Then Sings My Soul: The MOST no time.

Written 2/2/14

I thought as a missionary there is always a time slot for everything. Au contraire, my loved ones. There never seems to be enough time to do all the things!

Sigh. But I digress.

This has been a week of changes, as you all know. Ironically, my new area is Silay East- Sister Nielsen's last area! She couldn't stop talking about Silay when we were together, and now I see why. Silay reminds me a ton of Burley and La Grande... If there was ever a "small town" feel, this is it. I even saw a STOP sign and we have a real intersection! I miss traffic lights.

My new companion is a cute Filipina named Sister De Castro. She is sweet and has been out for almost 9 months. (In a few days I'll be at my 5 month mark... eek!) We have some hitches in the communication department, because she's still working on her English and just came from a Cebuano speaking area... So she talks a lot in Ilonggish, Tagalog and Cebuano. So. It's a party. Well, not really, sometimes it's really quiet... But we get the work done, and that is the miracle :)

Getting used to a new area is hard and good at the same time. Lots of awesome people to meet and investigators to find. We have a couple baptisms this saturday and Sister and I are working hard to get the goal of Weekly Baptisms.

Monday night we visited the V. family and then went to T. He was one of the only ones I told I was transferring, and when I told him, he put his hand to his mouth and stared at me and said, "Tuod ka?" Which translates to something like... "Are you for real?" I told him I was, and he straight away told me he had advice for me. My beautiful, amazing recent convert then proceeded to give US a lesson on enduring to the end, having "tight faith" in the Lord, and testifying to me that the Lord never leaves our side, and will never leave us. He told me that because of Sister Fitzgerald and I, and because now he knows what he must do to get to the celestial kingdom, he and I will see each other once again in heaven. He made me promise, (through a pinky swear) that I would remain faithful, so that this didn't have to be the last time we would see each other. Wow. Talk about a powerhouse, right? Man I love that guy. The picture attached is just before I left, we're standing in his house. I told him to pull a funny face :) Ignore my ragamuffin self.

That's my simple testimony this week to you, that I've felt impressed on my spirit over and over.... We are never left alone. As I've experienced some lonely times this week, and as I've prayed for comfort and strength, I have experienced the strengthening power of the Atonement. I also want to testify that the Spirit doesn't have to whisper right to us for us to feel it. For me, I've been struggling to find how the Spirit speaks to me, and I've learned that most of the time, it gives me peace of mind. I feel happiness, my anxiety is calmed, my fears are stayed and I know I'm not alone. I've been reading Our Search for Happiness (Inspired by the one and only Aubree Andrus), and it's been amazing. Read it, if you havent. It's a quick read, but extremely powerful. I love the gospel, whether I'm preaching in Silay or in Bacolod. Whether I'm in Utah or the Philippines, it's the same beautiful, restored, complete and unchanging constant in all our lives. It's what connects us all to each other and to our Loving Father. I love all of you, and thank you for your support this week... Your emails are always somehow exactly what I need :) Thanks for the laughs, too. You guys are funny :) Keep up the good work, and I'll try to too.

All my love,
Sister Luke

P.S. They have a Mang Inasal here with halo-halo, so I think I'll live.

P.P.S. Shoutout to Heather for the awesome Dear Elder she sent me. Made my week!