Bamboo Tree Planting

Kumusta sa inyo lahat!

Short on time this week so I will just post parts of my letter to president this week and bullet points. sorry. it'shard to do everything in one hour!! haha I'll work on my typing skills. 

This has been another good week. I've really learned the power of working with members lately and my testimony of that has really been strengthened. I realize now how having members present and active in our work not only positively influences the people we teach but it also helps us missionaries and of course lifts the ward. Needless to say, I am converted to the power of member missionary work and will keep working hard to get things going in that department. Another thing I have really learned this week is how to reextend baptism days. I have been pretty good lately about extending on the first visit but not so good at reextending if they haven't been keeping commitments. On exchanges, Sister Jemino really helped me to develop that skill more and to always make sure our investigators have a baptismal date so they can be focusing their efforts on making that first covenant. It was great. I learned a ton. Sister Snyder and I have been blessed with so many great new investigators this week! I am excited to continue teaching and helping them. This week we have a lot of great goals to become more obedient, more masipag and more useful tools in the lord's hands. I am so excited to fulfill our goals and help the Lord the very most we can in his work here in Daraga 1C.  The Lord really blessed me with comfort this week especially through fasting and prayer. One thing I have been studying a lot in my personal study is charity and love. I am trying to qualify for and use that charity and love of Christ more in this work and also in my companionship. It's helping a lot. Another thing I have started doing is keeping a gratitude journal where each day throughout the day I write all the blessings, big and small, I see the Lord blessing me and how I see his hand in my life and in this work. I got this idea from my study in the scriptures as I noticed that the righteous and joyful disciples of Christ always "remembered the things the Lord had done for their fathers(and themselves)". It has been a really great experience and I feel so much happier as I become more and more grateful to Heavenly Father. 

1. On tuesday one of my favorite members worked with us and then treated us to lunch at this yummy restaurant and it was great!

2. On my half day mark sa mission we have a stake wide CSP where we got to plant bamboo trees and it was SO FUN. I will bring my kids back and show them and be like "yeah, mommy planted that!!" . boom. leaving my mark on the Philippines:)

3. Met an amazing new investigator who i will write more about next week. his name is fred and he is so golden. 

4. on sunday we had 3 investigators come to church!! we didn't even have to pick them up they came on their own! Maybe my faith is a little too low but when church started and noone was there I was alittle sad but they walked in during the hymn and I almost cried I was so happy. I cant even explain the efforts we go to get people to church and its been a long time! BLESSINGS. 

5. Sister manahan fed all us missionaries after church and it was great 

I'll try to send all my pictures next week. oh and today we went to the zoo and it was so fun. I'll send pictures too.I saw an anaconda! yucks. 

Sorry this is so scattered. Love you all and thanks for the love,support and letters!! 

Ingat!

Sister Turner:)

Hump Day

Hello Po! 

How is everyone doing? I miss you all and love you all! We just got a new rule in our mission that we can only have one hour to write the mission president and to email instead of the two before so I'm going to try and type this really fast! Sorry if I am slow at replying to you all. Just know that I love you and read every email you send and it really helps and lifts me up! 

Martes: Today we were able to teach a former investigator named Letty. She is so kind and we were able to teach her friend with her. Halfway through the lesson, we actually found out her friend,Pearl had been baptized and has been less active for about 11 years but read the Book of Mormon still! She doesn't live here but she gave us her information so we can send missionaries to her and her non-member family. She really wants to come back to church! It's amazing how the Lord really prepares and puts people in our path constantly. Actually, a pattern I have noticed in the work lately is that almost everyone we talk to is not in our area! I feel like all I do is find awesome people for other missionaries to teach! Which is fine because "we're all on the same team" but I really wish I could teach the cool people we keep meeting! Today we also taught one of our new investigators Jessa. She is 19 and even though we have only taught her for about 2 weeks so is SO GOLDEN and so progressing. I love teaching her because she is always excited to learn more about our message and always does her reading assignments/commitments. She has already prayed about Joseph smith and knows he was a prophet and says she feels our whole message is true! She accepted a baptismal day so we are working on helping her get there:) 

Miercoles: Today we were able to teach the Rhoa family. They have been less active for about 12 years since they were really offended by members/missionaries before. We have been going there the past 9 months just trying to build relationships and trust with them but they never would let us missionaries in. Then. Today and MIRACLE happened. They let us come in and teach the whole family! The spirit was so strong! They even let us set a return appointment to go back next week. See? Miracles.We've really seen alot of blessings with focusing on the less active members here. Just this week we had 2 members come to church who haven't been for years. One of the sisters in the row in front of me turned around and said "Wow sister turner, you reactivated them?" And I just thought. Nope. I didn't do anything. But Heavenly Father is AMAZING! and I'm so blessed to get to see all his miracles and blessings as they fall into place. One of my new personal goals is to make sure we use the ward more in our missionary efforts and have at least one member work with us a day. It's been going pretty well and even if we don't end up teaching a lesson with the member there because we were punted or whatever, I know that no effort is wasted and even just spending a few hours doing the Lord's work can strengthen these members and bring our ward closer together and closer to the ward. 

Hwuebes: Today the most significant thing that happened was when we oym'd a family and got halfway through our message before realizing the dad was wayyyyyyyy drunk. I THOUGHT HE WAS JUST A HAPPY GUY! haha Needless to say we closed the lesson really abruptly and got out of there quick. 

Viernes: Today we had Zone training and it was really good. We learned how to better apply our mission directions and rules. AKA "How to be more obedient 101". Our mission president is really inspired and I know that all the new and additional rules will really bless us to be more focused and dedicated missionaries. That what I want more than anything, so I'm glad Heavenly Father is providing the ways for me to do that! 

So all and all things are going pretty well. Of course nothing is ever perfect, or always happy BUT life(and my mission) is way too short to dwell on the unhappy parts. There is just too much good! I hope you all have a wonderful week! Thank you so much for all the support and love! I will continue to pray for each of you! This thursday is my HUMP day! Half way through my mission...I just can't believe it. I won't waste a minute!

Mahal Kita! Ingat lagi kayo lahat. Dapat may ngiti palagi!

Sister Turner:)

Blessed Beyond Belief

Hello Everyone!

This has been a pretty great week! 

On Tuesday, I said goodbye to my trainer Sister Mccoard and was so sad to see her end her mission and head home! She has had such a huge influence on my life and mission I will miss her! 

 Wednesday we had an awesome experience and as we were walking down the road to an appointment, we ran into a member who was walking home carrying all her groceries and we helped her carry everything to her house. Then I randomly felt we should invite her to work with us seen though it was late and she had always previously turned down working with us because she was busy. The miracle? She said yes! Then as she was working with us, all of our appointments fell through and the spirit whispered to me to try one former investigator who actually lives across the street from the member. We went to her and the spirit was so strong as our member who was friends with her was able to testify how families can be together forever, The investigators son had committed suicide last year and since the member had known the son and the family during that time, her testimony was especially powerful to her. I am constantly amazed at Heavenly Father's perfect perfect plan and how he lets us in on that if we just choose to listen. 

On Thursday I had an experience that really brought me back to my knees in thanking Heavenly Father. I know that as we do our best as missionaries to follow him and be obedient he will bless us and most of the times we aren't aware of the times he is protecting us but this day was one of those instances when his protecting hand was revealed to me. A few weeks ago, as Sister S and I were traveling down a familiar street to a set appointment, we both got a weird feeling. We thought maybe the feeling was saying we weren't supposed to walk that way so we turned around to go the longer route to that same house but as we walked the other way we got an even stronger feeling to stop. We decided to stop in a nearby driveway and say a prayer to ask direction about what we needed to do/ where we needed to go. As soon as I finished the prayer, the feeling of dread came back even stronger. My companion felt it too and she said she felt we should go tot he chapel immediately. I agreed and as we walked there we both felt an urgency to the point that we were almost running. When we got there and walked into the mission office, I felt the spirit wash over me with comfort and knowledge that we were where we were supposed to be. That night we ended up working on an opposite site of town and not being around that area we had appointments in. We weren't sure what had happened or why we had to leave but we both knew we were happy we had followed the prompting. Today, Weeks later, as we were teaching a less active member who lives close to that area, she shared with us that that very same week, at the very same house that we had stopped in the driveway to pray, a girl our age had been raped and killed and then burned inside the house. When I heard that I just got chills. I don't know what would have happened if we hadn't listened to the spirit that night, but I am so grateful that we did and that the Lord protects us always despite the evil that may be all around us. I am also grateful for the Plan of Salvation which makes it possible for the poor victim to have joy with heavenly father in the next life. 

    Saturday was amazing as we were able to watch general conference and afterwards int he evening teach Cathy, we met her sitting outside on the street and found out she was the exwife of one of our investigators. I felt a strong prompting to teach her even though the set up was awkward and she didn't seem too interested at first. It was so amazing. Cathy said she had never read the bible or prayed before. Which is the first time that has ever been the case on my mission because we usually teach Catholics who are very familiar with the bible. The spirit was so strong as we taught and testified to her that she is a daughter of God. We taught her to pray and she said she felt really good. It made me think of how happy Heavenly Father must be when he hears one of his precious children pray to him for the very first time. Bringing them back to his fold is the greatest joy!!! General Conference and the woman's broadcast was all so amazing and I loved it all. I learned so much and am excited to try to apply it more now. 

I hope you all have a fantastic week!! 

Mahal kita!

Sister Turner:)

The Rat and the Runaway

Okay so this has been just the craziest week. My mom mentioned in her letter to me that my weekly emails seem to be getting shorter! Sorry if that's the case, I just have less things I can write about because more and more confidential "tell your family when you get home" stuff have been happening and I really can't write about it BUT I promise I have been writing in my journal and will fill you in on all the stories when I get home. Also sorry my english is kinda bad, it's honestly getting hard to type in english I keep typing taglish ahha

This week we found some rats in our house and have been trying to catch them so they wont attract snakes to our apartment. One night I walked downstairs to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and walked right into a mouse rat thing and screamed so loud but I probably would have had a heart attack if it had been a snake. The elders brought us a mouse trap and set it up in our house for us and put out some poison that apparently would make them really thirsty and we were supposed to cover up all the water sources in the house so they would come outside and die out there and not in the house. The Elders seemed to think it was pretty funny when I asked if the rats would try to eat us if we sweat in the night while we are sleeping and they said "They aren't going to kill you sister turner, haven't you ever seen ratatouille?" and I just reply "Haven't you seen the other side of heaven??" Yeah. I think I won that one. haha Anyways, we ended up catching one in the trap and it was so kawawa (translation of pitiful i think) and I chickened out and wanted to just let it go outside and not kill it because it was so sad but my crazy kabahay electrocuted it with a taser meant from stalkers who try to attack sister missionaries. That was an awful experience. Never thought I would try so hard to defend the life of a mouse rat. Like I was literally crying. Boombahira. 

We had exchanges this week with the STL's and it was so much fun. It was actually kind of nice to get to a new area and meet new members and investigators and lahat. I love my area but I think sometimes it's hard to get new insights when you are in the same place for so long. It was nice to have a day away and come back with a fresh set of eyes.

Also my trainee knows how to cut hair and I totally let her give me bangs spur of the moment (that is the definition of trust). It turned out really cute. Everyone was really shocked by it I guess because it's the first time I have looked different in 8 months. I'll send pictures maybe next week. I like it though and it's nice to have a change in hair even if I'm going to be in the same area for half my mission. haha

The rest of the week was a little crazy because we came home for dinner on Thursday and found our housemate crying on the floor hysterically and we had no idea what had happened but just tried our best to comfort her. Then the AP's drove up and we figured out that the crying sister missionaries companion had run away and left her companion in the house and all this confidential stuff happened but my housemate was having a panic/shock attack and we tried to calm her down but her body started the shut down because she was in so much stress/her body couldn't handle it. IT was so awful. I was so worried for her! and my other kabahay who was also in training. They were able to find her but the situation is just so sad. I truly think the worst thing you could ever do as a missionary is leave your companion. Awful awful results. So sad. Anyways, we spent the next couple days just helping work everything out and trying to comfort our kabahay. 

Then the next day after that, we had about 6 sisters move into our apartment to evacuate from a typhoon that was supposed to be coming in pretty strong. It didn't hit us too bad but it's a little hard to be hospitable and help others when you just went through a traumatic experience and you're still trying to help your PTSD housemate, you haven't been able to get to any investigators basically all week because it's holy week in the Philippines and you haven't been able to work many hours because it's dangerous and we have curfew,you need to figure out how to go on splits with the evacuated sisters when your trainee is nervous to lead the area/ doesn't want to go with a new sister, and everyone just eats your food and steals your stuff. haha It's hard to be like Jesus sometimes but I'm so lucky because I had lots of opportunities to try and exercise Christlike attributes this week. 

I felt a little caught off guard that it was Easter yesterday. That sure snuck up fast on me. I feel so grateful for my savior Jesus Christ this year more than ever. I feel really blessed to be able to literally take upon his name as his full time representative as I serve here but I know that you don't have to be a full time missionary with a nametag to take upon his name and always remember him, We can all do that as we choose to come unto him and become new again. I used a new metaphor this week in teaching the atonement that I really liked. I told them how the atonement is like a light bulb that is always there and available to give us light and help us but we need to choose our self to "flip the switch" in order to have the light. It's the same with the atonement for us all. It is always there and available to us but in order to really access it's power and all the ways it can help us in our lives we need to choose to flip the switch by coming unto Christ so we can feel that cleansing power of his atonement. (Sounds better in Tagalog) haha:)

Anyways, this upcoming week I am excited to hopefully have a more normal week and to be able to watch conference this weekend!

Man, I just realized I don't really write about my investigators or spiritual experiences in these. I'll try to do a better job of that. I just don't have much time to write/do it all justice.

I love you all!

Hoppy Easter! 

Mahal ko kayo lahat. Sana magiging maganda ang linggo 'nyo lahat!

Sister Turner:)

Because He Lives

Happy Monday From the Philippines My Dear Friends and Family!

How are you all doing? I just want to start by saying thank you so much to everyone who writes me and the support you send my way. If I don't get a chance to reply that often, just please know I really appreciate your words and it helps me alot so MARAMING SALAMAT!

Sige so let's get started on this week:

I think I would describe this week by saying "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. We had a lot of wonderful blessings especially where we were able to find knew families who were so excited slash receptive to the gospel. We were able to extend baptismal dates for next month to three families and they all accepted! I am excited for them and they are all super special, I can't wait to help them reach their goal of learning more about the gospel and being baptized. This week was a little hard because our super progressing family was planning on getting married this week so they could get baptized next week but a bunch of problems came up and everything kind of halted. I have hope for them though and I know that as they keep their desire to follow Christ and act on their faith in him, everything will work out.

This past Thursday was my dear kasama's birthday! It was awesome because it was on a Thursday so we had district meeting and we arranged everyone to sing for her and made this big card signed from everyone in the zone and went out to lunch. It was so fun and I think she really enjoyed her day. At night, we had Balut for dinner (I dont think she enjoyed that part as much). haha this Time around it was a lot grosser because our kabahay had bought like fully developed chicks. NEVER AGAIN I tell you. Yucks talaga.

One of our "Eternal Investigators" is Sister Wana. She is the cutest little Nanay and she has been taught off and on by the missionaries for about 5 years. I have been teaching her my WHOLE mission and this Sunday she came to church for the first time ever!!!!!!!!!!! It was the best miracle ever! She has previously not come to church because she suffered from a stroke a while back and had always been scared her body would be too weak to leave the house. But she has such a desire to learn and be baptized and we explained that in order for her to get baptized, she needed to go to church. On Saturday night, the AP's came with us to her house and gave her a blessing to give her the strength to go to church if she had the faith. It was such a powerful blessing!!!!!! The priesthood is so cool talaga. Sunday morning we went by to pick her up and she was still in her pajamas and eating breakfast and she goes "maybe next time sisters" and I just felt the spirit say "nope. she needs this today" and I just walk in her house and Say "Okay Nay, Let's get ready, Well be happy to wait for you to get ready. Were just gonna sit right here. Don't feel rushed and we'll all go to church together when you're ready" and she said okay and got all dressed up and we headed over there and she stayed for all three hours of church and loved it! I felt true charity and love her her and as we were sitting there in sacrament meeting together, I had this glimpse of the love and care that Heavenly Father has for this 86 year old daughter of his. He really does know us all perfectly and is mindful of every one of us.

This Easter weekend I feel grateful for the opportunity to serve my savior through serving those around me. Even though my mission is really hard sometimes, I am grateful to serve it because everything I do, I am doing for my Savior, because I love him. I KNOW that Jesus Christ suffered and died for us all and that he lives again today. That all things are possible through him and his atonement. How great the joy that sentence gives.. I know that my redeemer lives.

This Easter, take some extra time to remember him and all he has done.

I love you all!

Sister Turner:)

8 MONTHS!!!

Hello! Okay so today marks 8 months on my mission and that is basically insane to think about. Time is flying SO FAST!

This week just sped by and was full of so many events. We had to go redo our housing contract and try to sweet talk our landlord so we weren't kicked out because I guess the missionaries before us didn't pay the rent..ever.. and it's just now coming up in the records but luckily it all worked out and our AWESOME mission finance Elder helped us out and now we are relieved to know we will have a place to sleep at night:) Then on Tuesday we had a zone training workshop on "How to approach tatay's". Or basically how to teach families and show respect to Fathers so they can help their family progress in the gospel. It was really good and we have already been able to apply some of the principles in our area and have seen miracles in teach families and gaining the trust of Fathers, which is sometimes especially hard for us sister missionaries because they think it's like "girl bible study" but as we explain that our message is for everyone and can help his family gain joy and happiness in the life it usually goes pretty well.

Tuesday night we went to visit our recent converts Annie and Marvin. They were having a hard time because Annie's husband was murdered last July and the court case happened this week to see if the murderers would be sent to jail or let free. As she shared with us her worries and concerns, I was flipping through my mind trying to know what scriptures we could share with her because I knew the original plan wasn't what she needed. Then the spirit brought to my mind a scripture verse my Dear sister missionary Friend Sister Lynette Jex had sent me in a letter I had recieved earlier in the week.I shared it with Annie and it was really able to help her and I was grateful that the Lord's plan is literally perfect and that he uses ALL WAYS to accomplish his work, including friends letters. Isn't that cool?

On Wednesday we had trainer's training which is a time 4 weeks into training we all get together again and share our experiences and try to get advice on how to improve, help our trainees more. It was really great. I learned so much! Then afterwards we all got to watch Meet the Mormons and it was so great! I loved it! The bit from Atlanta Georgia made me a little homesick but it was really cool to see back home again and to tell all the Filipinos about where I'm from and what it's like. (They all want to come BBQ in the south)haha

Thursday was crazy because my housemate had something happen and tried to run away/go back home. She is on a short term mission which is where missionaries come out into the feild without going to the MTC first and they serve in the mission they are from. She came to our room saying sorry but she was leaving and she had all her bags packed and was crying and oh man. Luckily she agreed to talk with us all as a house and we stopped everything to have a house inventory and try to help one another. It was so crazy but it was really able to help her I think and she is okay now to stay form the rest of her 6 week mission.

The next day, Friday, we had exchanges with the STL's and it was so fun. I learned so much and really enjoyed being with Sister Dizon, a native who just moved to Legazpi area. I learned a lot from her and we saw so many miracles in our day together. I also was re-motivated to work harder on my Tagalog to become less white girl and more Filipino. haha

Saturday we had miracle lessons in the morning and DOIS DADO WAS FINALLY BAPTIZED. He had to be pushed back from Feb 14 but he was finally ready and was baptized and it was so wonderful. I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to see him grow and change so much. He told us that he had wanted to commit suicide by hanging himself but when he met us and heard about the Gospel and about Jesus Christ, he saw hope and now he was baptized and received the priesthood. He said if he didn't hear our message, he would not be in this world still. THAT is the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ:) The Elder's even donated a white shirt and tie for him and he was so excited.

It was overall a crazy, unexpected, eventful wonderful week.

Only 10 more months I get to serve the Lord as a full time missionary here in the Philippines! I don't want to waste a minute, being a missionary is the very best thing in the world. It may be one of the HARDEST things but it's also the best!

I love you all

Sister Turner:)

We bought a huge blue fish at the meat market so we can try to learn how to cook filipino food on our own:)

Dois Dado's baptism

  And we ate the Mac and cheese from my birthday package and it was absolutely delicious!

The Breakup

Hello Everyone!

  I don't remember if I mentioned it last week but we had an earthquake last Sunday and it was really tiny and not that big of a deal but now I can officially say I have lived through a volcano eruption, earthquake, and 2 typhoons on my mission. Woohoo! Missionary protection!

  This week my companion was sick. HAVE I EVER MENTIONED HOW MUCH SICKNESS ON THE MISSION IS THE WORST? So we couldn't work for a couple days. But the cool thing was that my trainer, Sister Mccoard came back for one day and we went on exchanges for one lesson together. We went to Annie and Marvin, the recent converts that we had started teaching together a while back and it was so surreal to be together again teaching them. It was like flashback except this time they were members and I could speak Tagalog (kind of) haha it was cool. I miss my trainer! The whole time walking back I was asking advice on how she did everything back when she was training me! 

  The highlight of my week was probably church because the Losantos family finally came to church after like 7 months teaching them off and on! Brother has been recovering from a foot injury and this week he recovered and said " Well, God healed me so I have no excuse not to go to church. We'll be there Sunday". We went to pick them up and they were all ready and wearing church clothes! Even baby! and they were so great at church and made lots of friends, they are so excited for their baptism now and of course we are way excited for them too! 

  The hard part of this week was that we had to drop investigators or "breakup" with them. As missionaries, we invite people to act or make changes in their lives to come closer to Christ but sometimes. people just never want to do anything or act to know the truth. In those cases we do our best to help them progress (towards baptism, towards Christ,etc) pero sometimes they just aren't willing and that's when the breakup comes. Missionary work really is a lot like dating. We have the expectation of baptism and they know our expectation but eventually if they decide that they don't want that goal either they will break up with us(hiding, yelling,politely saying they aren't interested) or we have to break up with them for a time so we can focus our time and efforts on people who are willing and ready to make the changes in their life to come closer to Christ. Last week we realized we had 86 investigators and only 6 who were progressing. So this week we did a lot of commitment extending, reexplaining of our purpose and sadly, "breakups". IT IS SO HARD. I have such a hard time giving up on people because I know that heavenly Father never ever gives up on me but I know that ultimately it's not giving up on them, it's just giving them some time until they are ready to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ and then we can go back to them. I was studying this week about the apostasy and I realized that Heavenly Father did kind of the same thing with us people. He had given us the gospel of Jesus Christ but obviously people chose to reject that truth, they killed Jesus Christ himself and his apostles and the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ was lost. There was a time Heavenly Father allowed us to live in a sort of "spiritual darkness" because we were not yet ready to accept the truth but when he knew the time was right, he restored ALL the truth through a living prophet again. I know that there is a time and a season for everything and that's what I tell myself even when things don't go my way or people won't act  on their faith or times are really hard. I just have to trust Heavenly Father and his timing. He knows it all. I'm really grateful he is in charge. I can't believe how much he has already changed me on my mission. It's like I can't even describe how I changed or pinpoint what it is but I know that I am forever different and much better than before. 

I love you all! Keep the faith.

Sister Turner:)