New Year’s Eve and day was ok. It was hard to teach lessons because everyone was sleeping. Surprisingly, no one had us over for dinner or anything. We just came home because we had curfew at 6 and chatted with my housemates... then we attempted to go to sleep at 10:30, but that pretty much failed because it was noisy. We dozed off then I got woken up at about 11:55 because the fireworks were going crazy. So I went on our balcony and watched the fireworks until midnight then wished myself a happy new year and went back to sleep. haha, the fireworks were great. There were several shows within view of our balcony that matched the quality of the Handel Court show on the 4th of July.
Oh! Also, on New Year’s Eve, we had MEXICAN FOOD. We
found this weird Mexican place and tried it out. It was absolutely delicious. There
is never Mexican food in the Philippines, but there happens to be a large
population of older white men that have married beautiful young Filipinas in Bauang.
So, this place is catered toward them. We walk in and it kind of looked like
the inside of the Wrangler or something. Anyway, we had some delicious Mexican
food, but then we all felt sick after that! Everyone in our apartment has been
having stomach problems and such! We even had to stay home for a couple hours
one day because of my companion's problems, but I think we are both ok now.
Our week was good. We struggled more this week
getting lessons than we did the week of Christmas. I’m just treasuring the last
few weeks of my mission so if I have a stomach problem, I’ve just been
continuing to work because I don't want to waste my last little time while as a
missionary in the apartment.
We are struggling with investigators. We haven't
taught Brother C (our 17-year old investigator) all week. He was always at this
member’s house, but now he is never there because the member doesn't want him
there because he is being a bad influence on his kids because he got drunk on Christmas...
so we're going to have to figure that out. Right now our more progressing
investigator is this girl. She’s awesome. The only problem is that she's only
16. :( But she is way more mature than most adults. She is very smart and
understands our lessons well. She really wants to be baptized and wants her
family to be taught, but it is hard to teach them because they are always at
work in Baguio and only come home once a week. So hopefully we'll be able to
teach them this week.
We’ve also been working on quite a few less
actives. haha, this less active older man named Brother N came to church on Sunday
for the first time in a very long time. We had taught him earlier that week,
but our lesson was really short because we were about to be late for our curfew
and my stomach was killing me and this guy is really old. He fell asleep while
we were teaching him. haha, luckily he woke up after a few seconds, but we
ended the lesson so that he could sleep. But then he came to church! He must
have somehow been inspired, haha.... or it was just a coincidence... we have
also been working on this less active family. They have a lot of struggles and
our lesson with then last week was difficult... they were telling us all these
concerns about family problems and drinking and being offended and they were
just blaming each other and they were like almost yelling at each other. The
husband kept saying really mean things about his wife under his breath. But
then we went back and taught them a couple days ago. They are still having
problems, but there was a dramatic change in them. The husband hasn't been
drinking (which is a miracle because literally everyone gets drunk on New
Year’s, occasionally including active members). They haven't been fighting that
much and they even read the Book of Mormon! So hopefully we'll be able to get
them to church sometime in the new future.
Church this week was ok. There was a switch and the
order of the classes reversed and church is now 30 minutes earlier. They
reminded people about it like 10 million times, but 45 minutes after church was
supposed to start the first class finally started. But sacrament meeting was
really good. The testimonies were great. I think everyone is all motivated
because it’s a new year. I bore my testimony because I realized that would be
my last fast and testimony meeting on my mission. That was kind of sad and I
cried.
There were a lot of funny things that happened this
week. We have this really funny older less active lady. She is a piece of work.
She can be so grumpy that it is hilarious. She’s just a character. So we were
teaching her and my companion was saying the opening prayer. I thought to
myself, "I wonder if she closes her eyes during the prayer." So I
open my eyes to check. She is looking around and fixing her hair and whatnot. I
just smile, but I thought she didn't see me peek. Then she just slaps me! haha,
I tried so hard not to laugh but when the prayer ended both of us were
chuckling and my companion and the
lady's husband were pretty confused.
Yesterday during a lesson, a baby duck had diarrhea
on my companion’s foot. haha. I’m lucky because the duck had gotten close to my
foot right before that, but you know that I don’t like animals, so I just nudged
it away from me and it went over to my companion.
This week I've been noticing that Heavenly Father
is very mindful of us if we are being exactly obedient and working as hard as
we can. There were several instances this week where things were not going the
way we had planned, but then something else good would end up happening. Some examples--
we got punted for a really long time, but then we met this family and got 5 new
investigators. If we would’ve had lessons, we wouldn't have met them. Also, we
were annoyed because our member that was supposed to work with us yesterday
cancelled last minute but then we were teaching an investigator and her cousin
is a less active. She joined and we had a great lesson. The less active shared
her feelings before when she was active in church and they committed to come to
church on Sunday.
My companion and I were just talking about all of the blessings
our families have experienced since we've been on missions. Her dad became
active again when she was in the MTC after he had been inactive for 10 years. I
am so grateful for the opportunity that I have had to serve Heavenly Father. I
absolutely love being a missionary. I'm excited to come home and see all of you
too, though. Love you lots! Have a good week and I look forward to more nice
long emails from all of you.
Love, Sister Mortell
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