Caitlin's Chronicles (Sister Bingham in the Philippines)

Maayong hapon! Time just flies so fast! So this week we had a baptism planned for Sister Jojo but she was really really busy with her children's graduation and their fiesta so we moved it to this Saturday. We visited them and got to see her oldest daughter, Nicole, in her graduation gown. She was the 1st princess in their school's program and another member was 4th princess so they had makeup and were super dressed up. Super cute!  I ate dinuguan this week. That basically means pig blood as a rice topping. It wasn't too bad.... Some kids threw rocks at me and my companion this week so that was cool too.  My favorite new investigator is a 15 year old boy named Joshua. He's a little shy, especially of me cause I'm the foreigner but is very kind and not a dungol. His friends are members and the first time we invited him to church he came and learned a lot and had a great experience. At our last lesson with him, I started to ask "sinn-o ang..." ...

Maayong aga liwat! (Good Morning!) it feels like I just sent an email yesterday :P So our new elder is Elder De Luna, who arrived in November the same time I did. We were really sad about Elder Cabato leaving cause he's a lot of fun, but Elder De Luna is fun too and he told me I was sagad (skilled) at Ilonggo so he's okay in my book. Anyway we had lots of good lessons this week! We had Brother and Sister Girao work with us on Wednesday as we visited Maribel, 26 year old mother of two children who's sister in law is a member, and the Gabuello family (I'll explain in a min). So Sister Maribel has accepted our invitation to be baptized on April 21 and at the same time be married to her husband (all this is okay with him). She started reading the Book of Mormon the moment we gave it to her and right now she's already in 3 Nephi!! She listens really well and really has a desire to follow Christ, the only thing she lacks is attending a church service. Siste...

Maayong hapon! (Good Morning!) So a lot of things happened this week but I don't have enough time.  First things first, Regine was baptized this week and on Sunday, she and Cion received the gift of the Holy Ghost. Regine's grandmother is a member but her mom is not. We are hoping to be able to teach her mom and help them receive the blessings of the gospel in their family. They live next to a strong member family, and it's super helpful because, for instance, Regine's mom was worried about Regine's baptismal interview, but the member was able to reassure her that it's nothing to worry about. I love the feeling of the Spirit at every baptism. It's super special. And we treated Cristal and Regine to 7/11 after so it was a party :P (see pictures) On Sunday I was surprised to see Regine wearing a white dress (they're expensive) but I was so glad that her clothes reflected her now clean conscience. Conception attended YW class and she told me t...

Maayong aga sa tanan! We met a European this week. It was weird to see a white person just chillin. We and our District leader and his companion were going to our investigator for their baptismal interview and we saw this man. So of course, we talked to him in English (3 of us being American). He really wanted to learn Ilonggo and was impressed that we Americans were able to speak to the natives. Even me, 4 months lang out here and I was translating to my companion what the European was saying. He invited us to come to his home anytime and hopefully we can teach him Illongo and the good news of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We visited one of our investigators at their store in the market who we haven't been able to teach in a while cause they are super busy. He told us that he's noticed changes, small changes, but changes nonetheless in his life and the life of his family since Sister Soriano and I started teaching them back in December. I was a little shocked to...