September 14, 2014

This is a girl who lives on top of a rice field. The houses are connected by sidewalks in the middle of it. Pretty cool. Ignore how fat I am...

Hanging out at the park before a service project. :) A bunch of old ladies were doing Zumba... it was so hard to resist the Latin beat rushing through my veins.

Us and Danielle... I love her SO. Much.

This is facing the Barosoain church. It's a statue of one of the heroes of the Philippines. Being at that church didn't feel like the Philippines... it felt like being in Mexico or Spain. This culture has so many influences it's crazy

The old church.

An old, old piano in some sort of exhibit... it's in horrible condition but it's cool anyway. :)

Creepy wax dolls at the museum... these guys are important but I can't remember why, haha!

They have cool wall murals like this everywhere!

 The first week of training has been a great success! :) 

I absolutely love my anak, Sister Gison. She's from Ilo Ilo, Philippines. Their dialect there is different so sometimes she has a hard time speaking Tagalog. Haha, I definitely didn't expect that. But she's great, such a cutie and very sweet, humble, teachable and willing to do anything. I love the diligence. Even though she had a cold and received very little sleep she was willing to work when we got home from training. 5 hours out of the MTC, I took her out to work and she extended a baptismal date on the first appointment. They accepted, too! (I found their house by accident (but I know nothing is ever an accident in this work).) I love seeing her apply the things we study and practice. I'm really gaining lots of confidence being a trainer and finding I can do so much more than I realized... 

We've also been trying extra hard to follow the spirit. One night we were looking for the house of a referral and it was kind of dark but I didn't think anything of it. Then I felt very strongly I needed to quickly turn around and go back. Sister Gison didn't question, she just followed me. As we walked back I saw a man lurking in the shadows that I didn't see the first time, watching us very closely. I'm not sure what would have happened, but after that we ran into a woman selling fish that really wanted us to visit her. She was leaving so we never would have met her if we hadn't come back. I'm so grateful for the Holy Ghost in my life!

Many are asking about the typhoon that's happening right now. It's pretty rainy and the wind is really strong (strong enough to turn my umbrella into a satellite dish) but there's no damage to anything yet. We swept some leaves off the porch this morning... We still worked in the storm last night despite the flood water and we were pretty much the only people out in it, heheh. 

I got to see the movie 17 Miracles about one of the handcart companies last p-day and it really opened my eyes to how very involved our Heavenly Father really is in our lives. We sometimes simply become desensitized and stop noticing it. Especially as a missionary, I know I see miracles daily that I don't even recognize as miracles. Consequently I've started reflecting at the end of each day what miracles I've seen throughout the day and writing them in my journal. It's been a huge eye opener to me.

I love you all!

Sister Wilson