Beverly is Amazing!

Okay so Beverlyn is the most AMAZING investigator ever!! She's so good. I'm gonna ask a favor of you all to pray for her that she keeps making progress. Last week at church she told me that she likes English a lot and only writes in her journal in English so that she can learn it quicker. So last week we taught her before the FHE at president's house and we brought her an English BOM. When she turned around and saw it you might've thought we'd given her a car or something from the look on her face. She was SO so excited. Probably one of my favorite moments in my mission. She also is a genius at references. Like we shared a scripture with her and the next lesson I was like "like it said in that scripture we shared with you last time.." and she's like "Oh yeah! Alma 34:32!" And I felt a little like she's a genius because half the time I can't even remember that reference.. Haha. She told us that her mom said she can join whatever church she wanted as long as she had faith and she was like "promise mom?! promise?!" And it's so cute she even says promise in English. Also she told us that she had a different feeling than she's ever had before when she went to church. And that she knew all the answers in church but she was too shy to say them! She's so incredible. And she said that she's never connected with the bible the way she does with the BOM. She says that she understands how the bible needs the BOM to stand. One reallly cool lesson we had with her, we found her asleep on her bed with the BOM open in Visaya and English and the pamphlets we gave her and also the marker I gave her to mark her scriptures in her hand. She's so adorable. Also, President taught her about the temple and she wants to go really badly. The only bad thing is that she goes home again about a week after her baptism :( So we have to pray that everything works out for her and she'll find at least a meeting house where she's from. So prayers from home will help a lot!! (:

So our water is broken at our house. We don't really know what the deal is with it. But on Friday we cleaned our whole house (they gave us a cleaning day) And we needed water for that. So the sisters prayed (I wasn't with them at the moment) and it immediately turned on even though the pump had been going on for hours with nothing happening. Pretty cool. Then a couple days later it broke again. So I just said a prayer to myself. And.. nothing. The pump still didn't work. But I just thought to myself; if Heavenly Father answered every prayer immediately, we wouldn't build the faith that we need. So I just turned the pump off to let it rest and wen't into the house. About 20 minutes later, the STL's came home and S. Schaap turned the pump on. And it worked! I was really glad that my prayer was answered. Then on Sunday, Beverlyn didn't show up for sacrament. My stomach dropped. But I just prayed really hard that she'd show up. About 5 minutes before it ended, she came!! She couldn't find a ride, but she still came! And the YW said she participated in class and made friends! I've definitely gained a stronger testimony of the power of prayer this week. 

The 26th was National Day of Service! We went to the beach and picked up trash. I gained a pretty impressive sunburn even though I used sunscreen. It was awesome though. Another investigator of ours, Genevieve, came too! It was awesome because she got fellowshipped really well. She also came to church! I just am worried that for her it's more about the friends. We just need to go visit her a little more. 

Also, the shoes that I got in Cebu broke, and I had been wearing S. Schaap's that got rubbed against a tire so there was a hole in them. But S. Lindsey gave me this really nice rubber pair from Crocs. She's so nice! She said she already had a pair. This is someone who lost everything in that house in Yolanda (her and S. Schaap) They're both amazing. 

Okay that's my week! I love you all!!! I will be praying for you!! (:

Sister Sprouse

Good Friday and Easter Sunday

Hello my beloved loved ones! I am happy to write you all and also receive your wonderful responses. I love you all, and I'm sorry for all the English I have already forgotten. Haha.

This week, we got an opportunity to teach the most golden family I have ever met. As in, they were taking notes of what we were teaching them! They are so cute! They are also not ours :( We live with the STL's and they need them to be taught but don't have time to do it themselves with splits, so we got the priveledge of teaching them. The fun thing for me is that they are Tagalog speaking, taga Manila. So I got to take a break from Visaya and teach them in Tagalog! It was awesome! When the STL's went back to them later that week, they came home and said "Sisters, I think they like you more than they like us! Sister Sprouse, they kept talking about how you sat on the floor and it's so cool and how you don't even know Visaya!" It was so funny! I definitely have a testimony about the gift of tongues! 

Also, we have been teaching the house help of our branch president, Beverlin. She is stinking adorable! We watched the Restoration with her and she was so cute afterward. She was like "gitouched ko" or I'm touched haha. We committed her to be baptized May 17! We are really excited! She also went to church this last Sunday and we think she really enjoyed it! She said she made friends so I hope so! It was cool to get to sit by her and kind of explain what we do in our church (she's catholic so it's very different to her) Tonight she will be at our FHE and we're also teaching her too! I hope she will make even more friends. 

Well.. Thursday was my halfway point in the mission. It's crazy how fast the time went. I guess it helped that a super typhoon ate our mission.. Haha but still it's crazy to me. Usually I feel like I'm still only 2 months old in the mission. I am on the downhill now but I can't think about that because I have too much to do!! (: But for my "birthday" we had french toast and then we went out to eat BBQ for lunch. Then we got to work.

Easter Friday is kind of crazy in the Philippines. They call it good Friday, and they have these festivals where they actually crucify people. It's terrible. And even though it's been made illegal the Catholics still do it, so we missionaries aren't allowed to work. Instead, we went to the meeting house (we don't have a chapel yet in Naval) and watched The Best Two Years and The Other Side of Heaven. It was cool to watch movies about missionaries! You appreciate them much more when you've been a missionary. 

Also on Friday, the STL's surprised us with an Easter Hunt! It was so cute! They made a cute poster for us and hid candy. It was nice; felt like home! (:

Khia's baptism was Friday! It was so cool! We rode on President's truck and we went to Beliran, which is about 45 minutes away. With Khia, she is not a very expressive person at all, but after she was baptised she bore her testimony and it was so good and the spirit was definitely there. Also, she thanked the missionaries and almost cried! It was so cool. I was so so happy for her. 

Okay that's all I've got for this week, but I am just really happy to be here. Missionary work is hard for sure, but I'm definitely not praying for my burdens to be lighter. I am just praying for my back to be stronger to be able to carry them. I have never in my life felt this much importance in trying to become like Jesus. Obviously I'm not there yet, but I am working hard to get there! I LOVE YOU ALL! Have a wonderful week!!! 

Sister Sprouse

Lunch with the Andaya's

This week was good! The problem is I forgot to bring my outline AGAIN! So I will do my best!  Dang it. Sorry. Haha.

Mom, I'm glad you enjoyed the picture of the spider. Haha. The lucky thing about that kind of spider is that even though it's giant, it actually isn't poisonous or harmless. When I saw it I was actually excited because up to that point I hadn't really seen the "giant" spiders everyone talked about.

Hmm. So this week was really good. I finished reading D&C all the way through for the very first time in my life! Sad to say that I hadn't done that till my mission, but I am glad to say I've done it now. It's so amazing and teaches so many vital doctrines of our church. Or I should say it supports tons of vital doctrines that are in the Book of Mormon.

So one interesting thing that happened to us this week is that we destroyed this bunk bed that was infested with termites in our apartment. It was pretty bad. Dust fell on it every day and it was like heavy sawdust. I was sleeping on the top and every time I got on it I felt like Yolanda was back again. Haha. So we (the four of us living in our apartment) took a tiny screwdriver and tried to dismantle it nicely. When that didn't work we just kicked it until it broke. It was remarkably more easy than it should have been to have four Sister Missionaries break it.

We had Zone Conference this week. It was the first zone conference to take place since Yolanda!  President and Sister Andaya will be going home on June 29. They seem not to be excited. It was so cute; Sister Andaya gave us advice for the rest of our lives also because she's "not going to be around" It was a really good, uplifting zone conference. When we drove home I was just kind of reflecting on all the things that I heard, and I was able to feel such peace. It was a bad van drive home because everyone was getting sick (the van drivers are crazy ) but I just felt Heavenly Father's love for me so deeply in that moment. It was an incredible feeling in a really unlikely place.

We got to go to Women's Conference also. It was really cute because Sister Andaya was there with her daughter and her arm around her when it talked about smiling at your mom in gratitude. Mom it made me sad to think about not being there and it definitely made me miss you, but I think that the time we will have to spend away from each other on my mission will make the time we have together when I come home even more worth it.

After the conference, President and Sister Andaya gave us a ride home, which was a relief because it meant the ride would be 20 minutes instead of 45 to an hour in a nice clean car instead of a dirty jeepnee. After that they took us to lunch also! It was really cool just having the two of us out to lunch with them. They are so nice and it was really good getting to know them better. I will miss them when it's time for them to go home. (Which will probably seem really fast since my mission is kind of flying by)

Okay that's all for now. Sorry if I forgot anything!! I love you all so much!

Ingat po kayo palagi!

Sister Sprouse