Dear Friends and family,
Greetings from Barbie here.
That is officially what everyone here in the Philippines calls me here
and i am taking it as a compliment ha-ha.
well, this week started off really
interesting. on P-day we were punted our first lesson so we started to
walk to our next appointment and then this guy waved Hi to us. he lives
right next door to our compound and so I decided to go over and BRT and maybe
teach him. as we were talking and then we started to teach him I pulled
out the pamphlet and he said "oh I have one of those" he comes
out with the first pamphlet and then one on the law of chastity. He had
found them in the trash and was reading them for a while. WEIRD but
awesome. so we taught him and for the first time in my whole missionary
experience I gave someone a BGD on the first lesson. since them we have
taught him multiple times and given him a book of Mormon now we just need him
to come to church. I really feel like he is super potential.
Then on Tuesday I had to rescue two
baby kittens who had been abandon in our roof and had fallen. yep that is
normal here. so that was an adventure. for those of you asking if we kept
them......um....... OF COURSE NOT! we had to leave them in a field somewhere
and pray they didn't get ran over or eat. Kawa naman-poor cats.
Then on Thursday it was all saints
day and so basically we had no work. all saints day is when everyone goes
to the cemetery and parties with the dead so we basically walked around and
then hung out at the 7-11 for a little while. sadly they don't have
slurpees there.
As far as training goes I am not
really training she is training me. I am learning more tagalog or I guess
fixing my tagalog because it sucks and is always wrong and then I am improving
my teachings constantly which is good. the only thing that is hard
sometimes is that I want to build a relationship with the people and am not
really bold when I need to be. she is bold all the time and sometimes it
is overbearing so hopefully that will even itself out soon.
As for investigators, we were really
hoping brother Edgardo would come to church and . . . . .he didn't. so that was
a hard blow and then we had no one else show up except . . . . one.
so here is the story. since i have gotten a new companion we have
lost every investigator and a lot have said they will just listen only but they
don't want to act. AY! so we have been looking for new ones and as we
were teaching our Recent convert sister Carina Marquez about missionary work
she referred us to a girl age 12 that wanted to hear our message. so we
went to her parents house near Nanay Nora so you can imagine what it looks
like. when we got there I saw an empty liquor bottle on the ground and
when the dad came out he look haggared talaga. he was also smoking and had no
shirt on. he eyes were beet read and he has this rice pot belly. we
BRTed for a little bit and then told him why we were there. the wife came
out soon after and they said it was fine for us to teach them. we shared
about the restoration and he listened and said we could come back if he had
time which is always the excuse. Honestly I was so scared because I don't
know it always scares me when I know that people are drunk because they are
unpredictable but the lesson went well and she was the one who came to church.
it just goes to show how important members are in this work especially
here in the Philippines when traveling cost so much for them. I suggested
in ward council that we do a service project for sister Carina because her
house is broken and they sleep on a slant so I hope by so doing it will give our
church a good name over in Wawa and open the hearts of our investigators there
that say they will only listen.
Well that is all I have for the week
and real quick I want to share how important prayer is and being grateful
for all you blessings and for everyday life because I have had to be with all
the changes lately. I am finding a different sister snow, a different
Brittny here and I am growing everyday although it is hard. i know that I
am here for a reason.
Oh speaking of. .mom don't
freak out! we were walking to landing and literally had left the house
only 2 minutes when this guys in an army suit comes over on his motor bike and
stops us. at first I thought it was because we were going to get arrested
but then he started talking and said. there are a lot of @#$% in this
place, a lot of jerks basically. you shouldn't be walking you need to
have a baragay captain with you always. you Pilipino you need to make sure you
have a barangay captain with you. then we said that we are missionaries
and the we know that god will help us to be safe. he said that he was
taught before by the missionaries but he knows it is not true and that we
shouldn't believe in our god or our prayers because they don't work. then
with my hands shaking and on the verge of tears I was so scared I said in the
worst tagalog possible that I knew that I was called of god and that I knew
that although it was scary here that I needed to be here. I knew that!!
he then gave me pepper spray and told me to be careful then he flagged
down a jeepny and we rode to landing. well that was a one of a kind
experience. so now I have pepper spray. goodness at least they care
about the foreigners here.
Well with that I love you all and I can't
wait to tell you how next week goes. Thanks for your support and I will talk to
you soon.
Take care-ingat
Sister Snow
She gave us an update on Nanay Nora, they have moved further from her area and so they don't see her as much, there has been a little upset between the two girls they converted and Nanay Nora. Time will have to heal that relationship for now. She has learned so much patience, her attitude is realistic and gives everything else over to the Lord.
