Lasting Joy

Hello, my lovely friends!!

This week was quite the adventure, so let's hop right in!

First, in case any of you were wondering when summer is in the Philippines… it is happening right now. And… it is the hottest place on the planet Earth. Send prayers—I have no idea how anyone lives like this all the time! I am barely enduring the heat. I cannot imagine doing this every year! We don't have any air conditioning, so there's really no break…we just sweat all day long…I think I will just be dehydrated for the rest of my mission.

But! On the positive side, I have learned to love my midnight showers to cool down at night! Plus, we have air conditioning at church, so that is a win too! And grocery shopping (also in the air conditioning) is becoming my absolute favorite p-day activity! 

Anyway, other than it being hotter than hot, we are having a wonderful party here in the Philippines!

This week we had exchanges!! Guess who my companion was…

…The one and only… SISTER HAMMARI!!

She was my MTC companion, and it was sooooo fun to be companions with her again. It was fun to see how much we have both progressed. I absolutely love her and it was like being companions with an old friend again. Plus, before my companion arrived, I worked in Sister Hammari's area, so I was already familiar with some of the people. I loved being able to visit with them again and see their testimonies growing.

One funny “miracle” that happened on exchanges was through food🙃. We had hoped to eat at a particular restaurant for lunch, but when we got there, we found out it was takeout only (and you had to order in advance). We were a bit disappointed but chose somewhere else to eat, which was fine. Anyways, fast forward a few hours to when we were in a teaching appointment with one of their recent converts… While we were teaching, a delivery person delivered food to her. After we finished our discussion, she offered us the food, and it was from the same restaurant we had tried to eat at earlier! It was so funny, and such a fun blessing. Plus, it was absolutely delicious! God is aware of us, even in the little things :).

Because we had exchanges, we were a little short on time to work in our area, but Sister Bacot and I got to work and had lots of miracles!!

We were able to meet a lot of new people and help them start coming closer to Christ! It is amazing opportunity to be able to help people. Sometimes, people don't accept our message, but I love helping people learn about their Savior.

We were also able to have a lot of good lessons with some of our interested friends. A lot of them are starting to progress. Please pray for Leonora and Angel as we are hoping to help them towards baptism! 

Another miracle from this week was that 4 of our friends came to church!!! We have had a few weeks where not a lot of people have come to church. But this week, a lot of our friends came. It was an absolute miracle for me because it helped me see some of the fruits of our efforts. I am so excited to be able to continue helping them!

We also faced a few disappointments this week. We have had some people who were really progressing who let us know that they have decided to stop meeting with us. It had been a little hard. I love them with all my heart and I want to see them find true joy through the gospel. But I trust God has a plan for them in in His timing all things will work out.  

As we faced some difficulties, I was reminded of a conference talk that I studied this week. Elder Uchtdorf gave a beautiful talk about finding lasting joy. He said that a lot of it has to do with our focus:

“If we seek joy—if we look for reasons to rejoice and to happily follow the Savior, we will find them. 

We rarely find something we are not looking for.

Are you looking for joy? 

Seek, and ye shall find. 

I absolutely love this reminder. Here on this earth, we face a lot of challenges. If we focus on the challenges all the time, on all the bad, the hard, the ugly, then we will only see that. if we focus on the good, on the light, on our Savior, then we will find it.

God's plan is perfect. God wants us to be happy! So as we look to Him and Jesus Christ, we will find true and lasting joy.

As I focused this week on the miracles, the little things: my wonderful companion, our progressing friends, the light of the gospel, the faithful members here, and the other many wonderful things that happened, I found great joy. It didn't matter that there were challenges, I could still find joy. My Savior is the cause of that joy.

I love this gospel. I know that it is true. I know that as we focus on the Savior, we will find lasting and true joy.

I love you all! I hope you have another great week!

The church is true, God loves you,

Be happy, Be brave, Be smart,

Love,