I never used to believe those stories that missionaries would tell about how they would meet people at exactly the right time or exactly the right place. I thought those stories of 'divine intervention' sounded pretty unbelievable, but this week we had an interesting experience...
We went to San Pedro after a really difficult lesson (for many reasons) with one of our younger investigators. Anyways, I felt like crying (which doesn't really happen that often for me) We got there around 6:45, and we had a dinner appointment at 7:30. We had time for one lesson and we had several people that we were hoping to visit but I wasn't feeling the best and we couldn't decided who we were going to visit. We ended up walking back and forth on the same stretch of road probably 5 times in our efforts to decide on someone to teach. We finally decided to teach Jun Escoto, a long time investigator. As we were walking down the smaller but long path towards his house, we realized that they had visitors at their home, BUT they were leaving right as we were walking up. We had a beautiful lesson and talked about the Tree of Life in 1 Nephi 8. I didn't realize the timing of everything until Sister T said something afterwards. I realized that when we had spent our time wandering the street, walking back and forth on the same stretch of road- we were basically just waiting for Jun to finish up so we could teach him. I was in awe at the perfectness of the timing, as we would not have been able to meet with until his visitors left.
We had Anita's baptism this week which was a beautiful day for us. Her 15 year old son wanted the missionaries to teach her, 3 year ago, but she didn't want to. After 3 years, she agreed to be taught and now she is baptized. The other day he told Sister T that he had seen small changes in his mom since we've been teaching her. We've learned a lot from Anita, and it has been exciting to see her progression, bit by bit as we have met with her.
Next week, we have 2 baptisms, which is exciting for us. One is Djorn, who is 14 years old. We've had a lot of ups and downs with him and he has been a long time investigator, but he has finally progressed towards baptism. The other is a 9 year old girl who's parents are members.
(Investigator = Someone who is being taught by the missionaries)
One time when we were teaching a lesson outside, we kept hearing rustling in the tree above us. I looked up and one of their chickens had climbed up there. I've never been afraid of a chicken falling on me.
The other day, we were asked to put our spit on someone's baby-on the forehead. It's a filipino superstition that the spit of missionaries (or priests or religious leaders) will bless their baby. We reluctantly did it, because we didn't want to offend them. We couldn't stop laughing afterwards...
Filipinos are pretty unashamed of their weight. Things that would be really offensive to say to someone in America, are pretty normal here. I had an older woman tell me the other day that I was getting bigger. ( I've had several people tell me that.) The day after that when we saw our mission president, he asked me if I was exercising a lot because I looked too skinny. The truth is, is that I am actually the same weight, as when I arrived in the Philippines. Even at the doctor's office, the scale was out in the waiting room, in front of everyone. NBD. Most people seem to not care about their weight.
Yesterday Sister T and I gave talks in Sacrament meeting! It was an interesting experience to speak to a large group of people, in Tagalog.
Mosiah 27: 25-26
Sigue. Iyan lang. I love you all.