Allyson's Mission to the Philippines Baguio Mission: Another Phun week in the Philippines

Hello! This week has been a crazy roller-coaster of a week. My new companion is Sister Bircher from South Jordan, Utah. She has been here one more transfer than me. She just finished training an American. She has been in Baguio her whole mission where they speak a whole lot of English, so she hasn’t had to speak much Tagalog. So I am leading the area and doing most of the talking. Sister Bircher is nice and we get along well. She likes Harry Potter and the “Sound of Music,” so I guess we're set. I feel like there's a hole in my heart though! I miss Sister Ackerman. Sister Ackermann is in Baguio now. She really wanted to go there so I’m happy for her. I can't believe how hard it is to lead the area. I just feel this weight on my shoulders for all of the people in my area. I know everything will be okay though. I know that I just need to work hard and strive to have the Spirit and everything will work out.

So, this week has also been crazy with the IBD (investigator with a baptismal date situation). Last week, Sister Ackerman and I had a GREAT lesson with one of our investigators. He told us that God had answered his prayers and he knew the Book of Mormon was true, he told us about the change he had felt in his life because he feels closer to God. So, we started to talk to him about baptism... he had a ton of concerns, but we did our best to address them. Sister Ackerman was just pulling scriptures out that fit perfectly and I could feel what I was supposed to say. Our Tagalog wasn't a problem and we were able to express ourselves. We committed him to prepare to be baptized on March 1. Then, the Bishop, Sister B and I had another good lesson with him. Once again, we felt the spirit helping us know what to say. Bishop was a good fellowshipper for him and he bore his strong testimony. But then after the lesson we made sure he was going to church tomorrow and he said no because he was busy. So I was pretty serious with him and told him that he needed to come and then Sister B told him to pray about it. So we weren't expecting him to come, but then he showed up at church!...except he ran away after sacrament meeting. I could see him heading out the door and I was sitting on the stand because I was playing piano. I had to speed walk and dodge through all these people and grab my companion to talk to him and get him to stay, but it was too late. We are just hoping and praying that everything will be fine and that we can continue and help him progress towards baptism.

As for one of our other investigators with the next baptismal date, we have been having good lessons with him and we can really see him progressing. He is reading the Book of Mormon and True to the Faith and seems really excited for his baptism. He says he is living the word of wisdom. He missed church last week because he went home to see his extended family. We taught him about why it's important to come to church and told him he wouldn't be able to be baptized on that day if he didn't come to church this week. Sacrament meeting started and he still wasn't there. I just sat on the stand scanning over everyone just praying that he would come. He never showed up. His wife says he went home for the weekend and was supposed to come back before church, but he got back late and was at their house. So we are going to have to postpone his baptism. We are hoping it will be a good lesson for him to learn and that we will make sure he is really ready to be baptized. It has been discouraging lately because we have had a big problem with recent converts still having word of wisdom problems and starting to go inactive lately. Another sister’s recent convert told her, "It’s okay that I drink because abon camacho (my recent convert) drinks"... so we're going to have to figure that out. However, I'm happy to report that the G family (recent convert) is doing really well! They are so diligent and faithful :)

So we now have 4 Americans in one apartment. We can't believe it! Sister Dial is training an American from New Mexico and Sister D is doing a great job. Apparently next transfer, 15 people or something are coming and they are 100% foreigners. No Filipinos. We usually try to speak Tagalog in our apartment but it's hard. We are more diligent at speaking Tagalog outside of the apartment. Plus, if we didn't speak some English in the apartment, Sister D's trainee would have literally no idea what is going on. My companion told me that our apartment was the cleanest missionary apartment she had ever been in. I think I will take credit for that because my apartment was a mess when I got there! Straightened things right up!

Good news, the Dinkels had us over last night for some delicious casserole and salad and rolls and personal brownies for dessert! It was the best!...A little slice of America. The Dinkels are so great for the missionaries. And Sister Salvatera invited us over tonight for dinner.

Let me just tell you how flimsy things are in the Philippines. I broke a chair a few weeks ago in our apartment by leaning on it. Sister D broke one last night. I just leaned on the little place where they keep the keyboard in the internet cafe and it broke. I hope I’m not banned from the internet café!

[Here in the Vienna Woods Ward in Meridian, Idaho, we have a new missionary from the Philippines. He told us that he knows President Balledos and that he’s wonderful and really funny.] That's awesome there is a Filipino elder in our ward who knows President Balledos!

Thank you for the letters, packages and dearelders. It’s really hard to send letters because there is literally no time on p days, but I really appreciate all the letters and dearelders I receive.