April 7, 2014 Hello!

Melvin Jakaran's baptism! March 30 2014

Picture of all of us at Melvins baptism

This is the Estipular family

Hello Family!

Well, this week was crazy!  So busy.  The highlight of the week was that last Sunday, Melvin Jakaran was baptized!  He was seriously golden!  After the first lesson with him, he came to church that next Sunday and every Sunday since and had no Word of Wisdom problems.  Unfortunately, his mom wasn't able to get baptized with him because we're working out her marriage but she will be baptized too.  This family is future leaders, I can tell!  Also, the next Sunday (yesterday) we came to church and Melvin was dressed in a white shirt, tie and black pants. All that was missing was a name tag!!!  I was seriously so happy!  We could tell that he felt a little awkward and when his mom came to church, she didn't even recognize him at first!  But he got used to it and he loves being at church.  He's 21 so he has potential to serve a mission.  Hopefully!

Melvin the next week at church!  He went and bought church clothes!!!!

And then last Monday, we had a mission activity because we achieved the standard of excellence for baptisms in the mission: 188 baptisms.  188 missionaries.  It was fun to play at the mission home and we kind of had a water fight which felt SO GOOD.  Holy cow, it is hot here.  I thought it was hot when I got her in August.  Little did I know.  I'm just glad that I've gotten used to the heat and sweating all the time because it not, I'm pretty sure I would melt.  I'm pretty sure there is nothing like the heat here in the Philippines in summer!

At mission activity: This is a real pig's head.  They barbecued the entire pig in banana leaves

Also, yesterday we watched the RS general broadcast and for those of you that watched it and saw the video where everyone was singing I am a child of God, they filmed here in the Philippines!  And the little kids sang in Tagalog!  That was kind of fun :)  I'm excited to watch general conference next week! Also, I was watching and realized that everyone looked really weird on the TV screen.  I couldn't figure it out and then I realize that it is because everyone is SO WHITE!  They have no color!  haha I've gotten used to the Filipino skin :)

And, Sis Salado and I kind of had a miracle here in the mission.  So every month, we set goals of how many baptisms and less active returns we will have for the month.  We didn't have any goals for less actives but we put down that we would achieve 2.  Then we did a lot of praying to find the goals and we asked all the members who they knew that was inactive.  Last week we had 5 less actives come to church.  This week, we had 9 come to church.  Two weeks ago we thought that we had no goals and had no idea how we were going to achieve what we put down but we are seeing the help of the Lord talaga in our area!  We might be able to achieve well above our goals for this month!  I know that sometimes in life, we just need to make a goal, put our trust in the Lord and although the end result might be different than we thought, it will actually be better.

Ellen and Merlina and their kids.  I love them so much!!!!

The mission is the craziest adventure that I have ever been on.  I've met the craziest people, people that have the craziest ideas, done things I would never do in America, eaten things I would never eat in America, and so much more.  But I have also had the neatest experiences here, and I've had a chance to see some amazing changes in the lives of people here and seen a lot of miracles.  And here in Masinloc, I've been given the chance to find two golden families: Ellen and Melvin Jakaran and Alona Esico.  I feel so blessed to be here in the Philippines serving a mission for our Heavenly Father!

I love you all!  Hope that you have a great week!

Sister Sirrine

I don't know them on the motorcycles....they're members from a different area but when you're a missionary, everyone loves you.  Even if they don't know you