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Maayong hapon sa inyo tanan!
[HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOLA!
Thank you for the shirt. Palangga ta ka!]
This week was so so so awesome. Sister Gonzales and I worked really hard despite some difficulties but there are always difficulties that we can't avoid.
Just a highlight of this past week:
On Thursday morning the Assistants to the President (AP's) called us right before Sister Gonzales and I did our companionship study and we were wondering what they could be calling us about.
So when we answer our AP's say "Sister Gonzales, Sister Ventura we have a challenge for you... we've been praying for and you two...popped in my head and we're giving this challenge to you because we know you could do it."
At this point Sister Gonzales and I are wondering what it could possibly be and so we respond yes we'll do it. And our AP says "We promise you if you do this, your companionship, area, and those you teach will be blessed. We AP's challenge you Sister Gonzales and Sister Ventura to find 20 new investigators... today."
Sister Gonzales and I were both so excited and we replied yeah! So fast forward to about 7:30pm and we only had 9 new investigators and we were begging Heavenly Father for a miracle that we would find a family of 11.
As we were walking around, Sister Gonzales felt prompted to go to this one tsanggie (variety store where they sell a bunch of snacks, shampoo, soap, etc). We talked to the lady at the tsanggie and we bought snacks just to start a conversation (haha) so anyways after a but we finally started talking about how we're missionaries and representatives of our Savior.
So we then ask her who's with her in her house and she says "oh we're a lot here!" And we ask "can we come in and meet them all?" And she was really persistent and didn't want us to come in but we were also persistent, but we finally realized she has her agency.
And we can't do much more so we just testified of Jesus Christ and as I was testifying, I started crying! Haha and then when Sister Gonzales testified to what I said, she also started crying! The sister at the tsanggie said "oh no, you don't have to cry!" And I said "We just really feel the Spirit strongly."
And as we walked away, I started crying more and Sister Gonzales comforted me, and we both knew that we were crying because we couldn't reach the goal and expectation the AP's gave us. But as Sister Gonzales and I pondered on it, we were so proud of ourselves, we pushed ourselves more then we ever have before. And we both know we couldn't give any more than we could've, we really did give our all. And most importantly we really felt the guidance of the Holy Ghost more than we ever have before guiding us to every place we went to and every person we talked to.
[Our sisters are so sweet 💗
We came home to mango float!
Thank you Sister Johnson and Sister Obina!]
It was an awesome week! I hope you're all doing well. Looking forward to more amazing things to come.
Halong kamo pirme,
Sister Ventura
Philippines Iloilo Mission (Jan 2018 - July 2019)
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Send an e-mail:
elza.ventura@missionary.org
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.