Monday, December 30, 2013

Week 16 in the Philippines - "Happy New Year!"

Hi my beautiful family and friends!

How was your Christmas? It was sooo good to talk to you on Christmas and see your cute faces and hear your voices. I have the best family ever! I'm so glad we were able to get skype to work. I loved how you had prepared questions. You're so cute. Thanks so much for the awesome teaching resources, the puzzles you sent me! I already used the Plan of Salvation one in a lesson with a bunch of kids. Every time I set down another piece to the plan, all of the kid would all look and read what it said. I also have been reading that awesome talk by Elder Maxwell. So interesting! I\m learning so much! Also, on Christmas eve and Christmas day, my comp and I visited lots of people and shared a Christmas message with them. I brought the papers with music and scriptures you sent me and they were super helpful!

Christmas eve and Christmas day were super fun. We got to celebrate with a bunch of our investigators and members as well. And every single person we visited fed us so much food! They pretty much eat all day when they celebrate a holiday and Sister Parada and I felt sick. We ate so much. But I got to try some awesome new foods this week. I tried chicken blood, I can't remember what they call it. It's black and the chicken blood was cooked with all the insides of the chicken. yummm :) haha Good thing there were lots of spices. I also tried adidas, chicken foot! We have an investigator with a BBQ stand and so I got it from her. Everyone watched me eat it haha. It was rubbery and hard to bite haha. I also tried uga for the first time this week, which is the terribly smelling dried fish. It wasn't too bad but just super super salty. not a huge fan. but I guess I need to try it again because I didn't know you're supposed to dip it in vinegar. maybe that will make it taste better. I want to try balut sometime, but our mission pres banned it. Foreign missionaries aren't allowed to eat it:(

Oh my goodness I'm sending you a picture of this baby goat I got to hold on Christmas day. It was the cutest thing on the planet. Only like 4 days old. It made me really happy haha. Also the picture with people is me with our awesome investigator Pamela and her granddaughter Welchie. I love them so much. and yes I have terrible sweaty pits in this picture. sorry! haha They're excited about their baptism on Jan. 18. Also the other day we went over to their house and Pamela told us she had good news for us. SO her husband causes her so much grief because he drinks all the time and is really stubborn. It makes her so sad. He never wants to join our lessons or have anything to do with church. Her good news for us was that her husband prayed for their family on Christmas day for the first time ever. She said it made everyone cry. It's a miracle! He also joined our lesson! He asked us how he can change. Can you believe it? It's truly a miracle. God really does answer prayers!

Also on Christmas day the most adorable girl got baptized. Her name is Lovely Joy. If you go onto facebook and look up Sagay ward (2), you can see pictures from our baptism. She was sooo excited and just made me have the best Christmas ever:)

So yesterday they asked me to play the piano in sacrament meeting for the second time. I don't get to pick the hymns and I haven't played the piano in months. that's my disclaimer. ALSO, the F key doesn't work! So our opening hymn was Far Far Away. I played the intro and started playing but the first note is a F and no one joined in singing! I just kept going and no one was singing. Finally  they came in on the chorus! hahahaha It was terrible, but not that bad because we're in the Philippines so it's not a big deal:) thank goodness.

Also, we live right across the street from a church. They are so loud. Yesterday, we were trying to study in the morning and it was impossible. The church has a microphone, loud choir, drum set and everything. They would sing super loud and then the preacher would yell super loud and then they're sing again. We went to church at 1 and they never stopped. They were still going on until we went to bed. It reminded me of the church where Jare and the tribe women worked before they got the house. I seriously wanted to just join in because if you can't beat them, join them. That's what the women would do in Uganda! We'd just all get up and dance!

I hope you all have a fabulous, safe and super fun New Years this week! Yay for 2014! I love you all sooooo much! Thanks so much for all your love and examples to me and for being so amazing!

Love, Sister Malyon

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