Goodbye sweet sister.

Hi Team!

Another wicked week down.
Said goodbye to my sweet Sister Ramos! We like kind of exchanged
companions because the two of them left on Tuesday morning at like
4am, so they didn't wake us up to come with them. I woke up just as
they were walking out the door and waved goodbye to my little darling!
Luckily Sister Webb is my other favourite and she was the one left
with me so we had a wicked day being comps until our new ones came. We
have two teeny tiny little Philippinas as comps now and they are so
cute and so awesome. I was expecting Philippino masterchefs but
they're not so now I'm the one back to cooking every day, which I'm
not sad about at all. I feel like everyones mum again, loving it.

We have this one investigator called Joann and shes awesome, shes 17
and the relative of recent converts, but other than them NOBODY wants
her to join the church. She has such a good testimony and loves it but
its a constant battle with her because one day she'll be loving it and
so excited to be baptised, next day she'll be scared and say she wants
to wait til the end of the year. The whole family literally bails
every time they see us coming. We got there the other day and were mid
lesson, then found out it was her dads birthday so he was super drunk
with all of his mates out the back of the house. They all came over
and we were getting ready to bail mid lesson and he starts asking a
million questions, so we assess that hes alright and we can stay for a
minute longer. Then he tells us hes just shy and really wants us to
teach him. So we ask him if Joann can be baptised and hes like OF
COURSE! Then everyone was loving it and celebrating. So were like ok,
we leave and tell him we'll see what happens when hes not drunk next
time. Came back two days later and Joann told us the next day her dad
and all his friends had purposely not drunk and were waiting all night
for us to come over because they wanted to ask us questions about the
church! Best day ever. She got interviewed on Sunday - miracle - and
should be baptised on Saturday! Love that kid.

Had so many really spiritual lessons with a lot of people this week
and really was able to get into some peoples souls and get to know
them better. It like nothing else being here on the mission and just
being in peoples houses all day every day and they just know that we
can help them, so they just tell us everything there is to know about
their lives. I love being a missionary, seriously changing lives. One
of our RC's who's a mum gave a talk on Sunday that was so inspiring.
Her and her 3 teenage daughters were baptised about 2 months ago
during the kids school vacation (I can't remember if I already wrote
this story or not?). So the oldest who is 13 went to school to enroll
and all the teachers said they heard she'd been taken in by the
Mormons and persuaded by the Americans, basically chastising her for
being baptised. She was so nice and respectful in return and just bore
her testimony. Her mum was thinking about it and then had a dream. She
said in her dream they were having a beauty pageant at the school and
all the other girls were dressed up so fancy, but her daughter Bea was
standing there just dressed for church, wearing a skirt and sandals
with no makeup. Her mum was super worried trying to get her to dress
up so that she would win but Bea kept saying she was fine the way she
was. In the end, Bea won the beauty contest, and her mum was so
surprised, but then she realised that her daughter was different and
so special, and she didn't need to be fancy, she was just a beautiful
righteous girl. I love love love that story, shes so inspiring. We had
an amazing lesson with them this week. The dad has been struggling a
lot lately and getting further away from his baptism, but I was
inspired to put together a two part lesson on justice and mercy,
focussed on repentance and the atonement. The kids did not get it, but
brother was hanging on to every word, and I think it really effected
him. Basically, Christ died for us, he paid our entry into heaven
because we can't afford it ourselves, and if we don't accept the
atonement by being baptised and repenting, we cannot get it, we just
can't.

I love being a missionary, and I know that this church is true, I know
that Christ lives and we need him, or we just can't go to heaven.
We just can't!

Love you all,
Sister McKim