Kamusta Pamilya
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you!!!!! On hard days I remember that I have emails full of inspiring words and people praying, loving and supporting me. It makes it all worth it. Emails are absolutely precious to me. I can't express that enough.
Question for everyone. If someone has already been baptized in another church (all my investigators have been baptized Catholic and usually Baptist too. haha) I want to explain the purpose without straight up telling them their baptism didn't count. It didn't matter. It was wrong. They were baptized before because they wanted to follow God they just didn't have the truth. Help!
A lot happened this week. I ate a lot of new foods, like chicken noodle soup with huge chunks of banana in it. Apparently its very popular here.
Also, Rumbutan, that crazy spikey fruit they have in grocery stores. It's like a giant peeled grape inside. Super good.
I ate sugar cane. So good! It really looks like bamboo, like a huge think bamboo stick that's not hollow. Then you cut off the outside and eat the inside.. still like a stick.and the texture is too but it tastes really sweet. You just chew it for a few seconds then spit it out. It's pretty funny. I felt like a real Filipino.
Oh and agogo. It's like ice mixed with an otter pop. Way good.
Oh dear. I'm trying to speak more to everyone right? So i asked this little boy what his name is. and he looks at me and just started peeing. Yep, happened. A lot of time little kids don't wear pants. just longer shirts. and babies never have diapers. So that was awesome.
A couple of kids started following us around in one of our areas, so i started mimicking everything they did and they thought it was hilarious. I just have to be happy and nice because I usually can't think of anything to say. you know how I'm shy when I first meet people and don't know what to say or to little kids.. multiply that times 100 because i have to say it all in another language. but im trying.
They have brown outs here pretty often. aka no power. because of too much wind or rain or just no reason. they can last for 5 minutes or days. We had 2 this week and one was 12 hours long. 6pm to 6am. So we had to do all our studying and cooking by candlelight. And it's really hot because no one can use fans so we are just dripping in sweat. awesome.
oh and the funniest thing this week. we are teaching a girl named clysel and her sister is a recent convert glysel joy... yeah they sound like the same name to me too. they are only a year apart and look like twins. so we are always confused about which is which. and my companion commited joy to get baptized..... again... oopps. she said yes though haha. so we are accidently teaching false doctrine. it was way funny.
The elders in the ward had a baptism this week and it was great. Hopefully ill be going to baptisms every Saturday for the rest of my mission. That's the goal.
We had 11 less actives come to church yesterday. It was so awesome. On of the men hasn't come for 6 years and he text us last night and said "thank you for guiding me sisters". It was so awesome!!!!!
And my favorite investigator family(the Ramos family) came to church for the first time. My companion and I both started tearing up. They are so awesome. They have 4 kids. 3 adorable nice boys that love the missionaries and 1 baby girl that is so cute! They are truly searching for the truth and said they loved church. It just makes me so so so happy. We found them because we were lost and we needed directions for another house. We stopped to ask and they asked if we could come back. Interesting that God puts those in your path that need your help. I know this is His work. I think of My Comission often and try to say and do what He would say and do to the very people He has sent me.
Another girl, Clarence, is preparing for baptism on the 31st. We found her on accident too and she is awesome. When we taught her yesterday she really looked different. Beautiful. Happier and more confident. I can see she is changing and I am so happy the gospel is blessing her life.
One thing i love about this place is all the people live really close.. like the same neighborhood as their cousins and parents. It's awesome. I think it's so important that we live close. I would even consider living in a house like that to be close to family. It's the most important. :)
I also realized the importance today of loving people, really loving them. Sincerely wanting to know how they are doing and then listening. actually listening. That's how they will recognize love. It's such a huge deal. Listen to people. Be sincerely interested in them.
I love you all so much! You're the greatest! I love loving people. I am trying hard to show love to everyone. Love people. Truly love them and everything else will come. When we love God, really love Him, we want to obey. We want to do what He asks and it doesn't seem hard.
LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE
Sister Kimberly Foote
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