Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Merry Christmas from the Philippines

Baylie
Hello Family! 
Merry Christmas! It seriously does not feel like Christmas at all! Yesterday we were walking down the street dying of heat because it was like 100 degrees and we were eating ice cream. I thought to myself... im in the Philippines on a random island in December eating ice cream. haha such a weird thought! Well this week was great! i love my mission. i am so blessed to be in such a receptive area. We had another baptism this week. It was for Anthony. It was so amazing he is just so great! he is the 16 year old i told you about last week. We are so happy for him. This week was so great.. We got a referral from the Elders for the Torno family. We were in the area where they live and we were teaching. We were planning on trying to find them sometime that day. We were on our way to one of our investigators house and we walked past a house that we walk past all the time and sister foote has always wanted to share with them but the timing has never been right. as we walked past sister foote turned around and asked them if we could share, they said yes. We introduced ourselves and i was about to say the prayer and i asked what their last name was... They said Torno! They were the referral we were suppose to find it was so amazing! We were definitely led to them be the Spirit. We had another referral from the elders for an 86 year old man from Australia (who speaks english) :) His name is Chester. He decided to stop and talk to the elders about our church. He agreed to let us visit him. We met him and he is seriously the sweetest old guy EVER! We taught the restoration and he agreed with all of it and knew that it was all true. I was able to tech pretty much the whole lesson because it was in English! it was so amazing! I committed him to be baptized on January 18 and he grabbed my had and said "Yes of course i would love to be baptized!" such a great experience! I love him :) Also we got some referrals for a new area called site. We decided to go there last night and find some of them. We went and it was unreal. They said there has never been missionaries in that area before so everyone wanted to hear our message. We were there for less than 2 hours, taught 4 lessons and got 14 new investigators! it was so amazing! People just crowded around to hear us. we cant wait to go back tomorrowwhen we have more time! I seriously love it here so much! I am so grateful for the opportunity i have to serve these people. My testimony has grown so much, i want to stay here forever :) We bought a mini Christmas tree and Christmas lights and decorated our room this week. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and remember the true meaning of Christmas. I love you all! 
Love Sister Leifson :) 

So all of you know my wired eating habbits haha and you will never believe what i have eaten here! 
-I LOVE bananas here! i hated them at home 
-Wheat bread! haha its so good here! 
-Menudo
-Sweet and sour chicken
-RICE haha so much rice! 
-Watermelon and mangos are amazing here! 
-Also there are these things here called Chungys.. People go to the store and buy stuff then sell it out of their houses. its so if you forgot something at the store you just go to your neighbors chungy and you dont have to go all the way back to the strore. its really weird haha 

More random things about the Philippines: 
-If you have a job here you wear a really fancy uniform. Its because jobs here are really hard to get so if you are privileged enough to have a job then you wear a uniform. Like the girls at the grocery store wear these blue knee length dresses and heels. its really funny. Also the girls at McDonalds wear a pencil skirt with a really dressy shirt and a little hat :) its so cute i love it! --When you eat no matter what your eaitng you use a spoon in your right hand and a fork in your left and you use them both to eat haha its cool! 
-Everyone here thinks we are like gorgeous haha so they always like stare and stuff and the other day we were at our investigators house and she was pinching my cheeks like i was a baby and then she told me i looked like a girl power ranger! hahaha it was the weirdest moment ever! 
-Awkward moment of the week.. We were standing on the side of the road waiting for the jeepney and there was lots of traffic, the car that was right in front of us had like 5 people in it and literally every single person was staring at us, then the tricycle drivers were all honking and smiling and there was a guy riding in the tricycle that was probably 15 ft away from us and he was looking at us thru binoculars!!! hahah it was so funny!

No comments:

Post a Comment