Day 334 Allen, Philippines Blood tofu, jungle woman, and daily miracles :)

Soooo, If you were able to come pick me up in December by some miracle, you would have to schedule it right now and coordinate with the mission president and office to get permission and stuff. I’ve heard of people just being released through Skype by their stake president so they can do whatever after. But I’ve heard there’s tons of promo  discount things for December for international flights.

I’ve decided that I write my letters quicker if I just use bullet points. So here we go:

-I forgot to mention I met the mayor last week. I was on exchanges with Sister Bingham and she was like who lives in that huge house? I told her it was the mayor and she said cool let’s go meet him! So we talked to the house help (practically all the rich people here have house help who do their laundry, cleaning, etc.) and they told us to just go upstairs. So we just waltzed right in to the mayor’s house!! He was drinking, though but we set up an appointment. Also, on Good Friday it turns out there was a murder at the Catholic church of some counselor of the mayor. Someone whacked him in the head from behind during their celebration procession. So maybe this will be a good time to teach him about the plan of salvation. And forgiveness.

-I ate a fish eyeball. We were eating at a member’s house for dinner one night. We had fried fish, a usual dish---with plenty of rice, of course. I heard a weird sucking noise and I looked over to see my companion sucking the eyeballs out of the fish’s eye socket! YUCKS! Then all the little kids looked at me like what’s your problem? And then they made me try it. . . It tasted like fish of course, but there was a weird hard thing in the middle. Well, I’m never doing that again. Cross that off my list.

-HAPPY BIRTHDAY JARED! I promise your birthday thing is coming. . . soon. . .someday. . .eventually. . . If this island ever gets postage!!! Hahaha.

-Yay Alex and Jared for singing in church! Wish I could’ve heard it! You’ll have to sing it for me when I get back. J

-I learned something cool about babies and the resurrection. Joseph Smith taught that children who die will be resurrected as children and their mothers will have the opportunity of raising them so they can gain all the intelligence they need to inherit a kingdom of glory. Sweet! It’s amazing how perfectly fair God’s plan of happiness is.

-When I was riding to an appointment on a pedicab, a car pulled up beside us and a man rolled down the window to ask if he could take my picture. *Awkward*

-I almost ate blood tofu. We were at a BBQ thing and I saw what I thought was chocolate or something, but then my comp said, nope Sister Smith that is blood. I lost my appetite and didn’t buy anything.

-We had a weird CSP. . . We went out to Cabacungan, one of our farthest bukid areas to help find materials to build a meetinghouse thing for special sacraments. On our way there, I saw a lady in the bukid who had no shoes on and I was amazed. A true jungle woman! Well, we hiked for like 2 hours into the jungle with a  bunch of kids to find the men who had left earlier that morning. I only had flipflops, haha. After only 10 minutes I just went barefoot because it was easier and hiked for about an hour that way. Who’s the jungle woman now??? Haha But then my foot started cramping and my DL traded me shoes. Once we found the man who was going to help us, he told us to come back next week instead. Soooooooooooooooooo we helped bring back a few logs, but that was the extent of our service.

-We had our General Apartment Cleaning Day. We rearranged our room and brought in a tiny end table to use as a mini desk so we don’t have to put all our stuff on our beds to study anymore! But now we have no gas so we've just been using a rice cooker to cook stuff for the past couple weeks.

-We have a new investigator named Elvie. She used to have a live-in partner who was an inactive LDS, but now they’re separated. Even though she’s SUPER Catholic with giant crosses and relics and saints everywhere, she is thirsty for something more in her life. Hopefully we’ll be able to help her recognize her answer as we teach her the Restoration J She was kinda defensive during our lesson about her religion, but we could tell that she was deeply interested and touched by our message. I think something clicked inside her.

-Alma 37:40 How often do we fail the miracles that happen “day by day?” This reminds me of a talk by Henry B. Eyring “O Remember, Remember.” We need to take time every single day to look for the hand of the Lord in our lives and remember Him. God is actively involved in our day to day lives---even minutely. I know we are never forgotten by our Father. Every good thing comes from Him.

I LOVE YOU ALL!!! Let me know what the plan is for Mother's Day. :) :) :)

p.s. they're playing Christmas music in this internet cafe!!!