Hello po and Merry Christmas to everyone!!
Really
though, Christmas season is now in full-swing here in the Philippines
and will continue to be that way for the next several months. We have
started singing Christmas songs in church, Christmas decorations are
going up, (I used to be appalled by Wal-Mart putting decorations up
right after Halloween... yeah... Christmas decorations were up at the
grocery store when I got here in August:)) and Christmas music is
currently playing here at the Internet shop. So crazy, ya got to love
it. :)
I'm happy to report that I have had a very uneventful week compared
to the first few weeks of being here. Monday we had a combined zone
activity with the Taguig zone which was super fun! We hung out at our
chapel and played volleyball, basketball, ate food, and played some kind
of steal-the-flag game which I'm honestly still trying to figure out
how you play it. It was great to get to know some of the other Elders
and Sisters better.
Sister Quinco and I went on splits with the Sister Training Leaders
on Wednesday. It was a great experience and I learned a lot from the
sister I worked with. Funny story... so here, it's polite to take your
shoes off before you enter people's houses, right? So the STL, Sister
Suarez, and I took our shoes off, like normal, and when we opened the
door to leave, I found that part of my shoes were missing. Apparently
the member's dogs found my crocs super tasty... :)
Friday we spent most of the day waiting for the Martinez children
to have their baptismal interviews. Elder Balolong, our district
leader, really likes to give, uh, thorough interviews but it was okay
because it gave us a chance to visit with Elder Anderson from my MTC
district who is Elder Balolong's new trainee since his last one went
home from homesickness.
On Saturday I got to enjoy watching Frencess, Frenscharls l, and
Frenscharls ll Martinez be baptized. Wow! It was awesome! It was
especially great because their dad, who is a less-active, came both to
their baptisms and to church the next Sunday where they were confirmed.
He was really emotional throughout both of these things. Sister Quinco
and I hope that as we continue to teach our newest recent converts, that
he will join us more often in our lessons and that his children's
decisions will continue to have a good influence on him.
Saturday
evening Sister Quinco and I were extremely fortunate to have dinner with
some friends of my aunt and uncle who are living here in Metro Manila. I can't begin to describe how wonderful it was
to eat delicious, very-American food (not rice!) :) We are so grateful
for the Hill's generosity in letting us come over, visit, eat wonderful
food, and share a spiritual message with them.
Sunday during ward council we again really tried to emphasize to
our ward the importance of the members in missionary work. Our ward is
really struggling in this area and we're finding it's difficult to serve
our callings as missionaries when we have no investigators to teach.
As blessed as we feel to have had six baptisms in the last few weeks,
as well as having the other sisters who we live and serve with have
three baptisms, we now have a lot of time to be filled with finding new
people to teach. We pray that we will be able to find people and that
our ward members, especially the newly called ward missionaries, will
aid us in the missionary work.
This morning we woke up at 4:00 in the morning to attend the temple
session. It was a much needed spiritual experience and I feel so
blessed to have the temple in our mission boundaries! The endowment
session was beautiful and I really, really, really enjoyed the new
video.
Thank you for your continued love and support! Hope you have a wonderful week!
God bless you!
Sister Dickison
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