Love, Kristen - Week 17 (Exciting news!)

Hi Everyone!

This blog is going to be short, because BIG NEWS!!! I submitted an article to the New Era/Ensign magazine back in October about my decision to serve a mission, and guess what? THEY WANT THE STORY!!! They want me to rewrite the conclusion though from the point of a missionary though, rather than a sister about to serve. So I'll be spending some time doing that. Sorry! I can type fast though, so I'll still fill you in on quite a bit. I am sending pictures to make up for the short writing though! One is a picture of some kids of an investigator that we're teaching. A friend of our investigator, who we're also teaching, tied some ripped up palm tree leaves in their hair just to be funny, and they LOVED it, and were so cute, so I just had to take a picture with them. You can really only see the leaves in one of the girl's hair, because the leaves are in the back of the other ones, but it's still cute. The other is of me on that scary bamboo bridge we cross to get to Bakhaw (Bachao) Norte.

All right, finished, I have 8 minutes :).

Quick shoutout to Amy and Kate though! HAPPY BIRTHDAY you two!!!!!! I hope that it is a great one! Amy, be smart!! 16 years old :). Kate, enjoy yourself, and maybe go to a few dances :).

This week was great! I really love the faith of some of our investigators and their willingness to change for the Lord. It's amazing. We have three still for baptism. The hardest thing is getting them to come to church. One had to go to Iloilo because her brother had a knife go through his foot!!! And the others have been sick, and it's actually been hard to teach them period, although we do stop by and visit and offer help where we can.

I want to tell you all about this one couple though because they are SO cute! They're probably in their late 50's, and all of their children have grown up. They were taught by the missionaries in the past, but had to stop because they were just too busy with their children before. But now they're ready :). We have to go slowly with them though because they have a lot of questions, and take a little longer to understand. We've taught them the Restoration about three times now. They just really want to make sure they understand completely. They're so adorable though because although their children are grown up, and they probably have sufficient to meet their daily needs, plus a few wants probably, they still create work for themselves because they're so used to having stuff to do. Nanay Sol has a chunget, or mini store in her house, and Tatay Wilson has a cow. He takes the cow to the field everyday to feed it, and right now she's pregnant so he's had to spend a lot of time with her this week, so we only got to teach Nanay Sol. However, as we were walking back to the bamboo bridge to head back to Kalibo, we saw him, and started talking with him as he continued to walk. He said he was very sorry that he hadn't been able to meet with us, and told us about his HUGE pregnant cow (she really was ginormous), and said that he'd try to meet with us next week. As he walked past us, we saw our Plan of Salvation pamphlet rolled up in his back pocket that he had taken out to the field for some reading. We also caught him reading the Book of Mormon in his house the other day. Nanay also loves to talk to us and tell us about what it was like when she was growing up, and when she had kids at home. They're just so cute and I really hope that they continue to progress!!

Also real quick, I'm out of time, but I just want to talk again about the faithfulness of the children here. Sometimes we just teach the children because the parents aren't ready or are sometimes out drinking. It's sad, but the children run up to us whenever they see us, and so we'll teach them about prayer, or Jesus Christ, Heavenly Father, etc.It's amazing how strong they are. They'll read the pamphlets we give them and everything. We just need to get to their parents. We could baptize a few of them, but we'd need their parents permission, and we're not so sure the parents would give it. So we'll just keep planting seeds for now and pray for opportunities to either teach their parents later, or that future missionaries will contact these children when they're older.

All right, one last thing. A bird landed on my window the other day as I was studying that looked like a miniature penguin!! I'm not even kidding! It was all black, except it had a white stomach with a little yellow at top. Even it's beak was penguin-like! The only difference was that it had the feet of a sparrow instead of a penguin. It flew like a hummingbird too. It was sweet! I hope to see one again and have it stand still long enough for me to take a picture of it.

I love you all!!! Thank you for your letters, love, prayers, and support!!
Sister Danner

P.S. From Kristen's mom: She sent new photos I will be posting on Monday. Check back if they aren't here!