Madison on a Mission

Kung ikaw ay masaya, pumalapak!!!!

It's been a great week -- actually to be quite honest probably one of the happiest in my entire mission so far. I loved every minute of it and will forever cherish this time as a missionary. Being a missionary is the best job in the entire universe!!!! Seriously I want to do this for the rest of my life. The Philippines is the best place in the entire world. The people here are literally the sweetest on the entire planet.

I absolutely love everything about Lingsat, I love my companion Sister Daban so very much, and we love the ward we are serving in. Especially we just love the people. Honestly we just love love being here.

We worked so hard this week-- as hard as we possibly could, utilizing every minute we had to share the gospel. As soon as we were outside, we tried to talk to everyone we could, even if it was a few seconds; as a result, we are absolutely astounded at the amount of people that God places in our path to share. There are many people we hope we can get back to. We shared a lot of Books of Mormon and we truly do believe in the converting power there. Even when our appointments fell through, we found people to teach, and actually as a result we found Bing Aquitana, a 50 year old woman who immediately accepted the Restoration story with total understanding and started reading the Book of Mormon. She has great potential! We also met a 17 year old girl named Aira Mae Delos Santos who has a lot of siblings and her parents don't take care of them. She's had a hard time but is very receptive too. We know that God gave us those people to teach; we found both of those investigators after we got rejected a lot of times and we prayed outside for guidance.

A young boy named Carl came to church on Sunday, the son of a less active woman near the church. He is so shy and sweet and little, and needs to know that God loves him so much to boost his confidence. He has enormous potential too. We felt so good about him when we first met him a little over a week ago. We hope that he will be the means of reactivation of his mother.  I am so impressed with the drive for missionary work here in Lingsat ward - -my favorite ward ever!!!!! They all work to reactivate and visit members and we love it! We get referrals and the members are so excited and share so much love. I love Lingsat and Sister Daban so much.  I know that challenges come, but right now my mission is like a dream come true.

I love to run at the beach and exercise every day and I love finding and talking to as many people as possible and also doing my best to plan and teach by the Spirit.

I love the WORK!

Cultural Note:

I found some new favorite fruits -- I love Rambutan. It's a red fruit with a hard shell with long fuzzy like thick hairs around it. You crack it with your palms and eat the fruit inside. SOOOO MASARAP!!!!! I bought dragonfruit too, saging, apples, pinya -- there are soooo many kinds of fruit EVERYWHERE. I love it. Me and Sister Daban are obsessed with Swarma at the Night Market -- we are allowed to go there after work to get dinner sometimes. It's the bomb.

Also, people here love to talk. It's the sweetest thing.

Funny Story:

This family hid from us when we yelled "Tao Po". "It's the Elders!" Then we laughed and yelled at them back that we were the sisters. They hid from us. But that made the stubborn side of me kick in just as we were about to give up. We turned around, hid until they came outside again, then came out and gave them cards and told them they couldn't hide from us and we had a message for their family. Hahahaha Sister Daban was laughing so hard. We are definitely going back there because like I said to her then that families like that need the gospel now.

Mahal ko kayong lahat!!!

JESUS THE CHRIST:

James of old chided his brethren for certain empty professions (James 2:19). Said he in effect: You take pride and satisfaction in declaring your belief in God; you boast of being distinguished from the idolaters and the heathen because you accept one God; you do well to so profess, and so believe; but, remember, others do likewise; even the devils believe; and, we may add, so firmly that they tremble at the thought of the fate which that belief makes sure. Those confessions of the devils, that Christ was the Son of God, were founded on knowledge; yet their knowledge of the great truth did not change their evil natures. How different was their acknowledgment of the Savior from that of Peter, who, to the Master’s question “Whom say ye that I am?” replied in practically the words used by the unclean spirits before cited, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:15–16; see also Mark 8:29; Luke 9:20). Peter’s faith had already shown its vital power; it had caused him to forsake much that had been dear, to follow his Lord through persecution and suffering, and to put away worldliness with all its fascinations, the sacrificing godliness which his faith made so desirable. His knowledge of God as the Father, and of the Son as the Redeemer, was perhaps no greater than that of the unclean spirits; but while to them that knowledge was but an added cause of condemnation, to him it was a means of salvation.—Abridged from The Articles of Faith, 5:97–99.

Alma 5

14 And now behold, I ask of you, my brethren of the church, have ye spiritually been born of God? Have ye received his image in your countenances? Have ye experienced this mighty change in your hearts?

14 At ngayon masdan, itinatanong ko sa inyo, aking mga kapatid sa simbahan, kayo ba ay espirituwal na isinilang sa Diyos? Inyo bang tinanggap ang kanyang larawan sa inyong mga mukha? Inyo bang naranasan ang malaking pagbabagong ito sa inyong mga puso?

Sister Porter