Monday, January 13, 2014

Jessica's Fourteenth Email! January 12th, 2014

Hello wonderful family! How is everybody doing? I hope well! Okay. This week has been hilarious! It has literally been PERFECT weather! Like 75 degrees. Sister Taylor and I are just LOVING it. But everyone else is tripping. Like seriously. There were two days this week where literally every person we talked to, even randoms in the street, said something about how malamig (cold) it was. It was funny. We would just try not to laugh. And there was an old lady in our ward talking to us saying how this cold was so horrible and she has been so sick because her body just can't handle it. It reminds me of that YouTube video. We watched it all together in Puerto Rico! It's like the news report thing from southern California stations talking about cold fronts and frigid temps and stuff like that. Well that's how these people are reacting haha. So most of my pictures from the week are just people bundled up in this 75 DEGREE weather.

Other than that let's see.. what happened?

Oh yes! I became very ill! Hahah I woke up one morning feeling so sick and thought, OH NO! This whole miracle of not being sick since I got to the field is ending and it's just gonna be back to the way it used to be. Well the good news is that it only lasted for like a day and a half! And now I'm back to the new me. But ya it was a rough 2 days haha. We still went out and worked and everything. At district meeting some of the elders gave me a blessing. I only threw up twice. So that was a bummer but I am grateful it is over!

Okay back to the cold thing. There is a lady in our ward who always watches the news and tells us what's up in America. She said Niagara Falls froze or something?? We don't really believe her, but let me know. :) And she claims in New York it is so cold that people's ears are falling off... I don't think so. I'm sure San Diego is just normal haha. So you might not even know.

This week we did two service projects! The first was at a family in the wards house. We swept down by their like watering hole type thing. It had layers and layers and layers of trash that we had to like sweep/dig out of the mud. We decided to stop after 3 layers because the whole earth is probably just layers of trash here. So sad. So anyway. After we finished sweeping they made us some food! Pasta stuff and then these nut kinda green things that are okay. And some bread. It was way nice. But when we were down by the watering place I brushed my hand against a plant and INSTANT pain/stinging. I asked Kring what the plant was and she asked if I touched it. I said ya and she instantly got this horrible look on her face and yelled for her mom to run and get some lotion hahah. I think it's like poison ivy or oak or something. It hurt super badly for like a day, but then it was fine! Then right before we left we were sitting on this wood bench thing finishing up eating. I stood up and a nail caught my pants and ripped a huge hole in them hahah. Kring and Angie, the mom, just started cracking up and saying "An unforgettable service project,"... yes it was. But Kring lent me some pants and sewed them up really quickly so I could get home.

Okay the next service project was for one of our investigators. We offered to help her wash clothes. We scheduled in about an hour for it... funny joke haha. She has 4 kids and 2 weeks of laundry to catch up on. Like 6 buckets of clothes. After we rinsed them we thought that was it. Nope. She filled the buckets up for another rinse... and then another. When she went for the 4th, we just couldn't do it anymore haha. It had been like 2 or 3 hours and we had to get on with the day! And! The clothes were more than clean haha. So we told her we had to go. We were pretty scared on our way back that we had lost all of our fingerprints. Don't worry! Still there!

Okay you know that Lady I told you about who chased us down in the street last week asking us to teach her. She really was too good to be true. Kinda a tripper. When we went back for our second appointment she came running out to return the Book of Mormon because she was kinda confused about God having a body of flesh and bones. Oh ya... and she thinks Buddhism is the religion for her. haha what?! When we met her the first thing she asked was if we had statues because she didn't like how Catholics praise them... Don't the Buddhist people worship the Buddha or something? I'm not sure but she was just going on and on about random stuff so we shared a little message and left. It was a bummer. Hopefully one day she will accept this wonderful gospel!

Overall it was another wonderful week in this Philippines! Sister Taylor and I both took 3 years of Spanish and can't even remember how to say no in Spanish. It's driving us crazy. So if Casey or someone wants to send us a list of basic terms so we can sleep at night, that would be appreciated! Haha at least Tagalog is the only thing that comes to mind when we try to think of different languages!

Thank you all so much for your love, support, letters and prayers! You are amazing! I love you all so much. I hope that you all know how blessed we are to have this gospel in our lives. I am REALLY loving my Book of Mormon reading right now and it just makes me sick that I wasn't as dedicated to reading before my mission as I should have been. People have lost their lives so we can read this book. It is so powerful. If we read, and really read with a desire to understand, we can learn so much from it! I love this book. Please take advantage of it. And try to share it with those who don't yet know the power it can be! That is my challenge for the week! Do more missionary work this week than you did last week! Even if it's just having one more gospel discussion with a non-member. I know it is hard! But there are endless scriptures about how God will help you share and you will be blessed for your efforts. I know that this is true!

Okay I'm done with my missionary chat. Love you all! Be safe! Be happy! Write me! :)

Love, Sister Richmond









Top 10
1. B.O.M. Reading
2. Perfect Weather
3. Deep cleaned the apartment this morning!
4. Nutella er' day
5. Service projects
6. An investigator finally returned from Manilla!
7. Some solid progressing investigators
8. Walked through a pair of shoes so kinda an official missionary I think??
9. Fruit float! This super unhealthy dessert. Can't wait to make it for you one day!
10. Finished my stick of chapstick that I keep in my bag and the one I keep on my desk the same exact day! Nothin like 2 new fresh sticks of chapstick!



 This is how they decided to pack up our groceries.


 Post-service merienda



Angie shredding coconut


 Pili nuts



 Like 2 hours of sweeping with these things


 Kring sewing up my pants


 Rockin Kring's PJ's while she sewed my pants


 SO COLD hahaha


 Winter coat


 Bundled up. Brother Malate, 1st counselor in Bishopric.





Even Sister Taylor got a little malamig this week!


 At one of our investigator's, Mile's, restaurant.


 Pork I think


 Had to send in pics for the directory haha - (The real one)


And the one we sent the first time

No comments:

Post a Comment