May 27 -- A Great Week

The fruit in this picture is dragon fruit.

Our most recent baptism.

This has been a great week. Okay, it was kind of stressful at the beginning because of having to lead the area here in San Nicolas 1. This is my first time to lead an area. It was hard for a few days because of having to make decisions all by myself because I was the only one who knew the area and the people we are teaching, but I feel like it's been helping me grow. One of the things that has been really hard for me has been memorizing the places in my area and how to get to the houses of the people we teach. But this week it's been really amazing because as I was leading the other sisters around, sometimes I really didn't know how to get to where we were trying to go, but everything that sister Serrano told me to help me remember how to get to places always came back to my mind, and sometimes I really feel like the spirit led me to where we needed to go. Like yesterday, we were going to pick up an investigator for church, and I forgot exactly how to get to her house, but I remembered it was in barangay 10, but I didn't know how to tell the tricycle driver where to turn or anything, but I just told him to turn at the beginning of the barangay because I just kind of felt like that would be a good place to turn, and it turned out to be exactly the street we had to turn on. Honestly, I was a little apprehensive about leading the area, but it's been good.

There are now 4 sisters living in my apartment. We split the area in half. One of the sisters is new from the MTC. She is an American. It's the first time I've had another American in the same apartment here in the mission. It's been kind of interesting especially to see how she's adjusting to everything and remembering what it was like when I was new in the mission. I'm realizing just how Filipino-ized I've become and how some of my American culture is disappearing (like how I am now so very accustomed to eating rice for breakfast every morning). Anyway, it's kind of interesting.

Oh, and I'm excited because I'm finally feeling pretty fluent in Tagalog. I still have times that I get stuck or can't think of the word I want, but it's getting so much easier for me to speak. It's fun. I love being bi-lingual.

Oh, and I'm also super excited because Sister Quiles has an Ilocano grammar book that is similar to the really good Tagalog one that I got in the MTC, and she is going to copy it for me, so now I will be able to learn the Ilocano grammar, which is what I've been wanting to do for a while, but I just didn't have any resources for it.

Anyway, life is good. The gospel is true. I'm so happy to be a missionary. Thanks for being the best family in the whole world! I just have to say the going on a mission is one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life. It is definitely the hardest thing I've ever done, but it's so worth it because of how much I have learned here. So if anyone is wondering if they should serve a mission, I will tell them YES! But make sure you prepare really well first because, if you are not prepared, it's super hard.

Sister Boekweg