The ups and downs of mission life. So the work here is different for sure! It isn’t as easy just to talk to someone but the work is moving forward and we are striving to do our best.
I got an email from Bajeck a girl in my last area and she got her mission call, it is in the Baguio Mission and I hope that she will be companions with Sister Lapana or at least get to know her they are both supper nice! So I was excited for that. She also told me that they had 7 baptisms in the branch so I know that I have taught all of them because it hasn’t be 4 Sundays and they need to go to church for four Sundays, so I am super excited to find out who and see pictures! Which I will get to do this Thursday because we have zone conference. So that made me super excited because I know that people are coming into the waters of baptism even if it isn’t in this area. However, even though the work is slow here we have investigators with baptismal goal dates. I am so happy for them one is Ramil! and he is my favorite. He is 11 and super cute! He will be getting baptized the 30th and he is progressing so well. He reads all the assignments we give him and he really likes to learn. I asked him if he had a journal that he could write in for when he reads the Book of Mormon and learns new things he said he didn’t have one, but then quickly replied but I will buy one! Haha! So cute! Then we have two young women who really like the gospel they both said that they prayed about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith and know it is true. They sang in church with the youth for Mother’s Day and even though they aren’t sure if they can be baptized yet because of their parents they are trying really hard and talking to them about it all the time and we have a plan to teach their parents too. We have already taught one, Nora the mom of Daisyreen. The other girl is Camela and her mom is always gone but she said that we could come and teach her if it is in the afternoon. So we are hoping to go back. We are teaching this older man and he is a little crazy but supper nice he knows a lot about the Bible and is two steps away from becoming a priest in his church. So he always has a lot of questions and his concerns always seem to change but we just taught him about the first vision and the Book of Mormon and he said he would pray about it to know if it is true so we are really excited for him. He is hard to teach and I think it will take a while but if he gains a testimony he will be so strong and do much good in the church! However, it was so funny we went and taught him yesterday and we had a member with us who is good friends with him and the lesson went well then we were finishing up and one of his friends came by and he is like one of the priest in this guys church and we could tell he just wanted to debate with us so we closed quickly and then left. And then the member said that she thinks it would be easy for Tatay Filipie, our investigator, if "Satan wasn’t their, haha. It was so fun and so true here we are trying to teach truth and then in walks this guy who wants to fight our testimony with what he clams and "history" ahh. So we are just praying hard that he will have an open heart when he prays and that he will read the Book of Mormon and be willing to except something new. So we met this guy June and we were just tracting after being punted for like the gillionth time and he seemed really nice we shared a pamphlet with him and he said we could come back he also told us that his sister is a member in the US. So I wasn’t sure after that first visit how he felt or what was going to happen but we went back and he asked a lot of questions, he studied the pamphlet and went to the questions in the back, they have scriptures and he looked them up in the Bible and the Book of Mormon and wrote his feelings and then he told us that he wanted to know about Joseph Smith. So we talked and it wasn’t really an official lesson we just answered a lot of his questions and told him to keep reading the Book of Mormon. We taught about prayer and told him he should pray to know the truth even though we haven’t taught him that much then we invited him to come to church and set up a time to come back. We went to church yesterday and weren’t really expecting anything new. Then for "some reason" we walked out to the front of the church and he came walking up! My heart was so happy and that is when I thought there truly is opposition in all things. The work is hard and we don’t see a lot of progress but seeing this man come walking up to the church made my heart feel so happy! All the sweat, mean people, rejection, and hardships are all worth that one moment of seeing someone come closer to knowing the truth about the gospel of Jesus Christ! How grateful I am to have this opportunity to be a missionary and to feel the great joy despite the hardships. I love this work it is moving forward. So I hope that these investigators will continue to progress! I know that our Savior is mindful of us and that he lets us struggle so that he can help us grow. I'm so grateful to have the savior in my life to know that I will never struggle alone and he will always lift me through the struggles.
So pday was a little boring we just stayed home I wrote letters to some of my old investigators so that was good, we also went shopping at the Waltermart. Yay! So thrilling haha.
So me and my companion had a good talk last night I think we were both feeling that we were lacking communication and I think it is because even though she knows Tagalog the way she speaks is different because she is from Cebu and the way I speak is different because I am American and still don’t know all the words in Tagalog. So I think we were just having a hard time communicating and so then sometimes we just wouldn’t talk and it would be weird so we talked and cried and I think things are going to be much better. I feel really closer to her and love her very much. I am hoping to send pictures soon so that you can see her. So we cleaned are apartment this morning and I took pictures so you could see. hehe. Well I love you! I'm so happy! I loved you letter! Happy Mother’s Day again because I just think I need to thank you for all the strength you give to me and how you help me even when you aren’t even trying. I love you all so much! I was so happy to see and hear from you! What a blessing! Well I need to get going. But I love the work and love the people! There are souls to save! Work work work that is the secret! I love you again!
Love, Sister Andreasen
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