today (that's why this email is way late, sorry kids) and she is super awesome! her husband is a way less active member but her in-laws are active and already fellow shipping them (best thing ever). it was kinda funny cuz we were getting to know her and we asked how many kids she has and she was like 2. oh wait 3. oh wait 4 pala! we were like umm how can you forget?? but one of them passed away as a baby and the oldest is from her first marriage and is like grown up and doesn't live with them i guess. then she was like yeah this is my second husband and we both like hold our breath and think to ourselves daaaaaang it (big problem here cuz of the no divorce thing, makes baptism and temple work reaaaally difficult) but she went on to say her first husband died. i have never been so happy to hear about a death. cuz that means she's actually married to this guy!! huzzah! anyway we're stoked. totes worth cutting our p-day in half. 

february is going well! its getting hot in hur but we're just gettin our sweat on! nbd :) which makes it suuuuper hilarious when we walk places and random people are like oh hey there beautiful ladies (not an exact quote) or my personal fav is when they're like you're sexy now! (except we see them everyday so it always makes me wonder, what about yesterday, i wasn't sexy then???) anyway after that we always laugh to each other about how they must not actually know what sexy means cuuuuzzz we're sweatin like shaq in the playoffs. and never wear make up. and always have our hair up in some messy bun or braid thing (especially me!) not exactly picture perfect lolz. alas apparently sexy is just a synonym for soooobrang puti. (super white) 

we're so stoke for our baptism on thursday! her name is Mariz and she's 20. we're having our recent convert baptize her! and an SA that we work with got a bunch of the SAs involved so they're speaking and conducting and doing all sorts of stuff, its awesome. 

this week was like a punch in the face of how important church attendance is. when our investigators come to church, they do well, when they don't they don't. its so crucial! 

we had a less active FINALLY come back to church this week and it was so great!! she's been giving us excuses for months but a bunch of wardies visited her (go home and visiting teaching!!!!) and she finally came back. she was so happy to be there too. it was great! 

so my invitation for all of you kids, gagawin po ba ninyo magsimba twing linggo??? (will you go to church every week??) 

i know that church is so important. that is where we can draw strength from the unity of the members. just having a group of people all together with the same goal and purpose is so powerful, plus add that to the Spirit that comes with teaching and testifying of Christ and church can be so amazing! it is a great opportunity to lift and serve one another. 

temple tour was great. its warming up quite nicely over here, sister garcia and i decided that it is the hottest at night. ano ba iyan. we're putting our fans to good use! 

peace out americans 

love you all!

-sister jones!