Sept 9, 2013 Another Week

Last day of proselyting with Sis Mafi

Our last pic all together

This is the Castro family

Sleeping on the jeepney

Kumusta pamilya ko!

Ice cream!

Lasagna!

This week was weird!  I can't even begin to say all that happened.  Right now I am in a trisome because my trainer has officially left to go back home to Tonga.  I have to admit, this last week has been really hard for me to not want to go home too because she was getting ready to leave all week and of course she talked about it a lot.  But don't worry, I'm staying out here!  She was supposed to leave this morning (Monday) at 7 am but yesterday we got a call from the AP's around 2:45 pm yesterday asking if she was packed.  She said not yet and they said that there was a problem with immigration so the flight got changed and someone was going to pick her up in Lubao (a 45 min drive away) at 4:30.  So then we went into scramble mode to try and get her all packed up and leave in about an hour.  And we had to call the other sisters in our apartment to get them to come back so I would have a companion.  The funny thing here in the Philippines is that when people have a special occasion, they buy pasta or spaghetti (it's suuuuuper expensive here!) so we bought her lasagna on Saturday and also some ice cream (which is also suuuuper expensive).  It was all super delicious!  So we hurried and packed all her stuff and then wolfed down the food and packed her suitcases on a tricycle (that was a trick!) and went to Lubao.  I felt bad because her last day here was so panicked and rushed.  Then we waited in Lubao for and 1.5 hours until they called again and said to send her on a bus by herself to Dinalupian where they would pick her up.  So yesterday we had one appointment by the time we got back to Gua Gua.

Packing everything on the tricycle

Earlier this week, we came home from working and found three pairs of shoes on our porch chewed up by dogs.  Two of them were mine.  And one of them was a pair of my proselyting shoes!  So now I am down to one pair of shoes and I was so angry for the rest of the day.  Stupid dogs.  The other sisters said that nothing like that has ever happened before but now we keep our shoes inside.  I can't afford to lose another pair of nice shoes.  I was really hoping that they would last at least half of my mission!

Sis Mafi's x-ray

Also this week, I tried Menudo!  One of the members made it for us and it was actually really really good.  I liked it a lot.  For all of you that served Spanish missions, I'm sure that this menudo was different....it also had hot dogs in it.  The Philippines has a really weird Spanish, Filipino and American culture mix.  I can't quite figure it all out yet.  It's all very random.  We also had to go to the hospital because Sister Mafi needed an x-ray (it's required before you leave) and the hospitals here are so different!  It's exactly like those hospitals from the WWII movies with just curtains separating the beds.  But it had AC which was super nice!  (They call AC here Air Con.  And they call the fridge the ref.)  I had a lot of fun looking at her x-ray the next day and naming all the bones that I could see.  It made me miss my anatomy class that I taught!  The other sisters thought I was so weird but that's okay.

As far as proselyting this week, our numbers are dropping.  We have so many investigators that just didn't progress and so we ended up dropping them.  But unfortunately we didn't pick up any new ones in the last few weeks so now we don't have enough appointments to fill our time.  We did a lot of street contacting this week.  Sister Fuentes said that I have an asset and I need to use it....my asset is my white skin.  So when people would smile at me, we would take advantage of it and go talk to them.  Mostly they didn't care about what we had to say, just interested in an American.  And they all thought I spoke better Tagalog than I do and they would start talking to me.  I mostly just nod my head and smile.  Good thing I had Sister Mafi to translate for me!

Pizza!

Earlier this morning we had a zone activity becasue we acheived the standard of excellence for our zone last month.  We got to go play basketball and volleyball as a zone and then we went to a restaurant that had pizza.  Real American pizza.  It was delicious!  This week was great! Pizza and ice cream! Masarap!  But very expensive.....

So as of right now, I am waiting until tomorrow night when a mass text goes out saying who will be transferred on Wednesday morning.  And then Wednesday we go to Olongapo and I'll pick up companion and then I have to lead my area.  Sometimes I feel like I'm ready to lead....and then sometimes I don't feel ready at all.  I feel like I don't know what's going on enough but I am still in training so I'll be fine.  My biggest spiritual lesson for the week was patience.  Although I am a little frustrated at the lack of progression with our proselyting, I need to not let that get me frustrated or angry.  Because then the spirit can't work with you.  The moments when I let frustration come in, I found that my Tagalog was a lot less sure and we just weren't as effective.  So I learned this week, that when things don't go the way you think they should, of course you should try to fix that but don't become frustrated about it.  I really learned a lot from the story of Ammon and the sons of Mosiah.  They had a lot of patience and endured a lot of trials.  And it is AFTER the trial of our patience that we experience success.

Alam ko po na pinakamahalaga ang pasensiya sa misionero gawain! At alam ko po na tunay ang mga biyaya sa misionero gawain.

Ingat kayo!

Sister Sirrine