Sunday 29 June 2014

When the dogs in the fridge

This week was one giant miracle I don't even know where to start so
Ima go as quick as I can.
So our most recent RC who's YSA had to overcome a whole lot of
persecution from every single one of her family members and friends to
be baptised, NOBODY supported her. No matter how many times we would
try to teach them we couldn't even get them to be nice to us.
Miraculously we've started teaching her mum and sister who have
confessed the church is true, but we also started teaching her two
best friends. Sunday afternoon we went over there and her bestie AJ
was sitting there next to her, she had nowhere to go so we told her
just to stay while we taught her friend really quick. Shes way too
cool for school and would not even talk to us. Closing prayer over,
she thinks shes safe and thats when we turn on her and just start
testifying about praying to know, and feeling the Spirit, and
something just clicked in her. She reluctantly prayed and took a Book
of Mormon. The next night the RC was like, lets just go check on her
and try convince her to read. We get to her house and shes off the
chain happy. She just starts going on and on about the Restoration and
how it makes sense, and how she prayed to know that Joseph Smith was a
prophet and how she knows she has to get baptised. This week she
taught the gospel to all of her friends, taught them to pray, came to
a baptism of a kid in the branch she doesn't even know, and has ready
a good chunk of 1 Nephi AND quit smoking and drinking. Its like a
slightly less intense Alma the Younger story. When she came to church
yesterday it was like she was already a member. Through them we just
got this huge group of all the struggling and less active YSA together
and now they're all best friends. I can't even comprehend still the
people who were at church on Sunday that I never would have even
dreamed of last week. Thats missionary work for you.

We have an unusual amount of people we teach who are pipi, which is
like can't hear or speak, and they don't really know sign language
either so they just make it up! We were waiting in the foyer for our
investigators and we were talking to this pipi girl in our ward. She
signed to Sister Roma that she wanted her shoes, and Sister Roma
couldn't figure out how to sign that she needed her shoes to get home,
so eventually she gave up and told her that she'd give them to her
next week. We started teaching a mum of a family where all the kids
are grown up pipis! She said she used to know sign language but when
they started going to school they learned a different kind, so now she
doesn't know how to talk to them properly. Annnd we came across this
less active girl in our area whos pipi and shes SO FUNNY! We ran into
her yesterday afternoon on our way to an appointment and just decided
to teach her instead. She can talk a little bit but shes all Ilocano
and pretty hard to understand. Shes a partyer and she drinks a lot so
we taught word of wisdom. Sister Roma is way better than me at fake
sign language, so I just drew pictures of beer and cigarettes and then
drew big x's on them. Funniest lesson ever. Then she came and worked
with us the whole afternoon. I don't know how she did it but she
brought the Spirit with her to every lesson. She said, somehow I guess
she signed it, but she said after her missionaries left nobody ever
cared about her as much as them so she went less active, but she loves
us now so shes coming back to church.

So on Tuesday night we get a text from a member saying to come over
for dinner, turns out its a big party for their birthday. The menu was
goat, which was delicious, strangely delicious. There was this other
dish on the table that came out late and Sister Roma was LOVING it,
everyone could not stop talking about how delicious it was. After
dinner we were joking around with the member about how one day were
gonna get fed something weird and not know it, like dog. And shes
like, yeah, the black meat, dog. We thought she was joking, so we
asked her husband, who confirmed, dog. It was a dog. The whole way
home everyone was so upset about eating the dog but how delicious it
was, I didn't know because I didn't even eat it, so later that night
when I went to the fridge to get food I took out the dog, sat at the
kitchen table by myself and ate it. We also kind of thought they were
joking, but they weren't. But they assured us the place they got it
was safe and not even illegal. Hopefully, no tail yet.

I have a million more stories to write but no more time, but I love it
here in the Philippines so much, I can't imagine a nicer people. The
Spirit I felt this week as we worked with these new people and helped
those other return was incredible. I can't imagine going back to the
outside world again after this. I love this work and I love helping
people to understand the gospel, and they in turn help me to
strengthen my testimony. I just love it, and its all so true.

Love you all,
Sister McKim

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