God's love

Hello Pamilya!

This week went pretty ok. We had to go to the Mission Office earlier this week for Trainers/Trainee Meeting and I got to see Sister Roisum, Sister J. Davis (Kasama!), and Sister C Davis from my stay in the MTC. They're doing great and many hugs were exchanged. Know what is really embarrassing for an AP (assistant to the President)? When they put down that Elder Jones is playing the piano when there isn't even an Elder Jones in the mission at this point...I was about to joke around with him about which Elder Jones he was talking about: the one in California or the one in Arizona (that is where Tanner is right? please fix that for me

if not), but then he started apologizing profusely and immediately got a program fixed for me to have. Anyway, it was good and spiritual.

A couple days later, Sister Montemayor and I had an exchange with the STLs in Panichi. I was in Panichi with Sister Jipus and Sister Montemayor stayed in our area with Sister Douchane (Do-shane). It was great! Sister Jipus has a great love for the work and likes to talk and smile a lot. I keep forgetting that everyone has there own way of teaching: Sister Montemayor has more of a serious approach to the work and Sister Jipus, who is still serious about it, has a little more of a skip in her step, if that makes any sense. I learned a lot from her and the most interesting lesson we had was the one we had before we headed to the appartment. I don't remember the name of the dear sister, but she was very hard of hearing. I was supposed to start the lesson so, I raised my voice as loud as I could without sounding angry, and asked "KUMUSTA PO KAYO?" She looked at me for a second and said in Taglish "I'm sorry, I'm hard of hearing. Could you say that louder?" Sister Jipus and I just looked at each other and started to laugh really hard, we couldn't help it. It was just so funny that I was talking as loud as I could and then apparently it was't quite enough. Somewhere between our giggles, Sister Jipus switched places with me on the couch so that I was sitting closest to this sister so she could hear me. The next morning we did a CSP (community service project) with the district the STLs are in. We went to someone's mango field and helped clean up the dead leaves on the ground. 

That day, when I got back to Camiling. Sister Montemayor and I got out to work and we went to see the Rodillas sisters, who all have baptisms coming up. We taught the twins first, they're 11, and it went pretty well. After we were done teaching them, their older sister, Diza Mae (14), came over so we could teach her. We start our lessons by singing a hymn, but when we started singing, her father, who was passed out on a bed they have outside by the side of house, woke up. (Just as a note, we do have permission to teach these girls) I guess he was experiencing a hangover and started to shout. We were on a different side of the house, fortunately, (our presence would have just aggravated him even more) and Diza Mae quickly pointed a way for us to crouch/crawl under the house (yes, under) to get to the opposite side of the house her dad was on...we moved our lesson to a nearby dry rice field. We had said the opening prayer, when we were joined by the twins and the last sister, Donita (18). We asked if everything was ok and Donita started talking to Sister Montemayor in Tagalog, but I understood enough to know that she was talking about the lack of support they were all getting from their dad and how his drinking habit was hurting them. As she was talking though, I was focusing my attention on Diza and the twins...they were crying. My heart ached with them, I don't really like seeing others in pain and not know exactly how to comfort them. I sat there for a second, asking God if there was something I could do or say that would help them, I had lost track of what Donita was saying, I just knew they were hurting, when something on the ground caught my eye. It was something that Sister Montemayor had shown me a couple of weeks previously, I had almost forgotten about it; a seed pod. 

No, I haven't gone crazy. there's something kind of special about the seeds inside this pod, and I felt that it needed to be shared with these sisters, but I waited till the end of the lesson. The Spirit was so strong while

we taught and we were all crying at one point or another during the lesson. But right at the end, I broke open a couple of the seed pods and gave each of them a seed. Here's the lesson I wanted to prove and felt they

needed to be reminded of: God loves them and He shows His love in many ways. I'm including a picture of the seed and I think you'll understand what I mean.

Mahal ko kayo, look for the Hand of the Lord everyday,

Sister Jones  

p.s.

Yes, I do shower with a bucket of cold water...it's different and can be a little difficult, especially if you don't want to get too much stuff wet in the bathroom when it already takes half the day for the water to drain completely and for the residue to dry.