Sister Brianne Mortensen: I'm Going To Do What I Know I Need To Do And Then Watch For The Miracles To Come

Hello!

Haha ok i'm gonna answer as many of your questions as I can :)

Sister Geraldez is from cebu, so she speaks cebuano and is really good at waray now too :). I LOVE her :) she is my going home batch! so she goes home same time as me :)

Mason is coming to the philippines!!!!!! I'm excited for him, he's gonna love it :). good luck with the tagalog! :)

biliran is probably about the same or smaller as hinunangan. very rural, and SO BEAUTIFUL :)

Brother O-- is the man preparing for his baptism! his daughter N-- will be baptized with him too :). His wife is less active but recently returned! I LOVE this family, they are so wonderful :). Brother smoked once last week and is SO CLOSE to stopping completely!! he wants to stop soooo bad but there's lots of temptations from friends and work and such. But he's gonna do it :)

my shoes are just fine, i'm still using the same pair :)

the water buffalos are used to plow the rice fields. they ride them home from the ricefields sometimes too. and to take pictures :)

The food is all delicious! the one thing that i haven't liked is..... durian! We bought some last monday since we both wanted to try it....and it was pretty gross! haha dad, didn't you say you liked that...? haha are you sure it was durian?

wow sounds like such a great week! I especially love all the pictures! everyone is getting so old! Especially all the little ones! sophie and olin and all them! holy moly!

and ali, LOVE the picture....haha! I think you guys have tooo much fun together :)

also, i think i forgot to tell you last week....we are the STLs! me and sister geraldez :) and last tuesday and wednesday we got to go on exchanges! ! I got to work in Cabucgayan with Sister Lunar! I was very excited but also pretty nervous, since it was my first time being the leader thats doing the exchanges! Luckily, sister Lunar is SO great, and I learned SO much from her sweet example. she's still in her training, this is her second cycle right now. Sister Geraldez says that last transfer she was very nervous about leading the area and also worried about her language. She is learning waray, cebuano, and english all at once! But she is doing a great job :). She led the area very well :). Even when we got punted a couple times, she knew exactly where else we could go. Her language is really good as well, but she's just not too confident with it yet. She set some goals to help her improve, so hopefully that will help :). I LOVE her, she is such a sweet sister and a wonderful missionary. so humble :) I learned so much from her :).

I also wanted to tell you about our work with Sister Maurer last saturday! It was SOO wonderful to work with her :). We had to walk pretty far, but she was totally happy to do it! we taught a group of ladies about tithing. Three of them are older, in their 70s and 80s, and are active. They walk to church every sunday! and it is a FAR walk. And the other lady is a little younger and is less active. We were teaching and they were all pretty talkative, and then at one point sister Maurer asked if she could share a little. She began talking and we translated for her and the Spirit came into the room SO strong. They all just sat and listened to her :). She made a huge difference in the lesson and helped them to realize it all depended on their FAITH. They all committed to pay their tithing, and they ALL came to church yesterday :). After the lesson sister Maurer told us that at first she was having a really hard time getting inspiration about what she should share. she knows very little waray so she just relys on the spirit :). We had told her before that we were going to teach about repentance, but then we ended up teaching a different less active than we had planned on, so we switched to tithing. And i forgot to tell her, oops :). So she says she was having a really hard time, but then realized that we were teaching about tithing. And THEN, the inspiration started coming, and she knew what she wanted to share. The spirit really does lead us as we teach. What she shared was PERFECT for the lesson, and we all could really feel the strength of her testimony. We were so grateful for the opportunity to work with sister Maurer! She says she only has gotten the chance to work with missionaries like this 5 or 6 times since she's been here, and one other time was with me too in hinunangan! How lucky am I :)

In our district meeting this week, we talked about being exactly obedient.....and i'm recommitting :). I'm gonna stop those little disobedience's and just... be obedient! DO what I know we need to :). and then watch for the miracles to come! we've already started seeing them, including working with sister maurer :). So from now on, till the end of my mission and when i'm home as well, i'm just gonna do EVERYTHING i can to be EXACTLY obedient. Being here on the mission, I've already seen myself and my desires and everything, change so much. And i've seen it in others as well. But I still have a LONG ways to go :). But i'm gonna start now and just keep going :)

Love you all so so much :). You're the best! :) talk to you next week!!

Sister Mortensen

P.S. Mom will you send me a recipe for icecream in a bag. My companion and I both love icecream and want to make it. thank you mom.