Kenna in Quezon City: March 24, 2015

I thought the feet were cute. :)

Here we are again!

This week was the best! I got to feed a newborn puppy, eat the smallest banana in the world, and we finally had our baptism! I'll recap it quickly:

We started out with 2 baptismal interviews, the first was Sister Yolly. Right before we went to her interview I told Sister Strickland, "Hey, you know what would be funny? If she and her husband weren't married, like what happened with Brother Carlo and Sister Shara." We laughed too quickly. As we started filling out her baptismal record with her, she told us a different last name. As luck would have it, she's not married to Brother Bernie. In fact, he's still married to someone else but they've been separated 18 years. He and Yolly have been together for 9 years and have a child together so we asked the elders what to do. We wanted to cry... It didn't make sense because Brother Bernie was baptized last year while they were living together AND was ordained to the priesthood, so now we're questioning the elders who baptized him. How was he baptized without fixing their law of chastity problem? Thankfully, we found out all they have to do is get a certificate of no marriage which is a legal document that shows he is still married and can't marry Yolly but they have been togehter for long enough that she can be baptized. Divorce here is really expensive so nobody does it. On a happier note, she has been praying and asking the Lord to make her happy in life as a way of her knowing the church is true. She received an answer alright. She just found out she's pregnant and most likely with twins. She's practically beaming now when we see her. God works in mysterious ways!

We also had an activity -- a family home evening for investigators. We taught them how to hold family home evening, how to teach their children, about the eternal family unit and gave them a church tour. We placed the baptismal service directly after so that they would be able to witness one and see how it was done. It was a huge success! We taught Julie, our investigator, right before we went to the ward FHE and her brother who we had never before met told us he wanted to come. We were excited and taught him before the activity. After we finished the lesson, he read the whole pamphlet, started the Book of Mormon and came to church the next day with his sisters. I'm SO glad we bumped into Claire one day on the street, she saying she was a member and didn't know where to go to church. The result has been the unification of she and her two siblings as they progress toward baptism. At the baptism, Bryan bore such a sweet testimony about how he knew he had been forgiven of his sins and how he would not ever be returning to them.

Milanie... we miss her. She was a week away from baptism when she got a job. Now instead of teaching her laws and ordinances we're trying to maintain her testimony. Because of her job she stopped progressing completely. She works from 9PM to 6AM and she stopped reading the scriptures and coming to church. When we went there last night she hardly smiled, just kind of stared at the ground. I don't know what she's going through in her life, but the Lord does. So Sister Strickland and I decided to go over there without any plans. We decided to teach about how the Lord takes care of us no matter what but most especially when we are obedient. We talked about how much He loves her and wants to give her what's best. We asked her to pray about what to do at the end and when we looked up, there were tears in her eyes. I knew at that moment that the Lord was confirming what we had told her was true. It was amazing. This work is the best. I love these people. I love the way that I see Heavenly Father work through me. And...

I LOVE being a missionary. Have I ever mentioned that?

Love,

Sister Wilson

Singing at the baptism

Bryan the day before his baptism

My kuto!!! I'll always cherish and treasure this in my journal. (Lice. Actual size.)

I had to take a picture here, this dog reminds me of Poppy. She's spoiled and eats better food than I do. She does the same begging thing as Poppy as well. Her name is Penny, pretty close.

Feeding a newborn puppy :')) It was literally only hours old and its mother was attacking it so we had to bottle feed it. We came there intending to teach a less active but they were busy with the birthing dog, lol.

This is the smallest banana I've ever seen, the length of my pinky finger and soooo gooood.

Editor's Note: I'd asked Kenna to send more pictures of all the things she wants to remember, and all the things that if she relayed the information to you, you would never believe. This is her reply:

The problem with taking pictures is... it's difficult for me as a foreigner because 1. it seems rude to photograph the squatter areas, 2. we aren't allowed to use cameras in proselyting, and 3. it makes me seem rich and people will want to mug me. So I don't take as much as I want to, but I have some this week you'll like!