Week 25

Magandang hapon sa inyo lahat!

Ha. I have no idea if that’s right but it should be good afternoon to you all. I swear my Tagalog is improving though. Like really. Since I am in a new area everyone keeps complimenting me. It feels so good. I realized yesterday that like I am speaking Tagalog, I couldn’t even say a  word of it 6 months ago. And now I am speaking it to anyone. Of course I cant understand everything and everything I say isn’t perfectly correct. But I can get by. And as time goes by it gets more correct. So transfers! I am now in Legazpi city! It was where I wanted to go! (Because it has the only mall in the whole mission hahaha I haven’t even been to the mall yet!) But yeah it should be fun. The area is way different than I expected. Since it’s a city you would think like flat? But its not. Its SO HILLY. I am so tired always. The hills are so long and steep like its crazy. But its an adventure. We have a couple farther out areas too and like we are in the jungle and crossing sketchy bridges of bamboo. What a life  of a missionary haha. If I didn’t have the extra guidance from the Holy Ghost to keep me safe I promise you I wouldn’t be walking up some of the dirt (mud… its always raining) hills that we do. And don’t get me started on walking down these hills. Oh gosh. So scary. But we do it ! So my new companion is Sister Dumas, from Manila area. She is nice but I am still just adjusting to how she does things. I don’t have a ton of time so yeah this is my blog post this week. Sorry! I am doing good!

Namimiss kita! (I miss you- Taglish) Mahal kita!

Sister Ianuzi

Week 24

This past week! Wow last week of the transfer! It was so fast! Tuesday was had exchanges again with Sister Pace and Sister Siola’a. Me and Sister Pace went to their area and it was fine. Except for the HUGE rainstorm. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a hard rainstorm- even the day of the bagyo here! We ended up waiting under  a waiting shed (a place you wait for a tricey to drive by to pick you up) for like a while. We couldn’t even walk through. So that was fun. We were wet the rest of the day. Oh the Philippines and its rain. The best day of the week wasSaturday. We had a Branch Family Home Evening. It was the first time 11 investigators came to like anything! Ha. Yeah that’s right- We had ELEVEN investigators! That’s just us, the other Sister’s had some too! And we had a ton of SUPER less active members show up! To call it a success would be an understatement. Plus it was super fun J All the different auxiliaries (Relief Society, Elders Quorum, Young Men/Young Women, Primary, and us missionaries) all did some type of talent. And we showed The Restoration Movie. It was such a good night. And the following day, Sunday, we had a really high amount of people come to church. It was so great. And to top it all off- the Besmonte’s  got callings! And Kazzter finally passed sacrament J These are the things that make me happy now J It was a great week. So yeah, transfer announcements came Saturday night. I am being transferred! I’ll find out where I am going tomorrow. I’m sad to leave these people that I love so much. But I know that more work is to be done by me in some other area. I’ve studied about diligence this past week and realized being diligent means doing the work with a willing heart. We need to be willing and love the work or our diligence won’t get us very far. So no matter what you are doing- find a way to love it! And it will be easier and you will be happier! I hope you all are doing good!

Mahal ko kayo lahat!

Sister Ianuzi

Week 23

Hello po EVERYONE

 I am alive! Ha everything is fine here in Tabaco. It only reached a level 2 storm here so it wasn’t anything like you have heard on the news. (For those who are serving missions- there was a super typhoon here in the Philippines this past week. Like super. Worst one to happen to date. 10,000 + people have been reported dead and thousands more not heard of yet. It is devastating for everyone here). But first lets start this week off with Tuesday- MLC! (Mission Leadership Council). We went to Legazpi for Sister Evans (STL) so that’s always fun. I got a huge headache that night but we went out to work and had an amazing lesson with Budz, a really progressing investigator. Wednesday we had exchanges and I went with Sister Mwea (she lives in the apartment, foreigner as well) in their area. SO neither of us knew the language very well yet we taught a ton of lessons and got through them. I’m not totally sure what everyone would say back to us but yeah we taught them hahaha. We taught one lesson, Fasting and Fast Offerings. WOW that was hard. It was to a less active and she kept saying how it’s not fair to give fast offerings because she needs the help herself… Sister Mwea just looked at me and had no idea what she was saying. I’m not really sure how I answered her to be honest. Anyways we did it! Ha. Thursday was zone training because they moved the day because of the storm coming. It was good, I learned the same thing that we did at MLC (importance of companionship unity!) and then we had a curfew that night because of the storm coming. We went back and did some studies at night and just watched the wind. It was very eerie outside…Friday we wake up and the feeling was so bad. It was calm (calm before the storm is the only way to describe it) but the clouds were dark. We were told by text to not go out to work that day. We did weekly planning and just hung out. It started raining hard and there was a ton of rain but nothing terrible. We get a text at like 5 saying the storm passed and we could go out to work- so off we went! When we went out we heard just how terrible things were in places more southern of bicol and how lucky we were here. Saturday was a lot of going around and seeing if people are OK. We saw A LOT of Nanays (old women…) with machetes walking around. It was a very funny site. Sunday was pretty normal. A lot of meetings at church and then teaching- so yeah. Monday morning we went to the waterfalls here and took pictures. It was fun!J So yeah that’s my week. It was very crazy. It is so sad  to hear about the people affected though. Everyone keep them in your prayers please! I’m doing good! I can’t believe this is the last week of transfers! Anyways until next week!! (make guesses about where I'll go... or if I'll stay!)

Mahal Kita- Sister Ianuzi

Week 22

This past week was good. Starting out with last Monday- we had finished emailing and we out doing other things we needed to do. When we get a text at like 5 saying we had a curfew and had to be back home at 6! We had to cancel our appointments and hurry home! Ha that was crazy. We just spent the night writing letters and hanging out because we had already finished studies in the morning. We had exchanges on Tuesday with Sister Pace and Sister Siola’a. I really enjoyed working with Sister Siola’a and learned a lot from her. I learn and grow so much from all the exchanges I have the opportunity to go on. It challenges me on my language skills especially. So Sister Evans and Sister Pace worked in our area and ended up teaching Tontons mom and it was a really great lesson from what I heard. We are having a family home evening with all the Besmontes this Tuesday and I’m excited for it! Have I told the story of Tonton yet? I’ll tell it again! He is the nephew of the Besmontes and lives right next door. We have tried to teach his mom in the past but haven’t really been able to. He ALWAYS comes and listens in on the lessons with the Besmontes. He come to church every week and attends Gospel Principles class instead of Primary the 2^ndhour because he likes it more. He wants to be baptized so badly. And reads the Book of Mormon daily. Says the cutest prayers. He wants to be a missionary too! And he is NINE years old. OH and he goes to Seminary everyday with LK Besmonte (the 15 year old daughter). He is really amazing and I’m hoping his mom continues to be interested so she gets baptized so he can be too! Me and Sister Evans both ended up getting sick and not being able to work on Wednesday but are back to feeling well and able to work our hardest. Thursday was a good day and we were able to teach some new people which I am excited for. Friday was a little difficult with the curfew and no one was home who we had planned (and back up planned) to teach but we didn’t let that stop us. It was a holiday here in the Philippines. Like All Saints day or something? I’n not sure… Like everyone goes to the cemetery and like has a party with their family… the dead included? So yeah its interesting. Its like a Spanish holiday. We ended OYMed and tracted and found people to go back to! In an area where we don’t have a lot of people so it was still very productive. Saturday was a great day though! We had a total of 5 member present lessons in one day! And we can see how it is helping our investigators when we bring members. With one, Brother Borais, his wife is a member and he has had many sets of missionaries teach him in the past. We brought 2 male members from the branch here to fellowship him and it was so good. They are both really excited to keep working with him. He has a lot of potential and really is searching now. He had been working a lot this past week and had a lot of overtime and me and Sister Evans felt like he wouldn’t have read the Book of Mormon or prayed about Joseph Smith but he did both! That was such a testimony builder to me because even though he was busy he made time. And he feels like this is all true. We are working on resolving his concerns and continuing to grow his testimony. We are having a challenge in the area with investigators attending sacrament meeting, even when they had committed. They have members’ fellowshipping them and we just don’t understand. I am trying my best to not get discouraged. So I studied this week about Humility. If you are being humble you have confidence you can do ANYTHING IF you have help from the Lord. You rely on the Lord in all things and do your best. You need to be obedient, hard working, and selflessly serve others and you can work to being more humble. I am trying my best because I know if I want to be more Christlike I need to be humble in every aspect of my life. So yeah this was my past week. It was good! So fast! Yet it feels like FOREVER since last Pday. This upcoming week we have MLC (for Sister Evans the STL) and then Zone Training on Friday so that will be fun. Until next week!

Mahal Kita

Sister Ianuzi