September 16, 2018 Old Sagay

hello everyone!!! what a week!!!

highlights:

-on wednesday, we had MISSION WIDE CLEANING DAY!!! so all the missionaries in Bacolod mission spent the entire day cleaning their apartments. so from 7:30 am to 5 pm, all we did was clean. and lemme tell ya. i killed species of bugs that i didnt even know existed and discovered that all the lizards lay their eggs behind my bookshelf!! that was a fun discovery. 

-we found AMERICAN FOOD. oh my goodness. (see the pic below.) i got some pasta and french fries and it was the happiest meal. sister nanlabi said we needed to take a picture of our food for all our friends to guess whos meal was the americans and whos was the filipino's hahaha. no rice for this american!!!

-Carlos was baptized on Sunday morning!! with his two nephews too. oh it was so happy. he had been trying to stop smoking for so long for this day and seeing him so happy just made me want to cry. so so happy for him.

we had some cool experiences this week!!
so on friday night, we were walking from an appointment, when we ran into a member who told us that there was a funeral going on right now that we needed to be at. so we immediately headed over to their house. a 24 year old guy had passed away from heart problems last week!! his sister is a member of the church, although shes less active. we got there, and there was just tons of people huddled under a tiny sheet hung up to protect from the pouring rain. and they asked me to lead the music and sister nanlabi to pray for everyone. as we were all huddled outside in the dark with pouring rain and singing together, i just couldnt help but cry as i saw these grieving parents and thought of all the many funerals held without any fancy memorials or in any fancy church buildings. although we didnt know this person, i felt such a bond with every single person there as we all sang together. and im so so grateful to know that death isnt the end!! theres so much more after death. and that provides so much comfort in times like this!! it really was such an eye opening night. 

then earlier this week, we were with the elders from the area next to ours, because they were interviewing the people we were teaching for their baptism! and when we got there, one of the men there was super sick!! so we asked him if it would be okay if the elders gave him a priesthood blessing. basically, worthy men in the church can carry the priesthood, or power given to them to act in God's name here on earth! so they prayed for him and blessed him and as we were all standing around in this tiny little home made out of bamboo and sticks, i realized what an experience this is. we are all just doing our best over here to be representatives of Jesus Christ. and i know for a surety that God loves all these people over here in the Philippines and for some reason, He trusts us to care for them and love them in the way that He would if He was here on earth with them. And thats really our purpose over here. just to be a representative for Him and love and care for all the Filipino people here. and to me, thats a pretty cool purpose and so so worth all the sacrifice!!

It has been a good week and im grateful for all these experiences to witness things like this first hand!! im so so lucky. 

lifes good over here!! 

love you all!!

sister johnson