Pictures week

Hope is doing very good, Last night in her emails she mentioned that things were going really good. Now there are 6 Sister Missionaries living in her apartment, but that won't last for very long, because another apartment is getting just down the street from where she lives that will house The extra two missionaries that just moved in.

She is loving her mission! Here are some pictures that she sent: Enjoy

Look at the size of the umbrella

Hope and Sister__ sitting in front of the fan, she says this is one of ther favorite spots to sit because the air from the fan blows on her and helps her cool down a bit.

Her ultimate frown

They met this man on the street, and Hope was so impressed with him.

That's it for this week, Our Missionary is doing fabulous. She looks so happy. Until next time, and thanks for following our blog. I pray that everyone has a safe week.

Typhoon "Odette"

This is Hope's response to my question about if she was OK from the typhoon; Yes we did get hit by the Typhoon on friday and saturday my goodness it was crazy I loved every single moment of it haha our door came flying open because of the wind. But everyone here  is OK not too much damage. :) but I have never experienced a storm like that in all my life and it was great! :) All of my investigators are OK and safe!

So she survived the biggest typhoon in 25 years to hit the area, What a relief. 

Yep we pass Santa everyday haha we are pretty sure his name is Jefferson because we keep getting weird texts from someone named Jefferson and it's always after we have been in Ayusan Sur where this Santa is :p don't ask me how he got our number cause we have no idea.

Guess who is getting transferred! 

NOT ME! haha I have my Americana for another 6 weeks and then I'm getting transferred.... The President  told me yesterday.... so only 6 more weeks here .... :( Sad day! Iyak ako ngayon :( 

No  I don't know where I'll go yet but president told me and Sister  __ that in 6 weeks our trainees are training and we are being transferred. But just think when that happens in November that would mean that i would have been in this area for 6 months!

    (Now how often have you heard of a missionary staying in an area for 6 months?)

Then I asked her about if she has any up coming baptisms, and this is what she said: Yea hopefully on the 19th and 26th of October :)  I wrote about them in a letter  you will be getting hopefully in 3 days and one you will hopefully be getting in 10 days.

Then later in her email she answered a question I had about one of her new investigators and this was her reply: He is doing great, he didn't come to church but we did teach him yesterday and he is doing wonderful :) OK if you can find a Mini Tagalog Book of Mormon that would be great causeI I can't lug mine around its too big. AAA batteries please and don't freak out but my medical ID bracelet is off :(I need a new band for it. 

She also mentioned this later in her email: ok so the famous thing here is called a Filipino squat its like the pose you do when you are playing catcher in a baseball game but this one is where you can't arch your foot and it is so hard to do, i see Filipinos doing this on a daily basis and i have been trying to master it for months! finally i did! i don't know if you should post these cause it shows alot of knee... but I'll take more i just want you to try this and have Cierra try it and anyone you can get your hands on cause it is tough! haha the famous Filipino squat~~

                                                                    Look at that!
If you look a at the picture closely, if you look at the fan behind her, it looks like she has a bow in her hair. I think it is funny.

Hope had a zone conference this week and she sent some pictures from it. Here they are~~~~

                                                         

                                                           

 The smallest girl in the picture is a fellow shipper, and she just got her mission call to a place this is what Hope says about it: She lives here in the area, she is the best fellow shipper ever! well she is going on an actual mission but as she waited for her mission call she went on a short term mission for 6 weeks and soThe President just put her in my mission and I was so sad when she left cause I thought i would never see her again. right now though she is actually sister ___ she comes back to to our areatomorrow and then goes to the MTC for her mission on October 11. we worked with  her sister __ the other day. She got called to serve in the Philippines I think its called Cagayan, Mindanao
     Here are the last two pictures that she sent: Enjoy! And have a great week, Until next time. And Thanks so much for following our  Missionary. May God Bless all of you and Keep you safe.

Testimony of a Missionary

I am so blessed today! One of those blessings was receiving a story from Hope, It made me cry: And I would like to share it with you:

I hope that it touched your heart today.

Stanky Palanke

I received 2 letters from Hope yesterday, Here is one of letter she wrote~~

August 20, 2013
      So I  went to to mail your letter and guess what? It was a holiday :(  I was so sad, I am so sad! And so I thought I would write you again today to say that you will be getting 2 letter from me on the same day. Anywho so after emailing with you today, we went to a delicious  restaurant called Max's, then we went to the tourist trap called Herritage and we just walked from shop to shop it was fun. Then we went to the bookstore for a few office supplies, after that we went to the coolest store; called Novo, they seriously have everything you can imagine there. It is awesome! I would love to bring you to one1 So now it's September 2, 2013, and we woke up an hour early so that we could get some time to write our families :) 
      So anywho, last P-day when we went to go out and teach, we get to our appointment and guess what? no one was there except 2 young children ages 6 and 10, so we went to some less actives home, and during he opening prayer, and I was not being very reverent because I had my eyes open which was a good thing because their little child grabbed a walking stick and swung it at my companion who was praying, so I reached out and caught it and took it away from the child.
       Then we went to the Relief Society 1st counselors house and she is so great! l and guess what, she fed us Hot Cookies, I was in heaven! It was so delicious! Oh how I miss cookies, 
       So on Tuesday, August 27th, we first went to all those kids who I have my picture with and that lesson was a little rough, we were having a really hard time understanding them but luckily they are very patient children and they got the point of  the message:) Then we went to __ and that was a great lesson, she teaches us Tagalog every time we go there and it is so helpful! We went to __ and taught her and _ a happy message, because they were both having really hard days and they really needed to hear something  positive! The last lesson was at __, we taught her and her whole family about the Restoration and it went so great. Her brother was so receptive he gave us all of his info. so that the missionaries could find him. Also it was someones birthday there so we got fed and it was delicious. Haha.. 
        Then on Wednesday we met these 2 young men and we luckily had a female fellowshiper with us so we taught them and they seemed interested and we are hoping it was the lesson that interested them, and not the fact that we are 2 Americans. After that we went to some less actives, and they were so sweet, and they both came to church yesterday. I was so happy to see them.
        Then later we went over top the_ for a birthday feast, and the Lumpia was wonderful! mmmm good.So on Thursday we had a district meeting and that went good then we went and taught a girl and she was speaking- Ilokano to us so that was a bit confusing... then after that we went to the __ and taught _ and  _ taught us how to say "We live here" in Ilokano so that we could say that to the tricy drivers when they try to rip us off.... haha, it actually works! Last lesson on Thursday was to A 14 year old girl and she is  and I just love her. She gave us a referral for her friend which brings me to Friday the 30th.
        We found her referral and she was so excited to meet with us, we planned to visit her very Saturday. But before we  found her we went clear to the Fuerte which is like a 20-30 minute tricy ride away, but we eventually got there and taught _, a recent convert and she is so smart with the gospel. 
        The last lesson that day, we taught to _, she is so great, she wants to work with us which is so good, she is a recent convert and she has such a strong testimony. She even brought one of her good friends to church yesterday. 
        On Saturday we walked a lot, first we went to teach the kids but when we got there they weren't home, but one of the kids were, so we told her we would return in a hour. So we decided to walk from Salindeg to San Pedro, I know you don't know these places, but they are really far apart. We ended up crossing a few bridges, trudging through swampy water. We walked across an airport runway. And I got a running start and leaped over a river then made a bamboo bridge for my companion so that she wouldn't get her swede shoes ruined. So then we got trapped with no way around but luckily the person we were going to see wasn't even home, so we didn't have to cross the nastiest, swampy, mossy river. It isn't that great that she wasn't home because I really wanted to teach her! But we set up a time to go on Friday.
 After all of that, we crossed a hill to get back to the bridge and guess what? We saw the Sea, It was beautiful! So after that we walked all the way back to Salindeg and the kids weren't there! so we went to _ to teach her daughter , but she wasn't there, so we taught __. Then we went to a baptism that the other Sister Missionaries had.
        And a little while after that, we get a text message, and guess who it was? It was a close friend, so we went there and it was so good. She told us she started reading the Book of Mormon again and then shared with us everything she had learned from reading it. It wa great! And the best part about it was all by candlelight.
 Then on Sunday we worked with __and __, and first we went to the __ and they welcomed us in with smiles.
        After that, we went to __ and she was a lot happier this time. She referred us to her grand kids so it was great. Then we went to ___ and she was so happy to see us. Last place we went yesterday was to __ house and we taught her and 4 young men about the book of Mormon, they all seemed interested. She is already super interested so that is great and when we were leaving she wanted to pay for our tricy, it was so good, and all those young men aka potential Priesthood Holders committed to come to church on Sunday so that is exciting.
         Anywho, last night I made french toast and it was sooo good! So now it's almost 7:25 a.m. and we are going to the Stanky Palengke (market) soon, so if I have time when we get back before we go mail our letters I'll let you  know how it went.
        We are going to the Zoo today, so I'm sure you will the  pictures for that soon, or by the time you get this letter you would have seem them already in my email. So the Stanky Palengke was alright, me and another Sister were on exchanges and we got a bunch of produce. Hopefully it's good because we had no idea what we were doing/When we got home, there wa a huge spider, the size of someone palm, so we killed it with bug killer and the Moron that I am, sprayed some in my eyes! haha don't worry, I'm alright. Sister __ took care of me again. But that is why I sent the pictures of me with my face under the faucet.
Gotta go Love you all!
                             Love, Hope

Hidden Garden

I heard from our fabulous missionary last night, she is doing good~ There is a part of her e-mail I want to share with you: I told her that my lesson was on Being an obedient student of the gospel, and she replied with this: I love teaching about obedience because the Lord promises us everything as long as we just obey! 

Then I asked her about her district activity they had and she said this:Well we were gonna go to the museum but it was closed so we walked around the tourist spot and all the shops, then we went to Hidden Garden it's just a cute little gardeny place I have pics :) haha I'll send them. And then we went and ate at this delicious Chinese place and it was masarap! The ward members are great, even though we need fellowshippers more they do what they can to help us! :) and I just love them! Then later in her email she was answering my email about our animals: (she is going to talk about our 2 dogs and 2 cats) My eating habits are fine, I still don't try new things really but i did try something yesterday and it was awful! it was like a fruit hamburger :P kill me now! I am feeling better this week my ears are just a bit plugged but I'm OK. 

Oh my doggie woggies! I miss them! I miss the sound of dogs barking i know that's weird! haha i can't believe that Madrid is becoming a fatty haha what a funny thing! I hope Florry starts to gain weight cause the cats here are way skinny and it freaks me out! 

From tall to small

At Hidden Garden

With Sister Sese

Her and Sister Sese in a hammock
Cute picture

Look at all the Bonsai Trees

Look who's riding on the back of that thing

This must be in Hidden Garden, Look at how green and Lush it is, just up her alley!

Hope with her pink umbrella

A small frog that she caught

Her and Sister Keith met these girls the other day, one of them is moving, but the other one is open to getting the discussions, We'll see how this goes for them. I hope they get a baptism out of it.
How cool would that be?

I think this was on exchanges last week

Step room-mates

I was on exchanges so I was only there for 1 night. step room mates kinda like step sisters or step brothers ha it might just be a mission joke thing idk. I do love these pj's even though I spilled bleach on them a few months ago

Luncheon, this is where she had the Chinese Food

Quiet place for Hope, I just love how the light is shining through the think foliage.

I hope that you all enjoyed the pictures this week, when I get her letter this week I will probably post it. If anyone has a comment please feel free to leave one. Thanks for following and God created the Philippines we so do appreciate it. Until next time, have a great day!

Lots of Pictures this week

Good Morning Everyone, I heard from our missionary last night, All is well with her, she is doing amazing, and her and her companion  sound like they are tearing it up. She sent a lot of photos this week, and I am so happy to share them with all of you.
In my email to her I asked about her investigators, and this is what she wrote back: we did have one come to church yesterday he is a 18 or 19 year old and he is so interested and he has such a desire! he wants to know all about it! I wrote about him in my letter to you this week. speaking of letters next week I may not be able to get one to you because we have a zone activity and I don't know if I'll have time to write to you on monday cause we can only write to family on Mondays :( My other investigators are doing great they read and pray, my companionh and I talk to literally everyone we see and so we have had a lot more investigators lately! but its hard to catch them at a time when they are all home! 

And this is what she said about her and her companion: We get along great! We work very very well together! and we speak the same Tagalog so its easier to teach :) 

Now here are the pictures that she sent, ENJOY!

My Favorite Missionary with her companion

this is one of her trainers

he got some bug spray in her eye, and there she was rinsing her eye out, I just  hope that the water was clean!

I think this one was taken at the Zoo last week

She says that she was a pirate that day! Arggg!!!!

Hope standing in a rice field

She mentioned the brass tree on top of the building
Interesting!

, 

A good spider in Hope's eyes is a dead spider

You know what is going to happen to this spider?

Interesting mode of transportation! She loves it....

Well those are the pictures that she sent this week, I hope that you enjoyed them.

Hope says Hi to everyone.

Until next time

Have a blessed day and a blessed week!