Maayong gabi pamilya!
This week was a great week, yet again full of a lot of miracles. Some really really cool things have happened to us this week. Sister Baczuk are really focusing on finding the elect and trying to be led spiritually to those people who God has prepared for us. One of the craziest stories happened this last week, it was actually on Monday almost right after I emailed back home...
We went to one of our areas that is really progressing right now because almost all of our recent converts are from there and they are really awesome as fellowshippers to those around them because they are constantly inviting people to come to church or to listen to the discussions from us missionaries. We have been visiting this one older lady who had heard the conversion story of Nanay Letty and was inspired and ever since then has been wanting to come to church. She kept having hard things happening to her that got in the way of her getting to church. So we went back to her and were sad she hadn't been able to gone to church so of course we asked her why she didn't and for the first time she couldn't give a good excuse. She basically said she just didn't. We were sad for her and then we saw one of her daughters hiding in the back so we kept inviting her to come join the lesson. She kept coming out then would go right back to the back of the kitchen to cook.
Finally she sat down kind of far away from us and we just worked on building trust with her as we got to know her. Then she asked us a question of why people call us Mormons when that is not the name of our church. So I offered that we prayed before I answered her question then she got all excited and came and finally sat close to us in the living area. Anyway, we had a really good lesson and found out that a while ago, she was actually 2 weeks from getting baptized then she moved to IloIlo and lost contact with the church. We were super excited about that news and she agreed to go to church and we walked away super happy. BUT that wasn't even the crazy part. We go to our next appointment and not even 10 minutes after we taught tat lesson to that single mom, we get this text from a member and it says "Sister when is the next time you are going to Remedios because you need to go soon so you can teach Mary Vic who wants to lisen to y'all" and THAT WAS LITERALLY THE WOMAN WE HAD JUST FOUND AND TAUGHT. So we literally received a referral for someone we had JUST met and TAUGHT. Sister Baczuk and I were so shocked that that had happened. It just showed us that our following up on that one older woman brought miracles and that God was looking our for us and helping us to find those people that he prepared for us!!! She apparently had just been talking to that member earlier that day and the member told her if missionaries come to her house-listen. And then we had showed up not even an hour later! I love this work ITS SO TRUE!
Sorry that was a really long story. There was one other day that we kept getting rejected and appointments were just falling through one after the other. Then at the very end of the day we found some new people to teach that had been taught by missionaries a bit ago and that was a really neat experience and THEN there is one of the people we teach hat is a member of the Iglesia ni Cristo that truly believes that if she reads anything like the bible she will not be able to go to heaven because she doesn't hold the "authority" to read it cause that's what they teach there. So it has ben months that we have been going back and she always gave us a ton of excuses why she didn't;t read so I just became really bold with her last week that if sh DOESN'T read, she can't enter into the Kingdom of God. We came back at the end of that long day of being rejected and SHE HAD READ THE BOOK OF MORMON!!! I coudn't contain my joy I felt at that time. It was such a happy feeling. That book has so much power and that lesson was so strong as we focused on her testimony of Joseph Smith and the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. That was a happy miracle we witnessed that day. God is so good if you ask me.
Other than that, I got to go on exchanges with a Tongan which was a lot of fun and she taught me a lot of things and I also saw a lot of miracles of that. I honestly thought I was going to step down as a Sister Training Leader to train and I didn't quite understand why I didn't and why President didn't let me train a new missionary again, but this week, when heavy things started happening in her companionship, I was the only one she felt comfortable enough to open up to and she basically told me that if it wasn't for me, she would have gone home by now and I am an angel in her life that saved her. No, I did not deserve that compliment, but it just goes to show how perfect God;s plan is. He knew that I needed to stay a Sister Training Leader so I could help this one missionary to stay on her mission and to overcome her challenges. She helped me understand that God knows what he is doing and it was the most amazing tender mercy ever. God is real. God is good. God is love.
And then one funny thing happened to me this week. Sister Baczuk and I did a lot of tracting which just means we went around and tried to talk to anyone we could to see if there were any people interested in our gospel message. We started "Tagbalay'ing" which is the equivalent of knocking on doors in America but there are no doors to knock on here so you just yell "Tagbalay" really loud until someone comes out. Anyway, you meet some FUNNY people when you're tracting and you get some FUNNY excuses why they don't have time for you. Sister Baczuk and I were laughing pretty hard by the end of it. We got rejected with the funniest excuses. But anyway, there was one lady we taught that she was found just by "OYM" (open your mouth) and we taught her the first lesson which is about the Godhead and about families. And she was kind of a strange lady from the get go as her first question was if Jesus Christ was a fairytale. But then we resolved that concern then randomly halfway throughout the lesson she stopped us to ask "Jesus Christ is a bird right" hahahahha I mean I have heard a lot of crazy things on my mission but that was definitely the best one. We weren't even 100% sure how to answer that without laughing but we somehow did and laugh about it all the time now. Oh man, missions are great. Lots of fun and lots of awesomeness all in 18 months. I love it here. We had a few people that came to church that were totally miracles!! We were excited about that and we know we will continue to see miracles throughout the week!!!
Love y'all lots and can't wait to talk to you all!!! Happy Sabbath to you all over there in America!!
Sister Robertson
