Maayong Hapon Pamilya!
I'm in Naval! And I'm actually working here! And transfers are this Thursday and I have a feeling I might transfer because I have technically been assigned here for 3...but only have worked here for 1 month. How crazy is that?!? It's nut's. Transfers are pretty different here from Cebu and other missions because you literally don't know ANYTHING until you are on your way! Where you're going, who your companion is, what language you're speaking... Even your companion you left behind has no idea, kinda crazy, but makes life interesting! So we'll be awaiting that call. But I'm ALWAYS wrong when it comes to transfers so who knows what will happen! But this week was excellent because we got to teach some less actives and they all came to church!! Success! So even though we had no investigators at church, that totally made up for it. And cool story, we went to this new place that I've never been to before in search of some referrals. One thing I LOVE about the Philippines is they know all their neighbors and if you ask them if they know them or where they live, they will drop everything to help you! Even go with you sometimes. There is no way we would find ANYONE if we didn't have other's help. But the cool thing was on our search for the referral (Golin family) we were pointed to their house. So we talked to them and they were supposed "golden investigators" that were dropped for reasons that we have no idea but as we were talking, we learned they weren't the Golin's we thought BUT they had been taught by the missionaries before and really wanted us to come back. And then we found the real Golin family and it was like the saddest thing ever because a husband and wife were all ready to be baptized but the husband dropped out at the last second because his word of wisdom problem. He had stopped for a month but he thought it was pointless because he just couldn't avoid it and the worst part was, he had no desire to stop, "It just not my time yet to stop. Someday I'll return, I can't give it up yet." It broke my heart! Especially since his wife backed out too only because he did. And we can't visit his wife because she works at the market all day, every day- that's another hard thing here is there are literally people who would be so good but literally cannot be taught ever. No days off or anything. But she's having a baby next month so maybe we can come back then. And then we went and taught the fake Golin family and they were amazing! Even all their kids were all involved and we had a great lesson. We would have never found them if we hadn't been looking for the real Golin family! Even though they didn't work out, it is definitely no coincidence:) And on Sunday too we made a whole lesson plan, but we ended up staying late for a meeting at church and it was too late to go where we had been planning so we decided to go to a DIFFERENT Golin family that lived in a way different part that was a referral given even before the storm that we never got to go back to. I promise Golin isn't a common name, it's just an incredibly small world. We taught them and they had 2 visitors that were not from there and they ended up being way more interested in the original referral! And one man asked us when our church was, told us he would visit and wanted us to teach his family. What?! That never happens. And once again, we wouldn't have found THOSE people if we hadn't taught the original people we were looking for. And they just happened to be there the day we visited. No coincidence! It's so cool when you do something led by the spirit, but you don't even know until you look back! I love being a missionary! And we've been praying in Tagalog all week, still super slow- I feel like a new missionary again! but coming slowly but surely. Words are even starting to replace my Cebuano which is so bizarre and the weirdest thing is we read the Book of Mormon in Tagalog to learn then we compare it to the Cebuano so we can learn what the words actually mean and it's like a relief when we can read it in Cebuano and actually understand it all! so nindot. It's actually 100x easier to learn Tagalog from Cebuano/Waray then from English- pretty crazy how that works:) I hope you all have a great week!
Love, Sister Pike
I'm in Naval! And I'm actually working here! And transfers are this Thursday and I have a feeling I might transfer because I have technically been assigned here for 3...but only have worked here for 1 month. How crazy is that?!? It's nut's. Transfers are pretty different here from Cebu and other missions because you literally don't know ANYTHING until you are on your way! Where you're going, who your companion is, what language you're speaking... Even your companion you left behind has no idea, kinda crazy, but makes life interesting! So we'll be awaiting that call. But I'm ALWAYS wrong when it comes to transfers so who knows what will happen! But this week was excellent because we got to teach some less actives and they all came to church!! Success! So even though we had no investigators at church, that totally made up for it. And cool story, we went to this new place that I've never been to before in search of some referrals. One thing I LOVE about the Philippines is they know all their neighbors and if you ask them if they know them or where they live, they will drop everything to help you! Even go with you sometimes. There is no way we would find ANYONE if we didn't have other's help. But the cool thing was on our search for the referral (Golin family) we were pointed to their house. So we talked to them and they were supposed "golden investigators" that were dropped for reasons that we have no idea but as we were talking, we learned they weren't the Golin's we thought BUT they had been taught by the missionaries before and really wanted us to come back. And then we found the real Golin family and it was like the saddest thing ever because a husband and wife were all ready to be baptized but the husband dropped out at the last second because his word of wisdom problem. He had stopped for a month but he thought it was pointless because he just couldn't avoid it and the worst part was, he had no desire to stop, "It just not my time yet to stop. Someday I'll return, I can't give it up yet." It broke my heart! Especially since his wife backed out too only because he did. And we can't visit his wife because she works at the market all day, every day- that's another hard thing here is there are literally people who would be so good but literally cannot be taught ever. No days off or anything. But she's having a baby next month so maybe we can come back then. And then we went and taught the fake Golin family and they were amazing! Even all their kids were all involved and we had a great lesson. We would have never found them if we hadn't been looking for the real Golin family! Even though they didn't work out, it is definitely no coincidence:) And on Sunday too we made a whole lesson plan, but we ended up staying late for a meeting at church and it was too late to go where we had been planning so we decided to go to a DIFFERENT Golin family that lived in a way different part that was a referral given even before the storm that we never got to go back to. I promise Golin isn't a common name, it's just an incredibly small world. We taught them and they had 2 visitors that were not from there and they ended up being way more interested in the original referral! And one man asked us when our church was, told us he would visit and wanted us to teach his family. What?! That never happens. And once again, we wouldn't have found THOSE people if we hadn't taught the original people we were looking for. And they just happened to be there the day we visited. No coincidence! It's so cool when you do something led by the spirit, but you don't even know until you look back! I love being a missionary! And we've been praying in Tagalog all week, still super slow- I feel like a new missionary again! but coming slowly but surely. Words are even starting to replace my Cebuano which is so bizarre and the weirdest thing is we read the Book of Mormon in Tagalog to learn then we compare it to the Cebuano so we can learn what the words actually mean and it's like a relief when we can read it in Cebuano and actually understand it all! so nindot. It's actually 100x easier to learn Tagalog from Cebuano/Waray then from English- pretty crazy how that works:) I hope you all have a great week!
Love, Sister Pike
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