We had mission training/Christmas Party in Orion on Wednesday. It was nice to see some familiar faces.
On our way home from training, I realized how beautiful it is, despite the trash everywhere. I was anticipating missing it here in the Philippines, and it almost made me already miss it, as weird as that sounds. We found a few new investigators this week. I am excited to teach/learn with them.
Every day, I'm learning and progressing, some days more than others. But this week, I realized that a lot of my pain and anxiety was coming from the fact that I was so attached to friends, my things, my life, and I was resisting the change that will inevitably come from learning how to love and serve other people. I was fighting the change. I am a missionary, and I am starting to find inexplainable joy in that. This is the only time in my life that I will have this lifestyle, and do this work, the way that we do it everyday.
I prayed for happiness. I've never prayed for that before. I prayed for happiness, and that has been given to me. I am able to go through hard things, if I can find joy.
Many of my concerns from before, are slowly being resolved, mostly through studying the scriptures. That is hard to explain as well, but there is so, so much to be found there.
On Friday, Sister T and I split, so we switched companions for the day for training purposes. I went to Florida Blanca, and Sister Mamolang was my companion for the day. She's from Visaya, I think? It was really great to work with her and I learned a lot from her, how she interacted with the people, what she talked about. It all felt a bit more natural, probably because this is her culture. It's harder for Sister T and I to have really natural conversation with some people, because our Tagalog sounds different and we don't understand them as well as a native would. Sister Mamolang and I spoke tagalog mixed with english all day, but it was nice to hear about her and I told her about America too.
Florida Blanca was really beautiful. I saw a field of sugar cane, and lemon bushes. We visited a family with no floor, just the ground. The woman there gave us bread that she made in her coal oven.
2 Ne 31:3-"For my soul delighteth in plainness; for after this manner doth the Lord God work among the children of men. For the Lord God giveth light unto the understanding; for he speaketh unto men according to their language, unto their understanding."
This was such a gem for me. 'according to their language' is probably referring to even a speech preference. Some people feel God through simple, plain words, and some people require other things. I'm trying to learn how to teach-how to be simple in explaining. I cannot give everything that I know at once.
I wish I could write more, but thank you all for your support!
-Sister Vickers
PS. Enjoy the pictures! A few are from the apartment. One is of the brooms that we have here. I think they look like mustaches, so Melissa Swan should like that. One is of my mission president and wife. Another is of Sister T and I. Another is of soap that is made from placenta that I saw in a store. 2 photos are of jeepneys- we use them to get everywhere, unless we take a tricycle. One is with a family in our ward in their home.
ok bye.
