Happy 24th of July!

Hi everyone. I am happy. I am well.
The Cauilan baptism was great.
We have started teaching Ferdinand (Bong Bong) and Babet (their two oldest children)
This is the miracle of the week. Ferdinand told his parents they could all get baptized but he would not be joining them. But because of the big changes he has seen in his family, mostly how happy they are, and how now they pray together and things like that, he now wants to be baptized too.
This has seriously been my deepest desire, and though I believe that Bong Bong would someday join his family, I didn't expect it to happen while I was still around!
I just cannot express the joy and gratitude I feel! It is truly a miracle.

Many other things happened this week, but I have no more time.
We went to the rice fields to catch frogs this morning. We use these long wood poles with string and snail tied to the end. I guess the frogs were all sleeping because it wasn't very successful, we only got one frog and it was tiny.
Luckily, our investigators had caught a bunch of frogs yesterday, so we ended up just eating those. We were in charge of killing and skinning the frogs.

Have a wonderful week.
Love you all!

sister webre

Bikes, Bread, Chickens and 21 Souls!

This has been one of the BEST P-days of my whole mission.

We woke up at  530 (Sis. V, and the 2 other sisters that live with us) so we could leave at 6 and go fetch the bikes we would borrow from the members. This is the first time I have ridden a bike in a year! My companion doesn't know how to ride a bike, but luckily we borrowed one bike with a side car and she got to enjoy the ride. It was fun! We rode the bikes to our investigators house ( my most favorite and beloved Cauilan family who's baptism is THIS SATURDAY!!!!) and we started right away making BREAD. That's right, Rolan (Dad Cauilan) has his own little bakery behind his house with a big oven and he uses coal! Is that not totally bomb?? 

So anyway, actually the plan was to go to the fields and catch some frogs for our lunch, but they said the frogs are still just small so we'll have to do that next month. We made a TON of bread. We spelled our names, we made flower shapes, frogs, people, we just had a ball. And we made my favorite bread that has a coconut sugar spread inside! We brought a big old honking box home earlier and Its gonna be our weeks worth of food. This is not helping my diet. But it is sure tasty.

Another one of my dreams came true. I slaughtered, de-feathered, chopped, and cooked a chicken. Yes, It's true. It was crazy. I can get my boy scouts award now. And they all got a good laugh at me doing such a job. It was a great time.

We were also able to borrow the guitar of a member and I got to play and sing a bit for them from the hymns and primary song book. I will be playing/singing "I feel my saviors love" at their baptism this saturday.

But bike rides, making bread, and slaughtering chickens is only a small part of the excitement that we experienced this week here in the mission field!

We had 21 investigators come to church yesterday! I still don't know how it happened, but it's no lie, 21 wandering souls attended our sacrament meeting yesterday morning and It was just a magical thing. About half of them are solid and they have baptismal dates, the rest are fairly new investigators and this was their first time. The members were just going crazy trying to greet them all and get their names and everyone just had a big smile on. It was just so special. It really is harvest season for us right now, and the neat thing is that we were the ones that planted as well. Now we get to taste the fruit and it is SO SWEET!!! 

Three of our priesthood investigators wore a white shirt and tie for their very first time and It just made me so happy seeing them, they looked so handsome! 

We have two new investigators that I have already fallen in love with. Marlyn(24) and Fernando(24) Batara. They are siblings and they were among the 21 who came to church yesterday. They both work in the fields every day, but they come home early on the days we teach them. We can see they have a strong desire to learn and to change. We were so surprised when after our second visit, they told us they were already in 1 Nephi chapter 4. I can literally feel their hunger for the gospel. Marlyn called us the other day and we were in the middle of a teaching appointment. Sister Villamor rushed outside to answer it, thinking it was something important, but she had just called to shoot the breeze. So cute! Ah.....just love 'em. 

Missionary work is the best. I'm just on cloud nine. I'm so in love with these people.

Have a wonderful week! Share the gospel with everyone you come in contact with!! 

Feed your own soul through meaningful scripture study and prayer! (It gets hungry you know)

All my love, 

sister webre

Pics:

That is the rice that we planted last month. Isn't it beautiful!??

The picture where I'm cutting the chicken-- the man on the right is one of our recent converts (Renato) and the girl behind me is Rhea (10) and her parents to her side. Bro. Rolan is holding the chicken in the back (Those three are the ones getting baptized this week, plus their son Christopher (15) They have two more youngin's-- Froilan (6) and Ryan (5) and their baby, Riza (2) 

Their two oldest kids Ferdinand (19) and Elizabeth (16) makes 7 in all. They are such a special family!

The good news is that Elizabeth has finally arranged her work schedule and was able to come to church last week. She will be baptized sometime in August. As for Ferdinand, we are still praying hard that he will join his family soon!!

 

 

Sugar Cane

Hi, it sounds like we're having the same weather--RAIN. I absolutely LOVE it, you know me, but everyone here is afraid of the rain. Our church attendance goes down like 40% if its raining.
It started to rain just as we were finishing an appointment with a new member. I wanted to go out and keep teaching, but my comp and the member we were with wanted to wait in the house til it stopped. Well we waited for about 30 mins and I just couldn't help but think the whole time that we should still be out finding and teaching.
I was thinking that they were being silly worrying about getting wet but then I realized that they're  just normal I'm the weird one. HA!

We found out that Olivar is not part of any cult. He doesn't have any secrets. He has a CRAZY past but he is for real and he is gonna get baptized on August 6, long hair or short. On fathers day last month, they gave out little hand towels to all the fathers, and his is pink.He carries that thing everywhere and I just think its so cute. It makes me smile, he's always got it in his hand or hanging out his pocket.

This week discovered a new part of our area, its in the middle of the rice fields at the farthest end of our area. I love going out there, Its just quiet and beautiful. It was the first time I saw pure sugar cane, just growing in our new investigators yard. I asked if I could try and she cut me down a whole big stalk with her machete. I felt pretty cool chewing on that thing.

We take turns teaching the gospel essentials class for investigators and new members at church. Last week was on the sabbath day. Sometimes I forget how different LDS are from the world, but when we teach about the council of our latter-day prophets, that we shouldn't buy on the sabbath, participate in worldly entertainment, etc, etc. I just think, wow, there are TONS of big changes that these people need to make as they become members of the true church of Christ. Growing up in the church I just don't realize that many of the things I have known and done my whole life are completely foreign to them. But it amazes me how many are willing to make those changes and sacrifices. But of course IT MAKES SENSE. Because this is the TRUTH!!!

Anyway, I'm happy, the work is moving along, no drastic changes, all of our baptismal dates are coming to church and growing their testimonies, so its a beautiful life.
I love you
Be good
Dance in the rain
Conquer the enemy of righteousness

sister webre

p.s. that pic is the sugar cane before you take the skin off. its a cream color inside and instead of swallowing it, you just bite off a piece, chew it and get all the flavor and then spit it back out. That piece I'm holding is only a fourth of what she gave us!

Happy 4th of July

Hello,
We had a baptism!
John Aquino(24) was baptized on July 2nd.
The cool part was that his baptizer was Renato Olimon, who was just baptized also a few weeks ago. (remember, my first convert here in this ward was Reymond, and he baptized Renato) So the way things are going, John will probably be the baptizer for our next baptism. (which is the Cauilan family) Stinkin SWEET right?
Its a really good feeling when the members praise us and think we are super missionaries because we always have a ton of investigators at church, and baptisms, and most of them are PRIESTHOOD. But of course, we're not doing it for their praise, we're just so happy that the Lord is blessing us so much. I've never been so happy.

Remember Olivar? He said he is NOT cutting his hair, and our bishop thinks he is part of a cult. It made me feel really bad when he said that. I thought-- Don't you dare judge our investigators, you don't know them! I feel like all of our investigators are my children or something. I teach them, nurture them, sometimes help them get ready for church, and I think about them constantly and pray for them. I don't like it when others aren't nice to them, or risk offending them! But no, actually, he was right, we need to find out more about his background and make sure that he understands this is a lifetime commitment and he won't fall away if he gets baptized. I just love him, and feel like he is totally sincere.

We are teaching the sweetest old man. He is 68 (okay,not THAT old. don't take offense grandma :) ) and his wife died 3 years ago but his kids are still young. ( 18 is the youngest) Anyway we LOVE their family and they all have the same amazing smile. But Mario (the dad) he is totally prepared to receive the gospel. He came to church his second time yesterday all on his own. And every time we teach him, he is totally prepared, he reads the book of mormon and then he will tell us about what he read and he is always spot on. Last night he was struggling a little bit to tell us something, and then he pulled out a piece of paper and started to read. He had written in big, somewhat sloppy writing, a summary from what he read in the bom assignment we gave him. It was so cute, we were just like is this real? Its too good to be true. But I'm starting to just expect miracles because they are happening every day.

Well, My time is far gone.
Love you heaps and bunches.
Have a good one!
Sister Webre loves you!