July 29, 2013

Family!

Wow Savanna thank you so much for sending me pictures and your blog! Wow thank you so much! With printing I definitely  can, so go ahead and send them! Thank you for being considerate of my time, it's definitely hard b/c I want to read every detail but  I also want to write everything in my head so it's a balance. Ha ha I haven't had the chance to write anyone else this past 2 weeks b/c I'm so focused on reading and writing to you all! 

Okay Jr is okay! Ahhh what an amazing sigh of relief! And at the same time he is not completely out of the woods so obviously you all will continue to be in my prayers. Sister Martino told me the other day that Jr would be having the surgery this week, than that he was in surgery, then that he was okay. She also mentioned that you were having a family fast so don't worry-because we're family I decided I should probably fast too. Ha ha thank you so much for letting Sister Martino know you were holding a fast so I could join you. I'll be honest b/c of time differences I'm pretty sure I was a day late in fasting for you so... sorry! But at least Heavenly Father is perfect, all knowing, so I'm not worried that my one day late fasting wasn't with you exactly for the same hours. :) 

I'm amazed at how amazing technology is, but more amazing is the power of Heavenly Father. Heavenly Father is aware of each one of us, each one of our needs, each of our concerns, stresses, joys, etc. He knows us perfectly inside and out. Si Jesus Christ knows how to help each of us because of His perfect Atonement for us. How grateful I am for Him and His willingness to love us so perfectly. Each of us is an amazing and important child of our Heavenly Father! I read this week in the Bible Dictionary about prayer and it mentions that sometimes we forget to pray, etc because simply we forget about our relationship with Heavenly Father which is He is our father, and we are His children. Isn't this amazing. Savanna and Ryan you are now parents to a child and you love Lincoln more than you ever thought you could right? And Dad and Darla, you love your kids more than you can describe? It is the same yet more than we comprehend with our Heavenly Father. He literally is our Father in Heaven!!! He is perfect in every way and His love for us, each of His individual children is perfect. WOW. I am so blessed. We are so blessed to have a loving Heavenly Father and even more so blessed that we have a knowledge of our relationship with Him! He answers our prayers. He gives us blessings when we ask Him for them. He gave His Son si Jesus Christ to us so that we through Him, can return to Heavenly Father. Christ knows how to help and comfort us, always. Wow. We are blessed. I love you so much family! Ah man we're awesome and this Gospel that binds and brings families together is awesome! 

Okay so I know your lives are centered around Lincoln, as they should be, but b/c I am here not there... my week has been a little different than yours ha ha. So here goes...

Tatay Amadore was baptized and confirmed this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We are THRILLED!!!! And ahhh man it was so great! We had a stake baptism which was amazing. All those who were being baptized from our stake were baptized on Saturday night at the Stake Center. It was a special experience and something to remember. Also funny. The baptism started at 5pm but because of the rain it didn't start until about 5:15 (which I'm really impressed it wasn't later). Many people (including those who were supposed to be baptized) got stranded because the rain was SOO hard! It seriously was the BIGGEST storm I've witnessed. Not necessarily big but just so much rain for such a long time. The church garden started flooding (first time that's happened they said) and the roads were all in water. Water was coming up to the rims of the tires of all the Jeepnys which was causing trouble (obviously) and traffic was bad (obviously also.) But no worries. With God all things are possible from the small to the big! So Tatay and all the investigators were able to get there and all were baptized. It was great. Tatay was excited and when he got to the stake center he said it was like he was already baptized because he was sopping from head to toe. Ha ha Tay is funny. 

So along with that. Ya I didn't understand what rainy season was until about now. Ha ha it rains HARD often and it's fun! Except it's inconvenient sometimes b/c  it takes a lot longer to walk ha ha when the rain and wind are coming at you and you're trying to keep all your things in your bag dry. Ha ha at the same time it's convenient because it makes a GREAT way for you to get into doors you normally wouldn't. When people see two girls walking and standing in the rain soaping wet with big smiles they tend to let you in more easily. Then we get to teach lessons to new people! It's great! 

What else happened this week.... Oh ya I GOT YOUR PACKAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHH ya that was great!!! thank you hank you thank you!!! I LOVE IT! We are eating all the goodies as slowly as we can to make them last. The Oreos (AMAZING!!!!! THANK YOU!!!) were delicious. We made them last 3 days. But by day 3 they had  sadly lost the ultimate goodness. Due to the fact that once we opened them we had to put them in the ref otherwise ants would enjoy the oreos and not us. But AHH MAN they were the BEST ever!!!! Thank you times a million! Also thanks sa mga roommate ours! Also the Newsletter and the thank you cards! I love love love it! also everything you sent me! Thank you thank you hank you!!! 

Okay well that's about it folks. I hope you enjoy your life living at the hospital and then at home with Baby Lincoln! Ah man he's adorable! Everybody I show a picture to says "wow he's so big!" Babies here are maybe 5-6lbs and 7lbs+ is ginormous to them. But everybody loves him and I love showing him off to everybody so it's a win win situation. Also a great way to start off teaching the Plan of Salvation ;) Thanks ha ha. 

I love you so much! I will continue to pray for you always! You're the best family in the world and I'm so blessed to have you in my life! Thank you for everything! I love and miss you and I'm so happy we can communicate via email every week! You're the greatest! The Church is true. God answers our prayers. Don't forget who we are-sons and daughters of a loving God. 

Love you!

-your favorite missionary (naturally) Sister Davidson :)

Pictures! 

 Sister Bongolto and I at the stake center waiting for Tatay and all the Investigators to get there

lots of rain... actually let me re-say that.... LOTS of rain

Sister Bonglto, Brother Joey (he baptized Tatay and is our ward mission leader) , Tatay, ako!

 Si Tatay Amadore!

Those who got baptized on Saturday from our stake!

We're adorable. Actually Sister Bongolto is seriously the BEST ever! Wow I'm so blessed to have her as my anak! She trains me everyday more than I train her and I am so blessed to have her! I don't know why I don't talk about her more. Seriously she is the BEST!

Tatay got confirmmed! And this is one of our ward missionaries. People love to join in pictures ha ha doesn't matter who's camera it is. 

Okay I got your package and saw that it read "cookies" on it and got super excited. Then I got even MORE excited when I saw a Samao box. Ha ha Oreos was a pretty good substitute fr Samaoes. But needless to say my american kabahay and I were stoked when we thought there were Samoa's inside. 

THANK YOU for the Oreos and all the package!

Brother Joey opening a coconut for us with his bare teeth

 I enjoyed the fruits of his labor later that night. :) mmmm coconut milk and fresh coconut is amazing. 

An adorable Filipino baby.

Okay that's all folks! I love you so much!!!!! 

Baby Hungry Ba Tayo? July 14, 2013

Haha ha we are all so ready for this baby to come! I'm sups excited!!!! This whole past week I was waiting for the call from Sister Martino but hindi pa. It's okay ha ha we're all so excited! Ah man thank you a billion times for keeping me updated. I'll be praying for you and everything will work out, I'm excited! 

This week was fantastic! We started the week with exchanges. I went to the other area with the Sister Training Leaders and it was so much fun to see how their investigators are, how they teach them, their relationship with their investigators, like that. It was great. I enjoyed the Sister's sweet apartment and their company and just being with them and learning new things! Si Sister Bongolto was here leading our area and she did great. I'm telling you, she is pre-trained and now training me. I'm stoked to be with her and learn from her everyday. 

Our ward is awesome also. Yesterday we worked with the Bishop and his wife and they were able to introduce us to some more of the LA in our ward. Our area is so big I'm always amazed when i learn that our area is in this place, like that, it's ginormous. Probably like Savanna's belly. Anyway, we went to this one LA in our ward who is a former Stake President. Man it was an interesting experience. He is such a kind man, and is totatlly like a former stake president would be, except inactive ha ha. Anyway, he is also really really wealthy. He lives in a ginormous house and he used to be one of the biggest tithe payers here in the Philippines. Anyway, our conversation was great. He is inactive, he says, because the members think he is crazy. He is like one of those BYU scripture scholars who knows everything imaginable and more about the scriptures, including the geography of where all the history is, the maps, Isaiah, like that. It is crazy how much he knows. People think he is crazy because he sometimes shares too much of what he knows with people. He talks and teaches like an adult would teach a child to drive a car. They're not ready I guess? I don't know. Anyway, he is a very kind, and knowledgeable man and we pray he will return back to church to help edify all of us.

This week I learned a lot about prayer vs sincere prayer. There are many accounts in the scriptures about sincere prayer. I've realized how often, my prayers are just prayers long and no sincerety in them. We all have the capacity to bring the powers of Heaven to us. Heavenly Father is waiting for us to ask for the promised blessings when we do our part, and sometimes (for me, most times) I just say the usual prayers. I'm not calling down the powers of heaven to help me, to help my family, my area, my ward, our work, etc. I'm just saying prayers long. I forget a lot of times also that prayer is a 2 way communication. How often do we pray and forget to listen? We all know that when we are praying we are talking with our Heavenly Father-why not have a conversation instead? I am guilty of this soooo often-I forget to take the time to listen after I close my prayer. I've found though that when I take the time to communicate with our Heavenly Father, it is just that-an actual conversation. I love it. My relationship with our Father in Heaven is growing stronger and stronger everyday and I am so grateful for that. It strengthens me, and it helps our work here soo much! Ha ha I don't need to feel like I have to do everything on my own-Heavenly Father is there to help. I just have to ask specifically for His help. So try this week, and then always ha ha, have a conversation with our Heavenly Father. Not just a one-way conversation where you order what you want on the phone and hang up before He answers and confirms with you. 

This week was awesome talaga! I LOVE being here. Also I really wish I could hold Jr as soon as he's born. I love you all soooo much! I'm sups excited for this week. It will be grand. Each of you are in my prayers and I pray for the doctors as well! I love you!!

-your favorite missionary! Sister Davidson 

Pictures! :)

Okay one of the members in our ward is really well off-they have a drum set!? What the!? Okay I actually didn't play, I just really wanted to fake like it.

 We had a fun FHE!

Because I'm white-they put lip stick on my face rather than babypowder 

FHEs really are way fun

One of the families we visited on exchanges. 4 of them are getting baptized next week and we are so excited for them!

Exchanges with Sister Delos Santos!

I love the Philippines! It is SO beautiful here! This was a sunset picture we were able to capture and it doesn't even show the true beauty of the country and bundok here in the Philippines. 

I love this picture! Sorry for the blury-ness.

 I just love this sunset!

 continuation of the beauty of the earth!

Okay this was nasty. We had a CSP cleaning the house where the new Elderl missionaries are going to be coming in and staying their first night her. this house was nasty! Complete with trying to catch mice, fighting off coackroaches, dead snakes, it was great... Don't worry though we cleaned it well. That new Elder from our Stake (what is his name and when he come here?) will enjoy it ha ha. 

After our CSP we celebrated 7/11 day at 7/11 with ice cream! 

We went free golfing this morning as a zone!! Forgive me for my lack of golf skills-Ry I expect lessons one day. But it was SO fun!

I was a pro-at acting like a pro-not actually a pro at golf.

Our zone! It was so fun golfing with them! 

That's it folks! I love you and am praying for you that everything goes well with the delivery this week!!!!!!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!

July 4, 2013

Happy 4th of July Family!!!!

How are you! And happy late 4th!!! Ha ha my American kabahay and I had a good time celebrating and trying to introduce American things to our mga kasama. Je je it was funny.

This week was great! Last week our Bishop (is amazing by the way) took us to like 6 different houses of less active memebers in our ward and this week we were able to visit 5 of them! They are all doing well and have their different reasons for not coming to church anymore and we're trying to work with them to help remind them why they decided to be baptized in the first place. Slowly we will progress with them and they will return and be so happy! 

This week we also had a bunch of pump-up let's actually do more work times with our zone. On Monday we set our zone goals for the month of July, then on Thursday we had our Zone Trainings, then Friday our Zone Interviews with President. It was a pump up week for sure! I love being here in the middle of all these changes that are happening, it is awesome! So something big and exciting is that we now have the opportunity to go to the temple 2x during our mission!!!! Exciting right!? If we work with less actives, or recent converts who are going to the temple for the first time to be sealed together as a family we can go with them! We are stoked beyond belief! Something Sister Bongolto and I hope for is the family of Sister Dianne to be sealed! Sister Dianne was baptized last week, and we are now teaching her asawa and we're praying that if he gets baptized soon, they can go to the temple in one year! Je je for me that is cutting it close! But, it is  all up the them of course. But we are definantly start going to put more focus on being sealed in the temple with our families to those we are teaching. We're excited. 

Ya this email is pretty short je je sorry about that. But this week was fantastic. I love where I am at. I love being with my new companion, I love training, I love learning new things everyday, I love strengthening my relationship with our Heavenly Father each day, I love these people. I love this area. I just love it all!

Glad to hear you are all doing so well! I love and miss you!

-Sister Davidson 

Quiballio family! One of the LA familes we teach-they are so great! The husband is having a hard time coming to church, but Sister Quiballio always wants to come!

 Sister Dianne, and 2 of her kids. Je je the little baby is trying to sing the hymn with Brother Joey (our ward mission leader who is awesome)

 Part of our American 4th of July meal! It was amazing! We toatally planned it so well. It was amazing, delicious, and made me miss American food.

 So Sister Marcucci and I made this amazing Amercian meal, and then our mga kasama je je made their rice and ate the bones of our chicken more than they ate the American meal. Je je it was actually really funny. 

 how we grilled the corn je je

 our American meal!!!

Smores! For the life of me I could NOT remember the good quotes from Sandlot about how to make smores. so when we were trying to teach our mga kasama we couldn't teach like the kid in Sandlot.

Smores!

They enjoyed their rice and chicken je je

Watermelon-it was amazing.

Seriously-so amazing. (and super expensive je je so we can't buy watermelon very often if ever je je. but we splurged b/c it was the 4th)

My attempt at grilling the corn je je it was hard b/c the husks kept catching on fire so we ended up boliling the corn after we grilled it

our way of smoring smores

 a beautiful area where we work!

ya this is about it. je je sorry this is a short email and not very many things to talk about. Okay but I love you so much and miss you!!! Don't forget to pray and have an actual converstation with our Heavenly Father and not just a one way conversation. I love you all!!!

-your favorite missionary!

Missionary Work...BOOM!!!! July 1, 2013

Hello Family!!!

Thank you so much for your emails! I sincerely sincerely appreciate it and I LOVE hearing from you and how you are doing, thank you!!

This week was fantastic! Absolutely fantastic! So many great things happened! Okay first... we had 2 successful baptisms and confirmations!!!!!!!! Ahhh we were so excited!!! It was so so great, and our two sisters-Sister Diane and Sister Jacquiline loved their experience and felt so good and felt the Spirit talaga. Si Sister Diane she had the night before a disagreement with her mother-in-law about her being baptized the next day. Her mother-in-law told her if she was going to be baptized she would not be welcomed in her home anymore. We are so thankful for the goodness of Sister Diane's husband. He is so great. He told her to follow her heart, if she felt it was right to be baptized, then she should go ahead and do so. So... she was baptized! None of her family came to her baptism which was actually very sad. But they are supportive in different ways! We are now hoping to work with her husband and teach him. He has a great personality and can really be strengthened by the fullness of this gospel. We will pray for opportunities to teach him, and we pray he will be baptized also. We know once he gets baptized, he can take his family to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity. What a beautiful blessing eh? So that's our next step. Ah man it was such a great day!

Also... last night, we were blessed to watch the Worldwide Leadership Training Meeting at the stake center with all our Bishop's leaders, like that and okay... it was AMAZING. Amazing doesn't even describe it! Did you get a chance to watch it at all? If you didn't... WATCH IT!!! Okay seriously. Missionary work is going forward faster than ever before. The time is now. The time is here. The work is hastening. The time is now. Okay seriously I was so uplifted, so inspired, so excited for missionary work and the changes that are being made to hasten the work. One of the biggest changes is how much members are to be involved in missionary work. We as missionaries are the pianos, the members are the pianests. We teach-they find. Meaning... the knocking on doors like that is coming to an end. Members are to fill the missionarie's planners with so many appointments there is no time to knock on doors! It is so exciting! This is the way missionary work needs to be! It needs to be hand in hand with the members. I am so excited!!! I feel like I have caught the vision of the potential here in my area, and for missionary work throughout the world. If members and missionaries work together, the progress will be incredible. I am stoked. I pray that the members of our ward will catch the vision also. If we all can catch the vision... wow it is going to be great. I can see the progress already. Ahhh I'm so so so excited!!!! The leaders of our day are inspired talaga. They are receiving revelation from the Lord to hasten His work. They are sharing with us what we need to do to prepare for the time when He will come again. And check it out... WE get to be part of it! What a blessing!! The time is coming ha ha I just get so so so excited for this work to move forward! So this is me extending the invitation to all of you... join the work! Missionary work is moving forward with or without us. We can either be actively part of it or sit back and watch it move on without us. But nothing is stopping this work from progressing. I'm so excited. I'm so excited how this is going to change lives, how this is going to bless lives! Be part of it! Join! Do something! Don't just say you'll do something, actually do it! Ah man this is so great! I love it. 

Okay family. I love you so much. Forgive me for this email being somewhat short but know that I love you! I pray for you daily! Especially you Savanna and for Jr! I pray that all will go well for you in the next few weeks!! Ah man I'm stoked stoked stoked! We met a baby 1 day old the other day, he was adorable and I just wanted to hold him. I wish everybody at Jackson Hole will have a blast and a half and love their time up there! Be safe, have fun, enjoy each other's company, and when all else fails... hold your paddle high ha ha. 

I love you family! This church is true.The fullness of this gospel changes lives. Jesus Christ and His Atonement will help all of us no matter what we're going through. We must turn to Him in all things and He will help us. I love you and I'm sups glad we get to spend eternity with each other!

-Sister Davidson :) 

Pictures! :)

Last week in the afternoon on P-Day some of our zone headed up to the Montasario ni Cristo again for a bunch of the missionaries who hadn't been yet. We're in the Philippines which means...we squish as many people as we can into one van. It was crowded. And awesome. 

Ha ha I saw this picture and immediately thought of whitewater and Jackson Hole. Whitewater anyone?

The Sisters!

Sister Bongolto and myself! I love my anak! She is so great and teaches me sooo much!!

A view from the top... BEAUTIFUL!!!

Our district!!

 Great view eh? the Philippines is beautiful!!

FHE sa Clariz family! Sister Diane's family!

Ha ha I tried eba from the tree. Ha ha SUPER sour!! Sister Joy (a ward missionary) is showing me how to eat it. 

ha ha you can't fake a face like that. it was SOUR!!! and delicious too! Kind of like a super super sour candy, woow my face is cringing thinking of the sourness of it now.

Sister Diane's and Sister Jacquiline's baptism!!!

Ha ha Brother Joey-the baptizer. So we were going to have the elder's quorum president baptize them, but when we got to the church, the baptismal clothes were dirty so the clothes wouldn't fit him. So Brother Joey was the smallest so he got into the small clothes and was able to baptize them ha ha it was just funny. 

Sister Diane and Sister Jacquiline were so happy!

Yep she is my child, my anak. She is trying to eat peanut butter with her avacado. 

That happened and I was so proud. I LOVE Filipino PB!

There was a lot of rain. ha ha I love the rain! And it would be fun to walk in... except it is actually really, really dirty...

 You only experience life once right? ha ha I loved it!

 It was a lot of rain!

It was a lot of fun! Sister Joy-our ward missionary is awesome.

Okay that's all folks! I love you and hope you enjoy these pictures as much as I do!

Love you!!! 

-Sister Davidson :)