August 26, 2013

Family!!!

Thank you so much for your emails! Good to hear that everybody is doing well. I'm glad Ryan got to Indiana safely!! That's crazy that that part of your life is already here! When does school start for you Ry? Has it already started? What is Notre Dame like? Different from BYU eh? Ha ha. 

This week was fantastic as always. I love love love being here and I love love love being a missionary. I get the great opportunity to testify of our Savior Jesus Christ EVERY day! What an amazing blessing! My testimony of our Savior, and His Atonement has increased so much as I have the chance to see the power of the Atonement help people so much. I really do know that our message is centered in Jesus Christ and that no matter where we are at in life, the gospel will bless us as individuals and as families.

So this week we are SUPER excited! We should have 3 baptisms on Friday which we are stoked about! Si Sister Ryeli De Jesus and si Sister Kristina De Jesus and si Sister Pingky. Sister Ryeli and Sister Kristina were referrals from their less active husbands to us. The De Jesus family is just an amazing family actually. their story is great. And I wish I had time to go into detail of thier great story. Anyway Sister Ryeli and Sister Kristina are super excited. And their husbands si Brother Christian and si Brother Aaron are SUPER excited because they are going to baptize their wives! Yesterday they passed the Sacrament for the first time and they loved it. they are so excited for their next assignment from Bishop and they are just loving being back and active in this gospel. I've learned from so many different experiences that it is easy for some to fall away from the gospel. It takes little things like not having time one day to read the Book of Mormon, or skip church one or 2 times because of some planned event or something like that. Little things like that add up and before you know it you've forgotten the blessings of the gospel being an active part of your life. What I've learned more though is that once you come back, once you get a taste of remembering how awesome this gospel is-you want it all! I love helping less active members return to church. What an amazing blessing and privilege I have!

Sister Pingky we're worried about. She reads the BOM, goes to church, and prays everyday, but she's feeling like this isn't the right time for her to get baptized. We want her to be baptized this Friday not for us, but for her. We know how happy this can make her! Yes she is happy in her life right now, she's reading, praying, and even going to church but she's only getting a taste of the true happiness. We know if she doesn't take this step to baptism she won't ever know what we mean by feeling truly happy. She needs help taking that next step. We pray for her and please remember her in your prayers also! That she will feel confident that this is the full truth and she will feel the desire to be baptized and experience true and full happiness. Also please keep the members of the De Jesus family in your prayers too! 

I love you all soo much! I pray for you everyday and pray you're continually reading the Book of Mormon and praying everyday. I know the little things like prayer and scripture study make ALL the difference in having a testimony and in experiencing conversion. You're all the GREATEST ever!!

mahal na mahal ko kayo!

-Sister Davidson :)

 The De Jesus Family!!!!!!!!! all of them together! What an amazing amazing blessing we have had to help them return back to church!

Sister Ryeli and Brother Christian and their 2 kids

Sister Kristina and Brother Aaron and their kids! Their 3 kids will be baptized on 7 September!

Si Brother and Sister De Jesus 

 Okay so last week on P-Day it was Sister Marcucci's birthday!!! So naturally she treated us to pedicures.... oh my gosh. okay I have never felt more relaxed. It was SO nice! What a treat! And it was disgusting to see our feet get deep cleansed. Walking all day everyday in dirty roads and in nasty water wears on your feet. I am absolutely getting another one of these in the future. It was SO nice!

For FHE the ward missionaries threw Sister Marcucci a suprise birthday party!! It was awesome and we LOVE Sister Marcucci!! Seriously we were friends before this life and we will be friends forever.

This is a member in our ward who was selling corn during the storm. Ha ha I was impressed with his creation of how he stays dry. Every single Filipino is incredibly resourceful-I'm always amazed. 

There were a couple of big storms this week - no worries we were fine. There was just a TON of water. Ha ha I'm in need of buying another umbrella... that will be number 3 for me here. 

SO much water! And the water is flowing incredibly fast. It's hard to tell-but the current is so strong that there big waves that I thought to myself, "ah man that'd be fun in a canoe or raft!" but than the water is more than dirty so than I took that thought back.

  Sister Joy-our ward missionary-just getting ready to jump out of our trike to go swimming! SO much water!

Sister Jacqueline's (a recent convert) referred us to her nieces and they loved what we had to teach them! But then they didn't come to church yesterday.. :( We'll continue to teach them and we hope they will learn for themselves this is true!

We brought a family in our ward to one of our investigator's homes for a lesson. It was AWESOME!! We pray that Brother Gerry Clariz (the investigator) was really able to connect with Brother Jimmy (the member) and their families are SO similar that we pray this lesson will have a lasting effect on both families!

The Single Adults in our ward had a breakfast activity and volleyball activity they invited us to! Free food-of course we're there! 

 Before we rushed off to our meeting we pretended to play volleyball

 And of course before we actualy headed out I had to get at least one serve in. It was awesome. And hard in a skirt. And my volleyball skills have suffered.

That's all folks! mahal ko kayo! 

-Sister Davidson :)