Week 70 - 5/25/2014

This week was WONDERFUL!!! Are you ready to hear about a miracle? I got to work the whole week! So last week I was out the whole week and it was really hard! I had received a blessing about a month ago which said just listen to the spirit in what you need to do and have the faith to be healed. So I've been setting new goals trying to reach new levels of diligence and obedience to show my faith and have the ability to be healed. Going out to work only to just return a few hours later not even being able to sit and teach in lessons. I studied a ton of on faith and of course we need to be patient with his timing, but come Sunday, I just felt kind of stuck. Running out of ideas of what to do to improve and show my faith so I was really thinking about asking for another blessing and then that night, my companion (without me even talking to her about it) said she was going to text our district leader for a blessing so I thought that was PERFECT timing so I asked for one too. And it was just the best blessing ever! It said, "Increase your spiritual strength and you will receive strength in all areas of your life." and I thought, YES! I can get better!  And then he continued, “as you show your faith, your physical strength will be renewed and you will be able to share the blessing you have received with the people here." And that was like the green light I needed to go, push myself without reservation, without fear that it will get worse and knock me out forever. I was so happy! And then came Tuesday, the true test... I was sooo tired! It was one of those mornings I just felt so draggy and wanted to sleep all day long. We went to district meeting and lunch and came back to do language study and Sister Brown had basically just given up on me. I was gonna fall asleep any second and be out for the day. She started language study in our room and I just went downstairs and prayed and prayed that I would have the spiritual strength to keep going even though my body was just giving up on me. I would read my waray-waray Book of Mormon until I was about to break, then pray some more. It was SO HARD! I knew that I could lay down and fall asleep instantly for like 5 hours and no one would think anything of it. But I also knew that I had specifically asked for a way to show my faith to healed it had been given along with the promised blessing that I could do it! That I could push myself beyond anything that I could do and receive the strength I needed. I struggled for the entire hour of language study until I resolved to go outside and work NO MATTER WHAT! And as I resolutely walked up those stairs to tell my companion that I'm ready to go, a miracle happened. The strength came! I laughed at the look of surprise on her face when I told her I was ready to go work and also as she looked for signs that I was going to fall over at any second and she saw none because it wasn't there. I can't fool her, she knows better than anyone, but she believed me and we went out and worked the whole day and I wasn't even tired. Not even a little bit. Or the next day. Or the next. We did a service project, we continued. It was such a relief that I didn't have to worry about anything but working my hardest! It was the best! I worked for a whole week! If that's not a miracle, I don't know what is. I know that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is so real and powerful and can help us do things that we cannot do on our own whether  it be receiving physical strength or even spiritual strength to overcome temptation and put off the natural man. Lots more has happened but nothing really compares to this. Enjoy your week and look for all the miracles all around, large and small! I love you!

Love, Sister Pike

We drove all the way to Paranas (45 min) on a jeepney, got punted and drove all the way back. But we got sparkle (a soda) and peanuts so it was all worth it.  haha I joked, "We just went on a field trip to get sparkle and peanuts!"

The houses I was talking about. Winding cement paths with basically a swamp underneath where they throw all their trash and is really smelly.

Our service project, we used sundangs (machetes) to losen dirt to take out all the rocks so a family can build a garden!  Service projects are usually really hard to come by here but it was so great cause we were all (6 of us) able to work the whole time and know exactly what was expected of us.

Our awesome nanay dresses - also called dusters.

Last Monday we went to a debut-18th birthday of a girl in our ward and it was so fancy! They did it in the chapel and it's a huge deal!  Super delicious food. It was p-day so we went a little bit before we went to work.

They were enrolling in school at the church so there were a ton of kids playing in a pedicab in teh church parking lot/basketball court.

Super pretty sunset

Sister Brown talking to Simon, a son of member. Mostly took it to show what their house was like, they have a little room then a ladder with like 5 steps then it's their living room.

Inside of a jeepney on our 45 min. ride- "there's always room for one more"

Our adventures walking to a less active's house on tiny little boards!  Then we get there and it's flooded (the path to her house) so we can't go.

Our service project!

Our dresser was falling over so I had to get creative with my lavalavas and pillar in our room!

Ube soft serve ice cream! great way to end the day. 

The new Liahona (for us) basically like Christmas! We can't read it fast enough. Don't take it for granted there!

Week 69 - 5/19/2014

Hello family! Not super eventful week, the CRAZY heat pretty much knocked me out for the week (as in a slept everyday) but no worries, it was still fun! And I'm always shocked at how much I learn and how much happens despite being sick. 

Highlights:

Gave a talk in sacrament meeting. Remember how my first area I gave like 500 talks? Turns out that isn't normal at all and I haven't given one in any of my other areas (except the typical "I'm new to your branch" testimony) So that was fun. Everyone was AMAZED at my waray-waray... which still confuses me cause I only have 2 months left! and I talk to them all the time... but then I realized the biggest thing they were amazed at was it was waray-waray and not Tagalog. Of course you think, duh! You have never spoken straight up Tagalog so it would never actually slip into your vocabulary. But then I remember how many Filipinos have served here and there are even a lot of Americans who were assigned in other Tagalog missions and came back speaking Tagalog. And sometimes they don't even do it on purpose because they don't quite realize it's not waray-waray because no one reacts because everyone can all understand Tagalog anyway. But for Cebuano, you say a word and you can tell by the look of your face they have no idea what you just said so you ask the waray word, and change because you need to. This just gave me a testimony of why they want us to really study each and every local dialect even though you could really teach the Philippines the gospel all in Tagalog (with VERY few exceptions) but it really reaches their hearts when you go out of your way to learn that dialect of that city even though it will be of no personal value to you ever again. They were seriously SO happy. 

Also, yesterday after church, we were waiting for the elders to come to start missionary coordination meeting and they were talking forever and there were a billion little kids running around in the chapel so we decided to play the piano to quiet them down and get them more reverent! It worked- the power or music and we ended up playing tons of hymns, me on the right hand, Sister Brown playing the left, me singing the soprano and her singing  the alto/tenor/bass (whichever one she felt in the mood for that verse) and it was so fun! It took some extreme companionship unity but the members heard us and were all gathered round loving it and were giving song requests. It was so great! I love being around people who love music and are WAY better at it than I am so we can have fun with it. I have been very blessed with that on my mission.

And that's about it... It's been so hot at night despite having 2 fans on us full blast, I woke up sweating the other day... disgusting. I've never been this hot my whole mission. But our room is like an oven so I'm looking forward to the end of summer (in a few weeks). If we didn't have fans, we would probably die. But that about covers it! I love you all! Thanks for your emails!

Love, 

Sister Pike

District Lunch - inside joke..

Sister Brown checking out the window every five seconds to see if Sister Aban has put out her delicious treats yet (what I talked about in skype - the fried bananas and ice candy, she just has a little store connected to her house. VERY common here.)  It was hilarious.

One of the days I was sick, we were in our p-day clothes all day then we had to put a skirt for planning so we just threw it on top of our p-day clothes ha!

I decided to exercise with Sister Brown one night, instead of in the morning - so great kay so nice and cool and rainy and we're on our roof and we were helping each other pinoy squat. They can sit like that all the time! It's so hard but they were raised doing it. It's been my mission goal.

Decorations for our barangy's (like subdivision) fiesta - flags and little bags of colored water - super creative!

An example of the dirtiest city in the mission with open gutters. There have been a few missionaries that accidentally stepped into one and it's not pretty...

Basically explains our week.. haha I'm knocked out and Sister Brown is doing her thing :)

Week 65 - 4/20/2014

So, I really just wanted to send you a bunch of fun pictures from this week cause they really are the best! but my computer doesn't like me today so... it's lame. I got some to work! Wow, never mind. This week... Tuesday was a really excellent day! Mission conference was postponed until next week so we went finding and I really have just learned to love it! Definitely have the funniest experiences. Then we planned on teaching a less active but she wasn't there so we decided to go an active member and follow up on a referral she gave us. Her referral was a teacher and they're still busy doing their after school reports (it's summer and school is out) BUT her granddaughters who were visiting from Catarman were there (18 and 20) so we got to teach them and it was a really awesome lesson! It was sooo weird to hear Catarman waray-waray but super cool. I'm getting to the point I just understand everything everyone says and the only way I can tell it's a different language is if my companion who hasn't served in those areas yet has a look of confusion on her face. It's not too horribly different, just random words. They are returning back home this week but it's our goal to get them in a great position to be handed off to the other missionaries in their area! They were so awesome though. Definitely not a coincidence that we happened to visit that active member completely unplanned. 

Did not feel like Easter AT all but all in all a great weekend. We had district conference so the other missionaries came and stayed with us and the area authority and 2nd counselor in the mission presidency with his wife spoke and they were all the funniest people ever! Seriously, never laughed so hard in a meeting. Also, fun fact, one session, one talk was waray, one Cebuano and one Tagalog mixed with English. I understood all but most don't know Cebuano or  very much English, it's really cool how much we all rely on the spirit so much to understand. This was a very typical meeting and it never ceases to amaze me! One night after planning was soo fun because Sister Vea lives in our house with us and she is from Tonga so she was teaching us Tongan hymns! So cool. So I will come home from my mission having studied 3 Filipino languages but singing Tongan songs. haha they are so legit though! I don't know if you knew this but we sing all of our songs in English. Never in any other language, it's so interesting! but it's so cute with their different pronunciations. I love getting to know so many cultures from all over the world! And we all are united in the gospel. So great. Who knew missionary work was so much fun? And of course, so incredibly rewarding. I love being missionary. Thank you for all your emails and support! 

love, Sister Pike

Week 63 - 4/7/2014

This week was wonderful!  Didn't work as much as we would've liked because I took a few rest days.  I've been doing pretty good but occasionally I need to crash especially since it's hot season and we walk a lot and my body just wears out faster than the average human!  Which I'm very used to and it's wonderful because Sister Brown is so incredibly patient and understanding and we just have a great time all the time!  When I'm asleep she just studies and listens to my general conference talks which she is in love with!  Definitely getting us pumped for general conference this week.  This week, she discovered our roof because she got tired of sitting in our house and we went up there at night just to talk and the weather was so beautiful!  like perfect!  not hot at all with the most beautiful breeze so we decided to move our mattresses up there (we always just sleep on the floor anyway) and slept and we even woke up cold the next morning!  We loved it so much that we've done it the past 3 nights in a row.  Luckily, it hasn't rained on us and we are definitely counting our blessings.  My favorite is in the morning, the wall blocks the sun so we don't wake up too early and if you look over the wall, it's a perfect view of the mountains.  Literally feels like we're camping and I just feel 100x better about getting out of bed in the morning! 

What I love about Sister Brown is that we are such good friends and can talk about everything and anything but can also work hard to do our best as missionaries.  Even though we didn't teach very many lessons, each had such a special spirit that was so fulfilling!  And we've been finding a lot because we have like 1 investigator and I was really bad at finding at the beginning of my mission, but now I love it because you meet so many weird/funny people.  Even when we get rejected, I just walk away laughing because it was hilarious.  I'm sure we'll find some great investigators soon.  One huge success was that our investigator (who is the wife of one of the counselors in the branch presidency) finally came to church!!  They live 45 minutes away and they have a motorcycle so it should be pretty easy but we've had to work for a few weeks, but she came!  And I love our relief society, there are actually quite a few relief society sisters and they are all very welcoming.  It's so exciting when someone new comes to church and you can tell they feel so welcome. 

Also, we got to see Women's conference which was so exciting!  In the past we haven't been able to.  We invited some less actives who said they would come but when we showed up at the start, there were literally just 4 of us sister missionaries but a few more showed up late at the end.  But it was so cool to be able to see that very first women's conference, Sister Brown was like crying the whole time, it was hilarious but such a special spirit that gives you the recharge you didn't even recognize you needed!  Definitely looking forward to all General Conference which will probably just be in English which I feel bad for those that can't really understand but they feel the spirit and the love of the leaders of the church for us which is better than nothing!  It's so sad thinking this is my 3rd and last general conference here, time flies so fast!  I love you all and think and pray for you often. 

love, Sister Pike 

p.s. cool story, while finding, we met the cutest old lady who doesn't understand a word of English or waray-waray so I pulled out my Tagalog I've been studying and it was so great!  My companion (who had the biggest nosebleed of her life-> a Filipino phrase which means their brain was working so hard that it bled and comes out the nose) just stared in awe like, since when did you know Tagalog!  It's fun.  But now I need to focus on learning waray-waray more in depth so I won't be able to study as much. 

Week 62 - 3/31/2014

Big news!!  Transferred, my first comp and probably to my last area!  Catbalogan 2nd branch, on Samar just a few hours away from my first area in Catarman and I'm back to waray-waray but now to the H version of the dialect.  Basically, a dream come true!  I loved waray and from being in Cebuano for over 7 months I had forgot it and it made me really sad that I couldn't even speak it anymore and what do you know, the gift of tongues is so real that within about 2 days, I was able to switch over most of my talking to a language I spoke so long ago and even had to change it.  And the best part of about it is...Sister Brown is my companion!!!!!  We are only the best of friends, survived the typhoon together, were in the same zone in Cebu mission and now we're COMPANIONS.  We literally have spent more time together on our missions than apart!  Super fun.  At least 5 times every day we say, "Hey guess what?  WE'RE COMPANIONS!”  She is probably the happiest person in the world and so fun to be around.  She's from Idaho and is the greatest singer ever.  I love being with great singers because they make me sound so much better!  We sang a musical number in branch conference and then in the choir and President and Sister Andaya and their family so it was really fun to get to know them.  They have 4 kids- the oldest 19, and the youngest 10 and they are so fun to talk to!  And the branch is so great.  Actually reminds me a lot of my first area because it's waray, the city is pretty similar, actually bigger and it's summer and hot season!!  Our house is so hot, I slept without a sheet for the first time in forever.  This morning we went on a really cool hike to a place you can see the whole city and it's so beautiful here!  It's known as one of the dirtiest cities in the mission but I love it so much already.  I don't have much time, I'll try to update more next week.  It's interesting because this area was not touched at all by the typhoon so apparently they didn't experience the humbling that other parts did but I'm still so happy to be here.  I love this work!  And I love all of you!  Thank you so much for your support!

Love, Sister Pike

Week 61 - 3/24/2014

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