"in America..."

So the day finally came where my Tagalog failed and I said something
terribly inappropriate at a terribly inappropriate time.
But I can't even tell the story because its pretty bad, and hilarious, and bad.
But lets just say, we all speak a combo of Tagalog and Ilocano here,
and I said a word that means one thing in Tagalog and means a
completely different thing in Ilocano. And then the conversation
continued for a long time and my innocent questions just happened to
apply directly to the inappropriate word. Oh grabi.
I knew this day would come.

This week we learned a lot more about the people were teaching and
learned a lot more about what life is really like here. We were
teaching this family this week who for the longest time just wouldn't
come to church and told us they didn't have money for food let alone
fare to get to church. At the time they were sitting there eating
these cookies and treats and we really went hard on telling them that
if they sacrificed the money for those treats on money for fare they
could get to church, and they didn't say anything. Later on we saw the
little daughter who told us that the day before they had gone to the
dump as a family and found all these unopened packets of treats and
were so happy. Really felt bad about that one, even though based on
the situation it seemed like the right thing to do. Sometimes even we
make mistakes. We also have this investigator lady who is 69 and I
just love her so so much. They have no money but she stays classy and
really takes care of her self, she looks like a 1950s movie star, I
just love her. She is so converted and wants to be baptised, but we
just found out that her and her husband aren't married. She wants to,
but he refuses. Apart from the fact that its expensive and they're old
so he can't see the point, he keeps threatening that if we don't stop
telling him he needs to be married hes going to move back to where he
came from. Its so hard for her, it hurts her every time we talk about
it, and we just don't know yet what the best solution for her is, but
as things unfold we know the right thing will happen.

So theres an American sister in our house whos Bishop conveniently
does quarterly trips to Laoag for work. We actually ran into him one
time when we were all serving in the city which was crazy. So when her
mum found out that he was coming this week she asked for requests and
sent us a SUITCASE full of food and clothes for all of us. It was like
Christmas, actually I got more this time than at Christmas, and we all
sat on the floor and ate like we were in America. Then by the end of
the night everyone got sad and they're trying to start a diet this
week. Its never gonna work, but we'll see what happens.

This week I've been thinking a lot about being a missionary. And I was
thinking how a lot of things are reveled to us because of our calling
that normal people just can't understand. Its like being privvy to the
secrets of the universe, we spend time with people and in situations
that just would never occur in real life. I wish I could tell you
every little thing that happens here but theres so much that it just
so sacred and so personal to me. But just know, I know this for a
fact, that God lives, and this is the ONLY true church, baptism is
ESSENTIAL by the true authority, and there comes a time in all of our
lives where we must take up our crosses and consecrate everything to
the Lord. And for the first time in a long time, this is the real
world, this is real life.

Btw, if you wrote me and I never replied I'm so so sorry, I lost track
of who I had and hadn't, so just write me back and I'll promise I'll
reply now, I'm on top of it!