Called to Serve: TRANSFERS---TRAINER NA AKO!

HELLO FAMILY!!

This week has been crazy and awesome. I'm running out of time so I might have to cut this a bit short. Transfers are this Wednesday and I got a call that I will be training a new missionary!! Whaaaat?!! Ah. I am so excited, but so very scared! I am still pretty new in the field so I feel so inadequate as a trainer. I will meet my new anak (child) tomorrow morning at the mission home. I don't know yet if she will be a Filipina or a foreigner. There are 4 new sisters coming in--2 from Provo MTC and 2 from Philippines MTC. So we'll see! This is going to be a crazy new adventure for me, I'll need your prayers.

Yesterday, we had another great lesson with Ricky! He's doing so well, down to 1 cigarette a day! I am so proud of him. We pushed his baptism date back a little bit though to September 27th. I am so excited for him. Right now, he's been working at a call center and the hours have been hard for him. He has to go into work at 3:30 in the morning and his shift goes until 12:30 noon. But he is still so awesome and he came straight from work to church at 1pm. He is so dedicated! Heavenly Father definitely is noticing his faith--he got a call after church informing him that he was being transferred to a new account. Now, he has Saturday and Sunday off--exactly what he has been requesting, AND regular work hours from 7am to 4pm. He was so happy! He was doing a little dance when he told us about it! Hahaha. Our lesson was great. We taught him tithing and fasting. He just accepted it fully. I am just amazed at how Ricky is just embracing every aspect of this gospel--no hesitations. And he just says over and over that he is so happy. That he knows this church is true! Then he got teary-eyed and said he's so grateful that God sent us to him to bring him this gospel and this happiness. He said in all his 50 years of living, he has never felt this happy. ha! He said, "I wish I could just show you my heart! You know the smiley faces like this??." and he drew a little smiley face on his chest, "Well, mine's like THIS!!" ..and he drew this HUGE smile extending into the air! Haha! It brings me soooo much joy to see how much this gospel has infused a physical light into his life. Into his eyes. It is a night and day difference, from the first time I met him and now. Just like the video I shared a couple weeks ago, God's light is real. I am seeing it in the lives of these wonderful people. It changes people, it changes lives. It is beautiful.

So one of my favorite things to do here is play with the little kids! I wish that as missionaries, we could just have one day of the week set aside to just play with kids! Haha. I always have to cut it short though and get back to work. :) TONS of the little kids--little girls especially--will call me Elsa from frozen! haha the other day one girl just ran up to me, "ELSA!!!" haha, so I started singing "Let it go" and her eyes just lit up with excitement! Then about a million kids just came running!! Haha we all ended up singing "Do you wanna build a snowman?" together. And they were hanging on to my skirt and hands and legs just singing and dancing with me! It was the cutest and funnest thing ever. One of the girls kept asking me to twirl in my skirt, so I would spin around and they would just squeal and look at me in awe. Haha I felt like a disney princess! There were probably about 15 kids all trying to talk to me at once, haha a little bit overwhelming, but I just loved every minute. They are the sweetest, sweetest things on earth.

Another time this week, these other kids taught me the "Bahay Kubo" handshake/game thing. I already learned the song from my companion and then we played the game with some of the kids on the street! Haha pretty soon we had a huge group of us laughing and playing. These are seriously the happiest times for me! I can see a new perspective and understand a little bit more of what Christ meant when He said to become like little children. Ahh. Just everything about it all is so beautiful.

Well, I'm running out of time. I love you all! Keep safe and happy over there with school starting again!

Ingat kayo palagi!

Mahal na mahal ko kayo!

Sister Oyler

(Pictures from last week)

We rode the LRT!

The crazy office elders

I saw my nanay again!! Sister Velasco!

Sister Lockwood--MTC exchanges!

MTC exchanges

I love these crazies. They're my little barkada

Floood

The water is so gross

We had dinner with Delia

Delia with Sister Paningbatan

Ricky

(This week's pictures)

She's the cutest thing!

So dirty

haha.... the cutest little boys!

Arlene! One of our investigators. The wonder mom with baby girl twins and 2 other young kids that she takes care of by herself all day until her husband comes home from work at night.