Week 10

Hello everyone!!!!!!

This week has been so awesome! I want to share everything about it but again just the highlights :) 

This week we had companion exchanges! I was with our AA Sister, Sister Garcia! I just have to say, she is so awesome! She has the strongest testimony ever! Only her and her mother are members and she has had to go through many hard times with family members because of it. And she has never let that hinder her! WE had such a fantastic time together and she shared so many testimonies with me all throughout the day. She knows it's true! :) She shared something with me while we had our companionship study. IT was about prayer and missionary work. I have heard over and over "a missionary in the hands of the Lord" and things similar. And I know how big of an impact the Lord has on us as missionaries and how close we are to the spirit. But she held out her hand and pointed to the center of her palm, and said, "You are right here." The lord carries us all throughout this service and is literally guiding as where we are needed to go, what we are needed to do, and what is that we are needed to say! Such an profound thought that I had simply gone over! IT made me so happy to know and actually feel the presence of the Lords hand in the work.

The Salayao family are still progressing! The record system in the Philippines is a mess... SO they can't get married for a while. They need to get records that say that Sister Mierna is Sister Mierna. Then they can get more paper work, and more paper work, and more, and then they can get a marriage license and get married! And then Sister Mierna can get baptized, because she REALLY wants to! And Says that every time and always shares her spiritual insights about it! I really want to see Brother Jim be the one to baptize her, but I'm not entirely sure how that will all work out, but still it's a hope that all of us in the ward have for them :)

The language this week has really progressed and I can speak very broken Waray and can understand a little in conversation. When we are in quiet lessons, I am able to think clearly of what it is I need to say and how to say it. I say 'Quiet Lessons" because here, it is never quiet! There is always kids coming in and disrupting the lessons, major distractions outside and inside, everything possible that could distract and disrupt, usually does! But, when we have a semi quieter setting and are able to converse and be understood and have the spirit in the lesson, it makes it all that much more better :)

Well, I love you all and wish you all the best of weeks! It's crazy to think that this week, I will have been here in the PI for ONE MONTH!!!!!!!! Crazy!! It is going by so fast! And to think that the next set of missionaries (which 18 are sisters and 4 are elders) will be coming in a short amount of weeks, is insane! The time really is flying by! And I am making sure that I love each moment of it that I can!

Once again, I Love you all!!!!!!! And I am so grateful to have each of you in my lives!! Have an amazing week! And hey, you're awesome!

Sister Bray :)

Pictures!

1. Bridge in Caboynan

2.The road to Socme

3. Sister Quijada and I with the kids in San Roque. They beg for pictures everytime we are there!

4. and 5. Carlo Villegas birthday

6. Sister Quijada and I got to sit shotgun in a Jeepney

7. Bachelor beach