Week 65 Arizona

Hey Mama

So...this week was a bit crazy and there is no way I can fit it all into one letter, so I thought I'd share something that I've learned these past few weeks. The idea that the gospel makes things easier is the biggest lie that I've ever heard. It has never made life easy. The fact that Jesus Christ suffered the pains of the world is evidence against that. He is the gospel in flesh and bones and His task was not any easier. What the gospel does is it makes everything black and white, it simplifies things so that we can make decisions with confidence. It takes all the confusion and mixed emotion and just boils it down to two choices. One decision that we make over and over and over again: do I want to do what God wants me to do or do I want to do what I want to do? The gospel clarifies things, but it doesn't make making the decision any easier. Its like in  Beauty and the Beast. There is the part when the father comes to the fork in the road. One of them looks safe and well traveled, the other looks super sketchy and precarious. When the father chooses the sketchy one...does he choose wrong or right? Really argument could be made for both options, but for the sake of this letter we are going to say that he chose the path that God wanted him to go down. Lets be real, every time we watch that movie it seems obvious which path he should have gone down. The other path looked safe, it looked better, it looked happier. But if he had gone down the "happy" path...Belle would have never met the beast and would have probably ended up as an old maid or married to Gaston. The Path that the father took was by no means easy. He suffered, he was imprisoned, and then...he had to watch his daughter trade herself for his freedom. Sad stuff, but this is Disney and so we know that it has a happy ending, its practically a guarantee. Belle ends up with the love of her life, she is happy. When the father was sitting in the jail, I doubt that the father ever imagined that anything like that was going to happen. The majority of the time, the other path looks and feels so alluring, the path away from that doesn't. But if you keep making those good decisions, the happy ending is guaranteed. No matter how lonely and painful the path, we have the Lord's promise that we will receive our reward-everlasting joy. Doing these things that we don't want to do, we show the Lord that He can count on us, that we are on His team and that we intend to stay there, we show Him that He can trust us and that is a trust you never want to lose. Moral of the story: Trust Him and He will trust you.

Hermana Raynor

Week 64 Arizona

Hey fambam!

So...this week...it was a little bit crazy, but it was in a good way.
I went on an exchange with Hermana Mello. It was super fun. She has
been a missionary for about 6 months. I went with her into her area
and we just worked. It was a really fun. So on Tuesday, I woke up and my watch had stopped working (I'm working on getting a new battery) so I pulled out the watch that Kiki sent us all...I've gotten so many complements on it. 

Thursday we went and did service for a member. She called us pretty frantic that morning because the apartment above her flooded and so her apartment was flooded. We were helping her move things and since then all the lifting over my head...my shoulder has been hurting, but its okay because I found some exercise band things and I can just start doing some of the exercises that they gave me when I did physical therapy.

Another cool thing, we have what is called "the president's challenge" in our mission. The challenge is to memorize the entire family proclamation and then recite the whole thing back to our mission president. Right now I have the first 4 paragraphs down, the fifth one is almost there.

Overall things are going really really well.

Love you

Sister Raynor

Philippines Week 69

This week has gone by really fast. It feels like I just emailed you all. This week was filled with spiritual ups and downs as we have been going through our area trying to help people to get ready for their baptisms in March. I am so happy for all of them but it is a little sad for me knowing that I wont get to be there for them. We've spent a lot of time this week working with the branch to make sure that our goals are in line with theirs. But other than that, this was my week:

• Monday- We had a family home evening with the Tacuyan family.We played a couple of games. The penalty was getting lipstick drawn on your face--as you can see in the pictures, I won. (No lipstick for me:))

• Tuesday- We taught a lot on Tuesday. Then we went to Nanay Silao's to pick some vegetables so that I could cook tinolang manok. There was also a HUGE birthday party at the Mercurio family's cousin's house.... In the Philippines, when there is a party, EVERYONE is invited. So we went and I was actually able to talk to their cousin who lived in America until high school and has been in the Navy. He is actually super interested-and it was fun to whip out some English... I'm not very good at small talk in English.
• Wednesday- Sister Hart drank bad water... So the other sisters in the apartment weren't able to work. So we worked half the day in our area and then Sister Manilingan and I went home and Sister Manilingan and Sister Pinto went to work in the other area while I stayed with Sister Hart.
• Thursday- I went on exchanges with Sister Bautista! It was super fun. I loved it. I've missed her. It felt so normal teaching with her (I followup trained her in Abucay for 12 weeks). But at the end of the night, we learned that the water pump at our apartment was broken-no water! So I spent about an hour on the phone with repair people, our apartment owner, apartment manager, and Elder Gorringe. All of these people informed me that it would not be able to be fixed for a few days. So I called Sister Dahle who sent President Dahle to pick us up so that we could go take a shower at the mission home. Perks of living down the street from the mission home.
• Friday- We has mission president interviews and a big zone meeting. Kind of uneventful. We still didn't have water so we ended up showering and eating dinner at the mission home again.
• Saturday- Worked all day. We've started incorporating Mormon messages into our work (my companion has a usb of them) and even though they are in English, they really help invite the spirit.
• Sunday- We had a ton of investigators come to church! IT was awesome. Some of them even payed tithing-we were shocked. In our classes, we talked a lot about pagmamahal sa loob ng mag-anak.(Love inside the family) We were all talking about the ways to show love. It made me SUPER excited to see my family.I also went back to the American guy that we talked to at that birthday party. We taught him in English. It was hard. He is fluent in Tagalog as well but we were also teaching his 16 year old daughter who doesn't speak Tagalog. It was a good lesson- although he did drop a couple of bad words that I haven't heard in a really long time :)

SO that was my week. I hope everyone is happy and well.

I love you all and I'll see you in two weeks!

Love, Sister Raynor

  

Family Home Evening

a recent convert showing off his shirt,

 Me and Sister Bautista,

 Sister Manilingan asleep on a jeepney

My investigator who was a Captain of the Philippines Army. 

Philippines Week 68

Kumusta ang aking family at mga kapatid?! I hope you are all doing great and awesome and wonderful and any other positive adjective. This week was a little all over this place as I went to Manila and had other meetings all over Olongapo and the mission. So I have it broken down into days. Pictures to come.

Monday- We went and got xrays taken to make sure that we all are good for departures. The hospital, Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital, is a rather creepy place. We had to go down to the basement of a dimly lit, seemingly people-less hospital in order to find anyone to talk to. Strange experience. It was one of the more interesting hospitals that I've had the opportunity to roam. Then we went to the mission home to prepare for our trip to Manila. We ate pancakes and watched Meet the Mormons with our batchmates. Then Sister Hart and I got to sleep at the Gorringe's apartment-it was so much fun.

Tuesday- Started out driving at 4AM the 3.5 hours to Manila. We fingerprinted for 3 hours for our exit visas. Then we got to go to the temple. It was amazing.

 

Wednesday-I came back from Manila with the flu. I am so sick. But happy.

Thursday- We  spent a good chunk of time at a less actives house eating Indian mangoes.

Friday- Had my last MLC (Mission Leadership Council). Said a lot of hard goodbyes but was a super great day.

   

Saturday- Valentines Day-had dinner with the Mercurio family then Sister Hart surprised me with candles.

Sunday-We got a random text from Sister Dahle asking if shoe could work with us. So, Sister Dahle worked with us. Super fun. It was like a spiritual boost! Sister Dahle mentioned that she would like to go to those that would most benefit from her being there so we took her to Saricris. (A recent convert of a little under a year who has been having some family problems but has a desire to go on a mission.) As we were sharing with her about the joy of missionary work, I began asking her what she felt when she was baptized. She explained all about this great change that she felt in her heart after her baptism. It reminded me of a verse that President Dahle shared with me at the beginning of the training of Sister Lobaton: Alma 5:26 (And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now?)

After she read the verse, I asked her what she felt "to sing the song of redeeming love" meant. She simply said- that is simple testimony. She explained to us that because she felt the change of heart, she needs to share it with others-she needs to sing the song of redeeming love. 

Even though, this seems like a simple thing, it mean a lot to me. As I am nearing the end of my mission, I feel like I have changed a lot. But this just reminded me of what I first felt when I decided to come on a mission. Who are we not to share what we know to be true. 

I know that God lives. I know that Christ is our Savior who perfectly loves and perfectly understands each of us. I know that God restored the perfect gospel of Jesus Christ through Joseph Smith. The Book of Mormon in the word of God. As we each read and pray about its truthfulness, we will come to know and feel of its power. We are blessed to have a living prophet who guides us in this time. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is God's kingdom here on the earth.

I love my mission. I love these people. I love the gospel.

I love you all. See you in 3 weeks!

Love Sister Raynor

Week 63 Arizona

Hey mama,

This week...it was a rough one. On Saturday, we were supposed to have a baptism and...it didn't happen. The Aldacos were supposed to get baptized...I think I told you about them... if not, here's a recap. The Aldaco's are an older couple and they have been meeting with the missionaries for about 4 years, but they have never been able to  get baptized because they couldn't go to church. Hermano Aldaco has really really bad cancer and his doctor specifically told him not to go anywhere with lots of people, like churches. They were just waiting to finish this round of chemo and then they were going to get an MRI and if his cancer was better...they could come to church. They really thought it was better, but then the MRI results said that it was even worse and that they weren't going to have much time left together. So we went over with the Bishop and he said that now they need to take the risk more than ever so that they can make covenants and get ready for the temple, and they totally agreed. They were going to get baptized this Saturday, so on Tuesday, we got their baptismal interview all scheduled and just as we got there they told us that they had to go to the hospital~ they were going to move his medical records to a different one in Phoenix. We rescheduled for Wednesday afternoon. Wednesday morning we got a call from the Bishop and he told us that Hernano Aldaco was in the hospital with pneumonia, and that the doctor didn't think he was going to make it through the night. Saturday morning, we got another call...Hermano had died a little earlier that day. It was really sad, but the silver lining is that he's not hurting anymore and we talked to Maria a lot about temples  the week before. I think she'll get baptized within the next month or so. Then it'll be a year until she can get sealed to Hermano Aldaco.

Like i said...rough week. Also...this week was the week of meetings. I had to go to the Mission Leadership Counsel meeting in Tempe, and then to a stake meeting in northern Phoenix and all that jazz...long week.

Love you, 

Ashley

Week 62 Arizona

So...this was an odd week. With the new transfer meeting/calls schedule we didn't find out anything until Tuesday night and then we had transfer meeting on Thursday. With that...I'm staying in Phoenix with Hermana Bishop and yes I'm still a sister training leader. Thanks for doing all that stuff for me, I really really appreciate it. Also thanks for the birthday package. It was nice, we all had a lot of fun with the slugs ;)

As for Shelly...this is what i usually say to people to help them to commit to a baptismal date.  Essentially, making this commitment is a huge act of faith. True to the faith says "Faith  is  a  principle of action and power. Whenever you work toward a worthy goal, you exercise faith. You show your hope for something that you cannot yet see."  The question that Shelly needs to ask herself is does she have faith. Does she believe that God could answer her prayer before her baptismal date? The Fact is that she is never going to know enough, if we know something is true, then we don't need to have faith anymore.I like how Alma says it, " 17 Yea, there are many who do say: If thou wilt show unto us a sign from heaven, then we shall know of a surety; then we shall believe.

 18 Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it." God wants us to have faith, it is after the trial of our faith that we receive the knowledge. Faith is believing in something to the point where we must act. Its kind of like that trust fall exercise that we always did in leadership, I can say that i believe that my friend is going to catch me...but if i never actually fall back, if i never actually take that risk...do i really trust (or have faith) in my friend? The scriptures teach us that if we do our part, if we pray and study the scriptures and go to church and do all the other things that the missionaries are asking us to do then God WILL answer us, he CANNOT ignore us it goes against eternal laws for him to ignore us. On top of that...committing to a baptismal date is a huge act of faith. At this point she has no idea if the church is true, but by committing to a specific date is how we act, its how we fall. So does Shelly have the faith, does she trust that God will tell her whether or not this is true before her baptismal date?

She needs to ask herself if she trusts God.

I love you mamma

Ashley

Philippines Week 67

This has been a busy week for the work here in Calapacuan.

On Monday, after I emailed we spent some time on Subic Base. We actually ran into a member from San Felipe. Its weird to see people from other areas. Memories just kind of all rush back at once.

On Tuesday I gave a workshop to my zone. It was super fun. I focused on Companionship unity- I had each companionship tie their legs together (like a three-legged race) and then I put clues and riddles through out the church and they had to race and go find them. (The church in Olongapo has two floors so it was hilarious watching people struggle to climb of the stairs.) After that, we went out to lunch with Elders Lugo and Christensen. Then randomly in the middle of lunch Sister Hart said that she has an announcement then kneeled down pulled out some flowers and asked me to be her Valentine.

 We then spent all of our time and efforts trying to strengthen our investigators. We are really teaching some great people. 

On Thursday, we got to go to a Sunday School Training in Olongapo in which Elder Ardern and President Durrant (Sunday School Presidency) taught us. It was a very neat experience. 

On Friday night, I came home to Sister Hart doing my laundry. She always knows just how to woo me. We have come to the conclusion that she should just do my laundry for the rest of our missions. As soon as I started to help, everything seemed to go wrong- Sister Hart almost dropped half the clothes off the balcony, bubble fights and lots of splishing and splashing, slippin and slidin (Bobby Darrin style). Our companions were just laughing at us. 

On Saturday morning, we were able to do a CSP at the home of an 85-year old less active widow. She has become totally self reliant and manages/works in her own garden to support her and her whole family. She is very amazing. She recently returned to full activity in the church and we are hoping there her return will lead to the returns and baptisms of many of her relatives. We worked and gardened with her for a few hours. When I say we I mean me, Sister Pinto and Sister Hart. My companion sister Manilingan spent most of her time taking pictures and eating. She is hilarious.

On Sunday Night/this morning at around 12:15 am, Sister Hart came in and woke me up because she had a dream that the Second Coming was here and so she needed to clean everything.Somehow, she managed to convince me that it was necessary to clean in the middle of the night :) So she and I got up (while she let our companions sleep-lucky) and cleaned until about 3 AM. It was probably smarter that way though because today (preparation day-cleaning day) is going to be super busy... We were told on Saturday that all the missionaries going home this transfer need to get a chest xray (precautionary). So I texted President Dahle last night to get permission for Sister Hart and I to go on exchanges to go to the hospital. Then tonight, the two of us need to be at the mission home by 7pm...because tomorrow-We are going to Manila! The Gorringes invited Sister Hart and I to stay with them in their apartment instead of in the Living Room of the mission home so we are going to have a "slumber party" with them tonight. And then we hop in a van at 1AM tonight in order to get to Manila tomorrow. All the foreigners in my batch need to be fingerprinted for our exit visas and because the temple is closed next month they are letting us go to the temple as well :) Super Exciting. 

Well, that's all for this week. Love you all.

Love Sister Kate Raynor

Working in the garden

My ALLTIME favorite gulay/herb--Malunggay or Moringa in english. I am praying that they have it in the states...