I hope everyone is doing well! It is transfer week this week, so our P-day was postponed until today. We transfer tomorrow! I'm staying here! yay :) But my nanay is getting transferred. :( my follow-up trainer will be Sister Solivan...a former STL and Filipina from Bacolod I think as well. I've only heard amazing things about her, so I am so excited!!
So...I got a pretty lovely "sugat" (wound) this week....
While leaving a member's bahay...6 of their scary dogs started chasing us biting at our legs haaa...I actually didn't get bit, but as we were running out, my nanay shut the door as fast as she could (the door was just some sheet metal hammered together), but I wasn't quite out yet and the bottom of the door dug into my heel/ankle. mmm ouch. It was pretty deep. Maraming dugo (lot's of blood). Haha and despite my best efforts to keep it clean and take care of it, it has gotten a lot of infection.. it is soo dirty here. So multiple times I've had to sit and scrape out the infection. ahh, sakit talaga. But it's beginning to heal and I'm just praying it gets better without any problems.
Speaking of mga aso (dogs) though, there are a LOT of wild, stray dogs here. And some of them are rabid. You can tell which ones....yikes. I saw the scariest looking dog the other day. I could tell something was off with it by the way it was standing...like crooked and off balance and when we got closer you could see how patchy it's hair was..it was filthy and super skinny. And there was just.....snot....dangling from it's nose almost to the ground and other...fluids coming out of it's mouth. I'm not even kidding it was the freakiest sight I've seen. And when we saw it's eyes...ahh we all looked away! We crossed the road and steered as far away from it as we could.
Also, this week was Holy Week! Almost everyone is Catholic here and this week they celebrated holy week. Ha, I had no idea...and so after one of our lessons this week, we came out of one of the little alleys and I looked up and suddenly there was this huge float with a statue of bleeding Jesus on a cross. I stopped so startled!! And everyone was walking with candles in their hands. ha And one of the members that was working with us looked at my astonished face and just started laughing! haha It was a huge procession though. With float after float of Christ and Mother Mary and everyone wearing purple and holding candles walking along with it. The whole week, there was hardly much traffic, shops were closing....one of the members said to me that people here don't really keep the Sabbath Day holy or any other time holy....but they keep holy week REALLY holy. haha Most people don't eat meat. All the radio stations that we would overhear were reading verses from the Bible between songs. All week people would gather and sing holy songs outside their houses. We were even riding a tricyle to one of our appointments and passed by one of the Catholic churches, and the driver slowed down and reached in to the cab area where a mother Mary thing was hanging and he rubbed it until we passed the church.
So I finally ate something that I didn't like! Liver. bleh. and I think part of it might be because of that semester of Anatomy and dealing with cadavers....and knowing the function of body organs...ew. haha but the taste wasn't great either.
So our investigators are doing great! We got a lot of them to come to church this last Sunday which was awesome! 4 of them have baptism dates! Allan is going to need to get married to his wife though before he can get baptized, so that's something we are trying to make happen. Sometimes, it's really frustrated in our work though...Especially with the new contacts and investigators we have been getting. A lot of the time we can tell they are only interested because it's a pretty American girl that it talking to them. And they are not focusing on our message but on me. It is so hard for me! Because I know how beautiful this gospel is and how much it can change their life, but they can't get past me to see it. They are focusing on the "beautiful blonde" and not on the message we are trying to share with them. Sometimes I feel like I'm hindering the work, more than helping it. It is a struggle for me, but I am learning a lot. And I love these amazing people. And I love when they do listen and listen for real. Witnessing the gospel changing lives is just...I don't know how to explain it. It is absolutely incredible. I love this work. I feel so grateful to have the opportunity to be a part of it.
This past week has been full of so many things for me! I love every moment here in the Philippines! I hope you all are doing great as well. I love and miss you :)
Mahal ko kayo!
Sister Oyler
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