Week 43: There can be miracles... if you believe :)

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Maayong aga everyone! 

Thanks for all the concerned emails about my foot, I'm all good! Not limping anymore 😊 And also it's been healing pretty quickly and doesn't seem to be infected, so that's good!

Quick update of this week:

Last Monday - 

We followed up with our investigator that I talked about last week that relapsed and he basically shared with us what happened and he expressed to us how napuno gid siya (sorry i forgot how to explain that in English) but yeah he couldn't take it anymore. We just listened to him and showed him our concern and love, just like what Jesus Christ would do!

Tuesday - 

We visited him again and he totally opened up to us for about 2+ HOURS, it was crazy how much he was keeping inside for so long. As a companionship even though it's sad that he had to grow through this, but we were thinking about how probably he needed to go through all of this before he got baptized so that he can feel completely free from the burdens of the past. It can be hard sometimes for all of us to go through challenges in life, but just like Joseph of Egypt (which we shared with him during our lesson), we have to think of the bigger picture of how and why everything happens! God truly has a perfect plan for each and every one of us 😊

Wednesday - 

Just a random highlight, I had a dream that my mom was speaking Ilonggo.. WITH THE TONE AND EVERYTHING. I was like "no way this is real!" Haha.

Thursday - 

Had zone district meeting again! I learned a lot from my Zone Leaders and it was really inspiring because we received a lot of help from Elder Teh of how to improve our mission. I'm excited to apply all that I learned and be the missionary that the Lord would want me to be and expects me to be!

Friday - 

Today was really cool because we had a member and missionary training at church about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! I'll add some pictures and videos so you can all see what we did. It was such a success and I know we helped our members here feel more excited and confident to do missionary work. Because just like President David O. McKay said "Every member a missionary!" And it was also even more fun because one of my investigators came and it really strengthened his testimony of what we teach as he heard the testimonies of other members!

Saturday - 

BEST DAY OF WORK EVER. We visited one of our investigators who keeps promising us she'll go to church but she has only gone once 😕 But at the end we committed her again and she seems to really want to go to church (pero spoiler alert - she didn't go 😕 haha okay lang!) After we met a little boy who was just so cute so we asked him if his mom was home and he took us sa balay nila (to their home) and when we met his mom, she was so sweet, pero SHE ONLY SPEAKS TAGALOG. She can barley understand Ilonggo. Out of all the missionaries here sa Panay it was so funny to me that Sister Quinton, Sister Salan, and I are assigned here because we all don't know Tagalog too well (Sister Salan is Cebuana and Sister Quinton and are American), because most missionaries here know Tagalog. Sister Salan and I really struggled but we were able to be understandable enough. It really forced me to try to speak Tagalog, which is good! It was a really good experience because the mom was so understanding (not of the language, but of the situation!) I'm excited to continue teaching her but we're going to need to bring someone who can speak Tagalog.

Also later in the day we looked for someone we [contacted] because she said we can come over sa balay niya (to her home), but the thing is we didn't know where her house was. So we went to the barangay (district/village) that she said and walked for about 10 minutes until we reached a huge grass field and it totally reminded me of my 1st area! So we walked through and ended up at a bamboo bridge that was really high off the ground and after a couple minutes, we got to another area of houses and I was wondering if she actually lived there because it was really far from the highway, but to my surprise, we ACTUALLY found her! After, we went back towards the main highway and as we were passing through the big grass field, we saw some people so we approached them and talked with them and within minutes, it seemed like the entire barangay came out and we talked to so many of them! It was overwhelming but so much fun to see a new area filled with people we can share the Gospel to 😊At night, we celebrated Sister Quinton's 12-week graduation! And we had a totally American dinner! Aww my bata grows up so fast 😂

Sunday -

Renewed my covenant to the Lord. I'm grateful for the Sacrament each Sunday! Also not too much happened because we got punted 8 times! It's honestly really tiring to get punted 😩 Pero wa'ay kaso!

This week was a miracle because we were able to have a full week of work even though I had just gotten stabbed last week! It's amazing to me that I was able to work as hard as I can despite my foot. But so yeah we had such a good week, I love my comp.'s. Shout out to you Sister Quinton and Sister Salan, love you two!

Hope you all had a good week! Sorry but I don't think I could upload pics and videos this week because the connection is so bad 😩 So sorry but I think it should be good next week!

Hope you're all doing well 😊!

Halong kamo pirme, 

Sister Ventura

Philippines Iloilo Mission (Jan 2018 - July 2019)

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Send an e-mail: 

elza.ventura@myldsmail.net 

Written letters and packages: 

Sister Elza Ventura 

Philippines Iloilo Mission 

Osmeña Street, 

Arevalo, Iloilo City, 

5000 Iloilo 

Philippines

*Some names have been changed or omitted to protect the privacy of individuals.