Week 26 "One is the loneliest number....." -me, the whole weekend

Week 26

My cute companion was deathly sick for a couple of days this week--I was feeling like a real mom this week--MOM thanks for taking care of me when I have been sick. But it included her sleeping 99 percent of the time for 4-5 days so I spent my time blasting Christmas hymns, listening to over 6 hours of Conference talks, and cleaning our whole apartment twice--even the fridge (Jules you would be proud) Haha so you could say I was a little lonely..... :) 

BUT ANYWAY.... 

Dear Fam and Frienz of all ages, 

How is everyone doing this fine day?  I hope everyone had an awesome week as usual. We had a pretty good week this week--well we had a super solid first half of the week. Our Thursday-Saturday were not so hot for Sister Guiuo. My poor child has been a little under the weather.  But we have a few successes with some of our investigators, can't wait to tell you all about it. 

First off I talked about a newbie Chinese investigator named Kelly last week--we taught her twice this week and she is just a ray of sunshine!  She said she loved our church and she loves the people, she just doesn't have a super solid foundation of Jesus Christ or God so we are teaching her little by little. But she is doing good, I have high hopes for Sister Kelly. She came to church yesterday and it was the primary program, what better way to reel someone in than with a buncha cute kiddos :) So everyone pray for Kelly!! It is super fun to teach her cause its like 5 different translations going on. Sister Guiuo Tagalog, Me Tagalog to English, English to Chinese--its kinda funny to watch actually. But good times with Kelly. 

We had a movie night with Cezar and Manuel at the Albania's home this week and it went super well. We watched the Restoration, that video is super awesome.  I think it really makes people feel like the restoration really needed to happen and it creates such a nice spirit and visual. And plus we got Lasagna--so everyone is happy. The Albania's are members in the ward and their Grandfather was over--he was one of the first sealers in the Philippines temple here. So we had MEMBER POWER. Haha, Cezar came to church this week too. 

Something kinda fun happened this week, we had MTC exchanges.  I did this same thing like over 5 months ago when I was in the MTC.  I can't believe how weird it was to see all of these bagong mga misyonero. It was seriously the biggest De Ja Vu moment. I vividly remember being in the shoes of these missionaries, feeling a 'little overwhelmed-I have no idea what is going on' kinda attitude. And now here I am 5 almost 6 months later.  We didn't have time to go all the way back to our area so we got to teach in our STL (Sister Training Leader) area. My little MTC companion was Sister Laumape from Tonga and she was the cutest, so it was a fun day to spend with her.

Sister Laumape from Tonga.  She's in the
MTC--did splits with her this week.

MTC Split with Sister Laumape

More MTC Sisters--all of them going to my dear friend
Sister Rhea Walters mission (Philippines Baguio mission)

Finally met Sister Barton doing exchanges.  Us two and Sister
Singer are the only American sisters in the entire mission :)

We had a field trip to the temple with Phoebe and Jason this week, we did baptisms for the dead. It has been so cool to be able to see Jason get baptized and progress in the gospel and then actually go to the temple and I hope to see them go ONE MORE TIME IN WHITE :) to get sealed. But it was a cool experience with them. Happy to have met them for sure. 

And the last experience of the week was with Beth and Faith--they are new from last week. And we got to teach the Plan of Salvation. Beth has so many questions and it was so awesome to be able to teach her about this great, grand plan Heavenly Father has for us.  Also one of my favorite things, to teach the plan of salvation to people who don't really know exactly where they are going after this life. So total bonus for me. 

To end on a spiritual note--power of the priesthood. We were visiting one of our Less Actives, Roley, and he had a mini stroke earlier that day and it was kind of a coincidence we actually were there because he was on our back up, back up plan...but we were talking to him and I just had a thought that he should get a priesthood blessing so we came back later with Brother Albania. Then later in the week, Sister Guiuo got a priesthood blessing because she was super sick.  It just helped me realize that the priesthood really is God's power on the earth.  

Okay, love you all. Thanks for the emails and the support! Happy December this week! 

Love, 

Sister Zarbock

Temple trip with Phoebe and Jason--our recent baptism

I braided hair in the car haha :)

MTC missionaries we met up with at the temple!  I represented the
United States single-handedly!

Of course had Christmas music as I was decorating.
Jules would expect nothing less.

Dinner for one--lonely times while
Sister Guiuo was sick :(

Week 25 Happy Thanksgiving from Makati :)

Week 25

Dear ya Crazy Turkeys in America, 

Hello everyone, I hope it was a great week for all of you!  Its so fun to get pictures from my brother's wedding and everything--love you all! Hope it was a day to remember.  And happy Thanksgiving this week to everyone!  So grateful to be on a mission and I am excited to have a Thanksgiving in the Philippines.  I can't believe November has come and gone, it seems like it just flew RIGHT by haha. It was a good one! This week was another full week! I am excited to tell ya all about it  

First off all I came out of transfers unscathed--I am sticking with my anak for Christmas and we are pretty excited about it. So I am staying here in Makati and will finish training cute Sister Guiuo, I couldn't be happier about it. So we will be staying here for the next six weeks.  Grateful to be here! 

This week we were able to do a temple trip with Paulie and 2 of his kids. We were able to show them around the temple and visit the MTC, it was super fun and honestly the temple is such a great place to take people--they are so interested and we had an awesome lesson with them. Just super spiritual filled lesson about temples and everything--I'm hoping for good things with his family.  But that was definitely a high light from the week.

MTC/Temple visit

Temple!

More temple :)

We had a really good lesson with some investigators this week. We dropped by one of our investigators this week--Manuel, I can't remember if I have mentioned him and all of a sudden one of his friends came up and I swear I recognized him before. And it was CESAR! Do you remember Cesar Salad guy from a few months ago? Yeah we totally found him again! We started chatting with them and set up a return appointment and Cesar actually went to our church after I OYMed (Open Your Mouth) him a few months ago and picked up a Book Of Mormon and read a lot of it...So pumped about it. :) They came with one of their friends on Sunday so we will see what goes down with them this week but I was super excited about it! 

Its kind of funny, I have been here for a few months now and its so weird how someone I OYMed a couple of months ago will turn out of the blue. It's the best thing. 

We met Sister Beth this week--a referral from one of our members, and we had a really good lesson with her. Honestly I am just learning about the power of being at the right place at the right time. God really does place prepared people...I didn't really believe that at first, but NOW I am totally a believer because it happened like 5 times this week. And we taught her about the power of the Book of Mormon. And it was just the coolest to see someone looking for the Fullness of the Gospel in one form or another and the Book of Mormon has ALL of the answers.  Beth is awesome, so we will see what happens with her too. 

So I always have a mini heart attack before going to church on Sunday and since we have 2 wards--its like a full on heart attack. You just never know if any of your Less Actives or Investigators will show up--and I have been praying all week for a new investigator for the 4th ward. Because its the English ward, sometimes its hard to contact foreigners because we don't see them as often. But Kelly came to church, and it was seriously the coolest thing. She showed up at Sacrament and we started to talk with her and ask how she heard about our church and she said she just got a feeling that she wanted to check out "the Mormons"--Kelly is from China and speaks a little bit of English so Jerry translated everything for us. Later we had a lesson with her at church and gave her a Chinese Book of Mormon and pamphlets--but its so fun cause we would talk and Jerry would translate everything. But seriously an answered prayer for me :) 

Just to finish off the week with a gratitude note cause its Thanksgiving 'n stuff...First off I am grateful it wasn't a million degrees outside this week haha.  Seriously am so grateful for the people that I am able to see and talk with everyday here. There is nothing better than sharing the message of the gospel. We worked really hard this week and its the best part of the mission to just diligently seek out those who are wanting to hear the message. 

Love you all, hope its a good one this week. 

Ingat po :) 

Sister Zeerox--that one was a new one this week!

We had our Thanksgiving a little early cause the Keys family 

is feeding us Thanksgiving on Friday :)

A sister that works with us all the time

We were a threesome for a night :)

Angelie had her baby :) I probably kissed this 

baby a million times!

Week 24 "Oh so its like a buy one take one?"

Week 24

Haha we were teaching Paulie this week about Family History.  We were talking about whoever has been deceased in your family for longer than a year you can do family work for them.  He said that both his parents have passed away,  so he asked if he can get baptized for both of them? And he was like "ooohhh so its like a buy one take one?" Thought about it for a second...yeah sure. If that makes sense to you why not :) 

Dear ang mga kaibigin ko at pamilyo ko, 

Hello! :) Hope all is well for everyone. This week was a good one for us! I wanted to first shout out and say happy wedding this week to my filipino brother and his beautiful soon to be wife Kelsey :) I am seriously so excited for you guys and this next step in your life! So sad I can't be there to celebrate. But know I am totally in spirit and am so pumped for you guys, I know Saturday will be a special day for you! 

On to the week. We had a pretty good teaching this week, we had a lot of members cancel on working with us so that was a little bit of a downer.  I did get deathly sick on Saturday PERO other than that it was an awesome week haha.  First update, Angelie did have her baby yesterday and we are so excited to visit her and see her cute baby girl.  Trisha Kate is doing good--she is starting to really get into the Book of Mormon which always makes us super happy...and she said that she saw her Dad reading it one day when she came home from school so that was a TOTAL bonus. She doesn't know it but we are gonna get her whole family! 

Some really awesome Gift of Tongues experiences this week...I am always SO humbled and grateful when moments like this happen my goodness. When you feel like you can just share exactly what's coming from your heart or you can exactly express what the spirit wants you to say...no words to describe other than complete and perfect gratitude holy cow. I ain't the smartest person out there, so it really is a miracle for me everyday that God will help me, couldn't do this without Him that is FOR SURE.  

One of those experiences was with Brother Manuel--he was an OYM who came to church. We had a great first lesson with him this week and I am so excited to see what will happen with him...I have high hopes! Another was with Sister Beth, a referral from a member, and so I am excited to see how they will both progress.  

Me and Sister Guiuo ran out of Restoration Pamphlets this week and we weren't getting our new order of pamphlets until Thursday...so we started to try to mix up our finding a little bit. Just to see what would happen.  We started to talk to person after person about how we need to be baptized or about the plan of salvation--and it was just so funny how many people would bring up little hints of the Restoration in all of their questions. Either they would ask...well how do you know someone has the right authority? Why are there so many churches? What makes someone a worthy leader?...I mean it was just questions that made me so grateful that we have the knowledge of the restoration. That we have a prophet that guides our church today and that Joseph Smith really did restore Christ's church back on the earth.  So I just had an awesome realization that we teach the Restoration because it fills in these gaps I guess...so that we really have the full and everlasting gospel. So COOL realization this week. 

Like to finish off with a tender mercy that happened on Friday I believe with a guy named Bobby.  We were coming home after a long work day and we starting talking to this guy and he happened to be riding our same jeepnee home and so I chatted with him the whole way there and then we got onto our next jeepnee and he happened to live kind of close to where we live. IT was just a really nice conversation and he bought our jeepnee ride for us. Honestly it was the littlest thing...but you know 6 months ago, I would never be able to just sit and chat with someone for a good 20 minutes about their life because I probably wouldn't be able to understand a word they would have said. And it just made me realize how grateful I am to be a missionary and that God gives magical powers to missionaries with magic tags to be able to chat with people and help them out with their lives haha.  

So small victories this week...but by small and simple things great things will come to past. I testify of that :) 

Love y'all, 

Sister Zarbock

Hanging with the Sister!

THANKSGIVING STUFF IS OUT ON DISPLAY!!!  THANKS JULES!!!

Pictures with a buncha kiddos that follow me around everyday

Week 23 Sunshine, Daisies, and a baptism :)

Week 23

Dear Fam and Frieeendly people, 

Hello everyone, I hope everyone had a good week as always. I really can't believe its November already, the past 5 months have just flown RIGHT by haha. I still feel so new at everything but I bet that is how I will feel on the mission...I still have moments of, "well that was a first..." So I feel like when I can stop saying that then I will be old in the mission. Anyway about the week, this week was a challenging one pero sobrang masaya ako kasi nackaroon po kami ng binyag noong sabado!  We had a few really awesome things happen with our investigators this week too! I feel like I have been here long enough to make friends with our investigators and have talked to people enough that they are starting to see that we aren't scary people trying to bring them to the dark side...we are just normal people who devote 14 hours everyday to teaching and converting them...same thing right...?  Haha on to the week! 

So lets start out with the best part of the week. Paulie's baptism! :) All I can say, I am happy to have been apart of Paulie's conversion process. This is the first person that I have taught and found, then finished his teaching to the end...and it just felt so good! It was an awesome service and Paulie was just SO ready. He shared with me right before he went back, he turned around and was like Bishop Zarbock...yes he calls me a bishop...I just wanted to say that I am so grateful for you. And it just brought tears to my eyes holy cow.  So grateful to have met someone who seeks for the truth so diligently.  Baptisms are always an amazing thing to apart of, but the best part is when the whole event was over and my cute trainee was like, "well what's next?" haha, we go out and do the whole thing again.

Paulie's BAPTISM!!

Paulie with his kids--they're up next wait and see!

Paulie and Jerry--previous baptism of ours!
My two favorite guys of Makati 4th Ward!

Next is Trisha Kate--SHE CAME TO CHURCH :) We had an awesome lesson with her and talked about the importance of church.  Trisha Kate is so cool. Sister Guiuo and I  just love teaching her.  She is 15 and I feel like I can relate to her SO much. We invited her to a youth activity and we showed up to pick her up and she and her cute friend were all dressed up in their cute little dresses and I think she had a good time.  So she is really progressing, fingers crossed she keeps building that desire.  

I had a way awesome Gift of Tongues day on Thursday--All I can say is GOD IS GOOD....sometimes in my morning prayers, I've really started to be specific with the things that I need or want to accomplish in that day. And Thursday was an awesome day.  I was teaching a lesson to Amalia (one of our investigators), and I walked out of the lesson and Sister Guiuo turned to me and told me that that lesson was so smooth, no mess ups, no nothing--and I literally fist bumped, punch danced for a good 30 seconds--I am all about the tiny victories here haha  

To finish off, we just started to teach our first family!  I have never taught a whole family before and we had the opportunity this week. I LOVE it.  The wife's name is Almera and she and her husband have been through a lot and their 4 kids, one of their kids had almost passed away from an illness or something. And there is honestly such a special spirit when you can teach a family about how they can be together FOREVER.  I hope they progress, hoping for good things. 

I did mention that this week was a little bit of a challenging one, just the bumps and bruises that come with missionary work. But we went to this youth activity and I was feeling a little down, a little discouraged--but we were able to watch a Face to Face conference with Studio C (BYU TV show) and I was just kinda taking a minute to unwind for a second and then I caught a little bit of an answer one of the actors answered about the atonement. And he said something like, "I do my best and I know it still isn't THAT good, but thats where the Atonement comes in and I have to be humble enough to have Christ help me" and honestly it just brought me back to thinking about the power of the atonement. We need to be humble enough for it to help us. 

Love you all and I hope everyone has a week full of sunshines and daisies ;) 

Love, 

Sista Zee

Renaldo gave me a sunhat as a gift :)

No baby yet--but this is Angelie

VICTORY PIZZA after the baptism!

With the Bishop's wife

Working with Sister Pariz

After a rough day :(