Week 9 Kumusta po everyone!

Week 9

Dear Friends and Family,

Kumusta po everyone! :) I hope everyone had a great week of Summer and happy August to everyone! I can't believe it is already August honestly, where has the time gone??? This week was a really good week, I finally feel like I am settling into everything and getting a handle on missionary life, getting to understand people more and getting more and more familiar with the great and wonderful Makati City :) 

So I mentioned last week I got a surprise companion named Sister Dolor, she is awesome and fearless. She will go up to anyone, knock on any door, and it is so cool to see her teach. I feel like I have the best examples of missionaries with my Nanay Sister Holzworth (Mom) and Tita Sister Dolor (Aunt). Being in trio is literally the best thing ever, we can teach anyone and it seems like we all just communicate way better with teaching--the only downside is who gets the shower first when we get home and there is less room in the fridge haha :) I have loved having Sister Dolor join the Makati team.

Sister Dolor, Sister Zarbock, Sister Holzworth

Teaching this week was awesome, we have a couple of really awesome progressing investigators. Because we are in the English and Tagalog ward we kind of have a strange mix of people we teach, I can't wait to tell you all about them :) 

So first, Jerry. Jerry got baptized last week and is a translator for this advertising company. His English is pretty good but when we teach him it is always super simple. When people are baptized, we reteach them all the lessons to make them fully active in the church so that is what we are doing with Jerry. And it is so cool because since he received the Holy Ghost you can really see the difference in our lessons.

Yuta is from Japan and it is the same thing--super simple. He has never believed in God or anything so we are really starting at the very beginning with him - this week was all about the Restoration and it really is so cool to see the wheels turn in his head and you can see his faith growing. He comes to church every week and I really admire his willingness to learn. And teaching Yuta so simply has really helped strengthen my testimony, he will stop and say "Oh that makes sense" or "that sounds familiar" and it really makes me feel like God really does bring things to our remembrance. 

All our finding is in Tagalog speaking areas, our English are usually referrals and out of our area--we are the only people in the mission who get to travel out of our area, so that is kind of fun. Our goal for this week has been finding new investigators--we go out and teach and find and teach and find...  :)  But anyway, what I love about the Philippines so far is you never know what you are going to get on the other side of a door haha :) One of these instances was with Joy and Glinda - talked a little bit about them last week. But they opened their door and we walked into their little shack houses - usually a lot of people live in one bahay. We just started teaching them and they let us come back for 2 more lessons - and they committed last week to be baptized and they just are continuing to progress. :) Glinda is paralyzed on one side and she is just the nicest lady and loves the fact that we can become perfect again when we die :) But what I learned from this is God has prepared people for us to teach, just as long as we work and are diligent :) 

We also got fed this week, every missionaries dream! haha :)  - there are a lot of people here from the states in our English Ward that work at the embassy. The Keyes family are from Idaho and the Jones family are new from Dallas. They are just super awesome families. Part of what our mission is doing is reactivating and strengthening the members, so that is what we have been doing for the past couple of weeks as well. :) They honestly are such hard working people - a lot of the moms say it has been an adjustment to move the Philippines and I totally understand so it is nice as missionaries we can just be a little support to them with all the change going on. :) 

The Keyes Family

This week we also visited Christina, she is Chinese, who's grandpa just passed away recently. She is a Less Active and is deaf - but she loves to have the missionaries over. So we thought we should go visit her. We were talking to her and she was telling us of her health challenges, her grandpa passing--and I just thought what am I going to say to make her feel better? I have never experienced anything like this in my life! But I thought of a scripture, Alma 7:23 about being patient with our afflictions and she looked at me with tears in her eyes and told me how grateful she was--that's exactly what she needed to hear. It is just little experiences like this that have really helped me realize how much missionaries really don't know about the concerns, or what is really going on with someone but how much we are vessels for the spirit and that is what teaches and helps someone. :) 

Just a spiritual thought for the week is about Grace, I think that has been the theme with transitioning and getting familiar with the people of Makati. A dear friend of mine sent me a talk written by Brian Wilcox called, "His Grace is Sufficient" and it talks about Grace. And to my understanding I always thought Grace was we are saved after all we can do. But what I loved about this talk was he described it as God pulling with us and how we really aren't alone and aren't expected to be perfect. But we are expected to try our best :) And just a main point from his message is about how a life impacted by grace eventually begins to look like Christ's life. 

That is what I have found this week! God is with us no matter if we are walking all over a crazy city to bring others to Christ, learning a new language, or trying are best to be what God needs us to be. He is pulling with us every step of the way :) 

Well I hope everyone has a great week! 

Mahal ko kayo, 

Sister Zarbock 

I got to hold a parrot at a Chinese mansion :)