Hello folks!
First off, Monday. Last P-day in Canaman. We ran more errands than ever before. It was crazy and hectic but good to check off some last minute to-dos before I left the city. (Btw I ended up buying a new camera, it's sweet. Just a little point and shoot canon thing but it is nice and works well. :))
Tuesday, ay chihuahua. Long day. I was sick to my stomach all day! I was so dang nervous for transfers. My luggage was crazy heavy. Took a tricee with luggage and other missionaries to the church building/transfer point. We sat around, mingled, waited for all the missionaries to arrived, tried to keep the nervous butterflies from jumping out of my belly, sang, did intro stuff, then came the dreaded announcements..."Sister Roderick, meet your new companion, Sister Andres. You will be serving in the Baao B, Iriga area."
Boom baby. I actually guessed that I was going to be with her, which is cool, but I was still nervous and a sweaty mess. Anyways, Sister Andres is my new companion! She is from Manila, really funny, sarcastic, crazy, and way good at English. haha She is great. We are different but I am excited. She likes to laugh and work hard-all I need in a companion. :)
After the announcement, I went and sat with my new companion then shortly afterward we said our goodbyes to our old companions (that was way sad and sister webster was almost crying as I left) then off to the bus terminal we went! We loaded my luggage onto a bus, took our seats inside, and an hour and a half later, arrived in Baao, Iriga. It is beautiful here! Our apartment is in the more central part of Baao, which is actually the Elder's area, while OUR areas are way far out...really far. Yep.
We went straight to work that night! :) It was great. We pretty much take at least a half hour bus ride plus a half hour tricee ride and/or walk to get to our areas. Crazy right? I am used to being in the city with houses piled on houses...not quite the situation here. We literally are surrounded by rice fields and it takes forever to get anywhere. I love it but it is definitely exhausting.
We have many, many less-actives that we go to visit and slowly but surely are trying to build up our teaching pool of investigators. First challenge, how far away our areas are. Second challenge, we don't exactly have a ward/branch OR a church building. Mhm. Crazy huh? As of right now, we meet as a "group," under the direction of a "group leader." I have never experienced something like this before. It is insane but so so so cool to be a part of it at the same time! We meet under a roof that was added on to a members home. They set up chairs under this lovely roof, and that, my friends, is where we meet for church. We only have church for 2 hours because we simply don't have enough people to split up to have classes and what not. Yesterday was my first Sunday in this group and it was amazing! We have church at 9am. Apparently they usually don't start until 10 but with the new year they are really trying to start on time and build up our little group. Anyways, we did start at 9 (a miracle for sure!), people continued to trickle in to the meeting as we began. I was asked to introduce myself and bear my testimony. I usually am really nervous to speak in front of church (especially in a completely different language) but it went really well and I was not nearly as nervous as usual, perhaps because it felt more like a Sunday School class than Sacrament, ha who knows. Anyways, after sacrament meeting, people stood and mingled for a few minutes, the little kids took chairs and made a circle under some trees nearby, with one of the young women as their teacher, and then the rest of us (adults, youth, and missionaries) took our seats again for sunday school. Our group leader (acts like the Bishop) is also our sunday school teacher. Funny huh? Yep. Welcome to the rice fields, out-in-the-middle-of-nowhere Philippines. It was so sweet! Oh btw, we had less than 50 people in attendance yesterday (including representatives from the local branch, 4 full-time missionaries, 2 couple missionaries, investigators, and children) That is a SUCCESS! Whoot! The group is growing! We have a meeting tomorrow with some people to hopefully purchase a local house that will act as our new meetinghouse and hopefully within the next couple years we will be able to grow enough to become a branch! :) Excited times folks.
This is my life. I walk through rice fields every day. I make babies cry. I get my hair pulled every week. I bake in the sun. I eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches multiple times a day because we are too exhausted to make/eat anything else. I sing "We Thank Thee O God For a Prophet" all day, everyday. I get stared at like nobody's business. I read and study the scriptures and pray more than ever before in my life. I am surrounded by brown people. I am sweaty always. I speak some foreign language that I don't even understand. I am a servant of God. I invite others to come unto Christ. I work hard and do my best to build up and nurture this part of our Father in Heaven's vineyard. AND I always have a smile on my face, because I am happy. Truly happy. I love my life. :)
I hope you are all taking the time to recognize and give thanks for the many blessings in your life. They are all around you. Soak them in. Be appreciative. Show thanks to God and to others. Remember that you are a literal child of God and never lose faith in our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. :)
With love always,
-Sister Roderick
P.S. today we spent most of our P-day in Naga so that we could go to the doctor for Sister Andres. No joke, literally 50% of my mission right now is sick. She has been struggling with a wide range of sicknesses for a week now, another elder in our area has a virus too, sister webster was sick all weekend (i got to see her today btw, it was awesome! we all got to go out to lunch together while we were in Naga, it was so good to see her!) my old sister training leader has chicken gonea (i have no idea how to spell that) while we were at the doctors earlier, we saw 2 other sets of missionaries there...it is insane. Literally 50 % of the mission is sick. We don't know what is going on, but it is not good. So keep your prayers up for the health and safety of us Naga missionaries please! Love you all! :)
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