Faith is like a little seed

Hello from the beautiful continent of the Philippines! 

The waterfall at Wawa is flowing heavily with the start of the rainy season.

Sister Wilwand says they normally take down these little huts at the beginning of the rainy season because the heavy flow destroys them - missed one!

Some of the Sisters from her zone

Haha ok, maybe a little cheesy, but I am loving it here right now!

We have had such a good week this week! I absolutely love my companion, and I'm excited for the things that we are going to be able to do in this area for the next transfer!

Sister Apolinario and I have made a goal to find 35 new investigators in this transfer, and so far, we are doing good! We've gotten 12 so far in the last week and a half. I'm way excited! We've been doing a lot of tracting, and we've definitely seen some good things from it!

Sister Apolinario and Sister Wilwand, in the rain (with a pink??? umbrella! Must belong to Sister Apolinario!)

P-Day hike to Wawa

We're also having a lot of success with our other investigators and less-actives. I really love all of the people over here! They are absolutely amazing! We've been extending quite a few baptismal dates lately, and it's going well! I'm hoping to have my first baptism on the 26th! We have this girl who is living with a family in our ward, and she is great! We've had a couple setbacks with her baptism, and it might not go through, but we're praying so hard that it will. I'm seriously so excited for it!

Not much else has happened specifically in our area. Everything's just going well right now! I love this area and my companion, and I am loving being a missionary right now! It is definitely worth it to come out here and be a missionary!

Missionaries having fun on P-Day!

Let's see. Here's something that I've been working on lately, or something that I've been studying this week:

So lately, I've been feeling that maybe my faith hasn't been as strong as it should be. So I've been trying to do some things to strengthen my faith. Well, it has definitely been strengthened this week. We've had some cool experiences where we just had to rely on the Lord to be able to accomplish what we're doing here. For example, during one of our lessons, we had met this family for the first time. They were both members, but this was the first time we had ever found them home. So while we were starting our lesson, it was my turn to lead. I was so scared! I'd never met this family before, and I really had no idea what we were going to share with them. During our opening song and prayer, I decided that I was just going to start talking and hope that the Spirit would help me to know what to say. At the beginning of the lesson, I started asking questions, and eventually started talking to them about temples. Never having met this couple before, I wasn't sure if that was a good topic to start with, but that's what ended up happening. After the lesson, I talked to my companion, and she said that she had been thinking the exact same thing! How cool is that? Obviously this was a lesson that this couple needed, and it was amazing that my companion and I were both united enough to be able to share that with them.

I definitely still have a long ways to go with my faith, but I think it grows stronger everyday. As we read the scriptures, pray and follow the commandments of God, that's where we really grow strong. Just do it! It's amazing the blessing that can come from following Jesus Christ.

"Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life." -- 3 Nephi 5:13

That scripture is for all of us, not just the missionaries.

I love you all! Have a fantastic week!

Love,

Sister Wilwand

This is a tindahan. They have them all over the Philippines. You can just walk up and buy snacks and drinks. This one is bamboo, but Sister Wilwand said most tindahans are just people's houses.

She found ketchup flavored chips! (something her dad always buys when we go to Canada!)

Forget yourself and go to work!

Yupp! It's that time again! Transfer week! How crazy is that?? It seems like we just barely had transfers! But here we are again! Time is going so fast out here!

So, last Wednesday, we took our companions to the transfer point and sent them off to their new areas! It was so sad! I was bummed to say goodbye to Sister Kalama, but I know she's going to do great in her next area!

And so now I have a new companion! Sister Apolinario is from Manila (so pretty close), and she has about 4 months left in her mission. She's been here for a while, and she is awesome! I absolutely love teaching with her. She really is an amazing missionary, and I'm excited for all the things that I can learn from her. You can tell that she has such an amazing love of the gospel, and all the people we are teaching.. Even if she's only met them once! I love it!

We've had quite a good week this week! We got punted several times, but we've had some good lessons, and some good success in finding new investigators! I am slowly learning from Sister Apolinario how to really love people and share the gospel with them even if we don't teach them. We can see the progression in our area already! I love it!

One cool thing that happened in our area on Wednesday... We were walking to the palengke to buy groceries, and it started raining so hard! Probably harder than it ever has before while I've been here. So anyway, we were pretty much soaked as soon as we got outside, even though we had umbrellas! Well, when we were walking home from the palengke (kind of like a farmer's market), it was still raining, and it was flooding just a little bit. Pretty much everywhere. So we got to walk through a flood! I was having a blast! That's my first flood, so I was just laughing the whole time! =D

This weekend, we had a little training for the ward missionaries and ward mission leaders. It was good! I ended up being one of the ones to give a testimony. That was a little scary. And then I ended up giving a talk on Sunday too! Yikes! It was scary, but it was way fun!

What else... Today we had a really fun activity with our zone and another zone of missionaries. We were supposed to go up to a mountain, but we ended up playing sports instead because it's somewhat dangerous in the mountains right now. We played frisbee and a little soccer, and we actually played rugby! (Yes Dad, I really did play rugby!) It was way fun! Although I was a little bit confused about what exactly was going on for a while... But then we started really getting into it, and it was way fun! It was just touch, so it wasn't too rough or anything, but we had Elders and Sisters playing. We were actually pretty good!

I think that's about all that's happened this week, so I'll just share with you one more story. On Thursday, during personal study, I was having a little bit of a rough time. Sometimes, you have thoughts that just kind of pop up, like "Wow. I have a long time left." or "Why am I really out here?"... Kind of things like that. Maybe it was just because I had just gotten a new companion, I don't really know. But then, I found a letter from a friend that had a quote in it called "The Fellowship of the Unashamed". I think it's by Gordon B. Hinckley. I forgot to bring it with me, but it's really great. So I read that. I also read in the letter that I have support from my Heavenly Father, and also all the people around me. And then we went out to work. Let me tell you, the moment we stepped out the door and started thinking about the people that we were going to go visit, all those bad thoughts and feelings went away. When President Hinckley's dad told him to forget himself and go to work, he was giving away advice of gold. You just can't help but be happy when you are doing missionary work. This is the Lord's work, and we get to share our happiness and His happiness to other people. We share our love and His love to other people. Life doesn't get much better than that.

As a missionary, we have lots of hard days. Things go wrong, it rains, it's hot, we get rejected. But if we can find that joy that comes from sharing the gospel, all those things go away. Even as members. If you're having a bad day, go out and work with the missionaries. Go out and serve someone. If you're doing the work of the Lord, serving his people, and following His example, you can't be sad. I promise you that.

I love you all! Have a fantastic week!

Love,

Sister Wilwand

Transfers!

HI!!!

It seems like I emailed just yesterday! And yet, here we are again =] Time really does go by so fast out here.

So, it's transfer time again!! It looks like I'm staying here in this area!!! Unfortunately, Sister Kalama is getting transferred, but I'm excited for my new companion, Sister Apolinario. I don't really know her at all, so I'm hoping it will be a good next transfer! Sister Rasmussen is staying here, and her new companion is Sister Miner. As for Sister Munoz, we sent her to the mission home today, and she heads for home tomorrow! Crazy.

Well, this week was a fantastic week!! It all really started out on Wednesday. We had exchanges with our STLs on Wednesday, and to be honest, I was a little nervous at first. I was leading my area, and I was going out with Sister Cestona, a Sister that I didn't know super well. I had no need to be worried though, we ended up having a fantastic day! It rained, and we got wet, and we walked a lot because we got punted a ton. But! We ended up getting 10 new investigators in 2 of our lessons!!! It was awesome! I absolutely loved it. It was definitely one of my most memorable days here so far.

Not only is it the rainy season, it is HOT! The Elders put up some shade and brought out the fans so they could cool off a bit.

After that, I actually ended up getting kind of sick on Friday night. It wasn't that bad though, just a little fever and a cold. My goal is to not have any sick days in my mission, so we went out on Saturday and just had some really good lessons!!! We kind of got punted again, but we still have 4 lessons that day. They were with some really amazing less-active families whom we love so much! Especially one of the families with little kids. They are always so excited for us to come over and teach them, I love it!

On Sunday, we had a really good day! We had so many less-actives and investigators come to church, we could barely stand it

! And that night, we were finally able to get a progressing investigator! She is the niece of one of the members in our ward, and she is living with them while she goes to school here. She accepted a baptismal date, and we are super excited! She will hopefully be getting baptized on July 12th. Yay!!!

We have also had a pretty good day today too! We had a little breakfast for Sister Munoz before she headed off to the mission home. We made pancakes! They were really good! We had ice cream and pancakes and pineapple and chocolate sauce that we made. It was so yummy! And we made no-bake cookies last night and ate those too. Yum!!

Sister Munoz' goodbye pancake :) 

So pretty much, being a missionary is the best! I absolutely love it!! You have some of the coolest experiences out here, and it is amazing! I love this work, and I know that it is true. I am so excited for the amazing things that are going to happen during the rest of my mission. I love you all!

Love,

Sister Wilwand

Sister Wilwand and her trainer Sister Collins (photo from the Mission Tour a couple of weeks ago)

Sister Lavador and Sister Wilwand - former kabahays

And yes, she sent me, the world's biggest arachnophobe, a picture of a Filipino spider. I am never, ever, ever visiting!

I Will Be the One!

Hi!

This week has been a good week!!

So first, this week has been a good week because we have had a lot of really good lessons! We got a few referrals last week, and we were finally able to contact them this week. It was awesome! The one who is living with a member family is great, and she even accepted a baptismal invitation on our first visit. She's great!! I'm hoping that she might be my first baptism!

We also had a really great lesson with one of our part-member families yesterday. Our Bishop and his wife came and worked with us for that lesson, and it was awesome! Our investigator was talking about how she's so grateful for the church and the 'revival' that she has felt. She just seems so happy now that she's here, and it's amazing! We really love her a lot. We talked to her about being sealed to her family, and the spirit was just so strong there! You could just tell that she really wants to be with her family forever.

We've had some really cool lessons with some of our less-actives too. One of our lessons was just a music lesson where we taught them lots of hymns that they didn't know. We were able to teach them out of the children's hymn book too. We taught them "Love One Another", and then we taught them the sign language for it. It was awesome! We also did another music lesson with a recent convert family, and their little girls loved it! They were laughing so hard when we taught them "Once There Was a Snowman".

This week we also had Stake Conference. It was amazing! We were able to go to the Saturday night session and the Sunday morning session.On Saturday, our mission president and his wife even got to speak. It was awesome! We were really excited to get to see them one last time before they leave.

One last picture of the Montalban Zone with President & Sister Sperry before the last transfers. President & Sister Sperry will finish their time in the Philippines at the end of June.

On Sunday, I absolutely loved the talks! We had Elder Nielson (our area Presidency, getting released this year) and his wife speak. They were great! They talked a lot about temples and other inspiring things. One thing that I love was from Sister Nielson. She talked about Filipino culture and how they sometimes say things in English in a different way than we would. One of those phrases is "I will be the one." I really love that phrase! How true should that be for us? We should all be the ones to share the gospel, to go to church, to read our scriptures, to pray... It's not anyone else's job, nor should it be. We need to be the ones to change our lives, to change our attitude, to do the things that we should be doing. We need to do what the Lord wants us to do. Not what he wants our neighbor to do, or what he wants someone else to do, but we need to follow his will for us.

I've definitely learned that a lot out here in my mission. Sometimes things happen that we think shouldn't happen. Sometimes we think, "Why me?" But we shouldn't. We need to trust that the Lord knows way better than we do. He can see our future and our past better than we ever can, and we need to trust that He knows why we go through certain trials. Out here, we definitely have lots of trials, but it's so much easier if we just believe that everything will work out. And eventually it will! Maybe it won't be right away, maybe it'll be years down the road, and maybe it won't be in this life, but everything will work out. I know it will.

I love you all! I hope you are all doing amazing things! Go do something fun, and go find someone to share the gospel with.

Love,

Sister Wilwand

Oops, I forgot to tell you about today. We had a really good day today!

Sister Wilwand says "You might be wondering why I'm the only one in a batman shirt instead of superman... Let's just say we had a little... mix-up over the shirts, and I ended being the only one in Batman. But hey, aren't we looking good? =D"

First, we had a super fun zone activity. We did a little mini olympics and had a bunch of different games. We had hot dog eating, water chugging, hula hoop battles, doughnut eating, did limbo and we played volleyball and frisbee out in the bukid. I think bukid means farm. Something like that. Neither me or my kabahays were good enough to get medals, especially since we had a lot of Elders, but it was fun anyways. I realized that I can actually hula hoop! Sort of... It was way fun! I think we all got sunburned.. Or at least all of the white people, but it was worth it! Maybe I'll get a tan out of this burn...

Sister Munoz, Sister Rasmussen, Sister Wilwand and Sister Kalama

A little frisbee in the bukid 

I think the kabahays have a great time together! (another photo bombing Elder!)

Mission Tour and last interviews with President & Sister Sperry

Hello hello!!

Well, this week has been a good week! We've had lots of activities and spiritual workshops, and woo! It's been a way good last couple of days.

Let's see, the biggest thing that has happened this week was mission tour!! It was just this past Saturday, and it was fantastic! We had Elder Craig C. Christensen come down to talk to all of us. Our entire mission was in one chapel. It was way awesome! I got to see everyone from my batch, and people from my old zone back in Fairview. It was probably one of the coolest things ever! It was way neat to see so many missionaries there all at once. That talk that Elder Christensen gave us was way awesome! He talked a lot about attitude and how we just need to be positive while we're out here. I mean we are out serving the Lord, preaching his gospel. How can we not be happy about that?  It was way good! All of the talks that we were able to hear were just amazing! I loved it!

All the missionaries serving in Quezon City North

Mission tour meant reuniting with her MTC companion and dear friend, Sister Clark

Sister Kalama was Sister Clark's trainer and now is Sister Wilwand's companion. These three get along so well! Photo bombed by a couple of Elders :)

Sister Wilwand's MTC batch, together again

Reconnecting with former kabahays

Sister Cork and Sister Wilwand

More mission tour pictures (and no, not a new skirt. Just borrowed from a kabahay. I asked because I LOVE to wear that color, but haven't seen Sister Wilwand wear it much)

On Sunday, it was fast Sunday. And let me just tell you, fasting really does work! We were fasting for our area, and  we ended up getting two referrals from one family on Sunday! One is a friend of the son, and another is a cousin that is actually living with them. What?? It's so cool! We're super excited to be able to go and actually teach them this week! It'll be way great!

On Monday, we had zone interviews! Our last zone interviews with President and Sister Sperry =( We had such good talks though! President Sperry actually gave his marriage talk that he usually gives to missionaries who are leaving. He said that since he won't be here when the rest of us leave, he might as well give it to us now. It was actually really good. And Sister Sperry talked about giving everything that we have to the Lord while we are out here for the few months that we are. She was so right! As Sisters, we're only out here for 18 months. When I first got out here, that sounded like forever. Now that I've been here for almost 8 months, that sounds like nothing! It really is no time at all. We also had a talk from our Zone Leaders about having a good attitude about everything while being out here. Isn't that true though? If we don't have a good attitude, then what is the point of being out here at all?

The kabahays with Sister Sperry

  

Sister Wilwand with President & Sister Sperry. Their time is almost up and QCN will be getting a new mission president July 1st.

On Tuesday, we had zone training. The Zone Leaders gave us a really good workshop that was, again, focused on attitude. And again, it was really good! They had us all go up in front and talk about how our attitudes have changed, and the things that we have learned from our missions. Well, I didn't really know what to say, but while I was up there, I realized a few things. While I've definitely learned some things on my mission, there is still a lot more to learn! I have a lot more growing and learning to do. I'm glad that I'm barely halfway. I need all the time that I can get over here!!

It started pouring just as they got out of their jeepney after the Mission Tour. No one had umbrellas!

The beautiful sky over Quezon City. Sister Wilwand said they have lightning storms almost every night!

And today, we got to go to the temple! I loved it! I just love going to the temple. We really are blessed that we're able to live close enough to go to the temple. It's awesome! It is definitely one of the coolest places on earth. If you haven't gone in a while, go! It's so worth it.

At the temple in Manila

Well, if you can't tell, I've had a pretty good week! I'm excited to be a missionary! I love this work, and I love being out here in the Philippines preaching the gospel! I love you all! --- Alma 29:9-10

Love,

Sister Wilwand