They're shipping me off to the Jungle

Alllllloooooooha!

Got the call. They're shipping me off to the jungle tomorrow and I
couldn't be more excited! My new comp is SISTER BAGUIO of the Angeles
mission, Sister Thomas will be loving that, and shes great, and I'm
back in the same house again as Sister Storey and our old neighbour
Sister Copeland! The area is called Sanchez Mira and its the chapel is
literally on the beach. Cheering. May not be cheering when I get there
and theres no stores and its raining all the time, but hey,
adventures.

So I was expecting to be transferred so I was more than ready for it.
I didn't cry because I couldn't bring myself to tell anyone until
Saturday night. We had a basketball activity at the church and one of
the YSA yapped it in front of all our RC's who I was sitting with
courtside and they were like what. IS THIS TRUE? I held it together
until one of the kids started balling. Then his mums like look what
you did, hes crying for you. Then I cried. Then we all cried. Ah man.
I'm gonna miss them all, but at the same time I know its my time to go
so its all good. We have a lot of families in the works right now
which should be baptised in the next month or two, basically we only
teach families, thats the goal and if thats where we spend our time
thats where we have the most success.
So we went to follow up on our smoking program we started this week
and it absolutely worked like a treat! He was smoking half a pack a
day before we started and said by day two he had basically no
temptation! It really was a miracle! He did have one slip up later in
the week as he forgot to take all his stuff with him to work and was
stuck without it, but other than that, we can really see how it built
his testimony, which really was the ultimate goal all along, so its
still a success and he is getting baptised in two weeks.
In really sad news, yesterday morning we got to church and one of the
bishopric took me aside to tell me that one of our members had passed
away. She'd only been baptised for about 9 months, and I've visited
her basically every week since I've been here. She's been in and out
of activity and the last couple months we've really seen a change in
her and shes been getting active again! She had a heart attack at 3am
and they couldn't find her a ride to the hospital quickly enough and
she died. We went there in the afternoon and they already had dressed
her body and had her in the coffin on display in the house. It was
really confronting to see her like that, knowing we'd just seen her
two days before. Sister Lainhart and I talked all about the Plan of
Salvation last night and really took time to reevalutate what it means
and they way we taught her, wondering if we really did everything we
could do to help her to get to the Celestial Kingdom. I really hope
and pray for the family that one day they will all come around too and
be baptised so that her work can be done for her as she hadn't yet
made it to the temple.

On a happier note, I've loved San Nic and it really has become my
home! Bishop gave me a little appreciation speech and told me to thank
my father for teaching me to be persistent. He just assumed thats what
hes like, and I was like yeah, and he was like, yeah, I could tell.
I feel like I had a bunch of funny stories from the week but, forgot.
Next time na lang!
To close I will list my regrets from the last 6 months here
- The first day here I asked if our non flushing toilet was fixable
and I was told it wasn't. I always felt I should mention it to the
landlady, didn't do it until 2 days ago and she immediately came and
fixed the toilet. Great.
- My first week here I suggested we have weekly basketball activities
for investigators, then I never once followed up on it or suggested it
again. On Saturday we had our first one and it was was fun and we had
like 20 investigators come and they announced they were going to do it
every week. Siyang.
- Always meant to ask around people in Laoag where good places to eat
are since every p-day we come and get McDonalds or Pizza Hut. Found
out last week there was a mexican place. Legit mexican place. Like,
legit. Had my second and final taco for lunch. They don't make food
like that out in the jungle. Sad.

Ay so since were both goobers we just dress up sometimes. This shirt
thing is what the tricie drivers do but we ended up more being ninjas.
This is probably absolutely not at all funny to anybody else except
me.
And then theres me and Sister Lainhart, I'm gonna miss the kid. I
would cry but she'd just tell me to rub some dirt on it.

Love you all,
Sister McKim