.: Week 10 Rainy Season is the best Season

Week 10

Dear Family, Friends, and people of all ages

Well I hope everyone had a great week this week! This week was another great one here in the rainy Makati. Rainy Season is pretty crazy, lots of flooding in the streets and walking through waist deep water -- haha okay that last one was a little dramatic. But seriously the rain here is absolutely crazy, it just dumps all day on us but it is really fun because everyone is playing out in the rain. My favorite is at night when there is lightening and thunder -- it seriously is the coolest thing ever. Like I said though, this week was another great one! Can't wait to tell you all about it :)

Rainy sunset--is that sky not the coolest???

So we had a lot of meetings this week. District Meetings, Interviews with Presidents and Sister Ostler, and training afterward so we didn't teach a lot this week but the lessons we did teach were seriously so awesome and the classes that I had this week were super inspirational and motivational -- also kind of long haha. Long but good.

District pic!

We had a way awesome referral this week. A Jewish lady was in Hawaii vacationing and went to the Polynesian Cultural Center and started talking with the missionaries, the sisters got her name and number and address, they referred her to the mission office in the Philippines Office because she is from Makati area. And after that she got referred to us! I seriously thought that alone was a miracle. We found her house and she is a diplomat of the Public Affairs for the Embassy here and we got chatting with her and she was like, "what is it about you mormons that makes you guys so happy?" and we were like WELL WE WILL FOR SURE TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT. And we just had a way cool experience with her and I got to just bare my testimony to her, in English because she works for the US but it just felt that I could really tell this lady about what makes me super happy as a missionary and as a member of the church. It was a super awesome referral, thank you Hawaii! :)

I also had another cool moment this week when we were teaching Fema. Fema was someone we just started talking to on the street and later came back for another lesson. This was our second lesson this week with her. And she put out some benches in the middle of the street, it was like 6 and there was the coolest sunset - orange skies, we were teaching her about the Restoration and I just looked around and was feeling so lucky to be serving here. Here I am in the middle of the street, sharing the beliefs of our church to this person that knows nothing about it, the spirit was there, and she couldn't believe she had a loving Father in Heaven who she can pray to. I don't know it was just an awesome feeling and proud moment to be a missionary :)

Just one more way awesome experience this week was we had a baptism!!!! WHOOP WHOOP!! We have been teaching Lawrence who is 9 for the last couple of weeks and he got baptized on Saturday. His little sister is 8 and also got baptized this week. And what an awesome thing to be apart of that their family is now all baptized! :) This baptism felt super special because it was a whole family event. The parents were both there and are members of the church and I really saw how families are blessed by being members of the church. Plus we totally got pizza and grapes -- grapes here are SUPER expensive so I felt super lucky ;)

All my training meetings and interviews went well this week. I feel so blessed to have such inspired leaders! :) Training meetings are just a bunch of mini classes and we talked a lot about companionship unity. And I just love my companionship right now. Sister Holzworth and I have loved having Sister Dolor with us for the past 2 weeks. She is super helpful, sometimes a little clueless, and literally is the crazy grandma of the 3 of us -- because she is the oldest in the mission ;)

Well just to end with a quick spiritual thought. We taught Glinda this week, I have talked a little bit about her but she has had seizures that have made her paralyzed on one side and this week we got to teach her about resurrection and how when we are resurrected we become perfect. And it just made me think of Alma 40:23, how not a hair on our head will be lost. When we told her that, she just cried! And I have never really, deeply thought about how we are so blessed to return to our Heavenly Father but to return to him as PERFECT versions of ourselves. Anyway, that just became super real for me this week.

I hope everyone has a great week this week :) Keep on keeping on and remember mahal ni Jesucristo kayo!

Mahal Kita,

Sister Starbucks :)