Called to Serve: TRANSFERS AGAIN

HELLO EVERYONE.

ay naku, time is ticking fast.

TRANSFERS are this week! Sister Valikoula actually left on Monday morning though. She finished her mission! I miss her so much. We had such a great transfer together. But I know she will be happy to be back with her family in New Zealand.

My new companion will be Sister Oradakowski! She was actually my kabahay back in Quirino. She's American, I think actually from Utah too, so it'll be a good transfer. This will be her last transfer too, so...I'll probably be here in Cogeo for a while haha.

We still have no water in our apartment.. Ha, can you believe it?? And they said we probably won't have water for another 2 weeks!! The local water pump is broken.. The water we have to use is in this big basin out infront of our house...sometimes a water truck will come by and fill it up...sometimes it never comes around, so we usually end up hauling it in a trike to the chapel and filling it up there...and my some miracle, and sweet-talking to a guy that owns a cart-tricyle, we get it back to our apartment. Haha, but the water isn't always that clean....sometimes it has stuff floating around in it, so we have to end up filtering it through some fabric to catch the nasty stuff, before we shower with the water. Ay naku. It's more fun in the Philippines! :)

The only really bad part though is that now our drains are dry....and cockroaches are crawling out of them EVERYWHERE!! I FREAKING HATE IPIS!!!

No, I have not overcome my fear.... There were literally like 8 giant cockroaches crawling out of our drain in the kitchen when we got home the other night. I havent stepped foot in our little kitchen area for weeks.. Ahhh patay.

Well, I wish I could tell you about all the amazing things that happened this week, but I honestly have no time. One of the exchanges I got to go on though was with Sister Lopez!!!! It was so good to be back with my MTC companion for a day :) She is doing great!

We had a really powerful MLC this week. My eyes have been opened. I wish I could write about it right now. But my testimony about the Book of Mormon has deepened by leaps and bounds. I can't even explain right now. But it was an experience that changed me.

I wish I could tell you the stories of our amazing investigators right now. Ahh. But just keep them in your prayers! Especially little Timboy who should be baptized in March. And Jeff, who hopefully will be baptized this month, if he can overcome smoking. We are seeing so many miracles. I wish I just had time to tell you about them all.

HIGIT SA LAHAT, I love you all so very much. I pray for all of you, I wish I had time to reply to everyone who emailed me. But aside from this email, I've only had time to write to Mom, and then report to my mission president, and also to his wife. But that doesn't mean I don't love each of you SO MUCH. Thank you for all of your support.

I just want to leave you with an excerpt from a talk by Brad Wilcox called, "His Grace is Sufficient". It is a REALLY good talk. I hope you all will read it. I learned so much about grace.

"I have born-again Christian friends who say to me, “You Mormons are trying to earn your way to heaven.”

I say, “No, we are not earning heaven. We are learning heaven. We are preparing for it (see D&C 78:7). We are practicing for it.”

They ask me, “Have you been saved by grace?”

I answer, “Yes. Absolutely, totally, completely, thankfully—yes!”

Then I ask them a question that perhaps they have not fully considered: “Have you been changed by grace?” They are so excited about being saved that maybe they are not thinking enough about what comes next. They are so happy the debt is paid that they may not have considered why the debt existed in the first place. Latter-day Saints know not only what Jesus has saved us from but also what He has saved us for. As my friend Brett Sanders puts it, “A life impacted by grace eventually begins to look like Christ’s life.” As my friend Omar Canals puts it, “While many Christians view Christ’s suffering as only a huge favor He did for us, Latter-day Saints also recognize it as a huge investment He made in us.” As Moroni puts it, grace isn’t just about being saved. It is also about becoming like the Savior (see Moroni 7:48).

The miracle of the Atonement is not just that we can live after we die but that we can live more abundantly (see John 10:10). The miracle of the Atonement is not just that we can be cleansed and consoled but that we can be transformed (see Romans 8). Scriptures make it clear that no unclean thing can dwell with God (see Alma 40:26), but, brothers and sisters, no unchanged thing will even want to. "

MAHAL NA MAHAL KO KAYO!

Sister Oyler

Jeepney all to ourselves! ( but not for long :) )

Singing with the street kids on exchanges in Antipolo

The cute group that followed me around to sing to me

Teaching Record of "Ton-Ton"

Me and Sister Lopez were reminiscing about the MTC while we were on exchanges and later that night, she pulled out the TR of one of our MTC investigators... We were shocked to realize that one of the lessons we had taught that day had been the very same lesson that we taught together in the MTC exactly one year ago!! I don't believe in coincidences :) We taught about the Restoration on February 5, 2014. And then on February 5, 2015, we happened to be together on exchanges and taught all of Lesson 1, focusing on the Restoration. :)