Maayong Hapon Tanan!
This week has been really great! Of course not as exciting as a flash flood or anything... but it was probably one of the best Valentine's Day I've ever had.
The mission home moved back to Tacloban, and our new apartment isn't done getting fixed yet, so... we now live in the Maasin mission home! We have an oven, aircon, hot water and a washing machine! It's like a Christmas miracle! We will only be here until our apartment gets done, which should only be a few more days, but it's super great! President and Sister Andaya left all the food in the fridge and baking supplies there for us to use. So sweet! Literally, I made chocolate chip cookies last night. First time in a year! It was sooooo good! I like am afraid to touch anything because it is so nice.
We did a CSP this week! Cleaning out the flooded apartment. It was fun! Took like 4 hours, but it's finally clean. The Elders in my district are super nice for being willing to help us! We did the service project for the owners of the apartment so they wouldn't have to clean it out. Hopefully we can start teaching them this week! I love them so much!
As the Tacloban mission is re-opening, more and more sisters are coming, which means more and more exchanges! yay! We now go on exchanges with 11 or 12 companionships. So, we are super busy!
On Valentine's Day, we were on exchanges with the Hilangos sisters. I was with Sister Delfin, from Guam. They opened an area, and their area is pretty bukid with no members there. So, we went finding! yay! Haha It was super cool! We went to a neighborhood that is literally in the middle of nowhere, in between some rice fields. I just want to share something cute that happened. We were on our way back to the city, and we walked by a school with a ton of flowers in the front. Sister Delfin picked one and was like, "Hey! I just remembered! It's Valentines Day! Happy Valentines Day!" And then she gave it to me. Then she picked one for herself. We were talking and laughing about how weird holidays are on the mission because they just feel like normal days. As we were discussing this, I saw a cute little old nanay sitting on her porch. I felt prompted to give her my flower, so I said, "Nanay! Happy Valentines Day!"
As we walked towards her, I realized that she was blind. We started talking to her, and then we started sharing a message with her. We just shared with her how much Heavenly Father loves her. I put the flower in her hand before we started sharing. She said, "Oh! a flower! " She asked me what color it was, and what it looked like and stuff. It was a really really pretty bright pink, and it looked really cool with the beautiful sunset and rice fields behind the lady's house.
As we were sharing with her, we found out that she has cataracts, and that she lost her sight just a few years ago. When I started talking about how the Lord knows her situation, and how much he loves her, I felt this intense love for this sweet little lady. It really showed me how much our Father in Heaven really does love us.
After the closing prayer, we got down the street a little ways, and met her son. He told us that she had been widowed for over 25 years. I was really happy that I followed the spirit and got to make her Valentine's Day a little bit better.
Today, we, as a zone, went to the beach! The southern most tip of southern Leyte. It was sooooooo beautiful! I have never seen that clean of ocean water in my life, and the water was sooooo clear and blue. I was amazed at God's creations. I was so blown away by how perfect and beautiful this little corner of a random island in the Philippines is. Me and some of the sisters wandered down the shore a little ways away from the rest of the group to find cool shells. We met some fishermen on the way! The way they catch fish is they go out deep, and they drop in stalks of bamboo that sink to the bottom. When the fish swim inside the small openings at the top, they go into the different like chambers of the bamboo and, they can't figure out how to swim out, so they get caught. Kind of like the monkey-with-the-fist-in-the-cage thing. It's really interesting.
We started talking to him about the gospel, and he was just talking about how cool members of the church are. He said that we seemed like we were really close to God, and not confused about life, like he was. We told him about how his cute little family could be together forever, and he told us the missionaries could come to his house anytime they wanted to.
The other day at church, as the last hour was getting out, two young women walked into the church and started asking us questions. Me and my companion gave them a church tour and explained about Joseph Smith, baptism, sacrament, and the atonement. They asked ridiculously awesome questions, and they really really really wanted Book of Mormons. When we were talking about baptism, one girl was like, "So, after my baptism, how many times can I get baptized for my family that has died?" She basically asked us when she could get baptized after our church tour. It was sooooo amazing!
None of these people actually live in our area, but it's super cool that I can travel all over the place and meet these people that are prepared for the gospel. Even if I can't teach them, and probably will never see them again, it's cool that the Lord gave them a way to get the missionaries to their houses. I always talk to as many people as I can on buses, mostly because I get bored, but more importantly because it's not a coincidence that those people are stuck sitting next to a missionary for 1- 6 hours with no where to run. hahaha Me and my companion have started not sitting together so that we can talk to more people.
Well, thanks so much for all of your prayers and all of your encouraging e-mails! They help me so much! It's so nice to know that so many people are praying for me, and so many people are rooting for my success! I love being a missionary! And I love all the things I'm learning from being an STL, especially from all the sisters. I become a better missionary after every exchange I go on.
Thanks for your love!
Love,
Sister Bingham
The cute girls with the church tour.
Happy Valentine's Day!
Zone Activity--Southern Tip of Southern Leyte--So Beautiful!
Sister Woodfuff & Sister Bingham
With Sister Sousa!
Sister Schaap & Sister Bingham!
Sister Sousa & Sister Bingham!
Caves!
The Maasin Zone!
Simply Beautiful!
The Fishermen!
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