ilovephilippines!

Yeahhh!!!! I LOVE the Philippines!!! I’m seriously in the best mission. The craziest weirdest funniest things happen here that are just the best. For example, yesterday we were just walking down the road and we saw a rat walking on a power line above our heads. You’ve never seen that in America right?! Also this week we were riding in a jeepney like normal and it almost crashed! So thanks for all your prayers cuz I’m being protected! It’s pretty amazing that accidents don’t happen all the time here though cuz like I mentioned when I first got here, the driving is nuts. I’m sure gonna miss that though cuz it’s always an adventure here.

So this week I hit my ONE YEAR MARK in the mission. Ahhh I’m getting old in the mish! Doesn’t always feel like that but wow time has gone fast. So this week was neat to think about the many things I’ve learned and the different ways I’ve been able to grow. I read a lot of my MTC notes from a year ago… Haha I had NO idea what my mission was going to be like or even what the Fillipines… Philipeans…. Philippines was. So yep I’ve learned lots of different culture things and yeah I can speak another language now, but it’s amazing how much my testimony of the gospel has been strengthened in just a year. I knew that I was doing the right thing and that my message was true before I left, but I don’t think I really understood that I would be sharing something that is of eternal worth. The gospel is more important than our jobs, schooling, what food we eat, what clothes we wear, if we have a lot of friends, if we have the newest cell phone…. whatever! We have so many things on this earth to enjoy and that make us happy. But I know that we can only find true and eternal happiness through the gospel. I know that because the people here that I teach, don’t have hardly anything of worldly worth. But the ones that have found the joy of gospel are so happy! So anyways… I know I’m not a great writer or anything haha sorry if these emails get boring at times, but just know that I love missionary work and I know that the things I am sharing are true!

Alright so back to email stuff… We had exchanges this week! Sister Barlow and I had fun getting to know each other better. She goes home the same time as me and she’s going back to BYU too! Haha we accidentally tracted in the wrong area though. People don’t really have maps here cuz there aren’t really streets here so sometimes the boundaries are sometimes confusing. “Doon sa amin at doon sa inyo” is how we have determined the boundaries here (over there is you and over there is ours haha).

But we have had some success with our tracting this week! (Yep doing more and more of that in this area..). So we’ve found lots of potentials which is exciting. Some that are not so great and some that are golden.

Not so great: Arnel. Haha so he is some big guy with tatoos that lives alone, seemed kind of nice but a little creepy. Well we went back when we had another sister with us so we could teach him. First lesson we extended the baptismal invitation and he answered in English, “I’ll be there, what time?” Haha so we invited him to come to church and he said he’d go but… we’re not too sure if he’s more interested in having sisters come visit or actually in the gospel so we gave him to the elders. He didn’t go to church so we’ll see if he’s really interested when the elders go back.

Golden: Jose and Josephine… So nice when we tracted into them cuz they let us in right away and gave us bananas. When we went back with some branch missionaries (they’re awesome! we almost always have a member working with us) Jose was home alone so we taught him and invited him to church. Well he and his mom, Josephine ended up coming! Ahh so excited! Good cuz Allan didn’t go to church… again :/. But we visited Allan last night and he’s doing great still and he invited two friends to come listen. Well next Sunday is either Sister Ril or my last Sunday so he promised to go haha. We’ll see!

Sister Ril and I worked extremely hard this week though! It’s amazing how many blessings come from obedience and diligence. But we taught 34 lessons this week which is a record for my mission! We did have splits when the sister training leaders came so we had 2 companionships working our area for a day but it still was a really great week. I think we’ll see a lot of growth in this area over the next few months. Pamplona zone I think is the fastest growing zone in the mission right now so exciting to be apart of everything here.

This morning we had another district meeting and went to the beach again! Whoo! Always fun. Alright well this is getting really long and I don’t have too much time today so that’s it this week! But everyone have a super wonderful great week and try to serve at least one person this week! Love you all!

Sister Taylor