Oh the Places You'll Go

Family!!!! I miss you and love you all!!!

 Hope everyone is doing well! This week in the Philippines has been a weird one. I find myself laughing all the time because that's what I do when I'm in shock at whatever is happening and I'm thinking, "I can't believe that just happened...only in the Philippines".

 First off, my companion and I got chased by a crazy man! We were leaving this area and the way the neighborhood is set up - there's a lot of walls everywhere with small openings to get through. It's like a maze sometimes. As we're walking to get out, this man steps in front of us and is obviously wired up about something and he's speaking jumbled words. One hand is outstretched for money and the other is holding this wierd contraption made of forks and spoons.

I squeeze past to get around him and glance behind me to see my companion do the same, and then speed up my walking to get away. Hahaha all of a sudden, she's pushing on my back and shouts, "Run! Sister, Run!" This guy was trying to stab her with the fork thing! We ran out and through this basketball court full of men in which we lost him. Crazy, but we had a good laugh afterward.

Other experiences this week include having a drunk man just completely break down in front of us and tell us all of these problems he's having in his life and how he needs help and wants us to teach him.

We also met this girl named P who is 11 and just loves us to death. No one really takes care of her. She lives in this house and her father is there but he's intensively involved in all of these horrible businesses - I'll let your imagination figure that one out. It's easy to see she's been pretty hardened and toughened by her experiences so far in her life, but she loves coming to church and hearing about the gospel.

 This week, we worked really really hard, found a lot of new investigators, and then! None of them came to church. Not a single one. There's been a lot of drama in our branch between the members and leaders and it is a huge struggle for the missionaries. If I was an investigator and knew about all the stuff thats been going on, I wouldn't want to be involved either! It's probably a good thing I'm not completely fluent in waray waray yet or I might explode at everyone at the next testimony meeting.

It's one of those things that's like...what do you do? How do you get them to focus on the gospel and trusting God only when there's all these contributing influences from the members that is not for the better. We will just continue on I guess!

It's getting more fun to be a missionary now that I can actually communicate somewhat with people! 

Love you all so much! Thank you for being in my life! I love you death!

 Love Sister Russon