HAPPY NEW YEAR!
My first email of 2015! I really have high hopes for the work this year. It's taken a pretty rough start because New Years is even more important here than Christmas. Nobody has been home, everyone is busy, no members can work with us, it's been pretty hard. We've been contacting on the streets like fiends hoping to teach someone, anyone. We actually found some wonderful people last Sunday while trying to grow our area by working in our farthest places. We don't usually go there because it's so far but we gave it a full day last Sunday. We found tons of new investigators. I really experienced the power of the Holy Ghost working through me in a bunch of these lessons so I know they're people the Lord wants us to be teaching. Brother Amos was a referral that we contacted and he has a big family - very kind people. So I was shocked when the lesson began and he began firing off attack after attack without allowing us to respond. I said a prayer in my heart and began to speak despite his talking. I don't even remember what I said, and I didn't even really know what I was saying at that moment but whatever it was, it worked. We pulled out and taught doctrine using his own bible and he allowed me to respond to his anti-Mormon slander about prophets. His response a few minutes later was a humbled, "Ok. I can accept that." I got chills because I was being spoon fed what to say by the Holy Ghost. Little did I realize that it wasn't Amos who needed to hear the message but his 30 year old son silently listening on the sidelines. After his father left the room he told us how many religions he had experimented with and how he wanted to know more about the prophet. I love the gospel! Sometimes it feels like an emotional workout in this work. It's a fact to me now that even when I feel like my emotional energy is drained to the dregs and I feel like I have nothing more to give, the Lord upholds me.
We also experienced how service softens peoples' hearts. We've been trying to teach an LA for 4 transfers and she wouldn't even talk to us. Yesterday she was outside washing her clothes and we just greeted her and dove right in to help her. She started talking to us and even joking with us. After we finished her laundry she told us we could come back on Sunday. It's amazing how the spirit can even work without words, just a Christlike gesture. It's so true that people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.
Now I have to tell you about New Years! It was the craziest New Year celebration of my life. We had lunch as a whole stake - it was a boodle fight where you eat with your hands off of a banana leaf. They dished out like 20 full roasted chickens and 10 gigantic cakes, and of course... seemingly endless rice, no plates or utensils. It was hilariously gluttonous looking if you can picture this. The bishop grabbed my hand and slapped down a giant piece of cake in it and that's pretty much when our district stopped caring and ate like cave men. It then turned into a contest to see which of the foreigners would eat the salted eggs. They're these big purple eggs that have solidified by means of salt. I could hardly keep it down. Then our ward mission leader started wiping cake on peoples' faces and a food fight broke out because of the stake presidency and everyone got into it.
Later in the evening we had a 6 PM curfew where we played cards and wrote letters for a few hours. We were sent home with a ton of biko which is a coconut stick rice and then our neighbors brought us over a full course meal including drinks, pork BBQ, fruit salad, and carbonara. When it got to 11 PM things started getting crazy. The fireworks got stronger and music was blaring full blast from every house. 11:50, the entire country came out with blow horns, pots and pans, people got into their cars and turned on their car alarms and emergency blinkers, the music got louder and the fireworks just started ripping and roaring through the streets and in the sky. The sky lit up in every direction with flashes of light and color as far as the eye could see and the whole world got smoky. It gave me a brilliant headache but it was incredible. Sure beats beating the ball drop - more fun in the Philippines. Maligayang Bagong Taon!
Sister Wilson
P.S. I made a video that was too big to upload... sorry. Enjoy this picture of Filipino kids in a mall enjoying man made snow.
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