Abbey in the Philippines: Sister Abbey Hafen // Week Twenty-Eight // "SO MUCH FOOD"

Okay first things first... this week ROCKED. Seriously, we had members and our investigators inviting us over left and right to eat food and visit with them. 23, 24, 25, and 26th we had dinners, lunches, meryenda (snack time), everything. It was so awesome. We shared Mosiah 3:1-12 with everyone, and used it as our Christmas Story. This is when King Benjamin is speaking, and in the beginning he's saying to wake up! arise! listen up! he has great tidings of great joy. The great joy, the good news, is that there is a SAVIOR coming. To fulfill everything we need. Man. I won't give the whole lesson here in this email even though I want to, it was such a cool message. We had a great experience sharing it. We read verses 1-12 and each took turns reading the verse and then whoever read the verse, explained. It was so fun to see our less actives and investigators pull this story apart piece by piece and watching them discover the real christmas message. The real reason the Savior came to earth.

We visited Sister Raquel (less active 14 yrs old) and we haven't seen her in a while, she's always been gone or busy when we drop by but finally on christmas eve, she was home. When we started this day, I was really doubtful of people actually letting us come in a teach because its Christmas Eve. Boy was I wrong. Everyone was soo happy to see us this week. SO happy. So anyway, Sister Raquel. We go in and she just is so happy we are there. She then says "its been so long since you've been here, why?" haha we told her we'd been coming by but she hasn't been here! Anyway, so we share the Christmas Story in Mosiah 3 and it was so awesome. She really just gets the gospel and it was a great lesson. She goes to a catholic school (like the rest of the people in the philippines) and so always has a lot of questions that her friends ask her at school. She asks a ton of questions, and sometimes she feels bad, but we just told her it is good to ask questions. It's good to ask questions and search out answers- it builds your testimony a ton. Just remember what Pres. Uchtdorf said and "doubt your DOUBTS before you doubt your FAITH." But Elder Holland also said we've all questioned what we believed, we've all "thought twice". It's healthy. We always need to re-charge our testimony. Anyway, so she then said the closing prayer and in her prayer just thanked heavenly father for us and expressed how happy she was that we were there. It was such a cool lesson.

Christmas Eve night, we shared the Mosiah 3 Christmas Story to our investigator family Dela Pena, and it once again was so cool. Completely centered on Christ, and his purpose for coming to earth. Why he was born. After the lesson, we headed over to the member's house who referred this family, and we all had Christmas Eve Dinner together. It was SO fun. We had such a good time and I was just so happy. All week I've been so happy. This time of year is the best.

Christmas Day Skype was SO fun. Seriously, so fun. Short, but perfect amount of time, right? I was so happy to see you guys in real life, (ha real life) and so fun to just TALK. I loved it so much, it was perf.

We also had splits this week, which always rock. I split again with the american, Sister Stabenow. It was so fun. She is so sweet and we had a blast. It's so helpful and I learned a TON. We did a house make over and cleaned a members house from top to bottom for a CSP. It was fun and who doesn't love wearing pday clothes?!

One last story- we recieved an OYM referral from some missionaries (they just randomly talk to someone on the street and then find out they aren't in their area, so they giv eyou their information, and then youcontact them.) so we contacted him. Sister Stabenow and I stopped by kind of late that night, and as we were talking to his wife, he pulled up in his tricee. We talked to them, his wife went inside, and then he talked to us for a little. We set up another day to come by, and he asked if there was any more things we had for him to read becuase "he was done with the restoration one and knows all about the prophets and how the great apostasy happened and then joseph smith came.." haha he is so awesome. We gave him a plan of salvation pamphlet and then set up another time to come over. What a champ. Sister Atienza and I returned a different night, but his wife was already asleep so we told him we can't teach him without another sister. Anyway, so then he says "I already read the pamphlets, and because my wife is going to be going abroad in february, I'll probably be the only one to become a member of the church. Also, I have read a lot from a book of mormon before but I don't have one now, can I get one?"

... I honestly just was in awe. I looked at him and said "Yes. Yes you can" and gave him a book of mormon. We see him and his family later tonight. We are so excited. What the humble-searching-for-truth-triceedriver?! I love it. Pray for our lesson to Jovito later.

Thats all. I love my life, I love my mission, I love the language, I love the Savior, I love everything. I love you, I love every one of you. I love learning new things every day and I love this gospel. God is good and Jesus is the CHRIST. Sharing the message in Mosiah all week was so special, especially in the tagalog language, using the tagalog book of mormon, preaching it to the tagalog speaking people. Even the random people I talked to on the street during this season were receptive. I'm so lucky that although I came into the mission field so unprepared, Heavenly Father still trusted me to come here and be with these people. Every day is hard but every day is 100% so good.

Love,

Sister Hafen

The irrigation behind the Dela Pena family's house (investigators)

Hello kids.

The view from the top balcony of a members house. Those two tricee's are the EQ president's, and when you enter right after that black tricee, that's the RS and EQ's family compound.