June 23, 2013
Maupay nga gabi!
This week has been busy busy! On Tuesday, we had exchanges with the Special assignment sisters (their special assignment is to travel to every area in the mission and go on exchanges with all of the sisters. There are 3 pairs of them for our mission). That was cool because I wasn't really looking forward to it, because I didn't want to teach one of our investigators without Sister Schaap, but it turned out really really great, and we ended up finding an inactive member that had been inactive for like 8 years that we had never met before. We taught her, and she said that she would think and pray about coming back to church. She didn't, but I know that she felt the spirit, and that our lesson touched her heart. At the start of my first area I was kind of disappointed because my ideal timeline of our investigators and less actives progressing didn't really happen after we worked super hard to help them. I learned that the Lord's time is super different than our time. And that people have agency. We have had a few investigators tell us that they weren't interested in our message. It made me feel sad for a second, but then I realized that literally, I did everything I knew how to do, and that hopefully they will want the blessings and happiness that the gospel brings later on in life.
On Wednesday, we traveled to Tacloban for 5 hours. The van rides/bus rides here are super scary. The whole time I was just thinking, "hmmm any second a giant snake is going to appear and we will be surrounded with fire and a statue face that will tell us we will die now." I used to think that the Indiana Jones ride was just a made up ride-WRONG! It's insane. People use their horns here to tell people that they are close to them. There aren't any stop signs or traffic lights (the only one I saw was in Tacloban). The police don't enforce traffic laws at all. So basically, everyone does what he wants to do. But, I haven't seen a single crash at all since I've been here.
We had an all sisters meeting in Tacloban all day Thursday. It was fun! I got to see every sister from my batch, and we hung out with all of our friends! On the plane ride to the Philippines, me and sister Woodruff were saying how cool it will be to speak Waray-Waray to each other instead of English...AND NOW WE CAN! It's super sweet! And since Waray-waray isn't a written language, it's like a secret language! And only a handful of people in the entire world know it. After I get fluent in Waray-Waray, my next goal is Tagalog. A ton of people speak it here. We will be talking to people, and then all of the sudden I will have no idea what's going on. That's how I know when people switch to Tagalog. hahaha
On Saturday, the elders had a baptism. We attended, because it is our branch as well. And since it was on Filipino standard time, it started pretty late. But the new member is super cool! In his testimony after his baptism he talked about how he was going to do his best to go to the celestial kingdom. He is super excited to be a member, and is super excited to serve a mission in a year.
That's about all that happened... I didn't really step in anything interesting this week. Just lots of mud! Because it rains 4 or 5 days out of the week. And it will stay like that until January. hahaha It's kind of hard to hang our laundry because of the rain... We are working diligently to find a solution.
I love being a missionary! And I super love feeling the spirit in my life. The other day I was thinking, "hmmm I don't really feel the spirit anymore, what am I doing wrong?" Then I realized that I just feel it so much that I don't notice it sometimes. hahaha
Thank you for all of your love and support! If you could keep praying that I will get fluent in Waray-Waray soon, I would really appreciate it! You are the best family in the world!
Love,
Sister Bingham
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