Sister Julia Harrison

Kamusta y'all!      So this week was pretty much just the best... I guess mostly this weekend, but still! It all started with Brother Ricardo's baptism. Brother Ricardo's wife and children are all members, and are some of the pioneers here in the Alinguigan Ward. But for about 25 years, he was never interested in being baptized or attending church with his family. Now, almost a year after being paralyzed and blind, he's found his way into the gospel fold. He has entered the path of happiness and hope that means his family can be together. The years of patience, diligence, love, and prayers of his family have ultimately resulted well deserved blessings.      Right after the baptism, we watched general conference. And It seems that every general conference is better than the last. I'm not sure if they actually are getting better, or I'm just getting better at getting the most out of them. I found answers to questions I'd prepared, and even t...

 Kamusta y'all!       So General Conference happened, but we won't be watching it until this weekend. Brother Ricardo is also getting baptized this weekend, so we're going to be really busy, and really happy. :) Brother Ricardo's wife and children have all been members for a while, and now he's finally ready. He was paralyzed almost a year ago, and can't speak very clearly. This last week we sang Silent Night, and because he knows the words he started singing along. It was a really special moment :)       We had our testimony meeting yesterday in sacrament meeting. While one brother was bearing his testimony he forgot President Nelson's name. So he just said "I forgot his name, but I know we have a living prophet." That got me thinking about his confidence in his testimony. Even though he couldn't remember the prophet's name, he knew with absolute certainly that there was a living prophet. That's a blessing for our disp...

Kamusta y'all!    Well, it was just the last week of September which means Family Week in the Philippines. We were able to attend to the celebration on Saturday and it was so fun! Family Week is always the biggest church event of the year. It's a whole stake celebration with a parade, performances, and games. Last month I was told about how family week started, so I thought I'd share it with y'all.    In September 1995, "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" was first introduced and church leaders in the Philippines presented the President of the Philippines with a copy of the document. He was so impressed that starting in 1996, the last week of September officially became known as "Family Week." While the occasion is most enthusiastically celebrated by Latter Day Saints across the Philippines, other organizations are often involved as well.     Having the opportunity to teach people how the restored gospel blesses families is ...

Kamusta y'all!     This week was our mission tour. Which means that half of the mission met together with Elder and Sister Smutz. (Elder Smutz is the area president over the Philippines) They taught us a lot about focusing on our purpose and the joy in missionary work. And I had a great experience with that this week.      Sister Albalate and I split up to work with the members. I was working in an area I'd never been to, so after a lesson with a recent convert and trying to find sister that had been referred to us, we ran out of places to go. I was working with Sister Richelle and two other brothers, and they suggested we visit some other recent converts nearby. We teach them often and I was hoping we could go somewhere new, but because I didn't have any other ideas we decided to go.      We arrived at the Balcaba family and started teaching the mother and two of her daughters who are members. The father, who isn't a member, wa...

We received an email from the travel department on Friday with her travel info. She will be leaving the Philippines on December 5th, flying through Tokyo, then Portland arriving in SLC on Thursday December 5th at 1:06 PM! Kamusta y'all!        So I've been transferred from one of the smallest areas to one of the largest areas, so that's been a bit of an adjustment. But I'm really excited to be in Alinguigan and my new companion, Sister Albalate, is so talented. We got to teach Sister Princess Michaela, and she is such an amazing example to me. We discussed her experience with living the word of wisdom. She said that as she's been learning about the gospel, her desire to do the things she did before is disappearing. When her friends try to encourage her not to live the word of wisdom, she just thinks about the sacrament. She thinks about how much she wants to go to church on Sunday and be prepared to partake of the sacrament. When she thinks about that,...

President and Sister Craig are doing something different for transfer time.  So right before Julia called us she got a text from them telling her she will be transferred this week, but she won't find out yet which means we won't find out until next week. Stay tuned... Kamusta y'all!      Well, we had a bit of a rough week. Sister Su'a sprained her ankle, so we weren't allowed to walk very much. (I'm not sure if you've heard, but missionary work usually includes a lot of walking.) Fortunately we had some nice members who would drive us in their tricy from appointment to appointment, so we did get some work done.      We also had a great district conference. It was a bit weird, because one of Burgos district's branches has just been transferred to a neighboring stake. I think a lot of the members were a bit discouraged, and wondering what was going to happen to the rest of our district. But President Craig shared a story about the miraculo...

Kamusta y'all!      Maligayang pasko!(Merry Christmas) It's already September, which means Christmas in the Philippines. So of course we started off our Sacrament meeting with a Christmas song. Because it's the rainy season it's also a bit cooler(mostly because of the typhoon), down to almost 70 degrees. So everyone here was a bundled up... I thought it felt great.      The past few weeks we've been teaching Sister Zhalimar and she's so cool!  She's been taught in the past, but stopped because she was busy with school, and wasn't sure she was ready to be baptized. When she came back home she prayed to know what to do, basically which church she should join. She asked for some sort of sign or assurance of how she could best serve God, and that's when we showed up at her home to visit her grandparents. She recognized that as her answer, and now nothing can stop her. Because she already has begun gaining a real testimony, she knows how ...