Week 65: FISH BONE

Hey everyone!! Another crazy week in Sipalay, lots of fun and good things that happened.

But also one thing that is really not great.. which is I ate some dried fish on friday and got a fish bone stuck reallllllly deep in my mouth. So, I get to go to the city today to get it pulled out! I don't need to worry though because this literally happens all the time here in the Philippines. I'll update you next week about it! 

Anyways brother Mark continues strong, we're really just trying to give him enough encouragement and space to progress well, and he is. I know by the end of this year he will be baptized!

Also this less-active family we've been visiting has almost returned! They've been to church threetimes now since I've been here and one of them, Gerald, brings his younger brother Jay who we're hoping will be baptized on the 11th. We're so excited! The work continues on :) 

Annnd the good news from Magsungay just keeps coming! I'm not sure if you guys remember but Sister Bernolo and I taught two of Elmer's and Raniel's cousins that always went to church but never got permission to be baptized.. well they finally got permission and got baptized on Saturday!! Seriously it's amazing how this area brings me so much joy even after I've left it for months now haha, I'm so blessed to have met these people!

Anyways, thanks for all the love and support! You guys are the best :)

Sister Pope

Week 64: BAGIUO

hey everyone!! There was a bagiuo or big storm this week, loooots of rain and since we're by the beach, it all seems more crazy of a storm because the waves get reeeeally huge, you can hear them from our house! The wind was also really crazy and we saw some devastation from the storm. one of our areas, nauhang, had a lot of palm trees fall on houses and their school collapsed in the storm. Luckily, nobody was hurt and the kids have break from school right now so there will be time to build their school again.

Brother Mark is doing great, he's gone through a lot of hard stuff this week so we really thought he might not come to church, and then he was one of the first ones there on Sunday. He's so awesome! We still need to finalize things with his wife who is currently out of town, but as soon as she comes home we're giving Mark a date!

More good news from Magsungay! More members of their family have entered into the waters of baptism, including the little girl that Sister Bernolo and I first found that led us to that beautiful family, Yara. We were looking for investigators one day in March this year and found this girl sitting all by herself during school time so we went up and talked to her. She said we could come to her house to teach her family but when we came back the second time, her family wasn't home but their next door neighbors, the Semillano family, was. And the rest is history! But we all owe thanks to that first interaction with Yara and we're so happy she's finally decided to be baptized with her cousin, Mia. :)

Anyways, that's all for this week. I'm so thankful for all the beautiful people I've met here in the Philippines! They'll be in my heart forever. :)

Sister Pope

1) P-day! Frisbee on the beach :)

2) Our zone

3) I'm only half smiling in this picture but we got permission to go to this resort called "the hidden sea", it was super beautiful!

Week 63: BARANGAY 4

Hey everyone!  Sorry this email is a day late, the email website wasn't working for us yesterday and Sister Santos got sick so we just stayed home. But it's been a pretty good week!

The area has been a really needing more people to teach so we just went finding a lot this week and opened a new area, Barangay 4. It's our furthest area and the people there are really nice! All of them immediately let us into their house and accepted a return appointment. Filipinos are so dang nice! We're excited to come back though and keep teaching them. They live such humble lives!

Mark is doing well, he went to church on Sunday again and has completely stopped drinking coffee, but his wife STILL doesn't want him to be baptized. Which is confusing because she's an active member haha. We're going to try and focus more on families and set his baptism for sometime in November. He's sooo ready and has such a strong desire to be baptized that we know one day he will be. 

Our other focus is just a brand new family we met. Soo they might not be our focus in the next couple of weeks haha but they're really cool, the Breones family. They're really kind and the father, Felix, is really searching and loves to read so we're excited to see where he gets to in the Book of Mormon. Hopefully they progress!

Anyways that's all for this week, until next week again :) Love you all! 

Sister Pope

1) Transfer day three weeks ago with a member from Magsungay and Sister Bernolo <3 <3 <3

Week 62: BEACHES AND SUNSETS

Hey everyone! Everything's normal as usual in paradise :)

So this week was really crazy because we had MLC, then zone training, then exchanges, then conference!! We did so much so the week went by really fast. It was weird because the meetings were held in the main city on the island, where I spent 14 months of my mission! We passed by four of my areas on the way to the city haha. 

We're still working hard on finding, the problem is a lot of people here are hard workers, working in the rice fields or fishing in the ocean, so they are really tired when they get home and only want us to teach their children. We're trying to figure out a good time to catch the dads so they will listen! 

Conference was super amazing and I really learned a lot, because I'm assigned to a really small branch though, on Sunday it was literally us three sisters, the two elders, and the branch President that attended. I really enjoyed all the talks though and can't wait to apply the teachings of the living prophets in our teachings.

Earlier today we spent our p-day on a beach a bit further down the island and played frisbee.. seriously so much fun! I love the beauty of my area! 

Anyways thank you all so much for your love and support, it means so much :) Sorry I can't send pictures anymore because the computer shops here are dangerous to use our SD cards with, only if I go to Bacolod City. So I'll send pictures again in three weeks! 

Sister Pope

Week 61: :)

Hey everyone!! WOW what an awesome week! I'm serving in the most beautiful place in the world :) Sipalay lives up more to what the hype is -- it truly is beautiful and so are the people.

So I our ward has elders too, Elder Steffen and Elder Tabligan. And my two companions are Sister Santos and Sister Esteban, we're in a tri-panionship! Sister Santos was in my group of missionaries getting to the Philippines and Sister Esteban got here in October. They are so fun and I'm so excited to serve with them!

It's hard to write everything that happened this week, but even though our area is beautiful there is a LOT of work to do here, we really need to find a lot more people to teach! And it won't be a problem because there are so many awesome people here! Our focus right now is Mark, a part-member that always goes to church but his wife won't let him be baptized, we just got to do our teaching skills to find out why. He's awesome! 

Anyways I'll try to write more next week, also sorry to say this is my last email with pictures from my camera :( The computers in Sipalay are too dangerous to use with all the viruses and stuff so I'll try and find times to send pictures. Thank you so much for all your love and support!

Sister Pope

1-3) Our area!

4) This is a boat we have to take to get to one of our areas, these little 11 year old kids are in charge of them its so cute, they even let my paddle!