What the...

Family & Friends!

Okay you guys aren't going to believe the things that have been happening.. my mission has been so nuts. I can't even begin to tell you. First off, I have a new companion. I met her today. Sister Vaka has been really sick like literally throwing up everyday and was struggling hard. So we just thought she would pull through until we went to Manila but no... BOOM another emergency transfer. So she left me on Friday morning and then I literally didn't have a companion until this morning. haha I was in a trisome with Sister Fermin and Sister Lamberte, but I did a lot of stuff alone so it just felt like I didn't really have a companion.. It was so messed up. My new companions name is Sister Lubrico. She is really nice and I'm excited to be her companion. It is going to be quite the challenge tho.. Now there are 3 Filipino's living with me so they are going to speak Tagalog all the time (and not gonna lie, I can only handle so much until I feel like my brain is going to explode listening to Tagalog) but it's fine I'll live. Anyway so now I have a new companion.. and we didn't work a ton these last three weeks so I don't know the area real well and I have to lead it. So this week should be some fun.. aka im gonna die. haha just kidding, cuz with the Lord I can do all things :)

It's funny cuz when I realized Sister Vaka was going to transfer I was so sad. I was freaking out too because of all the stressors that started to happen and going on in my mind and things, and thats one of the best parts about a mission. When you are so stressed out and overwhelmed and feel like you can't go anymore and you just want to cry, that is the best part of a mission. Instead of turning to the worldly things everyone else goes too, or your mom for help, or really anything else, you have to rely on Heavenly Father. You turn to prayer. It's so amazing. Prayer is what has gotten me through my mission. Turning to Heavenly Father and letting him help you through all the MANY things required on a mission. I testify that the Lord will give you so many miracles if you just ask Him and rely on him for help. 

On Friday I was so overwhelmed and stressed and I just went in the Bathroom (so no one could see) and broke down crying. We had weekly planning so I was in my room alone, trying to plan for people I didn't know and then I just broke and I felt so sad. I honestly really wanted to just give up. I was so sad. So I knelt down and said a prayer just asking for peace and comfort so that I could keep going and move on. Then Sister Lamberte comes in my room and says, "Hey Sister Barton, President Ostler is on the phone and wants to talk to you." At that moment I felt so so so blessed. I haven't felt so happy in my whole life. So I take the phone and I got to talk to President Ostler and tell him everything I was feeling and he is sooooooo awesome. He helps me so much. I honestly feel so so so grateful for him. So I was able to talk to him and felt so much peace and just the Spirit confirm to me why I am here and why I am on a mission and to just keep on going. Then that night our new Sister Training leaders called us and guess who they were... BOOM Sister Tiongco and Sister Lutui. MY NANAY!! Sister Tiongco was my trainer and now she is my sister training leader so I will see her this transfer!! Ahhhh I almost burst into tears as I was talking to her. I was so so happy :) She also told me that Sister Anita (the funny old lady) and Sister Hyacinth were baptized in my old area so yesssss!! Honestly Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ want whats best for us and I know if we ask for help, he will give it to us. "ask and ye shall recieve" I TESTIFY haha ITS SO TRUE!! 

I'm so grateful for miracles and tender mercies of the Lord. I feel so blessed to have the gospel in my life and the opportunity to share it with all people! ahhhh I love love love this work. It's hard, but it is worth it. I honestly think that is why a mission is so good. We come here to declare repentance and help people change their will to be in line with God's will, but in the process of missionary work I feel like us missionaries are the ones benefiting most. I have changed already so much and it has only been 6 months.. like wow I'm so excited to see the person I can become through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Heavenly Father is really shaping me to be the person he wants me to be and I LOVE IT. 

Congrats to all the young men in my ward back home who got their mission calls! That's so exciting! You will love it! As well as Jessica Robertson! YAY the people of Nebraska will love you! I'm so excited for you & make sure to put my on your email list :) Also special shout out to Jensen and Quincie on YOUR ENGAGEMENT!! Wow, Jens I never thought it would happen for you, but you proved me wrong. hahah I'm just kidding, but you guys will do awesome. Send me lots of pics and things. I love you both and I am excited for you. My advice is make sure Heavenly Father is apart of your relationship (or your third companion) haha idk if that makes sense, but it makes sense in my mind... anyway I love you all and I'm grateful for your support and love. Have the best week.

Love,

Sister Barton 

SIX months this week... WHAT?!

Fam!

Can you believe I turn six months this week? Times a flyin... well not really, but kinda haha Time is so weird here cuz literally the days feel like years... they are soooooo long, but then the weeks go by pretty fast and the transfers fly by.. So I don't really understand what is happening. hahah but cool I'm half a year down and one more year to go! :)

So I have had some great experiences here on my mission thus far, but I just want you guys to get just a little taste of what I am talking about haha so... here is what I am going to tell you so you can understand the Philippines a little bit better:

1- Everyone is naked. Like literally everyone. hahaha none of the little kids wear clothes haha like it is very rare to see a kid wearing pants haha and then the men don't like to wear shirts and they just have these huge beer bellys and its absolutely hilarious, but so funny! I love it here.

2- They all hiss at you to get your attention and since im white, they hiss at me ALLLLLL the time. It's so funny, they also point with there lips so thats weird, at first when they did that i thought they wanted to kiss me or something, but no thats just how they point haha 

3- I found out that they go to the bathroom and don't just use water, they use their left hand... and we have ran out of toliet paper numerous times, but lets just say I have really embraced the culture ;) hahahaha sorry TMI 

AND YAY CORON IS GROWING!!! The branch is growing, not so much in numbers, but spiritually. The whole feeling in the branch is so amazing. There has always been a special spirit here in Coron, but I feel it magnifying now more than ever. We are getting so close with the youth and it has been awesome. We have been helping them get ready for their performance in Puerto Princessa this week as well as we STARTED A CHOIR!! Wow, there is some hidden talent in this amazing branch. Each youth puts there own unique personality into the branch to make it what it is. It just continues to grow and develop and I am so excited to see the continuing unity to come with the Coron Branch. 

We have been able to do quite a bit of service these last couple of weeks and I really feel so happy when I get the opportunity to do service. Of course, service is the whole point of what we are doing on a Mission, but the extra service you get to do while serving is priceless. Especially serving the wonderful investigators, members, or just anyone here in Coron. We painted the inside of one of our members houses, we helped an investigator build her house and weed her garden, and we do English class every wednesday and it is awesome! I love English class haha Sister Vaka and I do it, cuz only foreigners and wow I love love love teaching english to all these cute Filipino kids. haha The people here are amazing and I feel so blessed to be here at such a time when the world is growing tremendously in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, not to mention the Philippines itself and how much it has grown in just these last couple of years. Wow what a special time this is in my life. 

Sometimes, well a lot of the time, I take being here on a mission for granted. Sometimes I think to myself, "what am I doing? I don't need to do this. This is so hard. I want to go home." but one thing that my old Zone Leader, Elder Honda said that has always kind of stuck with me is "no sacrifice without a cost is worth it." I know that to be true from the bottom of my soul. Jesus Christ suffered and sacrificed a tremendous cost for all of us. He paid the price and the blessings everyone receives from his sacrifice are priceless. I don't think I will ever be able to comprehend what my savior Jesus Christ has done personally for me. What can I give back? Honestly, nothing to the amount that he has given me, but the little I can, I will. I need to rejoice in the time I have giving all my might, mind, heart, and soul to the Savior Jesus Christ doing his work. Of course, it will not be easy. This mission is far from easy, but in the end 5, 10, 20 years from now I know I will look back and say, "Wow. My mission was so worth it." 

I feel like I have already grown so much here on my mission and I cannot wait to keep growing and developing into the person Heavenly Father wants me to be. I feel so blessed to have all of you in my life. You are all amazing and I want you to know how much I love you. Continue to press onward and love everyone you meet. You are all so amazing and I'm excited to see the things to come this week! :)

Mahal Ko Kayo,

Sister Barton 

Conference

Family!

This wonderful weekend I had the fortunate opportunity to watch conference. I had to listen to some in Tagalog cuz they didn't have english for a while, but then we finally got english so i actually got to understand more! haha I loved all of the talks for many different reasons. One talk I really loved was Elder Steven E Snow. His talk was all about humility and the importance of continually living in humility. Ahhhh one of my favorite Chirstlike attributes is humility. I absolutely love it. "We all need to strive for humility to be better followers of the Savior." I love love loved that. 

Also another talk I really really loved was Elder Jeffrey R. Hollands talk. Of course because he is absolutely AMAZING. I just think he did so well in giving everyone hope. Hope to be better, hope to move on, and hope to change. I loved how he just addressed that everyone has challenges and hardships in their life, but the savior is always there. As long as we keep going and love God we will be blessed. I loved when he was talking about the savior and says, "He will hold your hand saying, fear not, I will help thee." ahhhh Elder Holland is so amazing. I personally have seen a lot of challenges and hardships here on my mission, but it's an amazing thing to really strive to know the Savior and to know Heavenly Father. They are always here to help lift and guide us. I love Jesus Christ with my whole heart and it's so cool because especially here on a mission I get to testify of Him and I get to learn more and more about Him everyday. How great my calling is. He will always be there for each and every one of us. 

Lastly I just want to quickly talk about the short powerful talk President Thomas S Monson gave. I'm just going to say our choices mean everything. So choose the right. The quotes I loved from him were:

"The choices we make determine our destiny."

"The path we follow in this life determines the path we follow in the next life."

"Choose wisely."

And the last and personally my favorite one is... "Choose the harder right rather than the easier wrong."

Everything we do in this life and what determines for the next life is based on our choices. So may we choose Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer. I love you all. The work is going good. I love my companion. I love Coron, Palawan, and I love you all. 

Mahal Ko Kayo,

Sister Barton

Ps Two I didn't mention that I need to is Elder D. Todd Christophersons talk on Fathers ahhhh that was amazing as well as Elder Ronald A Rasband. Don't take Sustaining and supporting casually. It is a privilege to listen to the counsel of our leaders and to have them lead and guide us to truth and light. 

Emergency Transfer

Hello Family!

This week has been... crazy. Great, but crazy. So to start off, we had a great family home evening this week with the Pagayunan family and ahhh it was so good, then I have some big news cuz I got a new companion! Weird, but cool. Then I just wanna talk about how great our Branch is. :)

So first off, FHE!! Wow I sent you the pictures so hopefully they are the right ones considering we can't actually see what we send... it's hard to explain but i'm just hoping for the best. haha But Yay we had Family Home Evening and it was awesome! The Pagayunan Family is the best! They are so prepared and litterally have SO many people in their family! I'm so excited to see what happens to them in the future! We were able to play games with them and then we watch the Restoration video with them and wow that was so powerful. It is such a cool sight to be sitting on the ground in this bamboo hut and then you just get to see this huge beautiful family watch Joseph Smith's experience. Literally the experience that changed the whole world. Wow, I can't even express to you how awesome it was to witness that. The Holy Ghost confirms to me every time we share about Joseph Smith and his experience that it is true. I know for a fact that Joseph Smith was a true prophet called of God. I can't express how truly blessed we are to have the truth in our lives. So anyway the Pagayunan family is so great!

Secondly and kinda really big news... I have a new companion!! One of the Sisters in our kabahay was kind of struggling and has been for quite a while so we thought she would just get transfered in two weeks at transfer day, but instead for some odd reason it happened this week. BAM so she left and I acutally got moved to Coron B and am Companions with Sister Vaka!! Ahhhhhh It is so awesome! Sister Fermin now has a new companion named Sister Lamberte and she is really cute! But I don't know if you remember Sister Vaka, she is the one from Canada who I had my first exchange with. She is so great and honestly I feel so blessed I am able to be her companion! The only thing that's kinda sucks is she leaves to go home from her mission in June soooooo that's sad, but that's far from now so it's fine! haha the other hard thing is I moved from Coron A to Coron B.. So now I have to learn a whole new area and new people... and I won't be able to teach the Pagayunan family anymore... so that's really sad. But hey at least if they come to church I will see them so that's cool! :) So that's what happened and now I have my first foreigner companion who really pushes me to talk, WHICH IS SO GOOD!! I'm gonna get really good at Tagalog and everything and it's gonna be awesome!! I love being her companion and it's only been three days so YAY!!

Lastly, our branch. Our branch is absolutley wonderful. Wow if you guys could come and feel the spirit that is here in Coron you would die. We have so many faithful youth in our ward. Some of them have no family who are LDS but yet they still come to church and work with the missionaries and are so dedicated to this work. Also most everyone in our branch is a convert of 3 years or under. Wow our branch is simply amazing. There are no words to describe how amazing the people are here. I love love love them. Everyone is so diligent and faithful even tho they have so many hardships and challenges. I hope we can all choose to be like them. 

I am so excited for conference! I know you all already saw it, but we see it a week late so I will be seeing it on Saturday and Sunday. I am so excited. I'm gonna be in the missionary count! :) Yay Conference is so cool. I hope you all listened and heard the great words of the Prophet. One of my favorite parts about conference is when the Apostles and Prophet testify of being a witness of Jesus Christ. Ahhh I love that. All I can say to you all is be happy, show acts of service to eachother, and always strive for the companionship of the Holy Ghost in your lives. Be worthy to always have Him with you. The Holy Ghost is so important to lead and guide our lives in the right direction. I truly testify of that. I love you all, and just think in one month I get to skype you again!! :) Time is flying!

Mahal ko kayo!

Sister Barton 

Back to Manila

Family!!

This week was great! I had the  opportunity to go back to Manila for Zone Conference and it was amazing. We also got to go to the temple on Thursday which was double amazing, and to top it all off, I received many beautiful letters and packages from the dearest people. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 

So we were able to go to Manila on Monday and guess who is the new nurse for the Manila Mission for a short time? Sister Taylor. So I met her on Monday because I had a doctors appointment. She looked so familiar and I didn't know why, but we started talking and she said she had 11 kids and was from Kaysville. So then I started putting peices together and turns out she is John Taylor and like Sarah Taylor's Mom! Small world right? She is taking over the mission nurse for just a little time right now until June so I thought that was super cool cuz I got to talk to her for a while and I just really like talking to people who are from where I'm from. It's awesome. 

Anyway, then on Wednesday we had Zone Conference. We were so so so lucky cuz guess who (on sunday) was asked to teach a portion of Zone Conference... Me and Sister Fermin. Hahaha when we got asked I was like yeah whatever cuz i was focusing on talking at church that sunday, but then wednesday came around and I was like Oh my gosh we have to teach in zone conference. Hahaha not to mention I am like what 5 months into my mission and I'm suppossed to teach these experienced missionaries on how to be better at planning and stuff.. Ahhhh I was freaking out. It was a good experience tho, but I hope it never happens again. Plus it was in English so that was cool :) (My tagalog is getting better, but slowly. Slowly is the key word in there)

Also I'm just going to take a second and express on how much I LOVE my mission President. President Ostler is the neatest man. Oh my goodness, I feel so blessed that he is my Mission President. We were able to have interviews with him and he just is so inspired and really is a man of God. He helps love and lift me. He is so amazing, i really can't express how grateful I am to have come to the Manila Philippines mission just because I get him as my Mission President. He is absolutely amazing. 

We were also very fortunate to attend the Manila Temple on Thursday and wow was I so thankful. I have been struggling a little bit to just keep on enduring. Honestly, I cannot express how hard a mission is. I feel physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually exahusted all the time. It's exahusting haha but really a mission is so worth it, but It is very very difficult. So I felt very blessed to be able to enter the temple and just feel of the peace and calmness there. It really is the closest place to heaven. I challenge every single one of you to always be worthy to have a temple recommend and then USE IT! Living in Utah we are so so so so blessed to be able to have so many temples. Take advantage of them.

Lastly, Happy Easter everyone. Mom thank you for the package, it made my whole life. Especially the Cadburry eggs :) and Ang Plano ng Kaligtasan wood thing. That'll be really helpful in Lessons so thank you. Also thanks Alli for the cute Valentines Package and the many letters I received from many of you. I love love love letters so I feel very blessed to have received so many! :) THANK YOU!

I want to just express really quickly how grateful I am for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Wow. The Atonement is so deep and can help anyone. As it being Easter and us reflecting on his Resurrection, it just makes me ponder about how lucky we are that Jesus Christ, our Savior overcame death for each and everyone of us so that we could return back to our Loving Heavenly Father. How grateful I am for the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. As well as he overcame Sin for us. All we need to do in return is have Faith in Him and repent. I loved this quote I read in a book the other day, It says, "The offer is always there; the way is always open. We can always, even in our darkest hour and most disastrous errors, look to the Son of God and live." Wow. What a powerful statement. May we all use the Atonement in our lives daily to become perfected through our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. I love you all and hope you have a wonderful week.

Mahal Ko Kayo,

Sister Barton

Procrastination at it's Finest

Family!

Ohhhhh what a week it has been here in the mission. It has been a long, tiring week, but a good one. I am learning so much about the gospel everyday it is insane. I love the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the doctrines. Everything is so simple,  but so deep and it's amazing. I love love love love it. Anyway this week has three main parts to it. First, Brother Nathan (who is the coolest man i have ever met) second, procrastination as a college students helped me out tons this week, and lastly, what I realized about our Savior Jesus Christ. So here we go.. sorry if this is long, but I also sent pics so bonus cuz im in manila for the week for zone conference so I CAN SEND PICTURES!!

So first off, brother Nathan. Now Brother Nathan is a stud. He is so brilliant. Okay so he is probably in his mid 50's okay and he is a pastor (so he knows tons and tons about the bible) So we have been teaching him for the past 4 weeks and he was taught before with the Elders as well. So we were teaching him on Thursday about the Restoration again just because he was kind of confused about the doctrine. After we taught him he was like so pumped for his Baptism (on the 26th) and he was ready to go. Then we go back to teach him the next day and he has a billion of questions about baptism. So he asks why we baptize with the words we do when we are suppossed to be baptized in Jesus's Christs name. Why would we just say the Son? So I show him 3 Nephi 11 where Jesus specifically says the words we should use when we baptize. Then he understands and then starts asking questions about the God Head. He asked, why does it say the Father is in the Son and the Son in the Father, wouldn't that mean they are one? Why does it say in? So of course we were like no they aren't one, they are one in purpose, but not one being. It was kind of an interesting question if you dwell on it tho. So later that night we went home and told the sisters in our kabahay about it. Sister Vaka is so into doctrine she loves deep doctrine so when we said it, we all got out our scriptures and started studying the God head for the rest of the night. The thing is tho we have a 10:30pm curfew where are lights have to be out. So what we did is turned of the lights at 10:30 and just continued to study. Hahaha It was awesome. Just using flashlights and studying about the God Head. The unfortunate part was we didn't realize we stayed up studying until 3:00am... so that was a bummer considering we had to be up at 6:30amthe next morning. But anyway it's fine. We came up with a conclusion of why it says in tho, but you guys can ponder that question and come up with an answer of your own:) But anyway Nathan is great and he is getting baptized this coming Saturday so HOLLA!!

Next, Soooooo you know how i was a really big procrastinator all throughout my life and really really bad in college? Yeah, well it all payed off on Saturday night. So Friday nightwe were studying the doctrine so we didn't sleep. Then Saturday morning we get a call from the branch president telling us that we are going to be Speaking on sunday for 10-15 mins on a topic of our choice. So of course I start freaking out cuz i'm still not good at tagalog in speaking and in writing I am absolutely horrible cuz i don't know the grammar. soooo i'm freaking out. So all throughout the day im pondering on what I think the branch needs and trying to write this talk in english first so I can translate it later in tagalog and ahhhh man, lets just say I was stressing. Anyway, so I wrote my whole talk in English throughout the day. The topic I chose was on the attributes of Christ and how we can more fully develop them in ourselves. I decided to focus mainly on humility. Great topic, great talk, horrible word choice when it came to tagalog. So in tagalog Humility or humble is Magpapakumbaba. Yeah freaking longest word ever.. hahah so that was awesome. So that night I had my companion read it and translate each sentence while I video'd it. Then I listened to the video over and over again and wrote it down in Tagalog/ Translated it. Okay so It took my 4 hours to translate a 15 min talk in Tagalog. I didn't go to sleep until 4:00am. That is where my procrastination and my ability to work at night really cam in handy So I feel so so so thankful for that. Anyway afterwards It made me really ponder about Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon. I know with my whole heart and soul that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. No man could ever translate a whole scriptorial book without the power of God in what like 40 days? Wow. I know that Joseph Smith had the power and authority from God to translate the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon is so so so great. It is literally evidence that everything we believe in is true. It is evidence that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, that Jesus Christ is the Living Son of God, and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the only true restored church on the face of the Earth today. I feel so blessed to be apart of this great work. Everyone read the Book of Mormon everyday and I promise you, The Lord promises you that you will be able to overcome anything. Ahhhh it is so so so great.

The last and one of the greatest things I learned this week is how blessed we are to be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. So In Coron it is just a branch. So very very few people. Most of them are recent converts of 3 years or less. I feel blessed to be apart of this work in helping them strengthen their faith. It is amazing to see how much love they have for the gospel and how devoted they are. Easter is on Sunday and we had a challenge from our mission president to read the accounts of the Savior in the New Testament. It was amazing to feel the power behind the apostles words of the Savior and to really understand what Easter Is all about. Easter is the time when Jesus Christ was resurrected. He overcame Physical Death for all of us. We owe Him everything. Let us serve him everyday. I heard this quote this week and I can't remember it fully, but in summary it is like, "You are a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, you know the fullness of this gospel, you do not have the right to do anything stupid or make wrong choices." This just made me think, yeah, why do we make wrong choices? We know the truth, we know how we can return to Heavenly Father, Why do we make wrong decisions that ruin our lives and others? I'm not quite sure, but I know that as we strive to live this gospel with all of our hearts, the Lord will bless us. We will be able to endure to the end. I love you all so much. I thank you for the support and the prayers. Serve the Lord everyday, for that is the only way the Kingdom of God here on earth will grow. 

Mahal ko kayo,

Sister Barton 

First Sister Zone Leader

Family! 

First of all I just wanted to say I LOVE CORON!! I LOVE IT I LOVE IT I LOVE IT. It is freaking way hard, but I love it with my whole heart. I can't express how much I love it here. This place is the best. I have freaking crazy experiences everyday and it is so cool. This week we were able to have Zone Conference, do service projects, & go to the beach! I had the best week. I still struggle with the whole language thing, but i've learned to just accept it and try my best even tho everyone laughs at me.. ahaha you really learn Humility being a language training missionary. It's fine cuz I like laughing so people laugh at me, I laugh at myself, and then we all laugh together and it's great :)

Anyway, let me just introduce my new title... hello i'm Sister Barton and I was the first zone leader here in Coron. hahahahaha literally since we have no Elders on the Island we take turns being district and zone leader and It was my turn and it just so happened to be zone meeting so I taught a lesson about Humility and it was great. I'm a great zone leader hahahah just kidding, but really I learned so much having to teach about Humility. Jesus Christ was literally the most perfect example of humility. He literally descended below all things and came to this Earth to die for you and for me. Ahhhh we have a challenge for these next two weeks to learn more about Jesus Christ (considering it's easter soon) So I'm reading the New Testament and Wow. I love reading about Jesus Christ and his life. I can't believe I, like ME, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ and I get to wear his name on my heart everyday. wow. I love love love being a missionary. It's harder than I could have ever imagined, and sometimes I feel so discouraged and just want to give up and go home, I have never felt so weak, but so strong in my entire life. I love my mission. 

Secondly, On Saturday we got to do a service project way back in the mountain of coron and it was so fun! We decorated for a birthday party and we made balloons and stuff and it's funny cuz I still can't communicate way well with everyone, but the kids and I have so much fun. We just were playing pass with the balloons and playing baseball with them and man I love kids. They literally make my whole mission. I have so many cool pictures, but this computer is really not wanting me to send pictures... so I don't really know what to do.. haha it's terrible.. Hopefully I will be able to send them next week because we fly back to Manila for Zone Conference (I won't be the zone leader there) hahaha but really the service project was so fun. It's so cool to be here because we have so many service projects we get to do. Like in a week or two one of mine and Sister Fermin's investigators wants us to help her build her house so we are going to get the whole branch together and build a house so YAY!! I'm so pumped. We also ate rice on the floor. haha I love the culture here. I'm gonna be so weird when I get home just because I think I embrace the culture a little too much. I am starting to do everything like a Filipino :)

Today, WE WENT TO THE BEACH!! I have way sick pictures of us at the beach, but for some reason it's not working... ahhhhh so frusturating but whatever. I don't think you guys even know how funny it is to live here. There is like nothing, but It's awesome. haha when we went to the beach we just sat there in the sand and got to stand there looking at the ocean and just breathe in the fresh smells. Wow I feel so so so blessed to be here I can't even begin to tell you. I love it here. There are definitely a lot of trials still. We actually showered this week at our neighbors house because we had no water... so we still are struggling when it comes to water and food. haha and money.. the Elders didn't leave any money for the bills so I had to pay 4000 pesos for the electric bill for the last two months (don't worry i'll get reimbursed, but for now.. walang pera). Wow. I love Elders hahaha life is definitely more fun in the Philippines. That's really all I can say.

Anyway fam that's all I can really report for this week. I love you all and I hope you are doing good. So many spiritual experiences happen everyday and I feel blessed to be serving these beautiful people and sharing the beautiful gospel of Jesus Christ with them. All I can say Is I love being a missionary. I love my mission. I love my people. "Trust in the Lord, and do good;" Psalms 37:3

Mahal ko kayo,

Sister Barton