"I thank the Lord for my Soul"

(This is last week's email, but I forgot to post it last week...sorry :( )
This is what I was listening to someone sing this morning from the Catholic church by our apartment. English and all. I thought it was actually pretty beautiful, especially from the drawn out voice of the person singing it. I actually did thank the Lord for my soul after hearing it.

I have less than a year left on my mission.  It is weird how fast time has gone by. It feels like days just fly and fly. One of my friends who recently returned home from a mission told me - "don't ever come home sister. please cherish every minute moment, especially the hard ones. it is hard coming home..." I think that will probably be the case for me, despite the large amount of stress from serving here. Sister T often talks about how the mission is the one time in her life where she didn't have to worry about work, school, dating, relationships, etc. and that it's difficult to start caring about those things again. 

I keep thinking about how nice it would be to rest for a while, and then I realized that the rest of my life will consist of work (a different kind, of course.) Work is part of overcoming the 'natural man.' --Moroni 9:6

I've still been thinking about the trials, problems that people so openly tell us. Last week I was feeling overwhelmed by how much people tell us. During a conversation that Sister T and I were having, we both talked about how we felt the need to stop talking about people's problems, to try to focus on something else, something more positive. For her, she felt this way towards the beginning of her mission. For me, I'm feeling it now. The interesting thing that we realized is that difficulties/problems seem to be so essential for us to feel, recognize, thank, and grow our faith in our Creator. We hear all of these really sad, terrible stories and experiences, but for these people, often they'll tell us these stories accompanied with how God helped them out of a terrible situation. For so many people, the dark times help them to recognize, feel and see light in a hopeless, dark situation. (gaining of spiritual knowledge---please read Alma 36: 3-5)

The other thing I realized about hearing all of these things, is that for many of these people, they don't have other people to talk to about these things.  I also realized that if I don't listen to them, who will listen to them? Who will hear these things, if we don't? (Mosiah 18:8-10) 

We visited a long time member, Bro. Danan, who was baptized in a swimming pool- a very long time ago.  We asked him how he came to know and understand that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I loved loved his description of that spiritual knowledge. He talked about how he felt it in his 'head,' his 'heart' and his 'body.' I empathize with that description he gave in regards to spiritual knowledge. 

I love the scriptures. If I served my mission for 18 months and the only thing I took out of it was a love for the scriptures, that alone would be worth it. Inexpressible deliciousness. 

lovin you all from the other side of this small world,
Sister Vickers



E.B.- I put a small PS in a past email 3 or 4 weeks ago-I got your package and 3? of your letters.all great and fantastic. thank you.

8

This week was a blurrrrr. We ate Balut. (Surprisingly delicious.) Feel free to google-image that. :) The member who's house we were ate told me to not look at what I was eating and I followed her advice.

We had companion exchanges on Tuesday and I went to Florida Blanca again. We went to a less-active woman who studied Iridology, year ago. She looked in our eyes and told us what sicknesses we have. She told me that my eyes were 'malinis' (clean) and I was kind of relieved, even though it's probably not very legitimate.... haha

I lack time to fully process everything that is going on and sometimes I feel like I'm not very important or influential. I realize like that verse in Alma 34:32-34, that anything great or beautiful or miraculous that has ever happened, started out as something small. 

We had a very interesting lesson last night. We taught a first lesson to a man who wasn't very fluent in Tagalog. He speaks Kapangpangan and the church members who were with us, basically had to translate what he was saying into Tagalog for us. It was a very weird feeling to be watching someone talk and then hearing the translation from someone else. We sat on broken and borrowed chairs There are over 80 dialects spoken in the Philippines and they are basically separated by geographical areas. People learn Tagalog in school, as that is a national language. But, in their homes or families, they'll speak their dialect from their area, so sometimes it's hard to people to express themselves in Tagalog as they don't speak it everyday.

As far as the language is concerned, my understanding is much better than my speaking. Speaking is a bit slower for me. I am conversational, but not yet able to discuss deeper things...

I was feeling overburdened with everyone's problems towards the end of this week. We taught a lesson to a recent convert who was baptized 6 months ago. He wasn't able to come to church the past two weeks because his family wouldn't have had food. He sells ice cream on his bike and is supporting his sister's family as well as himself. It's easy to run in circles with questions like, "Why wasn't I born into a situation like this?" "Why was I born in America?"  I feel burdened with hearing everyone's else problems, that people so often load on us. Mosiah 18:8-10 talks about the baptismal covenant. Maybe I am able to better understand that covenant here on my mission. 

I feel like I'm living two cultures-retaining my identity and trying to be Filipino. I realized a long time ago, that there are things in my personality that would hinder me from being a successful missionary, here in the Philippines, as the culture is so, so different from America- ideas about family, ideas about food, the culture of food, ideas of what is rude-what is polite, the indirectness of the language itself, etc. It's been interesting for me to learn to respect their ideas about things. It's also been a struggle. I've learned submissiveness, which is not really a character trait that I understood very well before my mission.

On the other hand, I have never valued my citizenship so much in my entire life. I found myself becoming cynical at times before my mission about problems in America. I was telling Sister T the other day, that the fact that most Americans have food, safety, and a clean environment is more than what most have here. America is a blessed country, despite the problems that we have.

Ever learning and ever yours,

Sister Vickers

masayamasaya

Thank you for the birthday greetings and hellos everyone! It was a fairly ordinary day, full of Tagalog and bugs and lots of stares.

We had another lesson with Brother Razon this week. He has some sort of an allergy that has been affecting his skin. He talked about how he knows that he doesn't have very many years left before he dies and he wants to see his brothers and sisters again at church. I was thinking about his sickness and feeling that it's humbled him-making his more aware of his vulnerability and his age as well. He was offended by some things that were said to him, over 10 years ago by his friends at church. We talked a lot about forgiveness with him. Despite him saying that he's forgiven people, it's obvious that he still has some negative feelings towards people. He wants a sincere apology, but we talked about the importance of  forgiving unconditionally, even without any apologies given. I've been praying a lot for Brother Razon, to have his heart softened and to apply forgiveness in his life. 

On Sunday morning, we walked into the chapel and saw Brother Razon sitting down, happily talking with one of the men that he was offended by over 10 years ago. I could not hold back my tears:) Sister T and I wanted to run up to him and give him a hug, but a tear-filled handshake was mutually exchanged between us. He was happily welcomed by people he hasn't seen in years, and I was so happy for him.

 This old, hardened, angry man was here finally, forgiving and loving his old friends again. His friends thanked us for bringing him back, but I felt so strongly that our lessons with him, our work with him was so small in his process. He shared his testimony yesterday during Sacrament Meeting and talked about his sickness and his old age. It took him getting older, getting sick and realizing the shortness of his life to humble himself to finally accept what we would tell him. It took him being humbled to finally start forgiving people. It was his first Sunday back in years and I can't express the joy I felt for him. We were talking to him after church, in the hallway, and he's already talking about getting more people involved in Home Teaching. : )

On Saturday, during a jeepney ride to Plaza, I had a beautiful few moments of just being-breathing. I was trying to take it all in- the sun, the smells, missionary life. I'm very grateful to be here. I'm loving my mission more and more. There is no other time in my life when I can go into people's homes and love them and encourage them to improve their live-to live a life more in harmony with God. I am grateful that I've had this opportunity to struggle and learn. I am worried sometimes about the lack of time that I have to process everything. I would love months and months to process everything, and I'm sure I'll spend years afterwards processing everything that has happened. 

My testimony of the Book of Mormon grows more and more every week. I have so many questions still about a lot of things, many still un-answered, but I am finding unexpected answers to my questions, bit by bit. 

E.B.- So happy for you. So happy. :)