New Companion, New Area

March 24, 2013

Hey y’all!

My new companion Sister Baile is so sweet! She keeps telling me how much she loves me and is grateful for me and that I'm such a good teacher. She is really better though, she is so spiritual and in tune with the spirit and focused on the work. I'm grateful that I'm training because it helps me not be trunky. She's so excited about the work which helps me be excited too, even after a full day of being punted. We've met almost everyone and yesterday at church was good because we really got to meet everyone and bore our testimonies so now everyone knows who we are. We've also had a ton of people work with us-one almost every day! it's awesome. but ya the investigators are few and far between and the ones that we thought we had are hiding and punting us. ugggh. its frustrating but i'm trying not to be easily discouraged and just continue being positive and opening our mouths to people.

We have one investigator that has been taught for like 3 years now and is finally ready to get baptized. His wife left him and he has 9 kids and sells balut at night. crazy right? But he comes to church every sunday and stopped smoking and drinking. The ward is really strong and there are a ton of ward missionaries! So I'm really excited about this area. The sisters are sister tofete and nobleza and we live with them which i was super excited about. sister nobleza always asks me, "so how's joyce?" haha she's so cute. She goes home april 24th! so soon! i'm going to miss her so much, she's so fun! There are some elders here, elder tauleilei from samoa and elder carteciano from utah, but filipino heritage. They are super fun and come to every dinner appointment with us and we always laugh. we have a dinner appointment three times a week! can you believe that? the members are so supportive!

I totally miss my old area but I'm trying to forget about it. I just miss being somewhere where everyone knows me and I know all of them and have all their trust. everyone here thinks I'm the trainee and they don't trust me enough yet to tell me their concerns which means I can't help them yet. its frustrating but i'm trying to rely on the spirit a lot and just trust that i'll get there. new areas/companions are always an adjustment and just need time I suppose. yesterday we had a great dinner appointment and were all cracking up so I definitely felt closer to the members. I just hope my adjustment home or back to school isn't bad! I don't ever want to lose my tagalog and am banking on marrying someone who served in the Philippines and speak to my kids only in tagalog so they can serve here too. Hahaha.

I'm glad that you guys are doing great and still not forgetting about me! i am loving the mission still but miss all of you of course! if you can, tell people to email me cause we can now email family AND friends! it's a new rule cause they want to lessen the amount of mail they have to sort through. cool huh? I love you guys!

                                      Love, Age

March 4, 2013

This week was good. Thanks for fasting for me! I was actually really sick this whole last week with a lot of sinus pressure and stuffy nose. But now i just have a stuffy nose so i'm okay. We still worked super hard though and Elder Anderson, the zone leader told me that i'm the best missionary in the whole zone! Wow. That was really nice to hear!


On Saturday we had a baptism for Malou, Mariz's mom. Mariz wasn't there but Malou brought her son and husband who we haven't had the chance to teach yet, but it was cool for them to see the church and the baptism. Malou was so happy and cried when she bore her testimony! Then on Sunday President Sperry came to our ward with Sister Sperry and the AP's! our ward mission leader gave a ward fireside about home and visiting teaching and told everyone that they were wicked and needed to repent. I hope no one got offended and decided to go inactive. It was so crazy to have them sitting with the rest of the congregation-good thing a ton of people came! I decided to bear my testimony cause i don't know if it's my last fast sunday in malanday ward. it's been an awesome 7 months here and i'll be SO sad to leave! Everyone was like, it sounded like you were saying goodbye forever! Are you leaving? and i was like, ah, i don't know! i wish we could know sooner. I'm going to miss malanday so much. I would love just one more transfer here but i have a feeling i'm going to open a new area with a new comp. and possibly be a trainer again. I'm going to miss sister jones so much too. Transfer day is march 13 so we are trying to make the most of our last time together! WAH! But we already have pretty set plans that we are going to be roommates at BYU...we'll see. i love you!!

Love, Age