Yet another surprise. . . I transferred!!!! I am now in Tacloban zone, in the San Jose area (in the actual Tacloban city, but not downtown) and my new companion is Sister Henshaw!!!!!! We actually met each other before at BYU and saw each other everyday on campus last semester!! We are both stoked to be companions and we are crazy united. We are so ready to work miracles because we are both so in tune with each other and the Spirit. So pumped for this transfer. :) :) :) Also in my apartment is SISTER MALIETOA!! We both transferred into the same apartment! What are the odds that I would be with my MTC comp again???! We are in the apartment that all the sick, visiting, or new missionaries stay. Also, the STLs used to live with us but they transferred two days ago to another apartment. :( So we're in the same ward as all the office elders, APs, mission president, etc so there's 5 companionships of missionaries in our ward. Crazy.
Super funny, when I got the text that I was transferring, my travel instructions were to take a bus, then a jeepney, then "ask inspired questions" to figure out where the chapel was downtown in Tacloban, haha. Luckily I had a Pacific Islander elder travel with me so he helped me with all my lugguage, haha.
We have a huge area! It's weird to be using jeepneys to travel to our appointments. I love this ward already. Members are willing to work with us and we actually have a Ward Mission Leader. We tried doing our language study with a group of members and it helped a ton to figure out the grammar! They speak English really well here so they were able to help us translate a lot and actually explain the conjugations and stuff :)
As Sister Henshaw and I have made new goals, we've been soooo blessed!! For example, we were riding in a pedicab and talking about how we want to find less active members that we can help reactivate and prepare for missions. When we got out of the pedicab and talked to our driver, it turns out he's an inactive member and he's mission age! We were so excited to see how the Lord is willing to give us opportunities if we are willing to look and have the desire. People to teach and help us are literally set in our path. In just these few short days together, we have been so blessed.
We're pretty much whitewashing our area; Sister Henshaw has only been here 3 weeks so we have an adventure everyday trying to figure out the area, who people are, etc. We're hoping to really change this area, especially since it's one of the oldest areas in the whole mission. We both truly believe that as long as we're obedient and following the Spirit everything will work out, even though we're both really new (she's only 6 weeks ahead of me).
We watched General Conference!!! It was absolutely amazing, as usual. We sat with our ward missionaries and investigators. One of them said the Conference center looks like a spaceship, bahahaha! It was hard for them to understand the actual words and they would translate to each other to figure out what the speakers were saying (it's all in English!), but they felt the Spirit of the message nonetheless. I noticed that some of the biggest themes were endurance, protecting the family, and covenant keeping. Please, everyone pray for missionary opportunities! I KNOW the Lord will put someone in your path. Remember, missionary work means "invite others to come unto Christ," this means ANYONE, not just non-members. :) There is plenty of missionary work to be done no matter where you live. Also, wasn't Elder Bednar's talk the best tithing talk ever?? Loved it. I can't wait to go back and study all these talks again (especially since the connection wasn't so great during the broadcast. . .). Remember, the things we learn from conference are nothing unless we actually APPLY them. Just like we can't get in shape by watching a basketball game, we can't become spiritually strong by watching conference. The power of conference will come when we change our lives to match the message.
LOVE YOU ALL BUNCHES!!!
Sister Amanda Smith
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| Gooodbye with Carigara sisters |
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| Sister Henshaw and I! |
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| San Juanico bridge with some elders from our zone |
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