Back To Beginnings

Dear family, 

A glimpse of motherhood

     Training a new missionary requires alot of love from the part of the trainer. I feel like I've always done a good job of praying for love and charity for the Filipinos, and I have loved all of my companions and have always prayed for them - and we've always been okay - but this. 

This is love on a whole different level. 

     This is love like the love a mother has for her child. This is a love that forces me to be as unselfish as possible and to love and care and nurture and watch over this soul. This sister. My "anak" (child). It has only been five days, but I already know that the Lord is going to stretch me in a way completely different from any other way that He has stretched me before. And I will learn, much more, about love. I will learn, much more, about patience. I will learn, much more, about humility. I will learn what it means to love a child. I will learn what it means to RAISE a child. If I thought that being an STL was hard...I had no idea what it meant to have the responsibility to train!

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Hindsight is 20/20

     Over these last couple of days I have often thought to myself how ALL-KNOWING our Heavenly Father truly is. There is NO WAY in all of the universe that I would have been able to train Sister Kumari now, had I not just come from my previous area with all the skills that I learnt there. I am so thankful that I was an STL for those six months, and that I learnt how to work with different types of sisters/women/girls/females. I am so grateful that I had to juggle two wards- Makati 3rd and Makati 4th- and be in charge of ALL these lives.

      I am so grateful that I trained Sister Esmolo as a new STL because learning how to train her is helping me to train (for real now) a new missionary. I am so grateful that Sister Esmolo and I talked to all those many people and got rejected all those many times, because now when I Open My Mouth and talk to people, I am near fearless. I am grateful that God prepared me for this beautiful responsibility that is on my shoulders now. 20/20. Hindsigh is 20/20. We only ever know the reasons for why certain things happen...AFTER they have happened. 

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One-city mission

     Okay. Get this. EXCLUDING Palawan...my second area was in Bonifcaio, which is part of Makati city. My last area was in the HEART of Makati...which is, well, Makati. Guess where I am now? Yup. You guessed it right. Makati 1st ward. Okay. Call me Makati-mission girl! I have officially never served my mission anywhere else...than Makati. I am silently laughing about this all the time. I also included this in my "testimony" when I introduced myself to the members during sacrament meeting yesterday. They all laughed. I think God is laughing, too. Makati-mission, woohoo!

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Familiarity

     And on that note- guess where I live right now...? BONIFACIO. Not kidding. I live five minutes away from my second area. I live five minutes away from Marco and Carol and Sarah and everyone that I loved SO much those three months that I was here. Tender mercy, or what? How is God so kind to me? I live so near them. I can see them every Sunday as I make my way to church and they make their way home from their ward. We don't go to church in the same building, but my current apartment is RIGHT BY the church. These tender mercies...I am humbled. 

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My last companion

     Sister Kumari is SO great. She is so humble and so willing to learn and so ready to receive correction. She IS Indian, but she speaks English. Thank goodness I still have some Singaporean in me and can understand the Indian accent! Let's see whose accent rubs off on who first...I might come home speaking like her, so watch out! ;) 

     All jokes aside though- Sister Kumari is so great. I know that she will become a future leader in this the Philippines Manila mission. I know that she will change lives and save souls and she will work, work, work until her very last day on the field. She pushes me to be better. She pushes me to have greater love. She pushes me to be a better missionary. I love her so much. I really do. And I know that by the time her training is over, that I will love her just THAT much more.

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Is anyone else counting the weeks? 

1 3 till h o m e c o m i n g.

With love,
Sister Teo