Sarah's Mission to Bacolod Philippines

hi everyone!!! today means ive officially been a missionary of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints for 16 MONTHS! thats so crazy. time is so fast!! but ive loved every second.  This has been a good week! We did lots of fun things  -tried duck for the first time. it was actually way good 10/10 -went finding at the plaza in Kabankalan where theres always SO many people just hanging out and met this men who told me that we're soulmates. i guess hes been single for so many years cause hes been waiting to find his soulmate. its me apparently. love that -had stake conference in binalbagan on sunday! it was SO packed so all us missionaries ended up sitting on the floor in the back for 2 hours. good times -tried this ice cream place and it was like legit american ice cream!! except mine ended up spilled all over me. in the process of trying to help give me napkins, sister velasco spilt hers all over her too hahah. kaluoy gid basically its been a wild wee...

wow what a week!! its been a good one!! first full week ni sister velasco in the field. yayyyy the highlights-  Shaina was baptized on Saturday!!! me and sis amataga were able to find her, teach her, and see her baptized! after she was baptized she stood up and bore her testimony for everyone and thanked us missionaries for giving her a "new beginning" in her life. and then she told us all that she is going to start preparing right now to serve her own mission!! im so excited for her and all the lives shes going to change and all the new beginnings that shes going to give people.  -the other highlight: boodle fight. so basically imagine a giant long table with huge green leaves laid out, with a huge pile of rice just going down the length of the table. and then all the meat and toppings for the rice on top. (see  pic below) and basically they just shout "1,2,3" and everyone just starts eating (with their hands) as fast as they can. its basically the full ...

woo tapos na ang first week sang transfer!! the most exciting news- I GOT MY NEW COMPANION! Her name is Sister Velasco from Cebu! She is SO cute and we're already pals over here. we went to go pick her up on thursday from bacolod! its been so fun to be a part of her first few days in the mission field! the 6 hours we spent on a bus that day was worth it hahah. made me realize how long ive been on the mission though cause all of her media references and movies shes mentioned ive never even heard of hahah.  the other highlights- went to an FHE wednesday night with sister bise and sister amataga before sister velasco got here! And it was SO funny. so in the philippines if you are playing a game and you lose, they always have a punishment where they rub something on your face. like lipstick, mud, or anything else they can find hahah. so at the fhe we were playing games afterwards and they decided to use charcoal from the bottom of pots and pans. so everytime we would mess up i...

hello friends!!  wow yes its transfer day!! and I was transferred!! i was so sad to leave Kabankalan ward 1! I've only been there 6 weeks but I've loved the cute people I met there. But good news, i only transferred bedrooms into kabankalan ward 2 hahaha. so ill still get to see all the people I love every sunday at church!  I am a little nervous and way excited for this upcoming transfer. I am whitewashing their area and get to train a new missionary at the same time! So the 2 sisters that were in their area both left and I replaced them! My companion will get here on thursday. so everyone send some prayers that sister johnson will be able to make her way around that area cause i have no idea where im going or who anybody is hahaha. but i totally trust that God's gonna take care of it.  this was a way good week though. we saw lots of miracles!!  -i ate a SNAKE this week. they told me that there are tons of snakes who come and eat their chickens, so the...

hi friends!! i can't believe its the last week of the transfer already! time flies. we'll know saturday night about transfers and whats gonna happen to us over here in Kabankalan! also HAPPY SEPTEMBER! in the philippines they call Sept-Dec the "ber months." And september 1 is when they start celebrating the christmas season! so we've already heard christmas music playing while walking down the streets and have already sung christmas music in church ahhaha. i love this country  and also me and sister amataga hit 15 months last week. crazy. we celebrated with some macdonalds and wrote each other congratulations cards hahah. we talked about how when we had just gotten here we never thought we'd make it this far hahah. 15 months wouldve seemed so far away. but time is so fast!! this week we were walking down the street and saw these cute little grandma and grandpas cleaning up their front yard, which was actually a literal jungle. so we spent about an hou...