This is a good week!

Hello, my wonderful family!

This week has been a good week. I still don't know my area very well, but we're slowly figuring things out. We're teaching a really sweet, nice family, the Guillermo family. They are less active, but the mom really wants her family to be active again. I'm excited to keep teaching them.

On Saturday I had a really cool experience finding new investigators. I've been kind of shy up to this point about finding new investigators on the street, but we had some teaching appointments fall through, so we decided to try it. We found Wendy (17), Sheryl (21), and Ivy (11) sitting at the side of the road, and we decided to ask if we could share the gospel with them. They said okay. We started teaching about the restoration. Then when it was my turn to teach about the apostasy, I felt very strongly that I needed to bring up that the gospel helps us become clean from our sins. So I did, and I explained that the gospel is the way that God has given us to become clean from our sins, and that was what was lost during the apostasy. I was really amazed because at that point they started seeming really interested in what we were saying, and at the end of the lesson they seemed like they really did want us to come teach them again. That was definitely a new experience for a first lesson because usually people will allow us to come back because they are nice, but they don't really seem to understand the importance yet of what we are teaching. I really feel like it was the spirit that told me to take the lesson in that direction. And I guess it's also because I related the restoration to them in a way that they could really understand why it is important for them. It really taught me how very very important it is to always make sure we always teach the gospel to people in a way that very much relates to their lives. Sister Cabato and I walked away from that lesson saying, "wow." It was a great day.

I love my Companion, Sister Cabato. She is really good, especially in interacting with people and teaching them. She worked with the missionaries a lot before her mission, so she's basically already been trained quite a bit. In fact, sometimes I feel like she is training me, rather than me training her. It's great! I'm really glad she is Filipino because I have no idea what's going on a lot of the time while we are out proselyting because Laoag is kind of a big city, and I'm still not familiar with everything. I think if she wasn't here to guide me, I would probably walk out into the street and get hit by a tricycle or something because there are not very many cross walks, and I have no idea when to cross the street. We've been jogging to the palenke (market) on p-day mornings. I didn't really do that with Sister Asuro--we just bought at the little grocery stores. It's a different experience, especially when we are buying meat because it's not refrigerated or anything; it just sits on the counter and then you buy it, and they put it in a little bag for you. We buy all our vegetables and meat there because it's cheaper than at the supermarket.

I am so grateful to be a missionary. I've definitely had some challenges, and it's definitely the hardest thing I have ever done in my life--it's definitely not a job for anyone who isn't willing to work and to sacrifice. But I have learned so much about the gospel, and I feel like I am becoming a lot better than I was before. I'm really grateful I decided to go on a mission before getting married because I definitely feel like it will make me a better mother someday. I'm so happy that sisters can now serve at age 19 because it means so many more will have a chance to go.

I love you all! Thank you so much for your letters, emails, and prayers! You have no idea how much they help me.

Love, Sister Boekweg