Standard of Excellence

Wow, what a week! I feel like I say something like that every week... But with missionary work, every week has new and interesting things.. and sometimes things we don't expect at all. And it was definitely one of those weeks.

Earlier we got to go to this monastery thing and we didn't even see any monks so I was a little bit disappointed, but there was a big statue of Christ and some cool cross necklace souvenirs (haha... I didn't buy anything, don't worry). But it was pretty awesome. And there's lots of real good missionaries in this zone! :) Super cool.

In case you are wondering, my anak is still alive! So I take that as a good sign. But she's really good and super cute! :) She definitely hasa desire to keep improving and to really give her best. Man, my anak is so diligent. So my kabahay (roommate) is my nanay in the mission right? So it's realy cool because my anak just calls my nanay grandma. But I think Sister Esirom (my other kabahy) feels like the black sheep in this whole situation, so we started calling her Aunt. haha :) It's pretty interesting and lots of fun. I also have an "older sister" in the mission who is in our zone! 

Man, this week though. Honestly, training is stressful and this area is sometimes stressful ( as is with all area). We have a standard to reach standard of excellence this month for baptisms which is two per companionships. I really only thought that we would only have one amd I was trying to think of who else could possibly be baptized. It's hard because they have to come to church four times in a row before they can be baptized.  But despite all of the challenges and all of the problems, there are so manymiracles happening every day I can't even count them. This week though, we had a lot fo very small miracles that made one big miracle. We ended up talking to one Tatay on Friday and asked if we could come back and teach him another day. We returned to him on Saturday and he was very willing to listen. Tay just recently had a stroke and so sometimes his speech is slurred and it's hard for me to understand him, but it's amazing how even if I can't understand, I can discern what he is trying to say. He told us he doesn't have any religion, but that his mom is a member. For some reason, I felt really impressed to extend a baptismal invitation with a date, which we normally don't do in the first lesson. But we left feeling really good about the lesson. To our amazement, the next day, Tatay came to church! We had a member who usually doesn't join us, come to our class for investigators and recent converts and became a fellowshipper for Tatay. We don't really know or understand how everything happened, but I know

 Heavenly Father knows all the details. Tatay has potential to be baptized this month!!

I love the Lord, I love this work, and I love you all!!!

oxoxo Sister Holmes