Adventure first:
This week I learned what to do if you come
home from your morning jog to find a waterfall leaking in all over your desk.
Step one: move the desk. Step two: pray. Step three: assess the damage and be
grateful that your scriptures and journal only received minor damage. Step
four: tell your landlady, who will call her husband, who will bring a bamboo
ladder and climb up on your roof and start chucking down clumps of rotting
leaves from the gutter. Step five: study President Uchtdorf's talk about
Gratitude and be reminded that you need to be grateful in every situation and
not just for things :)
My flooded desk!
I also learned what to do if you
come out of the bathroom at the church to see flames shooting out of a
trashcan. Step one: grab an empty trashcan and run back into the bathroom to
fill it with water. Step two: dump the water on the fire. Repeat steps one and
two until the fire is gone. Step three: tell the assistants, who will come
frantically running, until you explain that there is no more fire. (that's the
problem with Tagalog- sometimes there's no way to specify tenses). Apparently
someone threw a cigarette butt in the trash and it caught a piece of styrofoam
on fire. We were joking that Sister Brown was prompted to use the bathroom at
just the right time so that we were able to save the church from burning to the
ground
Meetings:
We had Mission Leadership Council
this week. I definitely felt the weight of my calling and the great trust that
the Lord has in us as I sat in the chapel in Urdaneta with the other 7 STLs and
18 zone leaders being taught by President and Sister Monahan and the
assistants. One of my favorite parts of the calling is the opportunity to work
with such amazing missionaries. Hearing how the Calasaio Zone Leaders taught 57
lessons last week and hearing the Bayambang STLs' success story about their
recent convert and hearing Elder Johnson pray so humbly makes me want to be
more obedient, more diligent, and more Christlike. I love these amazing sisters
and elders!
Exchanges:
We had three exchanges this week.
I love working with so many different sisters from all over the
world and being able to learn from them. I had a great exchange on Wednesday
with Sister Fuimaono, a 26-year old sister from Samoa with the biggest heart
I've ever known. She just loves everyone! It was great to hear
about her life and learn from her example of charity.
I also got to work in Santa
Barbara with the Santa Barbara A Sisters on Tuesday. They are on fire (okay,
not like the trashcan, but almost ;)) Their diligence and exact obedience is
really showing. They are using their elect investigators to meet other elect
investigators by meeting their family and friends and teaching them as well.
Exact obedience makes all the difference in the success of an area! They are
baptizing nearly every week because of their diligence!
Trials:
Let's just say, that a mission is
full of dropped appointments, people that don't care about your
eternity-changing message, rejection, cockroaches, mosquitoes, typhoons, and
worms, but it's all about how you look at it. Let's move on to the miracles :)
Miracles:
Sister Flores and I are always
commenting on how Villasis is truly a place of revelations and miracles. Maybe
it's because it's so close to the temple sight :)
Sister Lydia is the sweetest, humblest
investigator with the strongest testimony. She lives with her live in partner
(member) and two year old son. She loves reading and has the gentlest, most
soft-spoken spirit. Yesterday the miracle was that she came to church with her
husband. They are working so hard to save for their marriage papers so they can
get married so sister Lydia can get baptized, but it's really hard for them
with brother's construction work not being very stable during the rainy season.
We really felt strongly to promise them miracles for their obedience during our
lesson on Saturday. We told them that if they are obedient and are doing
everything they can to follow the commandments, Heavenly Father will provide a
way for them. They came to church and we know He will bless them!
Sister Maureen and Brother Sonny
accepted a baptismal date for Aug 30 :)
And we were able to teach Sister
Corazon's daughter and her husband and whole family :)
I love you all so much!
Sister Gustafson
Sister Trainer Leaders - July 2014
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