Week 69 "I chose the right"

Week 69

The theme of the primary program yesterday was "Choose the Right." And Jon leans over to us at church and says, "Sisters na sa isip ko na I chose the right kasi nagsimba ako." or "Sisters I think I chose the right because I came to church."  That just put a big smile on my face. Grateful for little miracles everybody. They really do happen. :) 

Jon Grullo--our investigator, came to church to see his kids in the Primary Program!

Dear family and friends, 

Hope everyone had an awesome week. Our week was so tiring that I even took the elevator 3 times this week to go up to the third floor...sad life, and my knees have even started to hurt haha. Like have I turned into my Dad?---no offense dad, I love you and hope your knee is feeling better. But anyway...it's always a rewarding week though when you get to see the fruits of your labors. Matvei gave the closing prayer in Sacrament and we gotta see some investigators come to church.  Always a tender mercy EVERY time you see an investigator at church, well at least for me it is. 

Lets get right to it. JON GRULLO. Oh man we just love the guy. He is the husband of a recent convert. And I guess back then he wanted NOTHING to do with the missionaries but God does soften peoples hearts and he is doing so awesome. We taught him two times this week and he came to church this week to see his 2 cute kids in the primary program. All the members were so good with him. I really loved our lesson on the Word of Wisdom this week...he is a heavy smoker...but we are really seeing him put trust and faith in the Lord. The thing he kept repeating back to us...that he knows that his body is from God so he needs to take care of it. So we are kind of helping him ween off of cigarettes and he accepted baptism for December, so he can be baptized with his daughter turning 8. So awesome! 

That was the best part of the week for sure...also had exchanges this week with Sister Ramirez where I met the coolest guy named Esteve. He is like 80 years old but wants to be baptized. SO awesome. Also talked with a guy from Europe...haha I tried to introduce us. "Yeah so um we are um mormons..you could come to our...church, yeah...its really close." It was terrible. English is escaping me haha...that sounds so lame but its so true.  We had awesome exchanges. I again am realizing that I am the one learning from these sisters. They are so great. 

Tatay Esteve...met him on exchanges. He's gonna get baptized

End things off with Liza..talked about her last week. She is doing good too...slower on the progressing but she has an awesome support system. Her daughter is taking temple prep, and she lives with members.  We read the introduction of the book of mormon with like 5 of us there. And it was really fun...it felt like a book club and we had to try to control all the ladies from getting off topic and telling stories. MAN its rough...I felt like a referee.  But she is doing good...she has been taught before so we are just really trying to help her feel the spirit. Shoot some prayers for her. 

Those are the best moments of the week..we have been doing a lot of finding in our area and its always the best to teach people for the first time and to tell about the restoration.  So blessed to be doing what I am doing. 

Finish off with a spiritual thought...I finished Jesus the Christ this week and it felt SO awesome to complete it. Its been like 4-5 months in the making. And I shut the book..and just thought, "okay what did I learn?" Simply I think I really have a testimony of my Savior Jesus Christ. That he really atoned for us...and I really do have a testimony that he will come again. I really do feel the truth of the scriptures...its been so fun to rediscover scriptures that I love and the history of Christ's life. I am also grateful for the atonement..that we have a chance to have fresh starts and clean slates.  Heavenly Father has given us that gift...and really is there nothing better than knowing we can have a fresh start to our life as many times as we need because of the atonement?  So awesome. 

Have a good week everyone :) 

Love, 

Sister Zarbock 

MEGA MALL :) There are sooooo many malls here

Mega Mall

Us at the Mega Mall

Just the outdoor market

......and a pig head

At the Elders baptism :)

Teaching Jon Grullo and his family

We had our LUAU PARTAYYYYYY!

Taho--its this hot drink. Its so good. Someone stands at the bottom of
your apartment building and yells. "TAAAAHOOOOO" and then you
come down with your own cup and he fills it up. SO GOOD. 

Week 68 The Iron Gates

Week 68

So we were trying to get in the church for District Meeting and it was raining SO hard outside...and outside the church there are these huge gates. You have to unlock like 3 locks to get inside. We couldn't get one of the locks. We tried for like seriously an hour..nothing worked. Elders were hopping over the fence. I tried and almost broke the key....we were like "How many missionaries does it take to open up the gate to the church?" Turns out kids had stuck wood in the lock and we nicknamed the gate...the iron gates...no one could get inside. We ended up going to a different chapel. Funny times. 

The Iron Gates :)

Dear Fam and Friends, 

So this week was full of lots and lots of fun surprises, God likes to keep you on your toes and that's what happened to us this week. First surpise...our area got split so the Elders took all of our progressing investigators and we are now in a brand new part of the area. Same ward but we are indeed starting fresh again. So that was a fun surprise. And the second one was that we had MLC this week!  Whoop!!  And Singer slept over for the night coming from Palawan. Definitely talked each other's ears off for a solid 3 hours. So you could say that it was a good week. And to end the week we had a baptism, Matvei! It was so awesome :)

Matvei's baptism! Elders in our district...tall white people are from Australia.

So to start out we had some awesome lessons with our investigators this week. One of them being the husband of one of our recent converts. His name is Jon Grullo.  His wife was baptized back in June. They are the only people we know in our new area...so we've been visiting them a ton.  But he is really such an awesome guy. They have 3 kids...and all he wants is his family to be happy.  He has seen such an awesome difference in their family since his wife was baptized. They never argue, and they read the children's book of mormon as a family. SUPER SOLID. Haha I read that too... :) 

Also we have another awesome investigator named Lisa... we have been teaching her lots this week too. We found her last week...and she carried over to the new area. WHOOP!  So we are happy about that. She is the mom of one of the members. She accepted a baptismal date so we are just shooting prayers for her. She couldn't come to church this week...it was actually my first Sunday in the ward.  They invited me to share my testimony. They didn't even try to say my name...they were like..."We would like to invite Sister Zaaar...New Sister missionary to share her testimony." Haha that's me. But it is a really great ward. 

Also Matvei was baptized...she was just the happiest person in the world. She was baptized with her little sister. She was skyping her mom so I was in charge of holding the phone and kinda talking her mom through what was happening.  I could here her mom crying on the other end of the phone. And man I was all emotional... But she bore the simplest, happiest testimony afterward. Matvei's parents work abroad in Saudi Arabia so she lives with the Bishop but has been waiting for over a year to be baptized.  It was a day to remember for sure :) So blessed to have met them. 

Matvei and her little sister--baptism day!

Matvei Baptism pic

Finish off with a quick thought from MLC... Just a quote from President Fermanis. He wrote in BIG letters on the board about being a leader and regards to treating people.... "Show an abundance of love, an abundance of appreciation, and pray for an understanding heart."  That has hit me SO hard for the whole week. Whatever is going on in your life, its important to treat people how Jesus would treat them.  Just one more that I loved was in regards to setting goals is... "I do not know the key to success but I do know the key to failure is trying to please everyone."  It just reminded me that when it comes down to it...we have to have a nice balance of being a good person and focusing doing what WE need to do to help our personal faith. 

Love those two thoughts...they hit home to me this week :) 

Love you all, 

Sister Zarbock 

Flooding in our area

More flooding in our area

Remember LITA AND JAN JAN...cried when I saw them.
We are in the same stake now and I scouted them out at church. 

Mesa Family

Mesa Family

Our investigator Mary Ann

MLC group pic

MLC--Sister Craig (black shirt) also became an STL (Sister Training Leader)

Always the best to see Sister Singer :)

Sister Cabrera also became an STL

Companions....Sister Baldelomar

I made Sister Baldelomar tacos...she LOVED them!

This is the Primary President....LIKE YOU Jules haha!

Week 67 Broken Toaster

Week 67

We had transfers this week and I came to my new apartment and all of the Sisters that we live with go...YOU ARE THE ONE THAT BROKE THE TOASTER. Hahaha I was sooo confused. But then I started thinking about it...I did exchanges here all the time when I was in Makati and I totally remembered I broke their toaster like 8 months ago and they still hadn't gotten a new one. I just laughed and laughed. Good times. 

Dear Family and Friends, 

Hello! :) So good to be talking to you...it is every week but I am so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends. Thank you for your emails and support and love. I appreciate everything :) First off, I transferred! And it feels SO good to be in a new place and have a fresh start. I always feel like a second wind of energy coming to a new place. Its awesome.  My new area is Mandaluyong 1st ward.  Its the weirdest De Ja Vu thing of my life because when I was a brand new missionary...the missionaries in this area were my STLs. Now everything is so weird because I am the STL now. Makes me feel old but still feel like a baby...you would think I would feel like an old, dignified missionary....haha just a greenie who forgot my umbrella twice this week and still doesn't know how to budget. 

My new companion is Sister Baldelomar...I call her calbo. So random. Bald in Tagalog means calbo. So thus calbo was born. She was my batch coming in to the mission. She is super awesome, super serious too....it takes so much for me to get her to laugh. I feel like I am put with all of the serious people of the mission. But nonetheless, we get along just fine. I am excited. She has been in this area for 6 transfers. Holy crap that is sooo long...she knows EVERY single person in our area. Its great. 

New companion--Sister Baldelomar

When I left Paranaque I said goodbye to Gemma and her cute family :) She is super awesome and I hope she progresses. I will get updates from Sister Lubas and at MLC. Still am praying for that one.  It was a bittersweet moment leaving Paranaque. But excited for a new place and new experiences.

Saying goodbye to Gemma and her cute family 

 

We had some awesome lessons for the week...one of them was teaching Mattvey (12 year old girl) that will be baptized on Saturday.  So we are looking forward to that. She is so awesome and is the Bishop's niece.  The bishop is super awesome here...he is only a convert of like 7 years actually. So that is super fun. I don't remember names of anyone but her...but I am excited to work with Sister Baldelomar. She is awesome!

Me and Sister Baldelomar at our Bishop's house

This is the bishop 

Awesome view from our Bishop's house!

Makati is on the left side, Mandaluyong is on the right!

More pics we took 10 minutes later.....so sweet!

Awesome sunset!

Something very cool happened on Sunday. Mandaluyong Stake was created and with the creation of this new stake...there are now 100 stakes in the Philippines. SO COOL :) Feel so blessed to be here, everyone is so excited because Mandaluyong has been waiting for SO long to become a stake. We didn't have tickets to attend the conference at the fancy theater but we watched it at Buendia Chapel. Elder Andersen came to speak and everything...it was a big deal! A lot of pioneer members of the Philippines were able to bare their testimonies...and it was such a testimony builder for me for them to talk about 'their' missionaries that taught them. One thing Elder Andersen talked about was "finding joy in the process."  I actually love that. Often times we think if we are rich enough, far enough in school, better at Tagalog, skinnier THEN we will be happy. But often times we just need to find joy in the process.  It was a super special meeting! Blessed to be serving at this time! 

To finish off with a spiritual thought...Before I left I bore my testimony in Sacrament meeting at Paranaque and was so inspired by hearing the testimonies of members of the Philippines and Elder Andersen (the apostle)...and the power of testimony has been my study for the last couple of days.  I really like in 2 Nephi 31 and 33 how Nephi says he "glories in plainess" and I think the most powerful testimonies are the simplest ones.  

Just thought I'd end with my testimony in Tagalog 

Alam ko po na ang simbahan na ito ay totoo at ito po ang kaharian ng Diyos dito sa mundo ngayon. Alam ko na sa pamamagitan ni Joseph Smith ipinanumbalik ng Diyos ang simbahan na ito sa mundo muli. Kahit anong nararanasan natin sa buhay, alam ko na maaari natin hanapin ang kapayapaan at kaligayahansa buhay kung susundin nating mga kautusan ng Diyos. Nagpapasalamat po ako para sa ebanghelyo ni Jesucristo at ang kaalaman na meyroon ako na ang pamilya pang walang hanggan. Kung gagawin natin na lahat na makakaya natin, magtagumpay tayo sa buhay. Maganda yan. Sobrang masaya na ako ay isang misyonero ng simbahan ng Diyos sa panahon ngayon. maganda naman ang oportunidad na ito. 

Have a great day errybody! 

Love, 

Sister Zarbock 

Went to the Mall of Asia last P-day in Paranque before transfers

Biggest mall I've ever seen in my life :)

Mall of Asia

Inside Mall of Asia!

Mormons at the Mall of Asia who came up to us :)  This means "heart"

This guy is someone who asked to take a picture with me cause he thought
I was famous and asked if I would be his girlfriend...I gave him a pamphlet

Got your luau package mom!