Phellowshipping, Phaith and Un-Philtered Water

Good news! Brother D passed his baptismal interview! He's getting baptized on Saturday at 5:00. He is super ready and excited and has a great testimony. We gave him a conference edition of the Liahona. He loves it and takes it with him always. He understands everything so well and says he is very committed to leaving behind all his Word of Wisdom problems and not going back to them. I just really want his family to get baptized. Hopefully they will start listening more to us. Luckily we found him the perfect fellowshipper. They both had a ton of Word of Wisdom problems in the past, comparable jobs, they were both the first baptized in their family and they live by each other. It’s perfect.

It’s amazing how we found him. The missionaries before me found him. His niece was a member, but she moved to America. Her name was on an old list of records called AUNs (address unknown. Somehow the church in the Philippines got rid of all the records of people that the wards didn't know in the 90s. Now they decided to find them all again so Manila sent them back to us. It's a huge mess, but because of it we found him!) The missionaries before me taught him twice, and then couldn't teach him again because he was never home and they couldn't find him. Then I taught him twice with Sister Smith, and then he disappeared again. Then he really started to progress and come to church and stuff last transfer.

Sister M has been out of town, so we haven't been able to teach her. Our other investigators are doing ok.... Brother D is the star right now! haha We were so scared... we were going over the baptism interview questions with him. We asked if he had committed any serious crimes. He gave a hesitant vague answer. Then he said, "Well... I’m not sure, but I think it's pretty common for men..." then we found out that he had gotten into a couple of fistfights when he was young. Good thing that's not a crime here. We really hope his family will come to the baptism.

We had a funny experience last week. We were trying to teach some less actives members. We went to their house and they told us to come. We walked in and who was already there? The Jehovah witness missionaries….awkward.... they told us to sit down and wait until they finished. We just told them we would come back. We felt like that would be stirring up a pot of trouble if we stayed. When we were coming back we met them on the street. They were condescending to us. They gave us a magazine thing which we took and then we gave them a pamphlet but they tried to refuse it. haha, but Sister T just said, "No, this is kind of like a trade. We'll take yours and you take ours." They were so nice to us when we were there in the less active member’s house, just going on and on about how great it is that I can speak Tagalog. Then their claws came out on the street... I read their magazine. They believe in some weird stuff… just doesn't sound right. I’m glad I belong to the true church... oh yeah, and the less active they were teaching told us she was just listening to be nice. And then she came to church on Sunday! And she brought her nonmember husband. First time she's come in about 6 months. Also, the L family finally came to church!

Jehovah’s Witnesse are one of the more popular religions (Catholic is by far #1, also lots of Iglesia ni Cristo, and Baptist). Oh creepy... we were walking home the other night and heard this awful terrible chanting noise…Chanting and wailing and all sorts of creepy stuff. Where was it coming from? The Iglesia church. Apparently that’s what they do in their services.

Last week we were trying to buy load at a tindahan. [Huh? Here’s Ally’s explanation: haha. To send a text or call, you pay money and get what is called load on your phone, instead of having a phone plan. And a tindahan is a little store. People have them connected to the front of their house to earn a little income. They usually have snacks, load, soft drinks, beer, cigarettes, and things like that. There is a tindahan about every 10 feet in the Philippines. It's awful though because when less actives or investigators have a tindahan they use that as their excuse for why they can't come to church…"I can't leave the tindahan!"] We started to talk to the owner. She told us that she used to be a Mormon but then she stopped coming to church when she moved to Baguio because her husband was dying of a stroke. She also told us that she is dying of cancer. She hardly has any hair because of the chemo…so sad. She is so nice. So we taught her and are going to go back this week. She is now an active Catholic. She belongs to some Catholic senior citizen club thing and she told us that they always tell her to pray because they love her prayers (she said it was because the Mormons taught her to pray from her heart).

We had a tri-zone conference last week. I always feel so motivated after those. I wish they could be more often. Baguio zone has turned around its stats so much. We used to be dead last in mission. Then over the past 2 or 3 transfers we have improved a lot and now are #2. Our mission president basically took everyone from San Fernando and transferred them to Baguio. I’ve had the same people in my zone pretty much my whole mission.

The focus of the conference was increasing your faith. You have to have faith that Heavenly Father will help you, faith that our message is true, faith in our investigators, etc. We have been working on setting goals with faith and then working hard to achieve them. That’s how Sister T and I improved our area I think. Also, we really focused on working with members which helped a ton. Now we visit all the members in our area for about 30 minutes once a week. We have found it extremely helpful.

Transfers are July 4. I’m pretty sure I’m getting transferred. I’ll really miss the people in this area though. I hate to say it, but I think it has become my favorite area. Either that or it might be a tie with Sevilla B. When I got here this was by far my least favorite. Oh well. At least I’ll be ending with Brother D’s baptism.

I wrote all of you a letter today. It was during language study though, so I had to write it in Tagalog then I translated it into English. It was actually a very useful language learning activity! I’ll start taking more pictures. I just hate looking like a tourist. I saw this giant bald white guy taking all these pictures of jeepnies the other day…pretty hard not to laugh at him.

One of my housemates has amoebiasis. She got it from drinking unfiltered water. She will apparently start feeling better in about a week but the bacteria are always in her and she has to be very careful about what she eats now. She is pretty miserable and she hasn't worked in almost a week. It's also extremely contagious. We’re being very very careful though. We’re cleaning everything and not using anything she uses and we don't touch anything she's touched. She is the 3rd person in our zone to get it... don't worry I’m being very careful.

By the way, my face is a lot better and my hair is maybe very slightly better. I bought a face mask thing and some thickening shampoo and conditioner and a hair spa thing. Good thing I was in Baguio when this happened or I wouldn't be able to get anything. I have been eating avocados like crazy because they are in season. Delicious!

Thank you. Love you! You are the best and I appreciate everything so much. I hope you have a great week. I will take all of your health advice.