Kamusta!

Hello from Binmaley!
Thanks so much for the birthday wishes, etc.! Sister Lapana, Sister Walker, and Sister Dolojan and I made homemade ice cream and pasta on Tuesday. We brought it to our district meeting, which meets in Aguillar every Tuesday morning :)

This week was fine. Sister Lapana is a great companion. She is very genuine, down-to-earth, and humble. On Saturday we did a workshop for all the leaders in our ward, to help get the ward mission process going. We also talked about how counseling can be a revelatory process, if we "put off the natural man" (humility, patience, respect, letting everyone express their feelings, and avoiding debating/shouting. If we strive to invite the Holy Ghost into our meetings, it will flow more smoothly. For some reason that's been somewhat of a challenge here. Sometimes it seems more like a city council meeting ;) Hehe, well it was interesting to say the least. I think we may need to do a few more workshops perhaps. We've got a very good dedicated bishop and ward mission leader.

As far as investigators go, we found a new lady named Norma Alejo, who seems very much prepared for the gospel. She is already making quite a sacrifice to attend another church weekly (in a much farther location than the one in Binmaley) so we are thinking she will be a great strong member of the church once she gains a testimony that it is true. At first, she seemed closed-minded and hard hearted, but as it turns out, she had lots of questions, and has already read the first part of 1 Nephi and wants to read the whole Book of Mormon. Yay!

We also found an elderly man, Renaldo Balagot, because his grand-daughter came to church on her own. He was taught by sister missionaries before, and he eagerly asked us "how long until I can be baptized?" on the first visit! I'm excited when investigators are excited to take the next step!

Ok, Well I'm doing great here in Binmaley. It's a lot hotter and there's a lot more mosquitos here in the Lingayan zone than in my other areas. I think I heard that Lingayan is actually the hottest zone in the mission. Ok, well, got to go! I love you!
Love, Rebecca

P.S. you might want to check the time difference again, because some of your emails don't end up in my inbox until the following week :) so just a thought to consider if you have any questions you need answering right away. Love ya :)