Goodbyes, as usual

Transfers!
They started this new thing where they do transfer calls on Sunday
night, which means you only get one day to pack and prepare before you
leave at the crack of dawn on Tuesday. Even though I've only been here
two transfers I really felt I was going. BUT! I have the special skill
of predicting transfers, like, I am spot on everytime. So I predicted
that I would go to Vigan Zone, that our district leader would come too
and be the zone leader there, that our two areas here would be
combined and the place that our other housemate was going. Its a gift,
truly haha. So yeah! I'm going to a place called Santo Domingo, just
outside Vigan which is the tourist capital, the most beautiful place
in the mission apparently. Really I've just been praying that I would
go somewhere where I could eat real meat so I wouldn't be so
malnourished, so it truly was meant to be!

On Monday night we had a ward FHE at this awesome members house. Hes
90, hes the only member in his family and he is the man! He also hates
Tagalog so he only lets people speak English or Ilocano to him. He
also can't get to church anymore because hes old and has been telling
the sisters hes going to day any day now. So we were going to have our
final goodbye to him. We meet him out the front and when we get to the
gate a lady tells us we can't come inside because her husband is
drunk. Then out of nowhere the husband comes storming outside, throws
his wife to the ground, smashes the fence and starts coming towards us
screaming so we all run. What we then had to witness was pretty bad as
he was seriously out of control. After he stopped beating his wife he
came for the elders and they swear he was coming for them, then just
stopped and walked away. It was awful, I hate thinking that this
really does happen in the world. We had to leave and our old Tatay
couldn't understand why we couldn't stay for his FHE, he was so upset
but he didn't even understand what was happening. The rest of the
night we all kind of reflected on how blessed we all are in our lives,
and how important our work here really is so that we can stop things
like this from happening.

Our baptism this week was out of control. Our investigator Cristy was
awesome, we only met her this transfer and she was ready from day 1,
her son was less active and she'd just been waiting for us to come and
find her. The whole process was pretty easy until the last week before
her baptism. I knew I was going to get transferred so I was making
sure we were on top of everything so she wouldn't have to be pushed
back a week and I'd miss it. So we're going through the baptismal
interview questions with her to make sure shes ready, and we get to
one question and she starts telling this story but I didn't quiet
catch what she was saying about it but at the end my comp is like oh
yeah yeah thats fine. So I'm like, yep sweet fine. We walk out onto
the street and see President driving past, have a chat and he starts
driving away. After a little while comps like siyang she has to get
interviewed by President because of that thing and I'm like WHAT! So I
get on the phone straight away calling President telling him to come
back. We live 3 hours away from him so hes rarely out here and we'd
just seen him literally outside her house and we knew he wasn't
planning on being back anytime soon. So hes like well too late now,
but because hes the man he said he'd come back a couple days later. He
is the best, so he did an extra 6 hour road trip for us. So we get to
the day of the baptism, and the two people getting baptised from the
other sisters just decide they don't wanna come anymore so everyone
was way upset. So half the branch has turned up for them and theres
just our one. So we get to the river to baptise her and she is deathly
afraid of water. She was literally in the water for over half an hour
and she would not go under the water. She would'nt go deeper than knee
deep and didn't quite understand that she couldn't actually fit under
that much water. Everyone was yelling their advice, one of the members
even jumped in fully clothed and got fake baptised to show her but she
didn't budge. So after all that she said no. So we get on the phone to
the nearest chapel which is almost an hour away and tell them start
filling the font, were on our way! But apparently the font takes like
4 hours to fill, so we send everyone home, and then AGAIN four hours
later everyones back at the church ready for the epic baptism
roadtrip. Everyone was so pumped, it was way fun! Made me love our
branch so much more, everyone just really made her baptism so special.
When we finally got there she was too scared to get in the font too,
but she did it in the end and it was amazing!

Love you guys, love the mission, and I love Sanchez Mira and everyone
here. Read your conference Ensigns when they come!

Sister McKim
xxxx