THE HARVEST

Hello Everyone!

​So this was a really great week! In missionary work, you often hear the phrase "planting or harvesting". It usually refers to whether or not you are visually seeing the fruits of your labors. In baptisms or in the progress of the people you teach. Sometimes you feel like a planter and not so much a harvester because you don't see a lot of results right away. But this work is not about immediate gratification and even in the planting times, we can be happy because we know there is no effort wasted in the Lord's work. But with that being said, it's still really nice when every once in while, you get the wonderful opportunity to see the individuals you are teaching, make the decisions and changes to come unto the savior. My companion and I have both been in a season of planting the past months so this past week, when we had two baptisms, it was a really really sweet harvest. The baptism of sister Liza and Apple was so amazing! They were baptized with another sister who is an investigator of the Elders, Sister ginalyn. When we got to the church about an hour before the baptism we found that there were some complications such as: there were no people, there was no program and there was no water in the font. Luckily, everything came together and even the things we didnt have, didnt matter much because the spirit was very strong and I came to learn that when you have truly prepared converts who are there to make sacred covenants to the Lord they dont care much about flashy programs or lots of attendance, What matters is they are ready. Even though the church needs a new water pump, and when the font did fill up, it was super dirty and gross(like dark green coming out of the tap and they couldnt even see the bottom), they didn't care. I felt kind of embarrassed at first that the water was so dirty and I thought "oh man, i don't know if I would be excited to get in that" but my recent converts really taught me a lesson. They didn't even complain, they were just grateful for the opportunity to be baptized into Christ's church. They understood what their baptism was really about. Also the best part of the baptism is how Apple's dad came to support her! I don't have time to tell the whole story but basically we had invited him and he was super against it and said he wouldn't come and we testified to him how important it was and that it would mean so much to his daughter to have them there. Anyways, he ended up showing up and surprising us all and it turned out he was friends with our branch president and he got some great fellowship! Opening doors!!! Miracles all around:)

This week my kasama and I have seen alot of miracles in the work. We really help motivate each other to do our very best and I hope we are together a long time because I think some major miracles can happen with the way things have been going. One thing we have decided is we are going to "fear no man". We talk to EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE about our message and it's so fun. And we work HARD. One new thing we did this week was a "jeepney oym". When we rode the jeepney to ligao for exchanges, we waited for the jeepney to get all full (around 30 people) and then once it started rolling, we like started preaching to the whole jeepney and testified of our message, of the restoration, and invited them to meet with us, then we passed out pass along cards and got referrals. It was AWESOME. To be honest,we were both super scared because I have never seen anyone do something like that and I definitely haven't done it myself but we practiced and were really praying hard that we would have to courage to open our mouths to everyone. I'm really grateful my kasama is willing to do crazy stuff like that with me. This week for my one year mark we have some awesome book of mormon themed tracting and oym'ing stuff planned so I'm super excited!!:)

Of yeah and speaking of exchanges, I had my first exchanges as an STL this past week. I was back in Ligao with sister Eneja. She is my batch coming in the mission and she is so sweet. We had so much fun and saw a lot of miracles. She told me it was her favorite exchanges she's had her whole mission except for her first one. I really love being an STL. It basically just means I can love and help the sisters around me even more. I was super grateful because the sisters really opened up about their needs/ things they were struggling with and we made goals together on how they could improve and I committed them to do it and promised chocolate if they did the changes haha when we followed up last night, they had done all their commitments and almost every single one of their key indicators had gone up and they had seen lots of miracles and they seemed so happy. And it made me so happy! I'm so invested in the areas/work/lives of the sisters in my zone. I literally get so excited when things go good for them. It's all up from here:) We have another exchanges tomorrow and i'll be in my old area with my old kasama so i'm excited to see everyone again. This week i realized how ignorant I had been of two things: that i'm a good missionary despite my weaknesses and that there is a heck ton of disobedience in the mission. BUT Everything will fine. We just gotta be the example first and pray for ways to help others(and ourselves) in this work. We can't do it by ourselves, we need others. 

Oh we also had interviews with President Guanzon this week. It was the best interviews yet. I love the mission president! He always has the best advice. I learn so much. And I didn't even cry int his interview, we just laughed. So yeah, progressing! 

I love you all! I hope you are all safe, happy, and able to see how much our Heavenly Father loves you.

Ingat kayo. Mahal Kita. Namimiss kita

Sister Turner:)

p.s- we cut down some yummy sugar cane from our member presents yard on exchanges