Philippines Mission--Week 44--Sister Johnson: Snake Killer!

Being silly with our branch president!

Maayong hapon! Here's my lovely letter for the week!

February 9th, Tuesday, Sister Delos Reyes, Sister Canar (STL), Sister Hagedorn and I all got ready and went with the senior couple, Elder and Sister Bock to the Kawit meetinghouse for our district meeting! There we talked about the role of the Holy Ghost and how it can work in the conversion of our investigators, IF we are worthy enough to have it around to help us.

After the district meeting, we all went to Angel's Pizza and had some lunch, and then the senior couple took Sister Delos Reyes and I to Canhabagat and worked with us there. We first visited Sister Elda Mae, Jason, and Jun Jun Arnaiz. Sister Elda Mae/Jason are boyfriend/girlfriend, and Jun Jun is Jason's brother. They're all pretty interested in the gospel and Brother Jun Jun really wants to be baptized, but the problem is he's living with his girlfriend while still married. It's really hard to get a divorce here in the Philippines because they're pretty strict, so people usually just live together. But we've talked to our mission president and he can be baptized! So we're just going to continue teaching him so he can learn more. He's a little slow at learning because he had a stroke, but he's so awesome and so nice!

After that, we visited the other Arnaiz family (relatives) and taught them about the plan of salvation. Sometimes it's hard to teach their family because there's 13 kids they're so loud, but the family really loves our messages and they are starting to come to church! After teaching them, we left Canhabagat and taught our investigator, Jhon Rafh who has a baptism on Saturday, so we could finish all of his lessons and prepare him for that special day! He's pretty excited to be baptized. He's the one that was baptized at the age of 8, but then his records got lost so we have to reteach him and re-baptize him.

After all of the work, Sister Delos Reyes and I returned back home and started planning for the night, when Sister Hagedorn yelled, "There's a snake again!" So we walked into the kitchen and saw a little snake near our table moving around. Everyone was pretty scared to go near it and get rid of it, so they nominated me to be the snake killer. I grabbed a chair and broom. and then crouched on the chair and started moving the snake towards the corner of the kitchen. Sister Canar then said, "Grab some salt! Snakes can't move if you throw salt on them!" And of course, I believed her. So I grabbed some of the rock salt and just threw it on/around the snake, and guess what . . . it didn't work, haha. All of the other sisters were just sitting on the desks/chairs screaming at me to kill it. It reminded me of, "Kill it! Kill it! Don't let it get away!" (If you're confused, just ask my family what that line means, haha). Sister Delos Reyes then took some poison for cockroaches and threw it on the snake and it started freaking out.. It was the saddest thing ever to have to kill it . . . BUT, our mission president said to kill anything that moves inside of our apartment (besides our companion, of course). The snake kept moving towards us so Sister Delos Reyes and I just took some brooms and moved it in the corner. I then wacked it a couple of times and took our little dust pan and tried cutting his head off. It was sad, but it had to be done. Sister Delos Reyes told us that she found some snake eggs in our yard and some were hatched; so that means there's more coming. We're pretty nervous to sleep at night now. But that was our little adventure for that night!

February 10th, Wednesday, I traveled to Bogo with Sister Magdaraog (STL) because I went on splits with her for that day. We got punted a bit, but the people we got to visit were Sister Laxamana and Sister Herosita. We taught Sister Laxamana about courage to stand up for what is right, and to help her 15 year old daughter to choose the right. She's having trouble with her daughter, so we tried to give her words of encouragement to help her to understand her purpose as a mother.

We then taught Sister Herosita about charity and love because she's having trouble with her brother. Sister Magdaraog told me that Sister Herosita hasn't been taking the sacrament, so we followed up on that and she told us that she hasn't taken it in a while because she's been angry with her brother and his actions. Her brother is having trouble with drinking/smoking and she's been really angry with him because he isn't listening to her advice that she gives him. We were teaching outside and so it was pretty noisy, and Sister Herosita was pretty distracted because she has a little store and sells stuff. But every time Sister Magdaraog and I testified/taught, the Spirit always came back and I loved it! I loved being on splits with Sister Magdaraog because she's so funny, patient, and really loving towards everyone.

February 12th, Friday, Sister Delos Reyes went to the church because our investigator, Jhon Rafh was being interviewed by our district leader for his baptism the next day! And guess what... HE PASSED! He's definitely ready to be baptized.

February 13th, Saturday, is the baptismal day of Jhon Rafh our investigator! We had the baptism in the morning around 11:30 a.m. because afterwards the branch was doing a "caravan visit" where they all split up with the missionaries and go teach some less actives in their area. The baptism went really well and I really felt the Spirit, especially when Jhon Rafh entered into the water and came back out. That's my favorite part of the baptisms. The "caravan visit" went pretty well too. Sister Delos Reyes and I split up and got to visit some investigators/less actives with some members. We visited Sister Idsan (less active) and taught her about Heavenly Father/Jesus Christ again because she has a heart problem and doesn't remember things really well so we always go over and try to remind her about the church. We then taught our investigator Brother Jonathon about the Book of Mormon. After that, Sister Delos Reyes and I got back together and taught Brother Jhon Rafh, Sister Jenessa, and her mom, who are all of our investigators.

February 14th, Sunday, It's Valentine's Day! And nobody here really celebrates it so it's really different not seeing a thousand decorations displayed in the store and tons of candy to buy. But this Sunday was pretty awesome! One of our areas, Canhabagat, is pretty far from the church and so a lot of our members/investigators can't come to church, so what the Medellin branch did, is that we decided to make a special sacrament for those living in Canhabagat so the people there could go to church! Sister Delos Reyes and I split up so she could go to church in Medellin, and I could go to church in Canhabagat for our investigators/members there. A lot of people actually showed up and a lot of our investigators as well! After the sacrament, I taught the gospel principles class about Heavenly Father and who he is. Our investigators were pretty happy that they didn't have to spend so much money to go to church in Medellin. Sister Delos Reyes and I then went on splits to teach so we could get more lessons and we ended up with 26 lessons for the whole week! The mission goal is 25 and we beat it! Whoop whoop! We were pretty excited about it because the past 2 weeks we've fallen short on the lessons because we've gotten punted a lot or have been sick. What a blessing!

"For maximum happiness, peace, and contentment...may we choose a positive attitude"

-Thomas S. Monson

I've noticed this week, that the more I have a positive attitude, the more the days go by faster and are a lot easier. We've been punted quite a bit this week, but because of our positive attitude, we just pressed on and continued and ended up with more lessons then we needed! It was so awesome!

I love you all and hope you have an awesome, positive week!

Love,

Sister Johnson