Here Comes the Boom!

Anyone seen that movie? Pretty sure I watched it with you fam..or Mel? I forgot, can't even remember what the movie was about but as I started typing this email, the theme song just started playing in my head...maybe it's a sign.

Here. Comes. The. BOOM.

Man, progress is fantastic. Blessings are beautiful. And miracles are everywhere.

This week has been a long, hard, amazing week of lesson after lesson and blessing after more and more blessings!

Sister Falcon and I have noticed so many wonderful miracles happening in our area right now. This area is just bursting with potential! :) 

I know Heavenly Father has a plan for every single one of us and is aware of what we need and when we need it. It is such a cool thing to be the instrument by which the Lord blesses others and delivers the gospel! 

I love being a missionary. :) 

 Love you all! Mahal ko po kayo!

-Sister Roderick

Strong Priesthood = Strong Families

Here in Libmanan, we focus on families, and especially on tatays.

Our vision for these next 2 transfers is helping priesthood holders, or potential priesthood holders, help their families come unto and stay founded on the teachings of Christ. So far, so good.

We have been working with one couple and their little son to help them get to the temple. Our branch had a temple trip last week and we were hoping and praying this family would be able to join..welp a week before, they told us that they just wouldn't be able to make it this time around but hopefully next year..Sis Lua and I were a bit crushed because we had been doing everything we could to help them prepare..well yesterday at church, the sister came up to me and whispered, "Sister, we were able to go to the temple." I was pretty certain I must have heard wrong. When I asked her what she had just said, she said again, with a big smile on her face, "We were able to go to the temple!" I was so happy, all I could do was smile real big and give her a hug! :) I later was able to talk to brother for a minute, (they are both very quiet, kind of shy, usually just keep to themselves people) and he looks at me with just pure joy shining on his face and says simply, "I suppose there is no greater, more beautiful place in all the world." True that.

So happy that our efforts are helping somewhere. :) So good to see them enter the temple and be sealed for all time and eternity. 1 family down, many many more to go.

My aki and I are doing just dandy. Sister Falcon is just go, go, go and its great! Very helpful. She seems to not really be struggling much with the culture adjustment at all so that's nice..now we just have to keep working on the language. She is really anxious to learn and to apply what she is learning. Very helpful :) Lots of good things happenin' here in Libmanan.

Lots more I could/wanna say but time is limited...ahhh ayos lang ill tell you all about everything over some yummy chicken bryan in a couple weeks. Love you all! Mahal ko po kayo!

-Sister Roderick

P.S. It rained and flooded a lot this week. Fun stuff workin' in the rain. :) 

Oh and here's my new comp. cute little peruvian.

Proud Mommy

Said goodbye to Sister Lua this week. I miss her.

Met my new kid this week. She's great. :) Meet Sister Claudia Falcon from Peru. Yup, Peru, wasn't expecting that one. She is from Peru but moved to California with her dad 7 years ago so she is fluent in Spanish, English, Portuguese, and is working on Tagalog. 

Big test for me, this one is. 2 foreigners with me as the trainer. Whoo. It's cool to see how much my Tagalog has improved though. We've made it together a week already so my Tagalog can't be that bad right? ha who knows. But yeah, that's whats going on.

She is 24 years old and has such a love for the gospel, it is amazing! Her love for Jesus Christ and his gospel radiates in everything she does. She is a great example to me. We are getting along really well and just doing our best to help others come unto Christ. I can feel this new, fantastic energy coming from our companionship. I know as we continue to rely on Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father and follow the promptings of the spirit in all that we do, we will see tremendous miracles in our work here. 

Funny thing, since she is Hispanic, she fits right in with the dark skin, brown-eyed appearance of the Filipino people, so the people naturally try to talk to her first instead of me...well she doesn't understand them so I am the one who responds or translates for her which then totally takes the people off guard and it is hilarious. every. time. I don't know if that made sense. But I can only imagine how weird it is for a white American to be translating in Tagalog for someone they thought was Filipino.Yeah thats all.

Helaman 4:12-15  

Really hit me this week. We can do nothing if left to our own strength only. We must repent, put aside our pride and then we will be blessed. 

Love you all. Take care!

Mahal ko po kayo!

-Sister Roderick

P.S. got my first email today about me going home....what on earth. its sneaking up on me! AH! run away!!!

It's a Girl!

Yep, you read that right. 

Transfer announcements were Saturday night and the zone leaders called to tell us that Sister Lua is transferred and that I will be training again.

2 kids in the mission. Man. Honestly, at first I was scared out of my mind because the first time didn't go so well BUT then I prayed about it, and have been really trying to study and enter this new companionship with positivity and hope for this time around. ha I am feeling pretty good about it now. 

I realized that the first time I trained, I did everything I could to make things right and it still was a very, very hard experience, which could likewise happen again, BUT the important thing for me is that I am doing all I can to make sure things work and of course to seek help from the Lord and to listen to the Spirit. Although I am still nervous, I am excited as well for this new opportunity to learn and to grow closer to my Savior, Jesus Christ. Keep my new trainee and me in your prayers please. :) 3 more months here in Libmanan. Craziness. Some people move a ton in the mission and others, like myself, end up only having 3 or 4 areas their entire mission. After this training I will just have 2 more transfers left in my mission so I will most likely just have one more area. What. Time is ffffllllyyyiiinnnggg.

Sister Gemma was baptized on Saturday. She is kind of a quiet one so never usually asks questions or adds much comment to anything so we were a bit nervous for her time to share her testimony but it was beautiful! She was so cute and nervous standing up there in front of all of us but you could really feel the spirit as she spoke and explained how she has come to know that this church is true. I am happy for her. Now on to strengthening faith and enduring to the end. :)

The other night during daily planning, about 9:30 or so at night, Sister Lua and I are just sitting at our desks when all of a sudden my head starts swaying and I feel dizzy and think I might pass out. We both stop talking and are just staring at each other for a few seconds before we realized that we were both feeling the same thing and I wasn't going to pass out but rather we were experiencing an earthquake! Ha! It was the weirdest feeling! 

This morning, I got electricuted! I was getting out of the shower and went to turn off the light switch and it shocked me! Straight shock from the tip of my middle finger all the way to my elbow. That was early this morning and I still feel a ringing in my elbow. Freaky. Scared me pretty bad but no worries, I am still alive and well.

Inspiration for the week..Sister R, a blind sister in our branch here. She is easily one of the most positive, jolly people I have ever met. She is always just beyond happy to talk to you and to learn more about you. She has many kids and went blind a few years ago due to physical trauma to her head. She stood up in Sacrament Meeting yesterday and bore the sweetest, boldest testimony. She then proceeded to recite Helaman 5:12 (one of my favorite scriptures) from memory. You have to realize that after Sister was baptized many years ago, she went inactive and just recently returned to the church. This sister who cannot see, has her daughter read to her the scriptures in order to better understand the word of God and was thus able to memorize the scripture. Wow. Truly inspiring to me. She knows the those words are true. I too know the scriptures are true. So let's read them, study them, ponder them, take care of them, and use them as Heavenly Father would have us use them.

Keep on keepin' on. Talk to you all soon. Take care!

Mahal ko po kayo! :)

-Sister Roderick

One Year Agad!

This week I hit my 1 year mark. What. Feels kinda weird. I don't really like this whole time-flying-by-thing..it is freaking me out a bit.

It was a good week though.

After the many, many stressful weeks I finally was able to sit back for a few minutes this week, reflect on what has happened these past 3 months here in Libmanan and honestly, with relief, say to myself that progress has actually been made, and not just a little bit. It was a GREAT feeling! Still is. Even though there is still a long way to go, I am proud of this area, its leaders, and its members in putting forth greater effort to help the church grow and the members become more established here. One part to our Naga 'Rising to the Mission Vision' is to always leave our areas better than we found them. That has been one of my major goals here on my mission so far, that whatever I do, I do it with the betterment of this area in mind. Every area is different. Every area needs something else. But whatever they need, thats what I  give them so as to better HELP the area progress and not hinder the Lord's work from progressing. It has been really amazing to see the Lord's hand in every single one of my areas so far. When we, as missionaries (and members) strive to be exactly obedient, and seek for the Spirit to guide our work and our lives, we begin to do His work, how He wants it, when He wants it, and how He would have us do it..and in return are blessed as He has promised us. This is all about our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. We must align our own will with theirs. It is great.

For my "one-year," Sister Lua and I roasted hot dogs and marshmallows for smores! Yum.

Today we went on a hike to some falls in Palong, Libmanan for our district activity. It was super fun and refreshing. District Activity= transfer time again. Crazy no? Saturday night we will find out who is staying here in Libmanan and who is leaving. I have no clue what is going to happen. ha so we will all be surprised. :)

Also, sister Gemma is getting baptized this week! Her husband was baptized many years ago and has since become inactive but is slowly coming back to church again and this weekend sister will be baptized! We are really excited for her! She's awesome.

Oh and this week, Sis Lua and I just had some enlightening or something, I'm not exactly sure what happened but we both gained this great amount of energy and motivation to really get our investigators to gain testimonies and to help them progress toward true conversion (remember we have been focusing almost all of our efforts on less-actives so not much has been happening with our investigators butttt now, things are getting rolling again and it feels so great!)

We have been much bolder this week. Loving of course, but bold and actually committing the people to do things. Just a few days of this and an progress is beautiful. More updates on that in the weeks to come.

Feeling good. :) Almost all sickness has left my body, I think, so we are both just go go go. :)

Had exchanges this week with Sister Andres. Remember her? My companion for 3 weeks in Baao ha That was fun. It was cool to see how we have both grown so much and man, every lesson was just so powerful! It is really cool when you get two kind of 'seasoned' missionaries who know more of what they are doing and don't really have much fear anymore together because you just rock and roll all day long. haha It was fun. 

Love you all. Talk to you next week!

Mahal ko po kayo!

-Sister Roderick