Polatis Missionaries: Big fire in our area!! So Sad

Well Well, can you believe that I really have almost made it 12 weeks! GRABI!!! But what a different week it was! So Monday we really a good day! We emailed and then went home to clean our apartment! We had a feeling apartment checks were coming and we were right, they did! The Elderly couple who checks are the Neffs! They are older but so tight! Elder was a custodian or something so he always makes jokes that his white glove would be ruined hahaha but tells us that we live in Bacolod so he will let it slide. We really aren't messy, it will always just be dirty! But we had family home evening with the Palis family! It was fun! We taught about the importance of gratitude and of course she fed us! Oh my food! I love it! I always still have to go slow, my stomach still just gets a little upset every now and again! But we had our district meeting on Tuesday and it was actually a training with President Lopez! So it went for a couple hours. We talked about the importance of teaching the restoration and how we need to have it memorized. He also told us to be excited if we are ever asked at the last second to teach sunday school or relief society because we should be the best teachers! Everything in the gospel we can relate it to something in PMG and since we are supposed to be scholars of that book we should be able to come up with something! We got back and headed out to teach! One of our Recent converts bought us these CUTE philipino purses! He is tight, 2 each!! I guess they are pretty expensive but we were so grateful! We taught our regulars, everyone seems to be progressing great! Antony is still pretty shy with us but he is cool. I like teaching him!

We had another FHE scheduled and that was with the Hoyo-a's! They are so cool. We did the lesson again on gratitude and Brother H was giving the closing remarks and he just told us that he didn't feel like doing a FHE because they didnt have any money (around here they always feel like they have to feed you when you do FHE) but he prayed and prayed for work and it came! And he was so stern in his voice saying that as long as you do your part and trust in the lord he is going to bless you. You cant sit around doing nothing and then being mad at the lord when you have nothing. So it really strengthened me! I need to study the best I can with this language and then continue being prayful that I can learn and it will come! I need to be patient! But we ended up eating and that again was good, It is funny around here all the chicken has skin and bones and to be honest ever since doing chickens at grandmas I kind of have been scarred for life. I liked going to the grocery store and asking for boneless/skinless. Well here I usually avoid the chicken if I see the bones and Sister Arnold knows that but Sister Hoyoa noticed that I missed it and she comes over later and slaps this huge piece on my plate with the nastiest bone and so much rice! She was so worried that I wasnt eating enough, so I had to just get over my fear because I didn't want to offend her by not eating it! So i picked it apart the best I could and right as I was done before I even knew what was happening Sister Arnold goes (In hiligaynon) "Sister Hoyo-a, Sister Polatis has finished and says that she wants more!" AHHHHHHHH I was dying so another skin-ny and boney chicken gets on my plate! I about died! It was good but still! Weird! HAHA funny but i was so FULL!

! Well Wednesday we were headed to our area and we saw this huge black smoke cloud and heard fire trucks, it was our area! I guess this crazy guy stood on his roof top and yelled "We are all going to Hell" and he lit this fire. Well it burned OVER 200 houses!! Killed at least 3 people! What a whack! I wanted to burn him, not really but now these people who really have nothing, really have nothing!! It was so sad! But it was weird all the people who were active--no fire to their houses. But the less actives--yep lost their houses! Coincidence, I think not! The lord knows what he is doing! Well skipping to Sunday 3 of the ones who were LA were at church! They knew that what had happened was because they were falling away! But Thursday we got permission from President to go and help a family clean up! So Thursday we left at about 8 am and started, We helped the Deasis family! Our job was to pick up the clothes and put them in bags, they were all burned but they needed it clear so that they could scrape. Then we had to sift through the ashes to find the nails. It was fun getting back into some physical labor! But we did what we could and hopefully it helped! We had to head back to the church, sister fatima had a baptismal interview. I wasnt worried about her for one second! She is awesome and she passed! So she was baptized on Saturday! But Friday we Did cleaning with the missionaries again and got the font all ready for Saturday I still just stare at the brown water and it makes me sad hahaha I always think "how can your sins be washed away in dirty water" haha I know it doesn't really matter but it still grosses me out! Saturday it was "National Service Day" here so we met at the church and put on our "Mormon helping hands vests" and headed out. We were supposed to do it at a local school but since the fire we went to Katilingban! We found all the members and we made lists of what they needed and other things we could do to help! It was pretty fun! We went back to the church where there were bags of clothes and things that members had donated and we separated them and they had some rice and we divided that all up for the families. It was raining like crazy! It was weird because here is is summer. Rainy season doesn't start for a few months but it was pouring!! It was really cool to see that the church is really the same no matter where you are in the world. I really felt at home doing all that stuff. I liked it. Well the baptism of Sister Fatima was great! We had support of our bishopric and everything! It was fun! She really is a cute girl and she seems to be doing great so far. She says the confidence of the girls in our church really impressed her. So i guess I better get my confidence level up! HAHA Well saturday night we went out and got Ice cream and while I was getting a napkin I look over and see this guy talking to Sister Arnold, he was asking all about our religion and why we thought it was right. He seemed to be one who is always switching religions, anyways his name is Fred and he kept saying "convince me of why your religion is right" Well he had alot of questions about everything and if God is a just God why are there people in Africa starving? So we talked about trials and having faith and it never turned into a debate which was good but we ended up giving him a book of mormon, oh he lived in texas for a while so he spoke dang good english which was nice because I was able to respond. But we told him to just start reading and to pray about it. Well it was about 45 minutes of chatting and we invited him to church well HE CAME! He had so many questions and he really is like a real investigator! He has questions because he really wants to know!! I loved it! I hope he progresses! He said he wants to learn more and he said he would come to church next week! We were so excited! So we shall see! But all in all it was a good week! Really sad to see what the people were going thru but a huge testimony builder to know that God is really the one in control! We need to make sure we are doing everything we can to obey him and always do our best to keep the commandments. He will strengthen us! But I miss you all and love you so much! Thanks for all the emails! Until next week!! MMUUAAHH!!! Oh remember we really are so blessed and we need to be grateful for what we have!!! :)

Love Sister Polatis!