Week 60: SIPLAY

Hey everyone!! Well first things first, I've transferred from Sum-ag! After only six weeks in Tangub and six weeks in Sum-ag, I've already transferred again. And I transferred to Sipalay! For those of you who don't know, it's a pretty rugged part of the mission so I'll definitely be going through an adjustment. I've been in the same city though my whole mission and I'm excited to be assigned to other areas :)

This week was good, Regie is doing great. We scheduled his baptism for Oct.14 and progressing really well. We love him and his family so much! We also met this new investigator named Slash on Sunday, he just came to church because he was curious. He is sooo prepared! Sister Faiva will take good care of them :)

Anyways, that's everything for this week. We have to ride a big bus to Sipalay and leave here pretty soon so I'll update you all next week about my new area. Thank you all for the love and support!

Sister Pope

I have a lot more pictures but they're all on my usb which is packed in my suitcase so I'll just send them next time :)

1) The mountain in Sum-ag, it was sooo clear outside!  I absolutely love mountains 

2) This is called "butong", it's a soft, young coconut and a lot of people here eat it as snack food. You drink the coconut water on the inside then scoop out the white inside, it's super yummy

3) We ran out of gas on Sunday and luckily had charcoal in our apartment so we just cooked our food from charcoal, it's what like everybody does here. It was super fun and I feel like when I go on a camping trip in the future I could make some gourmet filipino camping meals

4) This cat always hangs out by our house and for any of you who know me, you know I feed it all the time. The other sisters don't like it though so I have to feed him secretly haha

Week 59: ULAN

Hello everyone!!! This week was pretty rainy. Rain in ilonggo = ulan. That's always rough since we hand wash our clothes and they need to air dry, sometimes we'll do our laundry and when it rains for a long time, it'll be three days and they haven't dried yet! To be fair I'm pretty sure nothing actually gets ~dry~ here in the tropical climate but the clothes are still to wet to wear. That's when we have to get creative and put our clothes on electric fans to dry. Fun stuff!

This week was a lot better since I wasn't sick anymore, we were able to work a lot and meet some cool people. We met this lady who really wants to be taught since she said she's scared of her religion. We later found out that she's a part of a cult! It was actually really creepy because she'd describe how their "church" went and we just taught about Jesus Christ and the Restoration and hope the spirit worked something in her. 

Jenelyn and Goselle from Tangub ward are getting married and baptized on Saturday! I'm soooo excited for them. It really is special being a missionary and being a part of their teaching. They're so amazing!

Other than that our focus right now is Regie and his family. He has a lot of friends at church so we're just really trying to get his family to come with him and his grandparents. He's so sweet though and is really attentive in lessons. We really hope him and his family will progress!

Well that's all for this week, thank you all for the love!!

Sister Pope

1) This is nanay Peralta's son Troy when he was baptized last week, he's so cute!

2) Our district leader, Elder Fernandez, and his companion, Elder Baldoza. His umbrella is so girly we were all dying laughing when we left district meeting

3) Sebastian! He's doing great. 

Week 57: TAGALOG

Kamusta kamu!! another week in sum-ag.

This week was really good, President Barredo gave special training to our zone about priorities in the mission and I learned a lot. We are so blessed to have such a guided President in our mission! He seriously loves all of us like his children. 

The week was alright, we didn't really find anyone cool haha but we received a ~lot~ of referrals from members last week that we'll be following up on this week! We're really excited. Also a lot of the old ladies in the ward love going up to me and holding my hand. A lot of them say I have really soft hands! 

We have a lot of progressing investigators right now but not a lot that are progressing quickly. They won't really commit themselves to a specific date for baptism but they are always going to church and reading the Book of Mormon. We're really hoping to see the Holy Ghost help them out here!

We're just keeping doing what we're doing and trying to be worthy of receiving miracles :) Thanks to you all for the love!! 

Sister Pope

1) Nanay Peralta invited us over and made me eat this entire plate of little cakes. She is making me gain weight!!!!

2) This is a cat that lives by one of our investigators, Brother Mitoy. I give this a cat a different name every time we're there, but right now it's "Sebastian" and it's seemed to start sticking

3-5) These are the people I love getting baptized :)) Sister Bernolo and Sister Fawcett sent me their pictures. The first is Mark and Kenjie, then sister Jessivelle, then Anthony. I'm so happy for them!!!

Week 58: MERRY CHRISTMAS

Merry Christmas everyone!!! It's already Christmas in the Philippines :) There are multiple people in we're teaching right now that already have Christmas lights up on their house and it's all on the radio. Tis the season!!

Actually this week was REALLY rough in terms of health haha.. On Tuesday night I got reeeeeally sick.. like I've never been sick like this before in my life. It was after this meeting with President and we finished in the mission office. I realized I was starting to get a fever but I didn't think much of it, but later on I had the feeling that I really needed to throw up. I couldn't ride the Tangub jeepney to get home so I just laid down on the couch while all the missionaries left to go home. The elders gave me a priesthood blessing and right at the end of the blessing, I got up and sprinted to the bathroom and threw up. And didn't stop until Thursday! I couldn't keep ANYTHING down, bread, rice, even water! I was throwing everything up and if I hadn't stopped when it did, I would've had to been admitted to the hospital. But it did stop! I did something to my stomach though from vomiting so much that I could only eat rice, and only very small amounts so I wasn't strong enough to walk. It was just a really frustrating week, we only worked on Saturday and Sunday. I'm happy to say though that I've recovered and I'm all better now. :) We don't know what the culprit was but the nurse is surprised it went away so fast. Blessings!

Anyways that was pretty much my week haha, next week will be more interesting :) Thanks every one for the love and support, it means the world!

Sister Pope