Maajong Buntag!
I hope everyone had a good week! This isn't my usual p-day, but we have a temporary p-day today!
I had a bitter-sweet week. I was sad to leave Cebu, but I'm super super super happy to be back in my mission. I'm really thankful for all of the great things that I learned in Cebu. I learned how to have a lot better personal studies, how to do better finding, and lots lots lots more good things.
My new companion is Sister Woodruff! She's so great! She's basically like my best friend. And we are the STLs for Tacloban mission! STL stands for Sisters Training Leaders. We go on splits and do trainings... and go to a lot of meetings. Haha I'm really excited! I always loved going on splits with the STLs because it was usually just what the investigator or Less active member needed to progress. I really hope I can be that for the other sisters. I'm really excited to start working!
I'm in the same apartment and same branch I was in before I left. But, we are the only missionaries at this time in Maasin, so we have a HUGE area. An entire town, and we will be on splits 3-4 days out of every week, so we have a lot of work to do. Which I'm really happy about!
Today is my 1 year as a missionary anniversary. It' s so weird! Every 6 months on my mission, I write a letter to myself. I list my goals that I want to accomplish in the next 6 months, and I tell myself what I would like to become, what kind of missionary I need to be, and I give my self advice (I know, I'm a weirdo). I always forget what the letters say by the time I read them. I read my letter this morning in my personal study. One of my goals was to work hard enough to be an STL, and to have a certain number of baptisms, and be good at following up with my investigators, and a number of other things I needed to improve 6 months ago. I accomplished all the goals on my list. That was such a cool feeling! I've never really been like into goals at all before my mission, but it's really cool to look back and see that you've accomplished something that, at the time, you thought would never happen or change.
I wrote my new letter to myself today. I will open it on the plane ride back to the states. I imagined what that day would be like an entire year ago as I was walking inside the MTC. It's so cool to see how much I've changed in just that short amount of time. I really really really love the scriptures. I've never really cared about them before my mission, but now, I learn cool things that blow my mind basically everyday. I didn't know I could do that, or learn that much. I'm so happy that Heavenly Father is teaching me so many things about His amazing gospel. He's teaching me things that I know will help my family, and my children, and with my future callings, and eventually these things will help me return to live with Him someday.
I included a scripture reference in my letter to myself today. It's 2 Tim 4:6-8. This scripture says, "For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: Henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but all them also that love his appearing."
I intend to finish strong. And I intend to not slow down when I have to take my tag off. There is such a misconception amongst members of the church concerning RMs. I'm not an RM yet, so I can't like speak from experience or anything, but people always say like, "It will take a little time to adjust back," or "You will never be that close to the spirit again," or "You're going back to the normal world."
I don't think that we're supposed to go back to how we were before the mission. If the mission is the foundation for the rest of our lives, why would go back to being the same make any sense? I'm so excited to go back and continue to do missionary work back home!
The areas of the mission have been affected differently by the Typhoon. As we drove through Tacloban (of course my camera battery decided to be exhausted as soon as we got off the plane) there were lines of children clapping and cheering that we were back. Tacloban now consists of a whole lot of garbage, and a whole lot of tents. It was like driving through one of those zombie video games. It was surreal.
There is a zone that has 30 baptisms prepared by the members. In that same branch, the attendance went from 100 people to 500 people attending church. Some of the stories we are hearing about the members here are incredible! It's super inspiring to me. I think the members were really dependent on the missionaries before we left, but they have realized that the missionary work really is most successful when the members are involved.
Maasin isn't really one of those areas. The attendance here has decreased dramatically since we left. Hopefully we can get it back up again, and find people who are prepared to hear our message and be baptized. We are really optimistic that Maasin is about to change.
Well, that's all for this week.
Keep the faith,
Sister Bingham
Saying goodbye to her family in Toledo!
No comments:
Post a Comment