Subject: Week 12
" WHAT A CRAZY WEEK!!
Tuesday: This morning we were called by our Zone Leaders and told that Sister Racaza would be transferred to Taytay tomorrow.
AHH WE TOTALLY KNEW SHE WOULD BE TRANSFERRED BECAUSE SHE HAS BEEN HERE
IN MARIKINA FOR OVER 6 MONTHS. WOAH haha. She will be training a
missionary from the PROVO MTC and they will be opening up a new area in
TAYTAY. HOW SWEET! Today we had our PDAY and we also had orders to not
have any work or studies...so that we could clean our apartments for
transfers tomorrow.
So, we all deep cleaned our not so clean apartment haha! After cleaning
and emailing, we all headed over to ukay-ukay (thrift store) because
that was where the other sisters wanted to go. Sister Soliven and I also
decided to buy donuts..it has been a while. For dinner, we headed
downstairs from our apartment to Bishop's house for a kick-butt
awesomely delicious dinner!! BBQ, rice, fish, palabok, pizza and
dessert. I wanted to die because I was so full. Sister Racaza took her
goodbye pictures with Bishop's family and with us. Oh we are going to
miss her!!!
Wednesday:
TRANSFERS! Sister Tibungcog and Sister Racaza headed over to
President's house to meet their new companions super early in the
morning. Sister Soliven and I re-cleaned the apartment for Sister
Tibungcog and her new companion. We waited and waited and waited...and
they came! Sister Tibungcog's new companion is Sister Sa'olotoga Sione,
from Samoa!! She is super cool!!! For lunch, we headed to Mang-Inasal,
however, Sister Soliven and I ended up skipping lunch with them because
we had an appointment at President's house. After not complaining about
how hungry we were on the way to President's house, we arrive there and
they fed us all the leftover food from the new missionary orientations.
We were also able to see Sister Racaza, because the Provo Missionaries
came early in the afternoon, which was during the time of our
appointment. After our appointment, we got another taxi (with a driver
who just loved to talk and talk....haha), we drove by a huge river which
was dangerously overflowing into a city (not our area) and headed
safely back home (: We were unable to work, due to a few flooding spots
in our area (which we had no idea about haha)...so we stayed home.
Thursday:
Today we had another meeting with President, but instead of it being
held at his house, it would be at the Mission Office, which was perfect
because we needed to go to the Mission Office anyway to pick up a few
items. After our long ride to the appointment and then back home, we had
a super late lunch/dinner thing Chowking. Even though certain parts of
our area have curfews, we wanted to visit a few families and to see if
we could get some teaching done. We first visited the Aplacador Family
(baptismal date in October!) and we taught them the intro to the Book of
Mormon...apparently Gabriel (dad) had been reading the Book already, a
lot of it. GOSH THE FAMILY IS SUPER COOL! Afterwards, we visited Jane
and she is such a sweet heart. She is just eagerly awaiting her
baptismal date, as well as her daughter Jonyell (8). We then stopped by
Mary Rose house, whom we have not been able to see for quite some time.
She was so happy to see us! In the jeepney ride home, we nearly died
because the driver was driving and turning super fast. Sister Soliven
and I nearly flew out of our seats a couple times. I wanted to throw up!
(:
Friday:
For companionship study, we all studied as a Kabahay (everyone living
in the house). Following which, WEEKLY PLANNING! Gosh, weekly planning
is such a genius idea and it goes from 10am-1pm
(we plan our lessons and goals for the following week. Super
effective). Afterwards, we headed back to the Mission Office to pick up
more items. SO MUCH TRAFFIC! We were pretty much away the whole day, but
we did our best to try and hurry back to Cupang and find people to
teach, but we were unsuccessful this night. That's okay!!
Saturday:
Today we were unable to work, due to a few emergency texts from our
Mission President, but all is well because we were able to receive our
SUPPORT (money). So Sister Soliven and I used the day to buy our
groceries and have dinner from Jolibee (: ...that was pretty much our Saturday,
which included lots of studying of course (: Also, Sister Soliven told
me the story of the Ibong Adarna. The Ibong Adarna is a very
beautiful/magical bird. When it sings, people fall asleep. If it poops
on you, you turn to stone. It was a pretty cool story...so I translated
it into English...which took up four pages of my notebook...oops (:
Sunday: I LOVE SUNDAYS! Today is Sister Sione's first Sunday!
It's hilarious because people think she is filipino and that Sister
Tibungcog is Samoan...it is the other way around! I nearly cried at
church because the Aplacador family came and right behind them was the
Balanlay Family (Less Actives, who have not attended church for quite
some time...and it had been a while since we had last seen them.). At
church, we watched the Primary Program (childrens program). So cute and
they all wore white! The rest of church time just seemed to fly by so
smoothly and both families loved being there with us and all of the
members. For lunch we headed over to the Micairin's house; we always get
full with the food they give us, but this time..we all just wanted to
explode and sleep. So when we got home, we all took one hour naps before
studying and heading out to work! Unfortunately for me and Sister
Soliven, many of our appointments had fallen through, so we ended up
visiting Jane and giving her and her family an awesome lesson. Jonyell
(8) gave tons of feedback during our lessons and she gave one of the
most beautiful prayers I have ever heard. It was so cool. Oh Sundays I
love you.
Today: Sister Sione's first Pday!! She actually
wants to try Balut....so, we are planning to eat some much later,
perhaps in the evening after work. I am still not quite sure what else
we are doing today, but Pdays are always tons of fun...just like every
other day here in the mission (:
Anyways, thank you all for keeping up with my crazy
emails, that sometimes may not make sense; and thank you to those who
have been sending me emails and letters (: I imagine everyone to be
doing super!!! Christmas here in the Philippines has already begun and
people are using some pretty crazy-big decorations!! Anywho, I miss all
of you! The Church is true!
Sister Tatiana Escobar "
