Week 27: Wow it's been 6 MONTHS!

January 14, 2019

This week during a lesson with a less active woman, her 5 year old daughter couldn't stop looking at me and laughing and saying "makinis" which means "flawless". My companion said that anyone who is white is flawless to any Filipino. So that was a great self confidence boast cuz oh man am i far from flawless! But i tried to tell this little girl that she is so much prettier than i am, but haha she just kept laughed at me!

So i felt like a free woman at the beginning of this week when i didn't have to use crutches anymore. We were finally able to visit the Calacsan family, down the big hill. The dad is the one who said he would come to church last Sunday but didn't come. We found out that the dad was sick and that's why he couldn't come. But wow is this family starting to progress. We taught them a lesson about families and how living the gospel can bless them and their family so much and this was the first lesson that everyone in the family was present and giving their own answers to the questions that we were asking them. At the end of the lesson we ask them if we could have family prayer with them and so we knelt down in prayer and we ask the dad, Brother Dante to give the prayer. It took him a minute to get the confidence to say the prayer, but wow was the spirit so strong as this family knelt down in prayer together! it made me feel like i was at home kneeling down in prayer with my family! Ever since that lesson they are keeping their commitments and the mom is setting the appointments for when she knows everyone will be home! One time when we couldn't teach them this week cuz it was just the kids at home, we just asked them if they could find their BOM that was in storage from the last Typhoon, but then they responded that they had already found it on their own! And so we gave the 12 yr old boy a reading assignment to read 1 nephi 17 about when nephi builds a boat, and he was so excited to read it! and then when we came and visited them the mom had said that when they came home that they found him asleep with the BOM next to him! WOW! Its such a wonderful feeling to see the gospel bless a whole family!

On Wednesday I was told by the missionary doctor, after I had just walked on my foot normally for the whole day before, that I now need to use the crutches for another week so that my foot can actually heal and not be a hole in my foot! So now ive been on crutches for 2 weeks of my mission. Now i can say that i have walked up all these random steep hills in the Philippines while being on crutches just to share the word of God! And sometimes we are far away from transportation and i just have to use the crutches until we either get to our next investigators house or a tricy comes. Whichever one comes first! But now all the tricy drivers around town know us and im able to get a tricy drivers attention from 3 blocks away to come and pick us up. Haha one time we actually found a tricy so i didnt have to crutch up a big hill, but the hill was too big that the tricy driver told me i needed to sit where i put my feet to balance out the weight so we could make it up the hill. But that wasn't enough, sister Sy had to get off the tricy, while it was raining too, and help push this tricy up the hill so we could get up the hill! haha me and sister Sy couldnt stop laughing that she had to do that!

I hit my 6 MONTH MARK this week in the mission. Ive been in my first area, ILAGAN for about 4.5 months and it feels like home now. I say hi and smile to the same people all day and with my foot and being on crutches so many people are so concerned for me.

The work is hard, the work is slow with crutches and the people, but i see Gods love for me and these people each day. And me and Sister Sy just have to laugh about everything that God is trying us with right now in this area because we may as well laugh than cry over it! I love you all and i'm so grateful for all the love, support and prayers. On Sunday we had a broadcast with Jeffrey R. Holland and it was so amazing! The theme to me was that we all need to be Witnesses, Examples, Representatives of Christ because these are the last days and we need to help all those around us to prepare for the Second Coming of Christ! He also talked about "Come Follow Me" and he explain that we need to not just be "active" members on the 2 hours that we spend at church a week, but we need to be living the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout our whole lifes.

I love you all, I love this Gospel and I love my Father in Heaven and His son Jesus Christ, my older brother! Have an amazing week!

Sister Thayn

-This cow was licking my dress right after this picture was taken.