But don't worry the flood didn't come up!
It just been another great week here in Carmona. I love, love, love it! Let's start with Monday. So after I emailed you we had a zone activity at the Fornash house. It was really fun and the food was great! And I got your letters! It fun because the letters get here really late so I am still getting you reactions and comments about Naic, which is kinda fun to relive the memories. So next week is Jackie's baptism. And I am so excited. She is the 16 year old niece of the primary president, and has a HUGE desire to be baptized. We were there every day this week so get her ready for her interview, and everyday she would tell us how many days until her baptism. Her testimony is so strong and she says she wants to serve a mission. I told her that I will pray that she gets called to the new mission in Salt Lake. But then again Sister Pacino will be prayer for Jackie to go to her home mission. So we'll see who wins. But because there house is super close to ours, we always had it as our last appointment, and Sister Omendto always fed us. Yummy! It started to feel like home there. It's like we belong there. Later on tonight we are going there again, and we are bringing treats because they always give us food, so we thought we'd switch things around. Jackie had her baptism interview on Saturday and all is well! We are good for the 4th of August. I am so excited!
There is this couple, Harold and Lisa, that has been investigating the Church for over a year now, but they couldn't get baptized because they weren't married. They've been coming to church and paying tithing and everything. But then they went to Lisa's provence so she could give birth to her baby, who is super cute! Well they are back now, and their paper are being processed for their marriage. They should be cleared to get a marriage licence by the August 3rd. And then they just have to wait for that part which could take anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks. It is actually super hard to get married here in the Philippines and really expensive and you cannot get a divorce. So most people just live together. But the point is they are super close and super excited. As are we! Sister Pacinio is a little sad because transfer day is Aug 8 and she has been here for 4 transfers, so she is probably not going to be here for their wedding or baptism. And once again I will be leading the area. I don't know where anything is... this could be fun. I just tell my companion that this is my first transfer here too... we'll she if she buys it.
One day (I really can't remember when... everything kinda turns into a blur after by the time monday rolls around) we went to go visit a less active sister who is coming back to church. She is super nice and always reads the Book of Mormon. But I have never seen her smile. It is so sad. She literally never smiles, which is really quite odd for Filipinos. She always has this look of pure exhaustion when we go there. But we went there unexpectedly, because both our plan and our back up plan fell through. Her sister-in-law was there because her and her husband are moving in with them. She is not a member but her husband (who is not on our records, because they moved from a different lugar) is a member but less active. She we taught them both and they both came to church on Sunday. And Sister Joanne seems really interested. This finding through less actives really works. Tell the Elders that are living in your basement, if they are lacking in the investigator area... visit less actives and they will find them. I wouldn't know how to do missionary work without this focus on Less active members.
We also found a new Less Active family through a recent convert. Rachel would love him. His name is Cyrus and is covered from head to toe in tattoos. And is such a punk. He really is like the boys she used to work with. Cause he is a softy at heart. :) Anyway, he just want everyone to be a member, so he told us that we should go with him to his friend JP. So we went. Come to find out his Grandpa had died and there was a sit in. So of course we had to go pay our respects and then they shoved us full of food, even they didn't know us. Well, a sit in is a really good place to talk to people about the Plan of Salvation, oh di ba? So the first Nanay we talked to asked us where our church was. So we told her. Her answer, "I used to be a member." We get that a lot. No Nanay you are still a member, can we come visit you? Yes. Sweet! Then when we went back to her house, come to find out it's been like 20 years since they went to church (once again in a different lugar) so half of their children aren't members. Thank you Cyrus!
The Paglinawan Family are recent converts. They are a cute young couple with two cute little girls. Sister Liza was baptized in October and Brother JoJo was just baptized in March. Anyway, Brother JoJo had someone at work who had a question about people that died without baptism. He said that they were damned. Brother told him he was wrong and bore his testimony about history and baptism for the dead (even though he hasn't been able to do baptism for the dead yet, himself). We were so proud! He want's to look for his family's name when they go back to their province. We said we would go with him to Binan to help him look up the names on the church site. He got really excited, and of course so were we. I've never taught anyone about Family History yet, so this will be fun!
It rained again really hard yesterday, so Sister Pacinio and I were worried that there wouldn't be any people at church again. But there were so many! And we had 7 investigators at church. So cool!
You all sound so great, and I love you letters! Pictures! Send me more Pictures! Lots and Lots of them! That's my favorite part is the pictures. Salamat for all of the letters, they make me feel like I'm home, in a good way, don't you worry. Love you all!
I love you all so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so much!
Mahal kita!
Sister Lyons
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