A Prophet

Sister Frame and Sister Davis

This week was busy - understatement

I left my companion for a whole 2.5 days.  It was the worst.  Thursday I left Tugue (along with three elders) for the mission home where I would be spending the night.  We got to Cauayan by 8:30 and had dinner with President and Sister Rahlf.  Then the APs picked up the elders for the night...and I was left with President and Sister Rahlf eating rocky road ice-cream and Family Scripture Study.  It was intimidating but incredible.  I learned a lot.  Felt the spirit so strongly.  Sister Rahlf always has the best things to say.  As we were talking, she shared the quote with me - 

Peace is not the absence of trouble.  It's the presence of Christ.

I ended the night with

a hot shower (the first time in 17 months)

and fell asleep with a blanket

a bed

and an air-conditioned room.

I was so comfortable - 

I could not sleep.

The next morning we flew to Manila with the other foreigners in my batch to do visa work and fingerprinting.  It was hectic and busy, but all got accomplished.  We managed to make it to Mall of Asia for about an hour - the biggest mall in Asia.  I think we saw only 1/100th of it.  

We ended the night in a small, smelly hotel room.  It was so fitting to my current circumstances, I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

We didn't get home till Saturday night.  It was good to get back to my area and be with S!  Our reunion was as if I had just been gone for 18 months.  Yesterday, after sacrament we were able to get out and catch up for our loss.  We found 2 new investigators!  This area is finally starting to turn around.  It always makes the work so much more exciting.  

It's so fulfilling when our prayers at night are filled with individuals to specifically pray for, and our thoughts revolve soley around them.  We have a very busy next few weeks - I'm excited for it.  We have so much to do here in Penablanca.

I'm jealous you all got to listen to General Conference this weekend!  I get to do that this Saturday and Sunday - 

I

Can't 

Wait

(Conference weekends are by far my favorite weekends on the mission).

Yesterday, we were teaching Sister J. about prophets - and every time I teach that lesson, my gratitude for a living prophet grows.  How lucky are we to have a living prophet to lead and guide us in this generation - in this world that has so much temptation and distractions and "ugly" attacking us.

We have someone's voice to listen to, someone's words to follow.  And how comforting to know that those words are coming directly from Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father.

We have so much going for us in this Gospel of Jesus Christ.  

We have all we need.

We have all the tools for our success.

-Sister Frame

The good times just keep on coming

9.15.14

This week, we went to our far area and got punted from all the lessons we were planning to teach...so we wandered the area and tracked - hoping to accomplish something -

And one thing led to another

and we ended up in the caves.

It was cool!

There's a chapel in there ya know.  It's super creepy actually and there were one million bats inside,

but it was one of those moments that made me realize - Dang.  i'm in the Philippines.

We were in the midst of sorting out some church records and following up on previous baptisms, when President Rahlf calls our cell phone.  And guess what!  He called to tell me that Baby Bean was born!! (Bean has just become his name because I never know its gender, so I had to get creative in my prayers).  I was so excited.  I can't wait to meet little John Wallace.  Congrats to G, Kae, and Rae.  He looks so chubby! and adorable.  As I looked at pictures I had a handful of little Filipino school kids crowded behind my shoulder looking at the pics - just as excited as I was.

And then, there was a typhoon.  Named Louis.  All weekend we were getting updates from mission headquarters about it, and then Sunday morning they enforced lockdown after church.  (Meaning I still had to speak in Sacrament Meeting).  After church we were tucked away in our little home, until our Bishop called and insisted that we evacuate to the chapel before the storm got any worse.  We got our 72 hour kits and the Bishop relocated us to the chapel.  First, he bought us some Coke - so we would "enjoy our stay."  We got there and joined a few other families whose homes weren't safe to stay in.  

And we spent the night, but we didn't sleep.  We were safe.

This morning we came home and checked the damage.  Lots of power lines down.  Most of my cute little palm trees around the house had their tops missing.  Miles and miles and miles of crops that the farmers have worked all season on...completely destroyed.  My heart was so sad for them.

and all the power was out, so we had nothing to do but start our laundry....

I surprised myself because on Saturday when we were getting texts about the storm and to be alert of all the updates - my companion and I looked outside the window and took note of the still and very hot weather,  thinking, 'we'll be fine.'  The other two sisters in our house took some time to prepare their 72 hour kits and get everything ready for any kind of evacuation.  S and I went to work that day with some sarcasm up our sleeve about the fact that they take this so seriously.  As I was working, I realized how big of an idiot I am.  Like hello!  wasn't it just last month that I was teaching the parable to the G. family about the 10 virgins?  yea.  it was.  and now, in this moment, I was completely being a hypocrite.  So after a few appointments, I looked at S. and said, "Homie...I think we should get our 72 hour kits ready."  

I procrastinated the warning from my leaders.  I just assumed we would all be ok.
Spent some time looking back in my life and how in spiritual ways I've been slow sometimes to heed the warnings and council of my leaders.  Sometimes I'm guilty of justifying things - thinking - 'oh, that commandment is for other people...but it's ok for me because I can do it without actually falling into temptation.'

But that's totally not true.  Just like the typhoon warnings, there was no justification in me not preparing.  I was either ready or not.  I would either be safe, or not.  It was a humbling lesson for me.  Thought I'd share.

-Sister Frame

Pet Peeve of the week:  when Americans speak Tagalog to me.  like - come on people...we both speak english.