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
