Expanding the Area - September 27, 2010

Thank you for you email it really does make my week! I love hearing from you! I love hearing what is gong on back at home and feeling of your love even though I am far away!

I too am excited for conference! We watch it the week after and so that is the week after transfer day and I will have my new companion. So it should be crazy because I will not be working in my area all next week! I am so sad! They come pick Sister Arrieta up and they will take me to work with other sisters in my zone till transfer day so I will only be there through Friday and I am so sad for my area!!!!! The investigators and the members are great and we will miss a whole week of teaching. We will be able to teach a little Friday night and then Saturday and Sunday will be hard because that is conference! So it will be crazy the first couple days after transfers and I am so sad for my area!!!! I will miss it so much even though it is just a week but it is so important and one week can change so much!!!

Right now that is my big news and I am sad about it, but the work will go on and I know I will be able to learn and grow so I will just look for the good and meet new wonderful people in the stake.

So good news!!!! They made our meeting house bigger!!!!!! Yay for the Barra saints! Bad news we still don’t fit ha-ha. Yay again for the Barra saints because there are so many! The RS doesn’t fit in their room so some have to sit outside the room which is the room for Elders Quorum, so we just call it relief quorum as a joke but it is so sad. They need a chapel. So we are also trying to work on less active and recent converts to help them get excited about paying tithing so that they can get a chapel!

I love the people in this area they are great! I told you that they expanded our area well now it is a lot bigger and we don’t have enough time! We have so many people to teach we find it hard to get to all of them but we are just stretching ourselves so that we can invite them to come unto Christ! So we have been trying to do splits so that we can meet all our investigators and it has been working well. The picture you saw of us in the boat is us going to part of our area called Ranzohan and it is hard for them to go to church because they have to ride the boat but they are awesome! So we keep working to help them. We are hoping to get a lot of investigators there so that they can all come to church together and it will be easier on them.

I met a sister named Sister Maluo and she is amazing! We went to talk to her because her two year old son wanted to talk to me he said I am pretty. Ha-ha he is so cute and their family is awesome; it is her, her husband and her two children. I thought that her husband wasn’t going to be interested in the message but he listens and really wants to know the truth and he has great faith! I am excited for them to progress! We also were trying to find a woman we taught in a different house before and while look for her house we found an old investigator and I saw once again the hand of the Lord in this work! We were able to teach her again and she is older and really stubborn but her daughter was also there and so we were able to teach them and I think he daughter will continue to seek for truth!

We are teaching people in Dalahican which is a little bit farther out of the area of Barra and we have this great investigator her name is Andrea. We taught her "husband" because he is a less active member and the time after we taught him he came to church. Andrea is not a member but she loves our message and is excited every time we go to teach her and she said she doesn’t want to miss a Sunday!!!! She is so amazing!

Another investigator I will tell you about is Cathy she is 16 and she just moved to Barra with her brothers and all her neighbors hate that she is talking with us because they are all born again and the people they live with are too but she wants to be taught so badly that we are teaching her in the house of a near by member! She has such a desire and already loves the Book of Mormon!!!!

We have so many amazing investigators I can’t list them all, I am just praying that they all progress especially in coming to church so that they can be baptized! I love teaching!!!! We are working hard to reach out to all the people here and the members are a great help!

We decided to go see the new part of our area in Talao-Talao. It is so far! We went to go see a member and see if we should start spending time in the area, we realized that it is so far so on the way we were thinking maybe we won’t be able to come here right now because it is pretty far and we have so many investigators but when we got there we were greeted by three less active members and they were so happy we came! They served us lunch and they showed us their small community and brother is the president of the small community and the houses are all close to him so we saw a great teaching opportunity and decided that we will work there once a week and just use the whole day even if it is only once but I am excited! Then the next day was Sunday and even though they are so far they came to church and said that they want to come back and their testimonies are great! Sister cried and also her son who is 29! We all felt they spirit and new that that day that is where we were supposed to be. It worked out really well! The Lord always provides a way!

I know that this church is true I am excited for the progress of Barra and to hear the words of the prophet! I know that this will also help our investigators; I just hope that helping them attend won’t be affected by the transfer and Sister Arrieta leaving.

I am so grateful for your love! I know that I am growing a stretching and I am so grateful for that! Sister Arrieta is amazing! She has taught me so much and I will be so sad to see her go! I don’t even want to think about it! I know that she is a blessing from the Lord to help prepare me for all that is coming next! I love her!

I love the investigators and the members! The members are a great help to our investigators and this is one area where when you have a baptism you don’t have to worry about leaving because you know when that happens they will be strengthened by the members!

I too am working on charity, actually the three faith, hope, charity! I don't know if we will be able to see the RS session so I will be so happy if you will send it!

I love you all so much!!!! I love the church I know it is true and I am so grateful for whatever we did in the pre-existence so that we could come and be together on the earth in this great gospel!!!! I love it! I am over come with joy for the knowledge of truth!!!! I love it! I love that I am a missionary! I love you!!!!!

Love, Sister Andreasen

The Work in Barra is Amazing - September 20, 2010

I love you all so much! I really feel as though I am growing a lot in this area and I am so thankful that the lord knows what we need! I am so blessed to be here and I just get excited to think about using my Tagalog and of course I want to come back but that is along time away and just an excited thought in my head. Ha-ha. Oh and just when I go home I am grateful that I will be able to use the internet to talk with people here, but again far away.

So anyway, short message about pearls. They have white, pink, black, and coffee they are 350 pesos so it is a really good price unless you want big pearls and they are 1,500 pesos. This is still good when it comes to pearls. They have a round pearl and what they call the rice pearl shaped like rice, of course. They don’t have different lengths though. Just let me know. It is so crazy to hear about RMs! like the Brown twins and Chris Bell! It is hard to believe that they are home! I never want the mission to end! I love it! I can’t even imagine going back to the real world! I just want to teach people!

The work here in Barra is amazing! I love it so much! I wish you could see the great branch here! I am trying to send pictures! They have as small meeting house and they don’t fit because it is so tiny and we just keep having more people come to church and now our area is bigger! So we will be teaching more and adding more members! I don’t know where we will put them all but I know that the Lord will provide a way! I am so blessed to see the humility of the people here and how much they desire to help others come unto Christ!  I am so happy for the baptism we had, Karen is so sweet and she has such a great testimony that this is the truth, even though her family doesn’t like it she knows it is true and is so happy to be a member! Tatay Imilliano is doing well! He doesn’t drink coffee anymore and is down to 3 cigarettes a day! He knows that this is true and has such a desire to turn his life around even if it is hard! He says he struggles with being tempted everyday but knows he can do it he has been smoking for over 50 years and he is doing a great job of getting rid of the addiction!

I see the blessings of the gospel in the lives of the people here in Barra. One principle that I have been working on is fasting and it is so amazing! I have such a great testimony of fasting and that is what we were prompted to tell Tatay Imilliano would help him and I know it will work I have seen the blessings of fasting as I have felt my inadequacy for the work and have been strengthened! I love to see the effects of the gospel and its principles in the lives of people.

Barra is so small and everyone knows everyone and so you just really feel like family in this branch! I know that our investigators feel it to as they come to church and I know that they feel the love of the branch missionaries as they work with us and fellowship the investigators at church!

I have also had a chance to go back and read about the experiences of Alma and the sons of Mosiah! They are such an inspiration to me! What great missionaries! They have helped me to remember things that I need to do. I am so thankful that sometimes when we share a scripture with investigators and recent converts I get to learn too! I know as we follow the spirit we will be inspired. Sometimes I am surprised by the things that I say and think wow that is a great principle and I know it is true and I feel the strength that this is not my work nor my words but this is the work of the Lord and the spirit speaks through us taking the message to the hearts of all those who desire to listen and be uplifted by the word of the Lord!

I feel a strength in knowing that you are all praying for me. I have missed you all this past week. I always miss you but especially this past week it is not a bad miss, or something sad just me knowing that you all care about me and are praying for me and it is amazing that even though I am far away I am growing a great love for all of you and I am so thankful that we are an eternal family! We are sealed in the temple! And I get to be with you for ever. I think this miss is just my love growing strong for all of you! I love you all so much and pray for you everyday!

I hope next week I will be able to send pictures and explain them all to you, but it’s not a promise because it is Sister Arrietas last p-day and so we will most likely be very busy! But I will try! I love you all so dearly!!!!! I know that the church is true and I am so grateful for it in our lives how blessed we truly are!

It is so true the quote by President Monson, I have weaknesses but I am called of a prophet of God and so I am qualified! What a relief to know we will be helped and strengthen if we fear not and put our faith and trust in our Savior! Thank you for the quotes and strength! It always helps me and strengthens me!!!!

I love you!!!!

Love, Sister Andreasen

Hello Again - September 13, 2010

So it has been a little crazy in my area and I am just trying to keep up. I just realize that the Lord needs us to be prepared and I don’t feel like I am ready to be the senior in the area and I know that Sister Arrieta only has a short time left. This past week I have been feeling all of my shortcomings and have felt very weak as a missionary but I have fasted and prayed and I know that the Lord gave me guidance and direction in what I need to do to become better. I am gaining more strength each and every day and I am so grateful for the spirit He sends me. I can’t do this work with out the guidance of the spirit and I am so grateful for it! I know that this is the work I need to be doing right now. I think about the language thing and I still feel like I struggle so I just try to keep doing better. The great thing about this time period is that I can communicate with people here through the internet and I need to, one to stay in contact with members and converts and two to keep up on the language so I know that is a blessing. But I have also been thinking about what Jenny Richardson did. She went home and got some schooling done and stayed with her family but then came back. I would like to do that if at all possible. But that is a long ways away so I will just keep it as a dream.

Let’s talk about the work. So we are working with this one man Tatay Imiliano! He is amazing!!!!! I love him so much! he is so concerned about his past sins he is 65 and knows that our message is true yet he knows that he has things that he needs to fix so President Anderson came to our area this week so he could confess some of his past sins and he is feeling much better! We also taught him about the atonement and of course I cried ha-ha. But I just feel such a connection with him and I just love him so much! He will be baptized the first Saturday in October and I am so excited for him!!!! Then we have a sister who is going to be baptized this weekend and I think she is awesome! She is only 21 but she has a testimony and is willing to follow the commandments of the Lord. We have a family in our area the Suaybaguio family, there are so so many of them and they are strong in the church, one of the fathers is our branch president. And this sister, Karen, is the girlfriend of one of the sons if that makes sense. He is an RM so even though it is hard to teach her because she is so busy we have to have long lessons every time we get a chance but they are all her fellowshippers and he teaches her when they are together so she is always prepared and she comes to church every Sunday! She is amazing! And I am so happy that is she going to be baptized. We also have another family, Brother Rodel and Sister Lani and they want to be baptized but Brother Rodel doesn’t have a birth certificate and so they can’t get married and so they can’t get baptized! So we are trying to help them get everything worked out with their paper work so that they can get baptized it is just so hard, and expensive, if you don’t have a birth certificate! So it will be a challenge but I know the Lord will help us and this will help prepare them to be better members of the church! This week we met a lot of new people so that the area continues to expand. When I first got here it was just the small island of Barra but now it has expand and it is a lot bigger so we have a lot of work to do! I love the area and the people are so loving and they just want to help! I am so impressed with this branch and I know that they will grow to be even stronger in the future and I hope that I can be here to see their great growth. It is hard because we don’t fit in the meeting house. They have expanded it and they still don’t fit because there are so many members! I love it! The branch president always says I need to be emergency transferred because I am so sad all the time, which is just a joke because I am so happy and always smiling because I love the work and I love the area! Oh I forgot to tell you about another guy that is in our ward, he was sealed in the temple and they have a lot of kids but something happened and now they are separated and so he stopped going to church. He now is living with another woman because that is just what people do here because there is no divorce and I think he didn’t want to come to church because of it. But we went to his house and taught a spiritual thought and the spirit was so strong and I know he felt that he needed to start coming to church again. Then on Sunday he came with one of his daughters and his "wife" so we are glad that he is making the steps to come back and I know that he will continue to grow! The Lord must need him back at church because we just met him and taught him and after that, before Sunday, our branch president saw him and invited him to come back to church! The spirit is so amazing!!!! I know that it is what guides and directs this work!!! I am so grateful for the chance to be here and to learn and grow and help people come closer to the Lord!!!! I know this is the true church more and more each and every day!!!! I love it!
I am so glad that you and dad were able to go to the temple I miss it so much but I did find out that we get to go to the Manila Temple before we go home so I am excited about that. But I know that we will receive blessings as we continuously go to the temple. In the Cebu temple dedication a member of the Seventy said that we should go to the temple and often as we can. When he was a mission president he could only go twice a year but when he was home and not working, living in Utah right next to a temple, he went four times a week! We need to go as often as occasion permits if not it won’t be enough! I love the temple!

I feel so blessed to be a missionary! I know that I am called of God and that I need to be here right now and that as I continue to do the work and help others learn more about the Savior the spirit helps me to learn more about the Savior and I am strengthened and made better!

I am glad to hear that everyone is doing well! So many things will be knew when I get home! Just as long as you stop the kids from growing its okay :( ahhh sad I know you can’t do that and I know that they are so big now! I guess they will just have to have more babies. Hehehe just a joke.

I love you all and I am so grateful for your love and support!

I love you all and I hope to send and explain pictures next week. They don’t have a card reader in this computer shop. But you are right the one of the man in blue is Tatay Mario!

He is so sweet and amazing! I told him I was being transferred and he said in a soft voice you’re leaving, it was so said! Then he gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek ha-ha. He is a cute little old man!

Well I love you all! Till next week!

Love, Sister Andreasen

Hello Again From the Beautiful Area of Barra! - August 6, 2010

I love it here so much and my companion is amazing and the area is amazing and the people are amazing I just count my blessings every day! I am starting to get to know the people in the area and to get to know our investigators! The ward is so welcoming and inviting and I am so blessed to be here with them. They have a plan to have cottage meetings every Sunday and we will go and get referrals from them so I am so excited for that to start. We also have a plan because the area of the island of Barra is so small that we are going to go house to house and give out Books of Mormon! I am so excited! I know that it is something that is going to help us find new people to teach pretty much everyone knows who we are because everyone knows everyone. We have a small meeting house and I will take pictures. They are actually doing some work on it to make it bigger while they wait for a chapel! We have an investigator Brother Imiliano he is supper amazing! He knows he has some really heavy sins and needs to repent and wants to confess his sins to president, he is so awesome! He just wants to be better and I love him! We have so many more opportunities to teach and I love it. It is still hot it is the Philippines ha-ha but it is cooler than Calamba. You might be able to get a better look at the area if you look of Lucena or Quezon.

I again don’t have a lot of time because the internet is silly and so I can’t write a lot! I hate it, I hope that next week I will be able to catch up on my reporting to you and that I will be able to explain the pictures that I sent to you!

But so you know I am doing great loving every minute here. I did get your package! Thank you so much!!! And the dresses do fit! Thanks again! Oh and the Liahonas are ordered but I don’t have any money to send them. But I don’t have them yet so it is okay. Also I am in the area of pearls so I will take pictures and you will have to let me know what you want.
Well next week I hope to write more! I am so grateful for your love and support and I am always praying for you all I love you so much!!!!!
Sorry so short! Next week will be better I promise, well maybe not promise you never know with the internet but I will do my best!!!!

Love, Sister Andreasen