Monday, December 2, 2013

Week 12 in the Philippines - "merry christmas!'


Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all had a blast stuffing your faces with delicious food and being together as family!

We celebrated here as well:) My companion was actually sick pretty much all week, but we still had a big Thanksgiving feast. I live with one another companionship, Sister Ang and Sister Shakespeare. Sister Shakespeare is also from the states and my companion Sister Parada grew up in the states so we made sure Sister Ang had a great first Thanksgiving. We couldn't find turkey, but had chicken instead. We also cooked mashed potatoes, green beans and had rolls and corn bread. We ate lots of food and it was super fun. They don't have pie here, so we made mango float instead, which is delicious. I missed grandma's homemade, amazing rolls. That's so fun that you had such a huge group together for Thanksgiving! I'm so glad Josh was able to come home as well. 

So if you saw those pictures on Pres. Lopez FB, my companion and I accidentally sat in the wrong picture. We sat in the picture with all the companionships with missionaries that came over from Tacloban, but my companion's not from Tacloban. Also my new area is called Sagay, And it's awesome! It's kind of hard because part of our area is Cebuano speaking, but most of the people are still Illonggo speaking, so church is still in Illonggo. My companion speaks Tagalog and she's way good at Illlonggo, so now she's working on learning Cebuano, while I'm still focusing on Illonggo. Anyways, it's fun. 

Yesterday, we visited this sweet lady who we met one day when we were trying to find a LA family. She's 88 years old and hard of hearing. We also found out she only speaks Cebuano. So our lesson with her was one of the funniest things of my life. My companion would yell into her ear every time she spoke to her and she had her planner open with her list of Cebuano words so she could somewhat communicate with this sweet lady. Oh and her name is Presentation:) haha She's so cute. I'm not really sure how much she understood of our lesson. She loves talking to us though and I don't really understand anything she says. We tried to just help her feel the Spirit. It was so funny though. She told us that her daughter took the pamphlet we left her with last time to read, so we need to meet her daughter! It's awesome how the Lord works.

We have so much work to do in our new area! I'm so glad my companion is feeling better so we can get out and teach! It was hard for the elders before because their area was so big before we came and split it. They have lots of really far areas and it's super hard for the people they've been teaching to come to church. So there haven't been many baptisms in our ward. We're excited to get the work moving here! We're excited to have the support of the ward. Our ward is awesome. 

A couple days ago we did member exchanges, so that I could go out and work with a member while someone stayed home with Sister Parada. It was super weird working without my companion, but I was super lucky to have our ward missionary with me who recently returned from her mission. Anyway, we visited this LA family, especially the daughter Joy has been LA. The next day their whole family, except the dad, came to church and Joy brought two friends with her! So now we have two new investigators! It's the best when you get member referrals:) 

We moved into a new house this morning, us four sisters. We were temporarily staying in an elders apartment, but got to move today. I understand what Kels was talking about when she talked about moving into an apt and having to clean a ton. The elders apt was soooo gross. I'm so excited to have this new sisters apt:) 

I'm so grateful for the Lord's hand in my life. He's been teaching me so much and helping me become the person, the missionary he needs me to be. I've been getting frustrated with how hard it is for me to learn the language, but the Lord is teaching me patience and I need to exercise the faith to receive the blessings He has in store for me. 

I know that Heavenly Father hears every single one of our prayers and wants the best for us. He answers us in His time because He knows what we need to learn. He will help us become the best person we can be. I loved hearing the testimonies in Sacrament meeting yesterday of my beautiful brothers and sisters. The gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest blessing in my life. I'm so grateful for God's love for me and for every single one of His children. I love you all soooooo much!!!! 
 
Love, Sister Malyon

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