January 21, 2013

January 20, 2013

The last two weeks has have some of the best memories for me.  We have two new senior church service missionaries called that we were able to teach about PEF.  One couple is from Binalbagan, the Domingos.  Sister Domingo is the older sister of Sister Charry Santilian, the institute secretary, and her husband is also the first counselor in the stake presidency in Binalbagan Stake.  Talk about busy people.  The other couple is from Cadiz stake, the Alquisalas.  Saturday we drove to Binalbagan to orient the Domingo couple and Sunday we drove to Cadiz to train the Alquisaras.  To get to both places take about two hours to drive the 30 miles.  The next weekend we had to drive back to Cadiz to take the Alquisaras their missionary badges and to give them an assignment to find one of the young sisters who needs to finish her paperwork to receive her check for her tuition.  We decided to attend their ward in Manapala also.  What a wonderful ward.  My two experiences happened at their ward meeting. 

As we were driving down the street to the building, we saw an elderly man with his cane hobbling to church.  He was having a hard time, but he was at the next building so we did not want to make him feel bad by picking  him up that close to the church.  When we entered the building he was there and one of the young deacons was trying  to help him tie his tie.  The young deacon was struggling so Dan offered to help him.  As soon as Dan put the tie around his neck all the children surrounded him to watch how he tied the tie.  It looked to me like the pied piper at first.  Then the impression came to me that it was really more like the Savior as he would teach the children.  Tears came to my eyes as I watched Dan teach the children how to tie a tie and then as he placed the tie around the neck of the elderly man and adjusted the knot.  The service was so simple yet he assisted the little ones and the elderly with the same gesture.  Such a simple act but it touched so many!

Then a sweet sister came over to meet me.  I am still surprised at how much the members here desire to meet us and treat us like we are angels sent to minister them.  I have never felt such love and admiration from people who are so warm and humble.  These good people just want to tell us their stories and share their testimonies with us.  So this one sister came over and proudly started to tell me about her nine children.  All of her children served missions and all are married in the temple.  I asked her how she raised such a faithful family.  She said she did not have any idea.  She told me she  had "hit and miss" family home evenings like all families do.  She said they tried to have family prayer every day but sometimes they got so busy they missed .  She also said she took her children to church every Sunday but often her husband would miss because of his work and being tired.  Finally she said I think I was just blessed with obedient spirits.  She said all she felt like she did well was she loved her children, she prayed for them and she tried to set a good example through church service.  What a humble and wonderful woman. 

During Sunday School another sweet  elderly sister leaned over to shake my hand and kiss my cheek ( a traditional greeting).  After she introduced herself she said please don't forget me. I whispered I will never forget her or spending such a short time with her.  I looked into her eyes and tearing up she said, "sister, I love you and will never forget your love for me".  I could hardly contain myself as I thought of how much these good people love us just because we are missionaries.  I have never felt so much love simply for showing up.  Thankfully I have had these wonderful experiences to counter balance my hair disaster.  I ran out of Revlon medium brown hair color to cover  my roots growing out, so I had to by L'Oreal natural brown.  They picture looked the same and so I reasoned it would be ok.  Well I put the color on and left it for only ten of the twenty-five processing minutes just in case.  SURPRISED and HORRIFIED, after I rinsed our the color I had two toned hair.  Black front and roots and brown in the back where I cannot exactly see to cover.  The people and young missionaries love it, but I am so depressed and hope that someday soon the dark color will fade.  Every time I look in a mirror I am reminded again how much I miss my hairdresser, Laurie and her perfect every time color mixture and outcome.     The good news, Philippino women do not know how to say, "What the________"! They think I am "guapa" (beautiful) because I have white skin no matter what my hair looks like.

We had all the Bacolod Zone missionaries over today for a Zone activity.  What a wonderful  group of young people.  The Zone includes two sister companionships, the mission assistants, the financial clerk and office assistant and well as two American missionaries, one sister from Pakastan and the rest Philippino elders.  Dan cooked them lunch and I baked brownies. They all loved everything.  The Zone leader is a Samoan elder who grew up in Salt Lake City and he planned a wonderful  program.  We had a spiritual thought, a great lesson, singing, and  games.  The lesson was so simple yet so profound.  Elder Garcia (the assistant) had half of each companionship stand in the front.  He had each of those standing to choose a rock out of a basket.  They he gave them time to observe and get to know their rock. Then he collected each rock.  The group had to blindfold themselves and then try and choose their rock out of the basket again.  Amazingly we all picked out our own rocks.  Then he had us explain the tools of observation we used to choose our rock without vision.  Each of us had different explanations ranging from the simple "I just knew it was my rock" to "I chose last to I hoped that it was my rock because it was the only one left".  But there were profound ideas   also.  One was he recognized  his rock was flat and oval like a perfect rock to skip on water.  Another elder said he recognized the  nooks and pointed corners of his rock. Essentially, the overall tool of recognition was the time we spent getting to know our rock.  Then Elder Garcia said successful missionaries spent their entire mission getting to know themselves and their purpose for serving. They will have to be introspective and evaluative of their work and service to successfully evaluate the successes.  He also suggested that those reflections will be ever changing as their companions, investigators, and areas change throughout their missions.  It was an insightful lesson, I will ponder over and over again. 

I continually learn from these young missionaries and these humble members of the church here in the Philippines.  I am so thankful for the opportunity I have to learn new and inspiring principals each day of my mission here.