October 28, 2013 A Humble Hello from Gua Gua

Me and Sister Salado in the Jeepney

My last day with Sister Salado in the beautiful Sta Rita area

Dear family,

So yes, I am training a new missionary right now and I have only been out here for 12 weeks.  And....she is Tongan.  So she is a foreigner too.  Needless to say, I felt very overwhelmed when I got the text Tuesday night saying that I would become a trainer the next day (yes I got about 12 hours notice) and then I felt very overwhelmed when I got to the mission home and President Querido assigned me a Tongan, Sister Hausia.  I thought to myself, "I'm a foreigner!  How can I train a foreigner?? And I don't even understand the people all the time and my Tagalog still isn't very good."

I was scared out of my mind and even scarier is that we are opening an area too, which means that we have no investigators or less actives.  So we have to go search for them.  Which means lots of street contacts.  But on Thursday, the first day of our proselyting, I had one of the most spiritual days of my life and experienced an amazing miracle.  I was so nervous in the morning because I didn't know where we were going to go or what we were going to do because we didn't have any appointments.  So we pretty much just had a list of less actives to try and find.  I had no idea how this day was going to go and I was so scared because I knew I didn't understand the people.  So we set off to our area and I was praying to Heavenly Father to help me be bold and talk to everyone and to understand.  So the 1st man we saw I started talking to and it was like magic.  All of a sudden I could speak Tagalog and I could understand the people!  It was amazing.  I spent the whole day being amazed.  I got no blank stares that meant they didn't understand me and they didn't look at me like I was new here.  In fact, they asked me how many years I had been here.  We did 20 street contacts and I feel like I've never talked to so many people in my life.  It was like I seriously woke up and could understand and speak Tagalog.  I know that the power of prayer and trusting in the Lord is so real.  I have also never been so tired as I have been in the last few days because we have walked and walked and walked trying to find people to teach.  And of course, Heavenly Father blessed us with some investigators yesterday and one of them I feel is a golden investigator.

Although I am definitely not fluent and I still have things that I don't understand I know that I have definitely been given the gift of tongues this week.  I just hope that I can keep progressing my Tagalog without the help of a Filipino and help my companion progress her Tagalog too.  It's kind of funny because my trainer was Tongan and now I am training a Tongan.  I guess I am meant for Tongans!  Sister Hausia isn't quite as good at English, but she understands it which is good.  I don't know how we would survive if she didn't understand English!

Me and my new comp at our baptism on Saturday.  She is 8 and the child of a less active...so she doesn't count as an investigator baptism but still fun!

Also, I forgot to write last week that I got lice for the first time. I made the mistake of wearing a ponytail and all the little kids played with my hair.  And they all have lice.  But I was paranoid that night that I would get lice so I went and used some lice shampoo and brushed out the lice.  I had some lice but I was able to get them out before they really set in. Sister Fuentes said "You are officially a real missionary now!  Welcome to the club!"  Ha ha.

So I really miss my senior companions and it is really really hard to be a senior companion to a brand new missionary but I know that Heavenly Father has really been helping me.  I know that it is going to continue to be really hard but I know that I've been called to do this, so I can do it with the help of Heavenly Father.  I think one of the hardest things about this transfer is going to be that my companion doesn't eat vegetables and neither does the other new companion in our house.  And my companion doesn't know how to cook.  Grabe!  So I have to teach her how to cook too.

Well, that's kind of all for this week.  This might have been one of the hardest weeks in my mission but I feel really hopeful about one of the investigators that we found.  Her name is Syra and we gave her a pamphlet and she read it before we got to our follow up appointment and new all the answers and says she wants to be a member.  Oh, and she started reading her friend's Book of Mormon. She is so amazing.  She's only 15 but she is a college level student and she takes care of her 3 siblings because her parents are always working.  She's amazing!  So I think we might have a baptism for November! Yay!

Well, I know that Heavenly Father knows and loves all of us individually.  He is very aware of our capabilities and our challenges.  We just need to trust Him and trust that He will help us.  And I know that He will.  I love you all!

Mahal ko kayo!

Sister Sirrine