HAPPY THANKSGIVI​NG!

HELLO EVERYONE!

Kamusta kayong lahat?

This first week of the transfer has been great!! I got another anak! Ha! There is a sister that just came from the MTC and will be assigned to Mindoro, but they didn't get a flight for her yet, so this whole week, me and my anak adopted her and became a threesome. She is Sister Molar from Bicol, Philippines. Haha it was fun to be able to train her for her first week in the field. She left this morning at about 3am to catch her flight. 

So I realized that this week is Thanksgiving!!! There is no Thanksgiving here, of course. haha. So I hope you all stuff yourselves extra much this week. I realized something funny as well... Do you know how I mentioned that our district has started fasting one day each week. And we've set the day to be on Thursdays...so while all of you are feasting this Thanksgiving...we'll be fasting. haha :) But we'll all be in the same spirit of gratitude and Thanksgiving. I hope you all pause an extra while this week and consider at how blessed we are. We have such a loving Father, who is so concerned and eager to bless us. I see witnesses of it every day. 

So, we have a cute little investigator, Charles!! He is 8 years old, but my goodness....I am just amazed that he is only 8. When we teach him, it's like a 15 or 16 year old who's talking back to us. He is brilliant! We are teaching his mom, grandma, and uncle, too.  But he is really the only one progressing. He is reading the Book of Mormon and asking questions..good questions!! I am just blown away with him. :) I also bought him a Book of Mormon Stories picture book so he can understand a little more. He came to church with us yesterday! We picked him up and went with him. He was all ready and excited to go with his Book of Mormon and some snacks in a Cars lunch box. It made me smile. :) It's hard though because with the rules here in our mission, we can't baptize any body under 12 years old unless we baptize the parents too. I'm hoping we can get his Mom progressing. I know little Charles will be the way for his family to accept the gospel :) After church, when we dropped him off, his mom said that she wanted to come next week! We were so happy! 

So yesterday, we split to be able to teach more lessons in one day. My two mga anak went together and I worked with Maricel. It was such a good day! I could see the Lord's hand in the work. We were able to teach Maricel's cousin who is from Bohol but here in Manila as he applies to work on ship.  It was such a good lesson, he had so many good questions. We ended up teaching all of lesson 1 and I could just see that he was soaking it all in. I could see how smart he was and how much his soul was hungry for the knowledge that his Father has for him.  

We were also finally able to contact Hernan again!! Do you remember him? The Balut man with a Book of Mormon? He was finally home when we stopped by! We went right in and taught him a lesson. He was so ready and receptive. He said he has been discouraged that we haven't stopped by because he is so busy. But he said he has been praying that we would come. And yesterday we were able to teach him and his nephew! It was a great lesson as well!

So...Maricel and I also got attacked by a bottle rocket gang....ha. While we were crossing the highway on the bridge there were 3 little boys playing with bottlerockets and they thought it was funny to shoot them at us! We went running!! as they shot them off after us!! Then they started chasing us lighting them on the way. I felt like I was in the middle of a war!! Ahh! Haha I was so scared but it was also kind of funny...haha we were laughing but running for our lives hahaha. But we didn't get hit. I know we are protected :)

Sorry, the internet went down and back up again, but I am running out of time, so I've got to go. I wish I could go into more detail about this week. It truly has been a great week for us.  I hope you are all doing well too!! Enjoy the snow that you'll be getting! That's something I'll miss this Christmas. 

MAHAL NA MAHAL KO KAYO!!

 

Sister Oyler

 

Colorful chicks!

Look at those gas prices.... ;)

 

Sister Soliven's birthday! She came back and visited!

Sister Quiban transferred :(

Threesome with my two mga anak

 

Laba laba with Marilou!

 

 

 

With Cherisse and Charles! (and my frizzy post-rain hair..)

 

 

My super heroes :)

 

 

Thank you to Maricel for these pics.  Maricel is a return missionary who helps the missionaries

A LOT!  I am so grateful to you, Maricel!

 

 

 

Both have zits on their chin!

 

 

 

And thanks to Aki for posting these pics!  Aki is a new member and totally ROCKS! 

I appreciate you, Aki!

 

 

Pioneer Day celebration

 

 

TRANSFERS....

HELLO!!

So transfers are this week....and...

I'm staying here with my anak!!

I am so so so grateful! I honestly was dreading this transfer week, because I did not want to be transferred. And everyone kept telling me I was going to be transferred because I've been here for quite a while, but...prayer works :) I've been praying so hard, and then I woke up this morning and a miracle came with the transfer announcements. I'm staying here :) I am so grateful. With this next transfer, I'll be here for over 6 months in this area. But I'm okay with that :) I just wanted one more transfer here. God hears AND answers our prayers. He really loves us. 

So Rose got baptized this week!! It was a beautiful baptism.

 

 

Her husband, Ryan was able to be ordained as a Priest and be the one to baptize her! I was so excited for both of them :) And it was such a powerful moment, when Rose got up afterwards and bore her testimony. It just hit me to my core. She looked at us and began to cry and thanked us for the gospel that we introduced into her life. She said how grateful she was that now, they were on the path for their family to be together for all eternity. She testified that the church was true and then she held up the Book of Mormon and testified proudly that she new that the book was true. She had tears of happiness rolling down her face. I was crying as well. The Spirit was so strong. I was just so happy. THESE are the moments worth living for.

We also have 2 investigators that are together..Lanie and Albert and their little boy, Prince. They are awesome! They are so ready and their desire is so great to be baptized they just needed to save up some money and go through the process of getting married. But.. they just moved back this week to their province in Zambuanga. (in the southern part of the Philippines). We were so sad to have them go, and they were worried about still being able to be baptized or even find the church because where they live....it's like out in the middle of nowhere. But I know that the missionaries there will find them. We went to teach them one last time before we left...grabe, it was such a powerful lesson. We all cried. We've gotten so close to them and we just have such a strong desire for them to be able to be baptized. Lanie asked if she could record us on her phone singing, "I Am a Child of God." So we sang it for her, and she was so grateful that now she will always have it with her.

 

 

(The other little boy is Lanie's brother. He'll still be here in QC.)

We will refer them to the missionaries assigned in that part of the Philippines, and I am just praying that they will be found. I know they will.

So we've kind of seen a little setback in the work... Apparently there was some guy on the news that rambled on about Joesph Smith having 40 wives or something. And now...we're seeing some of our investigators disappear. Including Marvin! The brilliant guy I mentioned last week, he texted us and asked to cancel our lessons until he can figure things out for himself. He wouldn't really tell us why, but we're suspecting that that news thing might be one of the reasons. We're hoping to be able to see him sometime, and talk to him again. 

So we had a Zone Activity last P-day. We went pinoy bowling. haha! it is so funny bowling here! you use a small ball instead and just hold it and roll it. And do you know how normally there's like a machine that sets up the pins and sends the ball back? Well...here there's no machine. There's a guy! haha there's literally like a guy back there that manually sets up the bowling pins again and rolls the balls back. hahaha! it was so funny to me for some reason :) 

So... I've heard from some of you that it's getting pretty cold back at home! That's crazy to me! Time goes so fast. I think it's kind of hard for me to imagine too, as I'm sitting in this hot, humid computer shop drenched in sweat with my little hand fan. ew. haha it doesn't seem like November to me here. Just an eternal summer. :) haha

Well, I'm running out of time, but I just wanted to thank you all! I hope you know that I can literally feel all of your prayers. It helps me every day. I feel the added strength and help that I desperately need out here. I am nothing and wouldn't be able to do with without you all and your prayers. But especially not without Him.

I love you ALL so very much. Take care of yourselves this week, and don't forget to SMILE! 

MAHAL NA MAHAL KO KAYO!

Sister Oyler

 

Pinoy bowling

 

 

 

By the end of the day, I am dead.

 

Our water bill is cursed.

 

CSP!

 

Albert and Lanie

 

 

 

Baptism day!

Sorry, these are blurry.

 

She's going home with Sister Tehei. haha!