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| This is how they tell you not to wash your feet in the bathroom sink :) |
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| Balut!!! |
Kumusta!
This week was pretty uneventful except for the fact that I ate Balut! Yes, I ate the dreaded Balut. (For those of you that do not know, it is a fertilized, fermented duck egg. So yes, there is an embryo in there. And then it is boiled) It actually tasted pretty good; pretty much just like a hard boiled egg. A little slimy in some parts. But the worst part about it is you can see the feathers and the yolk looked exactly like the placentas in my anatomy lab. I tried not to look at what I was eating but I was so curious. The good thing is it was a really young embryo so there weren't any little cones or a beak and the feathers weren't that developed yet. So yeah, it wasn't bad. So I successfully ate Balut! I've also eaten a couple meals with just my hands. Very rude in America but just fine here. And, I found out that I have been drinking iced tea. One of our investigators always serves us apples juice...or so I thought. Sister Salado took a sip and realized it was iced tea. So I had to repent...although you can't really repent if you don't know what you're doing, right? A lot of the snacks and juices here have tea or coffee in them so we have to be really careful.
Another cultural note is that here, they don't move out of their parents house until they are married, and even still, they may stay in their house. So everyone is very intrigued that I moved out when I was 18 and was supporting myself. They all want to know why I would do that! Such a different culture. They all ask if I didn't love my family. I was quick to assure them that I do love my family. A lot.
This week we had a couple of the ward members work with us which was so nice! The members are definitely needed in missionary work. It really shouldn't be called missionary work, it should be called missionary help to the wards/branches. Then maybe people would realize that it's not the job of the missionaries only to convert!
We are really excited about one of our investigators. He is a referral (which is always WAY better than a street contact) and he really does want to know the truth. The only problem is that we can only teach him on Sundays because he goes away to work during the week. So we're trying to figure out how we can condense the lessons, but still make sure he understands them. But he accepted the baptismal date we extended to him and he seemed happy about it too. The really good thing is that he has several friends that are LDS and his boss is the branch president. So he has a really big support system although his family isn't listening to the discussions.
We also made a lot of progress with another investigator of ours, Camille. For the longest time I didn't think she was interested and was only listening to us because her dad was making her. She never really paid attention to us and was very distracted the whole time we were teaching. But this week, she paid attention, asked questions and gave answers that were longer than "Opo" (yes). That was a testimony to me to not give up on people. I was almost ready to give up on her and drop her as an investigator when we saw a lot of progress. So although they don't seem interested at first, the prayers and the consistent efforts of members can definitely make a big change in that person. And we need to have faith in the non-members too. I definitely needed to repent of my lack of faith.
My companionship with Sister Salado is going really well. She is really hardworking and very in tune with the spirit. She is also very good at gaining the trust of the people that we are teaching. That is a weakness of mine. I'm not good at being super conversational...especially in Tagalog. But she is a really good example for me and I know that the Lord assigns the people in our lives to us for a reason. We can always learn something from every person we come in contact with.
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| sister Salado's birthday this week! We bought her a cake and ice cream and pork chops. It was all so delicious! |
Well, the Lord is surely hastening His work here in the Philippines and I know He's hastening it everywhere. This really is the final push and this work is the work of salvation for people. Just like Alma and his brethren, we do not want anyone to lose their salvation. I know that this work is so important and I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a servant of the Lord at this exciting time!
I love you all!
Sister Sirrine
PS I am so excited for General Conference! We don't get to watch it until the 13th, and only the Sunday session I think, but still so exciting!
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