The Home Stretch...

Well, here we are. I've seen a lot of missionaries go home and I've always guessed what it's felt like but I guess you don't know until you're there! I'm really sad to be leaving the Philippines, but I admit it's exciting to see everyone again. It's so scary though and I've felt like I'm going to be sick every day for like, a week! Man. It's pretty surreal.

This last week though, it's been a winner. We had two miracle baptisms on Saturday, Adelina and Benjamin. They are the first married couple to be baptized in Paoay for like 7 or 8 years I guess, and they were basically members before they up and decided to actually be baptized. They are the BEST, and I will miss them very much. We also had an investigator come to church who had been banned from coming by her family. We aren't sure how she got permission but we are praying for her to not be persecuted for her decision. She is the most converted person I've ever met and we just keep going and giving her more and more Liahona's and stuff so she has more to learn! We love her and it was wonderful that she was able to come. It was really hard to say goodbye to everyone and to leave, but we just found out that my companion is training! I am so excited for her!! It's a hard area so it'll be a challenge, but she is a blessed new missionary to get Sister Odom and to be in Paoay. I'm so excited! Which is hard because I won't see any of it!

We are now just wandering around today, last minute shopping and stuff like that. Tomorrow we have some sort of career training or something? Wednesday we go to Manila and Thursday morning we're in the air. Wow, I cannot even describe the feeling. Those of you who have gone home know what it's like! Those of you still on missons, you'll get there, just don't think about it, haha. It has been a sacred experience and I am excited to be able to share it with all of you. :) Hurrah for Israel! At Mabuhay Pilipinas!!

Love from the Philippines for the last time,
Sister Amy Porter

This week!

Well, this week has been a good one. We had exchanges this week, just in our apartment, so that was fun. I got to go to the other sisters' area, and it's so beautiful! We just spent an entire day walking between houses out in the middle of the rice fields. Oh, I love rice fields so much. We taught some pretty awesome people too. This one couple were new investigators, and they understood the Apostasy so well. They are sincerely searching for the truth, and it's so refreshing to teach people like that. The Sisters told us that they now have a baptismal date, which I am very excited for. :) Our area is progressing as well! Yesterday we had a couple just decide to come to Church on their own, and they live pretty far away. It was so exciting. I hope they do well and continue to search for the Truth. Because they've found it! haha. They are also encouraging our other investigators in that area to come to church, which I hope they do. But... sadly, I will never find out, because 

I'm getting transferred! 

I'm heading off to Paoay tomorrow to be companions with an American for only the 2nd time in the Philippines. It's going to be interesting! I admit I was kind of expecting it, but it's crazy just the same. I'm a little worried about it, but it'll be a good change. It'll be weird to not be an STL anymore, but so many of us are going home soon that they needed to call some new ones. I'm excited for the Sister who's replacing me. I know her, and she's got a lot of energy and potential and she'll help here so much! It'll be great. :) 

This last Saturday we had a Branch Activity, which I don't think has happened here in a long time. It's interesting to me how having Branch/Ward Activities really helps the members support themselves. It's hard to get members to work closely together if they don't have time just to have fun together. Well, for the activity, we watched The Restoration, and then we just played some games like Ninja Destruction and 3 Little Indians and stuff like that. It was WAY simple, but man, we had a good time. I think it'll help the Branch a lot, and we are already feeling a bit more support from the leaders. Just a bit of laughter goes a long way! 

Well, there's that. Love and miss you all! Keep up the missionary work in your respective sphere wherever in the world that may be. There's still a lot to get done!! 

Sincerely, 

Sister Porter

The Plan of Salvation goes on...

Hello! How are you all? We're good, it's just blistering hot and all we do is pray for rain! haha, it's coming! We'll hit rainy season soon enough. 

Anyway, this week has been interesting. Last week when I was emailing, we got a text from one of our investigator's wife, informing us that he had suddenly passed away. We were so surprised! We'd taught him earlier that week, and he just had some weird arthritis thing going on with his foot. I guess he'd been taking non-prescribed medication, and it caused a hole in his intestine and he passed away. We visited them the next day, and it was really weird. As tradition here, the body stays inside the house in the casket for a couple weeks or so, and people come all hours to visit, and there are a lot of weird taboos that people worry about. It was hard, and just very surreal. We are going to go the funeral I guess? We asked President about it and he said we could go to the service at their church, but it might be at the giant Catholic cathedral, so we'll check up on that one. It's just so weird to have investigators pass away, and be thinking about what THEY are thinking now on the other side. I'm excited to have the chance to teach their family about the plan of salvation though! I hope it helps them. 

On the flip side of the plan- we have this other investigator who is SUPER hard to teach. he's just too smart for his own good. We FINALLY got him to commit to come to church, and after some prayer and fasting.. he didn't show. We texted him, and I guess his very pregnant wife decided to have the baby at the same time church was supposed to start! So, we'll try again with him next week. :) It's their 8th kid, and the 7th boy. We were texting them to make sure they are okay and joking about how many kids they have, and he said "multiply as much as there are stars in the sky, right, is what God said to Abraham?" haha, yes brother, that is what He said. I'm also really excited for them to understand where their little baby is coming from! What a blessing it is to know the Plan. 

Real quick- we had the best activity earlier!! We went to the beach, after we spent an hour or so at the church filling up "water balloons" which were just plastic bags from the wet market. Then, we all piled into tricycles and had a fight at the beach. SO FUN!! Then, we played volleyball and frisbee, and even bought a giant tarp thing and had a makeshift slip and slide on the shore. Then we made sand castles! We had a good time making the Salt Lake Temple, and writing "To learn more, visit: www.mormon.org" on the sand in front of it, haha. Once a missionary, always a missionary!! 

I love you all, and thanks for everything! 

Sister Porter

Fwd: ONE YEAR.

Oh hey! It's been a year! That's so fast and so crazy and there's still so much more to do! It's going to be a weird week.

I don't remember much of what happened this week besides our Zone Training Meeting and the General Women's Meeting. Zone Training Meeting was excellent! I love giving trainings, and I was able to teach about how we can qualify ourselves for the Spirit. I learned that it starts from the very thoughts and intents of our heart, and that can be a huge factor, especially when as missionaries we need that constant, specific direction. We also talked about trying to teach people inside their houses instead of outside, and how that can help them learn that the Spirit can change their home. We talked about how Christ cleansed the temple before he healed therein, and how homes need to be like that temple. It was cool! We also watched this video:

https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2013-06-002-origin?lang=eng

I don't know if you've seen it yet, but we loved it.

General Women's Meeting was great, but there were more Sister Missionaries in the chapel than members, and we were probably about 60 total. Yikes! I pray attendance is higher this weekend for conference, which we are all SO looking forward to.

Anyway, I know it's short, but I love you all! Keep up all the good things you are doing, and analyze the not so good ones. :) There's always room for healthy change.

Sister Porter

this week..

Whew. It is hot in this computer shop. The weather here is just being rather bipolar. 

So, we had transfers this week! I love my new companion. Her name is Sister Gadiano, and she is pretty awesome. We're fairly different, but our sense of humor is close so we get along. :) We're having a good time. On transfer day, we had to be out on the street to flag down a ride at 5 AM, which was not very fun. The sisters were not very excited about leaving here, it was really hard for one of them. But, after that, me and Sister Alsado went to Lal-lo, the "city" next door, to work as a tripanionship with another Sister until all three of our companions came later in the afternoon. It was so fun!! Kind of hard though, haha, since working with three brains is fairly difficult. what we kept laughing about was how each of our companionships had our own "signals" for when to switch off sharing and talking, but nobody knew each other's signals! So when one sister would try to pass it of to one of us, we would just chuckle because we had no idea what was going on. It was fun. Our companions came later in the day, and we picked them up and went right off to work! It's amazing how smooth transfers go when there are hundreds of people moving around that can never be alone. 

Oh man, funny story. So, probably like, Thursday night, our water stopped working. Friday morning it was still not working. Well, we all needed to eat and cook and shower, so we went out in the back and tried to get our pump working. It's a way old pump, like, Little House On The Prairie style pump. Not even joking. But, the thing is, you need to pour a bit of water into it to get it primed before it'll start pumping for reals. The problem is when you don't have ANY water, which is why you need the pump! we were collecting from every little spigot we could find, and eventually drained the excess from the little tanks in our water filter, and got just enough to get the pump going. yay! so, while we were all getting prepped to take fully-clothed-showers outside, the landlord comes and tries to get it fixed, he then points inside to the wall and asks, "bukas ba iyon?" "is that on?" and it turns out that there's a little light switch on the wall (that we'd always been way confused about since it doesn't turn on any light) that turns on our water. And I'd switched it off the other day looking for the real light switch. oops... :D we have now labeled the water switch and don't plan on turning it off again. 

Another cool story on the spiritual side. We are teaching this cute 11 year old girl, and her fingers and toes never fully developed before she was born. She is awesome, and we got to teach the resurrection the other day and tell her that someday, her hands and feet will be perfect. A little light of excitement and understanding came on in her eyes, and she was just a little more.. relieved. That was a pretty cool experience. The Plan of Salvation is definitely real. 

I love you all! Thanks for everything. Enjoy the olympics! haha. Go Philippines! You'll have to let me know if they win anything. :) 

Love, 

Sister Porter 

This week.. is the HALFWAY MARK!

So, another week! and I'm halfway done with my mission!!!! Uh, weird. So weird. Kind of nice to be on the downhill, but it's weird that other missionaries here use "po" when they talk to me (the word you use to add respect) and it is culturally correct since i'm getting "old" here on the mish. Anyway, here's what happened! 

We got back from MLC, and on Thursday had our Zone Training Meeting, and I gave a training! It was different to be one of the leaders teaching instead of avidly taking notes, but it was a fun change. I enjoy teaching peers. That was scary, but fun. 

We did apartment checks for the whole Zone. We traveled to all of the apartments for the zone and did cleaning checks, muahahaha. It was actually fine. The apartments are a LOT better than what they used to be I guess, so that's awesome. We did find a rat in one of the Elders' apartments, but then in the next Elders' apartment there was a dart board we (or just I) was grateful for. We also got to buy fresh buko rolls, which are the best things EVER. They are rolls with this vanilla like pudding stuff inside and big chunks of coconut (buko in tagalog). they are so awesome. Coconut tastes so much better when it's not processed!

We had a baptism! Jessa got baptized yesterday morning, and the poor Branch had never had a Sunday morning baptism before and were kind of freaking out about it. It was a little rough, but she is awesome! She has some really good friends in the YW and I think that was a big part of her conversion. She's way awesome, but it's weird to think that she's younger than Holly! She's only 13, but doesn't look it. All I could think of was how Holly must look SO OLD by now! haha. love you hols. 

Um.. I think that's it! I love you all, I'll try to be better about remembering my week! OH! I remember something else. I ate sting ray! It was so good!! Kind of the consistency of the roast mom makes in the slow cooker, but just a little more fishy tasting. So good. 

Anyway, I love you all! Thanks for everything. :) y'alls the best! 

♥ Sister Porter

MY WEEK!! Christmas Conference and... transfers!

Oh man. I cannot even describe to you how crazy this week has been. And, I'm running out of time anyway, so it's going to be a very digested version! 

We had Christmas Conference! It started Tuesday, with half of the mission having games and sports all day, then their performances and gift exchange on Tuesday night. Since that was Sister Storey's group, Sister Ai'i and I got to go to their performances and stuff since Sister Storey and I were dancing. It was so fun! So creative, and we just had a blast. Sister Storey did beautifully, but I watched the video of our dance, and it was the worst dancing I have ever done!! haha. I really am losing it. :/ sayang. It was fun anyway. :) Tuesday was pretty nuts too, because there were so many missionaries staying at our place since they live too far away. We had a total of 12 of us in my apartment, 10 in the apartment above us, and about 20 Elders that stayed in the apartment next to us that used to belong to the Senior Couple that just went home. And they all needed to use OUR key! We had to cut like, three hours total out of proselyting just to let people in and out and play hostesses. Man, it was stressful. Wednesday morning was devotional for ALL OF THE MISSIONARIES in the whole mission. Total, I think 227 of us? In one chapel. It was a tight fit! It was insane. My trainee, Sis. Dollete, gave me my christmas present! She has this ring with her name on it, and I remember once telling her I thought it was cool. So, she told her little sister to have one made in her hometown with my name on it and mail it to her so she could give it to me. I LOVE HER! Sad that I can't wear it for 10 more months because it's my first name, but it's so awesome! So, after our big devotional, we ate lunch and then the second half of us went and played sports. we went to a local college campus, and it was so fun. I ended up playing soccer the entire time, and I wasn't too bad! I played with Sister Wood, who plays on the BYU women's soccer team, and she told my I should try out after the mish. haha! yeah, right. After sports, we had our performances! Our zone did our "itik itik" dance, and then after that we gave President and Sister Barrientos some Polynesian lava lava's and some candy lei's and had them dance with my Samoan companion. it was pretty funny to watch! Our skit went over well, and there were some pretty funny things going on. I loved it. After that we had a gift exchange! We just numbered everything, drew out a number, and that was what you got. I got this awesome vintage-y mickey mouse photo album! I'm pretty happy about it. That night, we got home at 11:00 and were all in bed at midnight. The next morning was rough, that's for sure! So worth it though. 

The next big thing- I'M BEING TRANSFERRED! Again. I'm going to Camalaniugan, which is in the middle of Cagayan, the other province in my mission. It's going to be cold, and I'm going to miss my fast food and flushing toilet. It's going to be culture shock all over again so I'm told, so we're going to McD's one more time today to prep for it. :) Also... I'm a Sister Training Leader!! I don't know if you remember much about when that came out, but basically it's like a Sister Zone Leader. There are one pair per zone, and we go on exchanges with all of the Sisters and do cleaning checks for everyone's apartments. My new companion is my trainer, actually. It'll be weird to work with her again, but at least now I speak Tagalog! haha. I'm really excited, but kind of nervous at the same time. So, we head off tomorrow morning for a 6-7 hour bus ride along the beach out to the middle of the rice fields. SO excited!!! And I should probably go now. Gotta finish packing! Or try to, anyway. I hate packing. 

Well, I love you all. Thank you for the support, and the prayers! They are felt, and used. Stay safe, and enjoy the snow! haha. I miss that stuff. 

Love, 

Sister Amy Porter