Not much time

Let me tell you some good news!  I extended my first baptismal commitment this week!  It was during the first time teaching her a lesson too.  She was hesitant, but said yes, if she comes to know the truth.  I have high hopes for her.  We have another family we are teaching we plan to be baptized as well!  they are so sweet, and seem solid!  They have a sweet little one who is eight.  We sat by them in church.  It's so funny because she asks me all these questions in Tagolog and I have no idea what she is saying!  Haha :)  I just smile.... haha.  But really, I love her so much.  We are still praying for the Galera family.  Have I told you about her family?  I can't remember?

I know this experience here in the Philippines will make me strong. I am learning so much about life.  I know I will get used to it, but this week was hard because my heart hurt for the people.  I knew there would  be trials, but it is crazy.  For example, my heart hurts because I know how important the book of mormon is in the conversion process!  Go read chapter 5 of PMG (Preach my Gospel)!  BUT, many people here can't read very well, or they can't see and they can't afford glasses, so they can't read the Book of Mormon.  I don't know what to do!  It breaks my heart to see barriers such as these keep someone from reading the book I love and treasure so much.  My heart just aches.

HOWEVER, please know that my heart is full of joy as well.  Why?- because I know that the Lord sent me here.  I cannot deny the instruction I received in Doctrine and Covenants section 16 to come on a mission.  I know I am doing what the Lord would have me do.  Also, I know that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored on the earth.  What wonderful news to share with anyone who will listen!  God Lives!  Jesus Christ is His Son.  He came to earth and taught His Gospel, ministered to the wounded and afflicted, and suffered and died for us.  Through the Atonement of our savior Jesus Christ, I know we can be strengthened in our darkest moments.  I know this, because I have experienced the power of the Atonement in my life.  I know that Joseph Smith restored the Church here on earth and that He translated the Book of Mormon.  Oh how I love his faithful fight for God's Kingdom here on earth.  I am coming to understand more and more that it really is a fight.  Let us all fight for the sake of God's Kingdom.  Let us all open our mouths and declare the restored Gospel to ALL who will listen.  I know the Book of Mormon is the Word of God.  I know it!  What a blessing it is to wear Jesus Christ's name over my heart every day.  I pray I will never ashame His name.  I am a representative of Jesus Christ.  I have a renewed determination to live up to this sacred calling that I have. What a blessing!  Writing my testimony has brought joy to my heart.  It has reminded me of the reason I came out here. Let us all keep the faith.  Let us all try a little harder.  Pray a little more fervently; study a little more effectively; serve a little more purposefully; love a little more deeper; and count our blessings a little more often!

Love,

Sister Wright

AGOO!

Holy tolito!  Wow, talk about culture shock!  I am officially here in the Philippines!  Yay!  Wow, I am going to apologize right now in advance if this email makes no sense.  My thoughts are so jumbled right now, and Tagalog has officially ruined my english!  It is hard sometimes to structure sentences the english way haha.  Anyway, I have so many things to write, so I am sorry if it seems crazy.  Hopefully in the weeks to come, I will get better at writing more organized! So let me begin :) -Almost everything I heard about the Philippines is true! I ate with my hands for the first time, there is no toilet paper, most the toilets don't flush, I have rice for EVERY meal, it is BEAUTIFUL, there are geckos on the walls of our appt, the people are AMAZING, the food (rice) is good, IT IS SO HOT AND HUMID (and they say that January is the coldest month here!????!!!!!), oh and I wash my clothes in a bucket by hand!  Haha!  What a life, RIGHT!???!  :D -The Jeepneys here are awesome!  I also rode in a Tryke for the first time! Haha!  So cool- it is our main source of transportation if somewhere is too far to walk.  they are motorcycles with little side seats.  They are my favorite :) Okay, those are just some updates about the Philippines.  Now I will try to write more organized. My first area is AGOO!  It is the southern part of my mission.  I am grateful that I get to have this as my first area because they speak a lot of Tagalog.  You see, a lot of the missionaries don't like to serve in places like Baguio city because they speak so much english and it is hard to learn tagalog because they speak english most of the time.  But here in Agoo, trust me...it is not english!  And if it is...I definitely don't understand it. haha.  This area is beautiful.  My kasama and me are opening the area.  She has only been here for 3 months.  She is filipino so I am learning a lot from her about the culture.  When she speaks Tagalog, I rarely know what she is saying!  I am waiting for the day when I understand :)  Her name is Sis. Cardenio.  She is the smallest, sweetest thing ever!  I look like a giant compared to her!  Really though, I have never felt so tall in my life, everyone here is so tiny and short!  Anyway, I am excited because I can tell that I have so much to learn for my trainer.  Her spirit is so strong, it shines through her eyes.  She always has good intentions and her love for the people and other missionaries is out of this world.  Her love for me even is so pure and christlike.  When she said our companionship prayer one night, I started to cry as I was humbled and learned that I have such a long way before I can love others the way she loves.  It's amazing. Let me tell you.  Every little kid laughs at my Tagalog!  those twerps!  Jokelang :)  They are the cutest kids ever!  But they make fun of you.  The adults are really kind though, and patient.  Also, I never have felt so many eyes on me in my entire life!  So, once upon a time when I lived in America, I felt average in looks etc.  Then...remember that one time I stepped foot in the Philippines and I became the most beautiful thing anyone has ever seen?  Haha.  I walk down the street and I hear, "you are beautiful!" "can I have your number?" "wow!"  "I want your skin!"  "Beautiful lady!" "American!" "I love your hair and red cheeks!"  etc.  wow, it's really embarrassing.  My kasama says it's an advantage for her to have an american kasama because then people just want to talk to us because I am white :) haha.  so funny. The members are great here!  The sad thing is, though, is that people will get baptized and then fall away.  there is only 17% activity of the members...  Wow.  Our goal as a mission in to focus our work 50/50- 50% less actives and 50% investigators.  There is so much work to do here.  But the members who are active are so willing to help us become familiar with the area.  The young adults seem to be the strongest in the church!  We have a 21 yr old, and then teenagers helping us and coming with us to lessons.  I am amazed at their willingness to give their time to the service of the Lord.  They are wonderful ward missionaries.  Everyone, please help your wards by being ward missionaries!  Help strengthen the weak and also those in your areas who are members!  Us full time missionaries NEED your help!  Anyway, Sister Kaimi has been our biggest helper.  She is 21 and she just graduated as a nurse!  Yes!  :)  She has shown us where members live so we can build their trust.  She is coming with us to an investigators home tonight, too for a lesson.  She is great.  I am sending a picture that has the three helpers or ours.  church here in the philippines is geat.  Haha, it's loud!  Their church buildings don't have any doors so you hear people in the halls so you can't hear the lessons haha.  Oh also, I had to play the piano in their sacrament!  no one here really knows how.  Also, I had to get up and introduce myself during sacrament meeting.  I was amazed with how much Tagalog I was able to say as I shared a short message about a scripture!  But...then at the very end, I tried to say something, and after I said the sentence the whole congregation started to laugh (um...it wasn't supposed to be funny, I was intending to bear testimony of member missionary work....haha!)  I must have said something different than I intended!  haha!  Bless my heart! Another funny thing with Tagalog was after sacrament meeting.  I went up to the sister who said the closing prayer.  I shook her hand and I wanted to say, "Many thanks for your prayer."  but instead....I accidentally said, "Sister, many thanks for your name."  HAHA!  She gave me the weirdest look and just nodded to me and then looked away!  It took me a second to realize what I had said!  Oh dear, this is definitely a humbling experience :) Another funny thing-my hair is a LOST CAUSE here!!!  It is so humid that my hair POOFS!  One day, I tried to straighten in and get it to calm down, and literally 15 minutes later, it was poofy again!  Oh dear.  There is no use in me even trying to tame it. We have a lot of work to do here in Agoo.  We got our area book and the elders before us must have not been doing much...?  It is very incomplete...  it is really frustrating.  We really have spent the whole weekend trying to find where members live so they can help us get used to the area and find investigators houses because the area book has no addresses!  Dah! Sis Kaimi helped us meet one of our investigators, the Galera family.  Please pray for this family.  They had a baptismal date before, but then a missionary offended them and so they put off their baptisms.  They said this elder would act rough with their kids, tore a poster off their wall because is was inappropriate, and told their son to go home when he came late to sacrament meeting.  I have no idea who this elder is.. but I feel so bad about the situation.  We tried to tell her that people in the church are not perfect, but the church is.  They are letting us come visit tonight.  We are hoping that since we are sister missionaries, we will be able to be more tender with them and help them truly become converted unto the Lord and no one/nothing else.  Again, please pray for them. I love it here!  Some times it is hard because it is so different from America...but I'm sure I'll adjust.  I love the work, I am really praying that kasama ko and ako will be able to work are very hardest to get the work here in Agoo up and running.  We have a lot to do.  Every day I feel too weak, but this is why I am so grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  Without the Atonement and my savior, I would be too weak for this great work.  I love my Savior. I have never said so many prayers in my life.  It's like that quote, "when you are too weak to stand, kneel" Love you all! Sister Wright Me and my comp!  TRYKE! LAUNDRY!!! Path from our house Path from our house Me and my Comp

PHILIPPINES!!!!

WHOA!  WHOA WHOA!  Wow, I have hardly any words to express this experience!  First off, I only have ten minutes!  So, here we go!  Planes are CRAZY!  Love them!  Except not at night cuz I can't see anything outside!  We skipped tuesday completely and only flew at night so we saw no sun FOREVER, how depressing!  Anyway, it took forever to finally get here!  It is 430 pm on wednesday right now.  Crazy.  So we are at the mission home and I love it so much!  We finished an orientation and I can tell that I am going to love him and his wife!  He wants us to thank you and dad for everything and letting me come here.  So crazy, the very first thing he says to me when i get off the bus was that he already has an assignment for me- TO HELP THE NURSE.  Oh gee....not sure about how well that will go!  I'm telling you, they really do expect you to dive in with BOTH feet!  Then when we started the orientation, they announced I would be playing the piano...they didn't even ask!  Sheesh, I'm telling you...I don't know but it sure seems people in my life are really trying to help me spread my wings and reach my full potential.  It hurts to stretch (especially how I failed miserably at the song...) but I know it is good for me.  I am in the Lord's hands, and I know He is preparing me for something big in my life.  Anyway, PHILIPPINES IS WONDERFUL!  Wow, I love the people.  How crazy it is to be the minority.  Not only does my race cause me to stick out, but I am in nice clothes with a badge on...yeah, people are always watching you.   My time is almost up!  But I arrived safely!  I love it!  I"m terrified, but COMMITTED.  I realized that they taught me a different language sa MTC...  crazy.  Everything is crazy!!  It's crazy to see the living circumstances here.  I am really looking forward to loving these people and helping them come unto Christ-they are wonderful people.  Also, in the middle of our email time, our mission pres told us to run outside to see a performance that the kids were putting on!  So cool!  What an amazing culture this is.  I'm in for the time of my life-but the thing is, that I know it isn't my time.  This time isn't about me.  This is the Lord's time.  I am giving myself to Him for this year and a half.  Whenever I may write something that doubts that in the next few months...remind me that I said this!  Because I know it is true!  God has prepared certain people to receive the Gospel, and I know He will lead me to them! Mahal Kita! Love, Sister Wright

FLIGHT PLANS!!!!

Kumusta!  Sobrang masaya po ako, dahil gagawin ko po sa Pilippines! (Hey, how are you!  I am so excited, because I am going to the Philippines!) --Wow, can I just say that is the first time I have seen a sentence that is longer in English than in Tagalog?  No really.  Usually Tagalog sentences are WAY LONGER.  For example,  "You will show your faith in Jesus Christ through baptism." vs. "Ipapakita po kayo ang pananampalataya ninyo kay JesuCristo sa pamamagitan ng pagbibinyag." 13 syllables vs. 34 syllables!  Haha, funny right? :)  Okay anyway..  I'll start my email now! Everyone- Yesterday was Flight Plan Friday!  I received my flight plans!  I am so excited!  So I leave for the Philippines in 8.5 days!  I leave on Monday Jan 13th at 4:30 am in the morning!  I will fly to Detroit, and then from there I will fly UP AND OVER the world to Manilla, Philippines (I guess it's faster than west or east).  Then from Manilla, I will take a bus or Jeepney to Baguio, Philippines (this is an EIGHT HOUR drive! What!?)  Everyone, do you understand that I am looking at 29.5 hours of travel time, not including layovers!?  Whoa!  Please bless, that planes and filipino drivers don't make me motion sick....... paki-basbasan (please bless!)  I will arrive two days later. This week has been wonderful. MALIGAYANG NEW YEAR!  I have never had a year start out so wonderful.  I am so grateful for this opportunity to be serving my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  What a great way to live the whole year of 2014.  I will never forget this year. Sorry for all the cap lock words in my emails.  I just am so happy here.  It is so hard to express my emotions.  I have been so overwhelmed by the Spirit this week.  A couple days ago I had a wonderful lesson with one of our investigators.  Throughout the lesson we were taking our investigator from scripture to scripture, teaching the sweet and precious doctrines of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  At the end of it, I started to bear my patotoo about what we had taught.  All of the sudden, the Spirit filled every fiber of my being- I was overwhelmed with the blessing that I was able to share such a sweet message sa Tagalog.  I was so touched to be able to testify with conviction just as I can in Ingles.  Tagalog is really really hard, but with each day that I teach sa Tagalog, it becomes more apart of my heart.  I love it, and I am so grateful that the Spirit teaches every people "in their own tongue".  I knew that my investigator knew the truth of what I was saying. I can't even begin to explain the sweet joy that comes when you extend a commitment to someone and they commit.  Wow, what joy the Atonement of Jesus Christ brings into our lives!  I love my Redeemer! Also, we had the amazing experience of skyping REAL FILIPINOS in the Philippines on Huwebes!  My kasama and I were able to talk to two different members.  The message we shared with them was about receiving paghahayag sa pamamagitan ng Aklat ni Mormon. They are the nicest people I have ever met!  And they are so patient with our broken tagalog! :)  I loved it :) Another amazing experience was this morning.  So my kasama and I made the goal to improve on our companionship study.  You see, in the field we will actually have scheduled companionship study, but in the MTC they only schedule personal and language study.  They expect you to schedule in your own companionship study.  Well, this is tough.  We are so busy!  Well anyway, last night in class our guro was teaching us about recognizing our weaknesses and turning to Christ to allow Him to "make weak things become strong" (Ether 12:27).  So my kasama and I decided we needed to do better with scheduling comp study and being completely on the same page with our lesson plans for our investigators.  This morning (even though it is PDay) we followed through with our plans to study together after personal study.  As we did this, I was filled with the Spirit.  During personal study, I read Alma 7:11-16.  In these verses, Alma is testifying to the people in Gideon about the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  I felt so overwhelmed with love and gratitude for our Savior as I read it during personal study. Then during companionship study, we discovered that we had read the same thing.  She shared the first few verses, and then I told her that I read a little further to verse 16.  As I read verses 14-16, tears streamed down my face.  I could barely speak the words.  I was so filled with gratitude and love for Jesus Christ and the blessed opportunity we have to choose to follow Him.  We have been blessed with agency to choose to "enter into a covenant with him to keep his commandments, and witness it unto him...by going into the waters of baptism."  I love my Savior and brother, Jesus Christ.  How grateful I am to know of His redeeming sacrifice.  How grateful I am to be able to testify of His name and fight for His cause.  I love this work.  I love the joy it brings.  And, oh how blessed will be the day when I fall at His feet and thank Him  for His sacrifice in my behalf.  Oh how I look forward to this day when I meet Him face to face. I love this work.  I love the Gospel.  I love my Savior, Jesus Christ.  I love all of you!!! Love, Sister Wright  Sister Nkwocha's mom bought us all a pair of colorful socks!  These are most of the sisters in my Zone :)  We are all going to the Philippines, but different missions.   FLIGHT PLAN FRIDAY!  These are pictures of our itineraries and our New Year's Hats :)