Miracles & Baptisms

 Hello friends! 

I hope you all had a fantastic week! I cannot believe it is already December! Christmas is coming! Send me an email to tell me about your Christmas celebrations. I would love to hear about it!!

This week was fantastic!

First, the absolute highlight of the week:

Drumroll, please…

Maycie and Tintin were BAPTIZED!! AHHH!! Let me tell you, Saturday was so special. One of our recent converts, Brother Pascual Tan got to perform the ordinance. This was special because he just received the priesthood last week! It was a full-circle experience for me. I was here when he was baptized, and now he is baptizing our new converts. I was excited for him to take the next step on his conversion process, and I was thrilled to be involved in it!  

When Meysee and Tintin came out of the water, they were absolutely glowing. They came back into the room with the biggest smiles on their faces. I am so happy for them. It was definitely a day in my mission I will never forget. 

I will never forget how we first met them: A little over a month ago, Meysee and Tintin just randomly came and sat down in one of our lessons with an interested friend, the next day they came to church, and now here they are. I am so proud of them and all the sacrifices they made. They are so diligent in keeping the commandments and they are so good at praying and reading the scriptures. I love them. I cannot express in words how special Saturday was for me and for them. My happiness for them feels tangible.

The baptism was the best part of the week, but we had some other successes too!

We had exchanges this week! 

I was actually not really looking forward to exchanges. I was a little nervous. When we started exchanges, my companion for the day didn’t really let me talk that much. I think she thought I didn’t know Tagalog. It was actually a little hard and discouraging. But as the day progressed, I learned to just step in and show that I could speak Tagalog. I know my Tagalog is not perfect and there is a lot of room for improvement still, but I can teach lessons, so it was a practice on using my confidence. It ended up being a really fun time. As I trusted in myself and God’s help, I was able to say the things I wanted to say. I also got to learn a lot from Sister Dalisay (my companion for the day). It was a good experience!

This week was of course filled with miracles, one of these miracles was with the lessons with the Caliguiran family:

We have been teaching the Caliguiran family for about two months now and they have not come to church. Every time we invite them, they say they are busy with their business and they cannot afford to miss one day.

This week, when Sister Nacar and I sat down to teach, I turned to Sister Nacar and said that we needed to be a little more specific with the promised blessing and tell them that as they exercised faith to come to church, God would bless their businesses to become more successful. At the end of the lesson, we extended the invitation and the promised blessing, and the spirit was so strong. They said they would come to church.

Now, fast forward a few days. Our lesson plan was to teach about following the prophet. But as we sat down, I turned to Sister Nacar and said we needed to teach about miracles and faith. 

This was probably one of the most spiritual lessons I have ever had on my mission. We taught about how we had to act in faith for miracles to happen in our lives. God is a God of miracles, and the miracles happen after the trial of our faith. At the end of the lesson, we repeated our invitation for them to come to church. The spirit was so strong. They all agreed that they would come to church the next day.

Sunday morning, Sister Nacar and I very anxiously awaited their arrival, and at exactly 11:00 am, the whole Caliguiran family came to church!! I was soooooo happy!! It was a miracle for sure!

This experience was a testimony to me that the Holy Ghost speaks to us what we need to say. When a thought comes into our head, it is the Holy Ghost testifying about what needs to be taught. I also know that the Holy Ghost can carry our messages to the hearts of the people we teach. I am so grateful for the opportunity to help people come closer to Christ and do the Lord’s work. And I have faith that the Lord is going to make our promise a reality this week. Please pray extra hard for the Caliguiran family.

We also had another miracle this week. The mom of Sister Tintin and Maycie came to church this week! She has not been too interested, so her coming was a huge blessing and miracle. As did Brother Larry!! We had a lot of friends come to church. In fact, we had 8 people come to church! It was a miracle to see them keep their commitments and come closer to Christ. 

God’s hand is in His work. I am just his servant here in the Philippines. When I let go of whatever I am thinking and give it to God, He magnifies my efforts and makes me more than I could be on my own.

Overall, this week helped me grow my faith in my Savior and come a little closer to Him each day. I do love it here in Tumauini! And this was probably my favorite week on my mission!! I am so happy.

For my spiritual thought this week, I wanted to continue the thought on prayer that I shared last week. 

Preach My Gospel says:

“Always express gratitude. A conscious effort to be grateful will help you recognize how merciful God has been in your life. It will open your heart and mind to inspiration.”

I love this thought. Halfway through the week, we were traveling back from a meeting in Ilagan. As I was sitting in the van, I just started thinking about all that God had given me and how grateful I was. I decided to offer a prayer of gratitude. It was a healing prayer. I felt God’s love, and I was so grateful for the opportunity to express gratitude to God. 

I want to invite all of you to take a minute and offer a prayer of gratitude to God. Even for 5 minutes, just express gratitude. It helped me feel the spirit stronger throughout my whole day, and I know it can do the same for you.

I love you all. This week was filled with miracles. I hope you all saw miracles in your week too! I know that God sends miracles to all of us, we just have to look for them!

I hope you all have another great week! 

The church is true, God loves you,

Be happy, Be brave, Be smart,

Love,

Sister Miller