Sister Harris // Philippines Cebu Mission: my life.‏

Hello to all of my lovely family and friends. Are you ready to hear about the hilariousness of my life? Get ready.

Transfer calls came on Monday and we weren't really expecting anything to happen in Bacong since I'm going home next transfer and Sister Linao had only been here for one transfer. But, the Lord throws change at us when we're least expecting it and...Sister Linao is getting transferred tomorrow to Busay, Cebu (my 3rd area). I thought I was going to go my entire mission without having a Polynesian companion, but Sister Linao's puli (replacement) is Sister Tonga, from Tonga! I don't really know her but I'm super excited and happy I'll spend my last transfer in Bacong.

Last Thursday was Elder Harris' (our zone leader and my igsoon) last zone training meeting before he went home this AM so me and one of the other sisters in the zone had the idea to get him a goodbye cake and surprise him with it on Thursday. We told them that the cake was for a boy but when we went to pick it up it had flowers all over it and the i's on his name was dotted with heart....at least they used blue icing and he enjoyed the cake, and it all worked out in the end haha.

We were eating lunch at the house on Sunday and we heard someone outside our house, so we went outside and there were some Jehovah's Witness missionaries, they wanted to teach us! You should've seen their faces when I started speaking Cebuano to them and told them that I too am a missionary, but for the true church of Jesus Christ! That was interesting.

I told you guys last week about how my companion's shoe got stolen by a dog and her umbrella broke. Well I guess what goes around comes around, because this week both of those things happened to me! I thought for sure that my shoe was long gone, maybe Prince Charming took it away and I wasn't going to get it back till I got home...but we found it a few days later randomly in a place kinda far from where I lost it so that was weird but I'm happy to have my shoe back. I'll just deal with a somewhat broken umbrella for these 6 weeks I have left.

I don't even have a creative way to say the last thing that happened to me this week. But we are going on day 3 with no running water in the house. I thought it would be an adventure going to the pump to fetch water, I was actually kinda excited about it at first. So my companion and I woke up bright and early at 5am a few days ago carrying large buckets to go to the pump. Come to find out that they are doing some construction and pulled out the pump. So here we are walking around Bacong at 5am with large buckets looking for a place to get water WHILE IT WAS RAINING in the dark and some nice man and lady were outside their house and they asked us what we were doing, so they let us use their garden hose and we got water! Yay! That was just for one morning though, we've had to be creative and resourceful using the water that we have and that we've gotten, I feel so gross I've only used like 2.5 gallons of water to shower in the last 2 days...you never really realize how grateful you are for a showerhead and running water until you take a bucket shower....and then you have to find a way to find water to take your bucket shower... I don't really have anything else to say about that so why don't all of you just take a nice long shower today and count your blessings!

The work is progressing well in Bacong. Over the course of my 17 month mission, I've witnessed 3 weddings, and now this coming Monday I'm going to witness another one! We have a member in the branch who is getting married. His wife-to-be is named Flor and she's just started investigating the church. She's 20, really cute, and kinda sassy. Sometimes she wants to read her Book of Mormon, sometimes she doesn't, she just tells us how it is. She seems like she wants to do things on her own timetable but I'm really seeing her start to develop a testimony and it's softening her.

So to put it not so shortly, that's my week for ya. Lessons learned and experience gained. Just trying to become more fit for the kingdom of God and one step closer to my Heavenly Father, one day at a time.

Love, Sister Harris