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!

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