Slugs!

Hello Family, it's monday again!

This week we did not teach any lessons.  We only did service. It was fun, but I miss teaching! Thats where all the good stuff happens!
I ask any who read this to please pray for Mallig branch. We are struggling. The whole branch is disorganized and the President isn't doing a lot to help. It is a very difficult situation and puts a lot more responsibility on us missionaries. He expects us to teach the young women and sunday school classes etc.
Thanks

I'm super hot and tired so I don't think I will write much more.
But I love you and the church is true!!
Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure I'm really awake. I'm really here, in the PHilippines, being a missionary. Ive waited my whole life to do what I am doing right now. I'm finally living the dream! Being a missionary is so great. It's a privelege and a blessing to work so closely with the Lord!
May he bless you all and keep you happy and safe

Sister Webre

p.s. I just realized I didn't explain my subject.
Wish I could send the picture, we had slugs the other day. It was awesome. We got them out of the river ourselves, boiled them for a few minutes and had to suck them out of the shells! Sweet! I know you're jealous

Typhoon

I'm ALIVE!!
Hello there family, it's me, your missionary!

As you've heard, there's been quite an excitement around here. On friday we got a text from our zone leaders telling us that a super typhoon was headed our way. They said to prepare food and water for a three day lock down. So we went to the sisters house in our neighboring area on saturday night and waited for the storm. We waited until monday morning when the winds started to pick up. It lasted most of monday. It didn't seem all that powerful to me but it was hard to tell inside the house.  There were some occasional loud bangs and someone else's roof came and landed on ours. It punched a whole in the ceiling but that's about all the damage that came to us. I don't know if it was because the winds were extremely strong or just because the houses aren't terribly sturdy here. Probably both.

Anyway, when we were able to go out and assess the damage it was a lot worse than I thought it would be. There are a lot less trees standing and many roofs and other things displaced. Everything looks pretty messy. We were a little bit worried about our house, but when we got home it was perfectly fine. Just a little bit of water in two spots. I thought that a typhoon meant lots and lots of water, but I think it was mostly wind. Needless to say, we were watched over!

The exciting news is that they say we will have no water or power for 3 months! WooHoo! So that means no fridge, no electric fans (bummer!) and I was thinking we would have no music, cell phone, flashlight, camera or be able to iron our clothes but GUESS WHAT!? Our neighbors have sweet hook ups. They call it a generator! And last night they hooked us up from 6-10 pm. So we are able to charge all of our battery things and all of that. Still no fridge though. It doesn't really work to refrigerate things for just four hours every night.
I'm not sure why we don't have water because our neighbors do. So they let us fill our buckets from their spicket every morning to use for the day. We are counting our blessings.

So everything is A-okay here. Thanks for your prayers. Sorry for the scare mom!
Hopefully we can do some sweet missionary work through service projects and stuff.

note: My companion likes beef jerky and they don't have that here. Just in case anyone is sending a package in the near future.

Well I do believe its time to go now. Have a great week! Count your blessings every day and walk with a grateful heart always! Wasn't President Monson's talk on gratitude just great?

Helaman 5:7. Be good. Do good. That simple. :)

-Sister Webre

Cheerfully Do all Things that Lie in Our Power

Hello beautiful family (and friends)

I'm still laughing over dad's closing line to me-- "you are beautiful,
head lice or not" Haha, love you dad.

Well the big news is that my trainer got transferred on Thursday. It
was quite unexpected and I am totally unprepared. She left me here in
this area and my new companion is sister Vacalares. I'm not sure how
old she is, but she said she is much older than sister Valdoz who is
24. She is super cute and super nice. I'm sure we will get along
nicely. (Another filipina) Her parents are not members and they don't
write her. Way SAD! So I am extremely grateful for such an
overwhelmingly supportive family. I can't imagine. We are so blessed!

I'm not sure why, but I was kinda expecting/hoping for an american
companion. Oh well, Heavenly Father knows best.
So it's been an interesting few days. I don't remember how to find
most of the houses, but luckily we have the fellowshippers who know
the names and addresses of the people we are teaching.
It's been a struggle for me, but it's in our trials that we grow the most right?
All of our baptisms fell through (we had three lined up for the 16th)
even little Angelica. She can't be baptized because her parents are
inactive. So we will try our best to reactivate that family. The
others aren't coming to church.

The good news is that i got to listen to conferencE! WOOHOO! One of my
favorite lines "simplicity is teh ultimate sophistication". I love
Elder Uchtdorfs talk about mastering the fundamentals. The gospel is
so beautifully simple. We often get caught up in little unimportant
things and we just need to go back to the basics--Prayer! Scripture
study! Etc.

How is the language coming? Well, honestly the language is my biggest
struggle. It has been from the beginning. I love you all, but i'm not
homesick, I don't have a problem following mission rules, but the
language is what gets me.  Is it getting easier? Yes and no. I can
understand almost all of the conversation in lessons but still feel
that i can speak little more than I could when I left the MTC. So, I'm
just trying to be patient.  Many of the wonderful teaching skills and
ideas in PMG I want to use, but it is hard when I cannot speak the
language. I often get discouraged when i cannot fully express what is
in my heart and ask the questions and have the conversations I want
to. I often do not feel like a PMG missionary. So that is hard for me.
It is easy to look at all the things I cannot yet do and say because
of the language barrier. But I know that there is so much that I CAN
do. So I will not focus on all that I cannot. But I know as I focus on
and keep doing those things that I am able, eventually this weakness
will become strong.

My scripture for the week is D and C 123:17. "Let us cheerfully do all
things that lie in our power and then we may stand still, with the
utmost assurance to see the salvation of God and for his arm to be
revealed" The key is cheerfully!!

How often do I eat with members? Probably once a week or maybe twice.
It's funny though, usually they don't ask us, we ask them. But its
just the culture here. Its not rude to ask them to feed us. They offer
sometimes too.
I love UBE.

Thanks for EVERYTHING, especially your prayers.
LOve you forever
Sister Webre

There is a baptism at the end of the tunnel!

Well hello again!

 

Hows life in the US? Life in the philippines is still awesome.

Yes, we will get to listen to conference. SO EXCITED!! But only the sunday sessions. And it will be this coming week, since we are a day ahead and conference hadn't happened yet. Cool, another temple for the Philippines!! I miss the temple.

 

ON p-days..... We do laundry, companion and personal study (1 hr each) and clean our whole apartment. (This takes usually 2 ish hours) Then we ride 20 minutes over to roxas to email, buy groceries and do any other shopping or errands we need to. When we get back to our apartment its usually close to 5 and we make a quick dinner and head out to proselyte at 6 for the rest of the night. Pretty exciting I know! Pretty stinkin short too.

 

On normal days we just get up, exercise (I jump rope for 15 minutes usually. Wish I could run!) shower and eat, then study for 3 hours (personal, companion, language) then we eat lunch and proselyte/teach for the rest of the day. WE usually get home around 8 ish, (Everyone goes to bed at 8 I think. Its because they get up so stinkin early!)  review the day, plan for 30 or 40 minutes for the next day, then eat a snack, journal and hit the sack! 

 

 

 

We usually have plenty of teaching appointments to fill the day, but when people aren't home we do some finding and contacting.

 

Ideas for packages:

Any chocolate

granola

tapioca

ticonderoga pencils

cookie mix

pictures (you can also e-mail me some pics of the happenings!)

Also, we don't have a deseret book or anything here. I had some different little pics of jesus and my comp asked if she could have them. The members also love stuff like that, so anything you can send like that would be awesome.

My companion is crazy about the color violet

anything healthy to snack

fruit leather

Credit union pens (the ones everyone likes)

Letters are the best.

I want some new music for christmas. more details later.

 

So I wish I had time to tell you about the pictures. I think almost all of the filipinos in the pics are members. The woman with the coconut is so awesome. She works with us usually 3 days a week! What a fellowshipper!

I tried to send a pic of the tricycle and jeepni. Sorry they aren't very good pics. those are our mains sources of transportation. The other bus in the picture is what I rode from Manilla to Cauayan.  

 

The orange box is some soap I bought. It cracks me up how the people here all want to be white and everyone in america wants to be brown. They have lots of "skin whitening" products. 

 

They do have something that resembles a grocery store. We shop there as well as in the pelenke for  fruits  and veggies. There are lots of different veggies here. They are super cheap which makes us missionaries very happy. The pink spiky one with the white filling and black dots is a fruit. Its apparently very expensive, but our neighbors gave us for free!

 

 

Okay! Once again I have no time to tell you about the work. I'm going to copy my journal and send snail.

Just know that no one comes to church still, but Heavenly Father sent us Angelica. She is nine and she is so stinkin adorable. Way super smart. She will be baptized on the 16 of this month! WooHOO! She has been super fun to teach.

 

Time to go.

Be good.

Eat your vegetables.

Don't forget to brush!

The church is true!

I love you!

 

Forever Sister Webre

 

Lice

I feel like my e-mail time goes by in two seconds.
The good news is that I got your package mom, And I got lots of mail. There was quite the drought there for a while.I think I was too spoiled in the MTc getting mail every day and packages everyweek. I got letters from Jill, Elder Jarvie, S. Tillmann, mandy, mom, grandma and dad. Thanks to all! I only get my mail every Tuesday at district meeting. I haven't yet actually recieved my package, the Zone Leaders have it.
they just informed me that they had the package on the floor and the ants attacked t. So I'm not sure what is in there, but I'm sure it's delicious. Those sugar ants are topnotch scouts!

One of my favorite momets this week: A lady walks by and says to me "You are soo byootiful!" (gotta imagine the accent) Then sister valdoz (after the lady was out of ear shot) says "Yes, but she has LICE!"
I don't know why, It was just funny. People say that to me every day (that i am beautiful) and I'm sure Sister. Valdoz gets tired of it.
Actually I do have lice. Discoverd it saturday. Tried to get rid of it sat night but it really likes me head alot. So It's quite the nuisance really because i have to wash everything, in hot water but there is no hot water, so I have to boil a pan of water at a time and then wash by hand. It is great. And hopefully eventually we can get it all out of my hair. Pray for me.

My wardrobe has been suffering but the good new s is that I had some dresses made for me for 10 $ each and I'm going to pick them up now. HOpefully they turned out! Pretty sweet how cheap it is to get stuff tailor made here.

Love you all
Love being a missionary
More about the work next time

Love Sister Webre

Galing Sa Pusa

Kamusta PO!

Another week gone!
Time never stops or slows down, does it? And what we do with that time is up to us! I know that it has been a struggle for me my whole life to live in the moment. Especially when the moments aren't super hunky dory. But I am really striving to make the most of every minute of every day and not waste a minute. Time is so precious.

There is nothing worse than taking a look at your life and realizing that you are only living for yourself or, that you are at a standstill, that you are no better today than yesterday or even last month or year.

I'm trying to have more regular self-evalutations to make sure that I don't look back on life and find that I haven't become what God intended me to be, that I haven't become what I really want to be--that is--to be like Jesus Christ, my Savior.

Each day I can do something different, something better, because of the things I learned yesterday. 2 Ne 28:30 Line upon line is the Lords way of teaching us. Here a little, and there a little--but constant and consistent changes-- until our conversion is complete and we are as He is.
So, as for your questions mom, I am always hot, yes. I don't think I can say I am used to it, but you just learn to live with it and smile. My only real complaint is that It makes me super tired. I think it is because I am dehydrated. I know I should probably drink more, but as dad would say "it all comes out in the end". We are away from our apartment for 7 hours and who knows what kind of bathrooms will be available? But I guess its part of the adventure right. Okay I'll drink more. And report my adventures next week! It rains. It comes on quickly, rains hard, and leaves just as quickly usually. ONce we were caught in the rain for an hour though. It is glorious. I don't know if it is appropriate for me to accidently get soaked in the rain? My companion thinks I'm crazy, I only use my umbrella for the sun. The nights cool off a little, but not a whole lot. Church is fun. We usually have about 60 attend. The building is really small. I will send pictures next week.

We got to work in the bukid this week. It was a service project for an investigator. We said that we would help them in the bukid saturday so that they would be able to attend church sunday. (work is their excuse for not attending chuch) Well, they still didn't come. Oh well, no effort is wasted. I want this family to accept the gospel so badly! They have 4 boys, age19, 21, 23, 25. They are so cute! And super nice. But they aren't keeping any of their commitments so far. : ( Why does no one keep their commitments?!? I'll keep you posted.

One funny moment: Puso is heart. Pusa is cat. I was talking about prayer and I meant to say: "The most important thing is that it comes from the heart" but i said "galing sa pusa" instead of "galing sa puso". As soon as it came out of my mouth I knew it was wrong and I quickly corrected it, but everyone got a pretty good laugh out of it. Coming from cat. tee hee.

The mission so far has been a challenge, certainly. It has been difficult, no doubt. I have felt very inadequate and underqualified to be the Lords servant in this way. I have felt like giving up at times. But each time I re-commit myself because I know who I am, and I know God's plan. And as I press on He gives me strength. If we bring our all to the table, if we are willing to make sacrifices, the Lord always comes through with His promised blessings. I know that.

I am so grateful for these experiences. Sometimes I feel like I am recieving much more than I am giving. The Lord is teaching me so much. I am also teaching, but it sure seems like I am learning heaps more than others are learning from me.

Well, time to go now.

Be good this week.

Ask yourself what you can do different today because of what you learned yesterday in order to become as He is!

LOVE YOU FOREVER!

Sister WEbre

I Feel Sorry for Anyone Who Is NOT Me Right Now

HELLO!

This week was a great one. We met and taught lots of awesome people.

I am not in Cauayan City. We are about an hour bus ride away from Cauayan City. So pretty close. We have gone there every week so far, for transfers, zone conference, and a trainer/trainee meeting this past week. The mission home is really nice.

Most people are very poor. A lot of dirt floors and hut like houses. There quite a few concrete floors as well. It is very green, I just eat it up! Sooo beautiful, especially when we walk out into some of the more rural areas. Lots of rice fields (green) and palm trees. and bamboo trees. I will send some pics. They are not as pretty as the real picture.

I Have a lot to say and no time to say it.

It is pretty rural, depends on which part of our area we are in. There is dirty city along some parts of the main highway road.

We don't actually walk a whole lot. We ride to the barrangay that we teach in for the day and we only have to walk around to the different houses. There are some interesting modes of transportation here. I will send more pictures next time. This picture attached is something a member has, they were giving us a ride home. We usually ride in a tricycle. Its the motorcycle with a small car on the side that fits two people, or they cram three in and they sit two on the motorcycle behind the driver. its funny. I love it.

We usually don't eat dinner because we are out working, but we cook our own breakfast and lunch. Sometimes members feed us. I usually just eat cereal or cookies at night when we get home. Yay, cereal!!

Well thank for your prayers. Sorry i didn't say anything much about anything. I enjoyed reading your letters fam. Keep up the good work.

Oh yeah, I bought some speakers and a charger all for about 45 american dollars. Hallelujah! So no worries there.

Love you!

-Sister Webre