Week 77

Hey everybody...

Well it's come to that time.... I can't believe it. I never thought that I would actually make it to this point. It felt like FAR away! Hahah, turns out it is true, "the time we are given to serve the Lord is extremely short". I will forever cherish the time that Heavenly Father has given me to serve Him and to be an instrument to bless these wonderful people! I have fallen in love with the Filipino culture and will miss everything about it here! It truly is more fun in the Philippines. And while being here I have learned so much more. More than I ever thought I could...I know that Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer, that His gospel is real and has been revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith. That we have a truth that will and can never be taken away again from the earth. That through our Savior we can truly be able to do all things.... I have learned throughout my life and especially at this time in my life! Serving Him I have truly come to know Him better. I know this is only a short letter of the things that I know to be true, and I am excited to share with you the rest that the Lord has done for me while I have been able to serve Him... Because it truly is amazing! I love you all and will see you soon....

SISTER BRAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Week 76

Hello Everybody!

This week has been a good one! We have been working with our part member family, the Amparo's a lot! They are the little brothers of my recent convert Wendelyn. AND THEY ARE AWESOME! They are so excited to get baptized! The oldest, Lemuel(yes, and he knows whose name he has), wants to serve a mission so bad! HE is so excited! He is 13. The next is Sherwin and he is 12, and he is so excited to pass the sacrament with his friends! Gah, we love them! Especially because they are so funny! They too get baptized after I am gone... but I am excited for them none the less.

The next story I wanna share with you guys as well is about another part member family. The Delepena Family. Brother Glen is a member and he went less active. No one really heard of him either. Then randomly one Sunday he and his wife came to church! HE said they just needed to, like it was missing. We visited and all the lessons were amazing! Why he went LA we don't know. They haven't come to church now for over a month a half though. And even upon us first meeting them they had many trials in their life. They are very poor, brother knows upholstery but lost his job, sister was 3 months pregnant and lost the baby, they 1 year old has been dehydrated for nearly two weeks along with other stomach things, they have been asking all they know for help. When we heard all this we immediately shared Ether 12:4 about hope for a better world through our faith in the Savior. After, Sister Christy shared how she does hope and dream. But she doesn't want a mansion or to get away from her situation all she wants is to go to the Temple. TO go with glen and her family and be sealed. To feel that peace and that heaven, to live there. I broke into tears. How could this sisters faith still be so strong and that be her ultimate desire... I was so moved by her and her knowledge already of the plan He has for us. My testimony surely grew so much more on the blessings of the temple ordinances and eternal perspective that they do give us, especially of the happiness it brings. I know as well that his plan for each of us id real and that He does loves each of us and wants us each to come home to him.

That's why He called for His soldiers to come out at this time. Not ponds, but valiant servants, Kings and queens! HE wants us to help him in bringing them back, because if we don't share with them, they will never find it, and how much more harder will it be for them to find it. I am grateful to have been chosen to serve Him at this time and for the joy it brings to those that we serve and as well to me in seeing that light click inside them. Just like Alma (alma29:9-10) in sharing with his Lamanite brothers and seeing the joy they receive! Knowing that Heavenly Father loves me and wanted to answer my prayer in October 2012 to get me out here and serve Him. I will forever be grateful for this chance I have and will cherish it forever

SISTER BRAY....................... FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Week 75

We had a great week this past week! 

It started with a wonderful Zone Conference! As in, we were all so much more spiritually enlightened. Especially from the talks of President and Sister Maurer. Helping us to get further how we can be the best missionaries we can be, and even after, how we can be the best we can be. The way it goes with conferences is you find out a topic and have to prepare a talk and at random they will pick someone to talk, so you really want to be ready in a sense. Sooooooo Last time I was picked was last year at Mission Tour... where right as I got to the pulpit my scriptures broke and I said "Well this blows!" Soooooo, I made up for that time! Hahah, Becoming a preach my gospel missionary was the topic and I studied good on it! Me and another Elder who is leaving were asked to talk and it was great!  

We witnessed a wonderful miracle this week! We have an investigator, Kim, and she was first introduced to the missionaries in June. We have continued teaching her with all our might! She would tell us how she knows it to be true, she would keep her commitments and come to church as often as she could. But, she was still always wasn't ready for her date she would say. So this last week we had an e-pif-o-ny (sorry I don't remember how to spell that one). Go over the interview questions with her. She didn't understand fully some of them, but that evening she prayed. With all energy of heart to know if this really is right.... The next day at church, her and her cousin who is also our investigator said they had a surprise to tell us at the lesson with them later in the evening! I already knew what they meant and I couldn't hold back my emotions!! I grabbed both of them with my arms and gave them the biggest squeeze!! I kept saying over and over how happy I was for them! And I can only imagine it is just how Heavenly Father must feel as well! Their new date is now the 20th of September. I wish I could stay to witness it and keep teaching, but I know the Lords plan is always better than our own.

I love you all and hope this story may help you recognize Him more in your lives. I am working on seeing the daily miracles and how much He really is a part of our everyday lives. LOVES YOUS

SISTER BRAY............ FOREVER

Week 74

Hello Everybody! Hope y'all had a great week! Mine was great too :) We had amazing experiences with following the Spirit that I would love to share with y'all....

So last Monday, we went to contact a potential that is the neighbor of our part member family. The lesson was alright, but you could also just tell that she was not ready to come closer to the Savior because of worldly things. We made a return appointment and she actually ended up punting us.. but we will try again this week! BUT! For the spiritual story... So as we were leaving we decided to visit a member family  that is super active. The Sister didn't come to church and her son said that she a had a really bad stomach ache. When they let us in, it really was bad. Pains since Friday! We asked what she felt about getting a blessing and she said right away call the Elders! We had training the next day, so all the Elders were in Sogod sleeping in the ZLs apartment, so we start calling all of them and no answers. For just 5 minutes though. Then they came over and totally helped the Sister... gave her some humor and a wonderful blessing! We were started to head home as we past another investigators house. And this investigator really isn't progressing either. Sister Stoehr never told me why, but for some reason we stopped. I told Sister Kaun that we needed to go back to that investigator. We did and we prepare to be punted from all that Sister Stoehr had said... but she let us in! We started talking with her and doing follow up on her lessons with the past sisters, then it happened. She opened up! All of it out on the table. She didn't tell the sisters her concerns before, she just kept denying them to come in. I know it was the Spirit that led us back there to help that sister resolve her concerns about the restoration and the importance of prophets and especially that of Joseph Smith.

As the week  continued we also had an amazing experience teaching our other investigator who has date. She really wants to get a BIG answer that it is true and that it is right. All that she is doing, but her friends keep getting in the way of the spirit. Them saying "Why are you changing?" "you were already baptized.. why are you doing it again?" "Who are you" sort of things.... And it has really torn down her spirits and her searching. She neglected her reading but still kept asking for an answer. We didn’t know where else to go with the lesson. We had just told her about us needing to do things to receive answers to our prayers and as I started going through my bag I saw it! A letter that Sister Stoehr told me to give to Kim. I give it to her and say "maybe this will help". There in the middle of all the bisaya was English with BOLD letters..."DON'T LET PEOPLE SCARE YOU AWAY FROM DOING WHATS RIGHT!"..... answer truly to her and our prayers. She has got back into her reading and is doing so good! Her date is moved to the next week though because of a vacation she had over Sunday, but we are still so happy for her!!! :)

Well, that was the really cool highlights of the week! hope y'all had great ones too! LOVES YOUS

SISTA BRAY............ FOR-EV-VERRRR

Here's a pic. me and the kids in the hood

Week 73

Hello errabody!

This week was pretty cool! So the batch going home this week had to go up to Manila to get our fingerprints for our visas. So that was a fun adventure. Luckily we had 3 Elders who were "maroonon" in tagalog! Hahah basically saved our lives! If we didn't have them it would've been bad! WE also realized how much we were assigned to the right mission. AS IN! Manila is just not us at all! It is far from region 8. It is all city slickers and such with tall buildings everywhere. We had no idea what to do with ourselves. It was so crazy. And there were so many foreigners! Like not just white people! We met people from Kenya, Nigeria, Europe places, a Filipino soccer team, oh my goodness! We did so much finding it was awesome! In the airport and emigration building it rocked! AND... we had Wendy's! Ya, mos def not region 8! It was so goooooood! Ya we dropped a lot a pesos for it :)

But there is something that I really want to share with you all that happened this week! So I hope you all remember the story I shared about bro sanchez and his seeing the kingdoms of glory. Well We have focused as well on his sister. And her especially. She is amazing like her brother, she just has problems coming to church because of her asaua. He is pretty rude and won't let her. She let us know though in a lesson on wed that she will busy for the next 2 weeks with her niece's baptism in the catholic church. But when we got back on sat we planned to visit her that evening(we completely forgot what she had said). And its a good thing we did actually! The lesson was basically just QandA she had a lot, but at the end she said she wanted to share something she experienced. And I don't know what it is about this family, but they must be really in tune with the spirit! She had this dream the day after our last lesson with her-so Thurs. In the dream she said she was looking for something. She was walking around everywhere and then she came to this place where there was this big giant tall cross and she said there were many other crosses there too. and then out of nowhere she said that there came this big ocean that split the way. and on the other side there I was. Me all alone on this place. She ended up going to where I was. She doesn't remember what I said to her or what happened after that, but she does remember how she felt... Peace, love, joy, and warm. If that's not the spirit testifying to her that our message is true I don't know what is! We expressed to her about it, that we couldn't desifer dreams but from what she said, seemed pretty clear what the spirit was saying!

Well I gotta go! I love you all so much! I out some pictures from the activity earlier! We went to the tallest bridge in the Philippines! AGAS-AGAS BRIDGE!

Sister Bray.......FOR-EV-ERRR

Week 72

Hello everybody :)

This week has been great! We had transfers too... and we have a new way of doing them.... total surprise! Before, you would find out where an who your new comp is, if the ZLs were going you would find that out too and all of it basically! Well..... Now you don't find out until you get to a transfer point and you don't know until then as well who your companion is. Sooo while Sister Stoehr left and transferred, I worked with a member here, Rishyll, who I absolutely love! She talks all the time about her daughter and how amazing she is and told me over and over again how grateful she is to have moved back and to be active again after 13 years! We had a blast! And then around 5pm I met my new companion! SISTER KAUN! She is from Vanuatu, it's by Fiji and she is amazing! I am follow up training-seems to be the theme of my mission! I am step mother to so many sisters here and Cebu East :) She is great though! As in, she is so humble and so kind! AN her testimony the same! She is amazing! Her first area was in Carigara, so Waray2x and this is her first Cebuano Area, so we have been doing lots of language studies :) she is picking it up great though!

WE didn't really witness any cool miracles this week. Some of our investigators have a great time understanding it all, but the accepting and doing part has become harder for them. But, we still keep trying to help em out. One of our returning yesterday said he thinks that all churches are true, as long as its God, its good. He isn't really sure if it is true I guess. And it was kinda random too, because he had just shared how he knew it was true... It was a big 180 for us. But we gave him some assignment and asked him to pray if this is the true church. We hope he listens closely and gets his answer.

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=3701964025001&cid=HPTH073114368

I was just emailing a friend from home, who told me a fellow beetdigger had past away this past week. I thought to myself, just look on LDS.org you still have time until you need to get off. And I saw this on the front web page.... I'm not sure if this true story video will help those who are grieving the loss of Harry Robbins, but it might just help someone looking for an answer to their prayers or even an add to their testimony. I know that God the Father lives and that He truly does love each and every one of us. That he sent us here to learn, sometimes through trials, but I know, that every time, we come out stronger than we did going in them. I know this gospel is real and that it does bless every person that will listen to it... I am grateful to be on the Lords errand and to share it and to be apart of someone time in receiving that light. I know it is true.. I know it is real.. and I know that it will give you all you ever wanted. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

SISTER BRAY............FOREVER!

Week 71

So this week was pretty cool we had a bunch of new experiences and new things occur!

So to start it off, most missions in the US and I guess depends where else, basta, they can skype and they Facebook to teach. So we finally got a chance to do anything remotely close to that! We went to a potential investigator which was a return appt. we go there and they are busy making casava cakes that they sell which are the best things in the world! We sat down and started talking story with the Lola and then the son comes and is skyping someone on his iPhone(what the what?!) and has a tablet in the other(WHAT?!?) So he tells the person he is on the skype with that 2 white girls are here talking bisaya and that they gotta hear it! Ends up to be his sister who lives in New Zealand! She has lived there for 20+ years. We just started getting to know her and talked to her in Bisaya and such and then she told us she is in Aukland! DING DING DING! my batch is from there and it is horrie az there! But they gotta a church! So I asked if she had met other missionaries like us there before.... YUP! They taught her before and she had a Book of Mormon! They stopped visiting her after she had a surgery 3 years back! SO. Moral of the story, we had a chance to share through skype, but more importantly, we found out why we kept needing to go back to the Tenio Family. Because there was someone in their family ready, just not in the here sense. We got her information and everything and are so excited for the missionaries that will be teaching her and her family real soon! I took a picture while she picked up her phone... I couldn't pass the moment to say that we did missionary work through skype :)

So another cool thing! We had a movie night on Sat. We invited everyone! And they invited their friends and then they invited more! But, it rained! Buckets so we texted all that we invited and they were sad that they couldn't make it because of the rain. But those that made it enjoyed it and had so many great questions. We watched the Joseph Smith Movie and it was so great! I will attach pictures

Another thing... I found out where I am dying. Sister Stoehr had to go up to Tacloban on for her training meeting(she receives her first daughter this week). So she got all the dirt out of the APs.... I will be the taking over my last area, so the other part of Sogod, and my area right now! I was meant to be here for some reason :) Hahah, Weird that as of this week I will only have 6 weeks left. But I am gonna go out hard! Especially getting so much area now! As in, it is massive now! My last cycle will be wicked awesome! I just know it ! And I hope that whoever my comp is will do the same! Work Hard. Pray hard.

Well love you all!

SISTER BRAY........ FOREVER AND EVER!!