Week 56 in the Philippines - "tubo sa kampo"

My dear wonderful family!!!

SALMAT GID!!!!SOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!! I seriously feel like the luckiest missionary in the whole wide world! Thank you so much for the awesome and delicious package you sent me!  You are so amazing. I love you all so much. I have to admit when I was reading your beautiful testimonies of the Book of Mormon, I got pretty choked up. I feel so blessed to be a part of such a strong family centered on the gospel. Your testimonies strengthen me so much! I am trying to think of the perfect people to give Book of Mormons to with your testimonies:) We have extra ones I will put the other two testimonies in. And the delicious treats! You're the best! Sister Laulu and I were lovin life eating those amazing brownies and chocolate covered nuts! Sister Laulu kept saying "Man, your mom is the best. These are sooo good!" Thanks a ton! 

Well we had exchanges again this week and I got to go to Binalbagan! I attached a picture of the two cute sisters who are assigned in Binalbagan. I got to work for a day with Sister Kumar, who is from Figi, but her family's Indian. She is so hilarious! We had a really awesome day working in their area, teaching lots of lessons, and learning from each other. Their ward missionary who worked with us, Charlie, just recently returned from being super less-active. For a long time in his youth, he totally fell away from the church and got involved in like a gang doing not so good things. I asked him why he came back and he said he finally got to a point where he realized something was missing in his life, so all on his own, he decided to get back involved in the church. Now he works with the missionaries, bears such a strong testimony of the gospel and is preparing to serve a mission himself! So amazing. I can't believe I get to meet such incredible people everyday and witness the miracle of the Atonement in people's lives. 

Jaimie wrote me this week! Thanks Jaims! She also talked in her letter about a missionary she met who has a similar story. It just amazes me how loving our Father in Heaven is. I truly believe that He has provided a way for every single one of His children to come back to Him and He does all He can within our agency, to get us on that path, no matter how far or how often we fall away from it. 

Oh my goodness. I have to tell you about probably the highlight of my week. So Saturday morning we went out early to work because we were supposed to have a Relief Society broadcast later, which ended up getting canceled. But there was purpose behind it because when we went out in the morning, we visited one of our recent converts, a 10 year old girl, Maryjane. Her father was there, our first time meeting him, and he willingly joined our lesson, Of course, we focused on him and started teaching lesson one with him. We invited them to come with Maryjane to church the next day and the father said he would. Maryjane's face lit up brighter than the sun and she had the biggest smile on her face! The two of them have this really endearing relationship-you can just tell they are super close. It made me miss my daddy!:) 

The next morning, as we were welcoming everyone to church, in walked Maryjane with her father! No words can do justice trying to describe the joy on Maryjane's face the whole 3 hours at church. Which of course also filled me with so much joy too. It was so amazing after meeting her father and teaching him one time, he came to church! And we found out he is related to the first counselor in the branch presidency and some awesome brothers fellowshipped him at church. 

As they were leaving at the end of church, Brother Joemil (Maryjane's dad), thanked us and said he wants to come back next week! MIRACLE! Later that evening, we visited them and when we asked Brother Joemil about his experience at church, he said that he felt sorry for all the things he's been doing wrong. He learned a lot about what he needs to change to become better. He is so prepared. I still can't believe it! It even brings tears to my eyes as I'm emailing you.

I just want you all to know that I love you so much. I love this gospel with all my heart and know that living the gospel of Jesus Christ is the only way for us to feel true peace and true joy in this life and in the next. We are so blessed! I love missionary work so much! I will try this week to get you a picture of cutie bum Maryjane and her papa:)

Thanks so much for your testimonies, your support and love. You strengthen me so much. We visited a family this week who has a son serving and the youngest in the family has been less-active. We told him about how much it means to us as missionaries to hear about the good things our siblings are doing and their involvement in the church. We told him that what he does can have an impact on his brother who's serving a mission and invited him to church. He came yesterday! Woohoo! 

It just got me thinking about how grateful I am for such an amazing, strong family. I love you all tons and tons! I hope General conference lifted your souls! I'm excited to watch it this week:)

Love love love, 
Sister Malyon    


        

week 56 in the Philippines - pictures!

 Me and Sister Laulu in beautiful Sua!

These sugarcane workers stopped and asked to get their pictures taken haha:) There are tons of sugarcane fields here and they pile the sugarcane up so high on these huge trucks to transport to the factory. 

week 55 in the Philippines - "you thought Seattle was green :)"

Here's a really cute selfie of me hahahahaha. jk. But this is out in our mountainous area where there are rice fields everywhere. so beautiful! 

Week 55 in the Philippines - "baptism!"

How's everyone? It sounds like you're all crazy busy with all that's going on:) I hope you're all doing great wherever you are!

Here are pictures from our baptism this weekend! It was so awesome because brother Sioco just got baptized with his cute son a few weeks ago and then this weekend, his wife, Sister Nelia Sioco, got baptized! And Brother Sioco got to baptize her! He was very nervous and it took a few tries to get her all the way immersed in the water, but it was so wonderful:) She bore such a beautiful testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel. Their family is so awesome! I love every time that we visit them because they just have such a love for the gospel and excitement for learning more. Brother Sioco takes his B of M to work with him and reads whenever he has a spare moment and then shares with all his co-workers about the gospel. Now we just need to find and teach all of their sons! 

We had a really neat experience this week with one of our investigators. So there's this family, the Espinoza family. One by one all of them have been baptized except for the father. Someone always has to be at the house because one of his jobs is to watch over this garbage site and so he's never been to church before. But this week we talked about faith, repentance and the importance of baptism and then extended baptism to him. He's been taught by missionaries with his family for a long time and we were pretty sure he knows it's true. But at first he was so hesitant and was bringing up excuses about how he was baptized before in the Catholic church and even in the Baptist church by immersion, but kind of jokingly. 

We reminded him of the priesthood, which his son holds and after some contemplation, he agreed! Oh my goodness, you should have seen the reaction of his wife! She had the biggest grin on her face! We then extended a date for November 8 and he was like "that's so far away!" hahahaha Obviously he wants to get baptized! He then brought up the church issue, but his family quickly butt in and said they had a plan that every week they will rotate one member of the family to stay at home during church and then attend the special sacrament we have in the afternoon instead. He agreed to go to church and he came yesterday with his family! It was the most beautiful sight:) At the end of the lesson, Brother Jerry's wife, Sister Nory gave him a big ol hug and kiss! She was so excited! 

It was truly a testimony builder to know that everyone has their time and as long as we trust in the Spirit, miracles happen. It's soooo wonderful to especially see families and watch them experience the joy of helping their loved ones come into the gospel. 

One other experience I want to share from this week. So Sister Laulu was sick one day and I was trying to coordinate with members to see if someone could come stay with Sister Laulu and someone work with me. Our branch president got it all worked out and in the evening, he dropped off Sister Marisa to stay with Sister Laulu and Sister Nory came with me. I was touched by their service and even though they are moms and our branch president has so much on his plate, they understand the importance of missionary work and sacrificed their time to come work with us and care for Sister Laulu. When we got back, Sister Marisa who stayed with Sister Laulu, had prepared this whole meal for me and Sister Laulu! They really do take care of us here, so no worries! 

Church at our branch yesterday was really neat. I just felt the Spirit sooo strongly with all of the members in our tiny little chapel. They were excited to have a new sister missionary, so I got to teach Relief Society, lead the music and share my testimony in Sacrament Meeting haha.

I'm very grateful to be serving the Lord. I'm so grateful for the gospel and for the opportunities we have been given as members of the only true church of Jesus Christ. 

I love you sooo much! Merry Christmas! Everyone here is already playing Christmas music, has out their decorations...etc so funny. 

Love you all tons and tons!
Love, Sister Malyon

week 54 in the Philippines - "welcome to pontevedra"

Pictures! My new area and new companion!

My new companion is Sister Laulu, from Samoa. Yesterday we went after Stake Conference out to our far area, Suha, with our Branch President. He drove the tricycle and some awesome branch missionaries came with us too! We hold a special sacrament out in this area because it's so far away. It was sooo much fun going out there for my first time yesterday! 

It's way out in the midst of all these sugarcane fields and rice fields, just dirt and rock roads-the ride was super bumpy. The people were sooo cute! I love them already so much! I'm so excited to go back and teach everyone so the area will build up and become a group and then a branch and eventually a ward!!! hahaha 

oh yeah and we're so close to the ocean! hence the first picture on the water. That was last p-day on the beach:)

week 54 in the Philippines - "connections"

Hey family!

I got to meet Sister Salas' niece, Lyka Delos Reyes yesterday at Stake Conference! She's so cute and so talented at the piano!

Things are great here in Pontevedra! I got to go on exchanges this week to Isabella with this super awesome missionary, Sister Delos Santos. We had such a good exchange together and learned so much from each other in just one day. 

Yesterday when we went out to Suha, we visited this recent convert, named Rhadora and her friend who is investigating, Marynol. We talked about the importance of prayer and it was such an awesome lesson because they all shared personal experiences with the power of prayer. The spirit was so strong. Sister Rhadora also shared about the power of having faith. She said the doctor told her she would never be able to have children and that if she tried, either she or her baby would die. She said she didn't believe the doctor, exercised her faith in Christ and had two babies just fine! 

I thought of mom having 6 c-sections. When we have faith, miracles happen!!!!

Sorry this is short this week! But I love missionary work and the gospel so much! I know that Christ is our living Savior and He loves each one of us so much. 

Love you all, 

Sister Malyon

Week 53 in the Philippines - "new area - liwat!"

Well, I got the transfer call last night and now I am in a new area! I had an interview with President Lopez earlier and he assigned me to be a Sister Training Leader. So now I have this new assignment in my new area, which he said could possibly well be my last area. crazy. I didn't get much time in Alijis:( I will definitely miss the amazing people I met there. I think one of the biggest lessons I learned in Alijis was not to ever judge anyone, but to recognize and see everyone as equal children of our loving Heavenly Father. EVERYONE deserves to hear the gospel.

This past week we were able to have spiritual lessons with Brother Reggie, who is deaf and with Brother Edmundu, who is blind. The Spirit has no bounds:) It's been crazy to realize how much we rely on every single one of our senses. I would get out the pamphlet to show brother Edmundu pictures and then remember that would do him no good haha. For Brother Reggie, I would try to think of how we can really invite the Spirit and want to have us sing a hymn for him and remember oh, never mind. I love how amazing it is though, that just like when I first got here and couldn't speak the language, we could still communicate spirit to spirit through love for each other and for the gospel. 

A little experience with following the Spirit- So we were exploring this one area and the people we were planning on visiting were too busy, so we were walking back, when Sister de Leon felt we should stop by this one house and talk to them. No one was outside, and we don't normally just go door to door, but we stopped at this house and this cute sister, in her 20s, came out. We told her who we were, prayed for her and gave her a restoration pamphlet. Sister de Leon asked her as we were about to leave, how she felt about our visit and her face lighted up and she had this big smile and said how she felt so excited to learn about the truth! WoW! It's kind of rare for people to say things like that in their first encounter with us. So amazing! She doesn't live in our area, was just visiting, but we referred her info to the missionaries in her area. I was grateful for the important reminder that there are people everywhere ready for the gospel who even recognize it in five minutes of talking to us! We just have to trust the Spirit:) 

So my new area is here in Pontevedra, which is in the Binalbagan Zone. I remember Sister Salas telling me that her family lives in Binalbagan! We have Stake Conference next week so I'm hoping I might get to meet them!!!!! My new assignment as a Sister Training Leader, means I will be going on exchanges almost every week with a set of sisters in our zone. We are over all the sisters in Binalbagan Zone and in Kabankalan Zone because there is only one set of sisters in Kabankalan. It will be crazy, but exciting! My new companion is Sister Laulu! We were companions for 2 days back when I was in Bacolod 5th ward and so now we get to for real be companions:) She's from Samoa.

I hope you are all doing wonderfully! I love you all soooo much! Thanks for being so amazing!

Love, love, love, Sister Malyon