Bicol Express, Balut and an Oven

Dear Mom,

So much happened this week. A highlight was zone training. We changed our key indicators (weekly zone goals) to accommodate teaching families. I love that we decided to focus on families gid. We OYMed a lot this week. 9 shy of 140 this week. 131. By the way, I'm getting better at doing math in my head. You have to as a missionary especially with paying fees (plete) at the jeepneys or tricycles. Jeepneys are kind of long jeeps that are opened up so that they have two benches on either side. Filippinos are really good at fitting a lot of people in there. Sometimes they put stools in the middle for more people to sit. Then there are people hanging on to the bars in the back where the door is. Pretty fun.

One boy we OYMed was really nice and polite. We decided to follow up a couple days later. After asking many other people for directions to his house, we found that he was not at home, but his mom and about 5 of his 7 siblings were! We found that they were expecting us! He told his family that we would visit.

It was just a testimony builder that God prepares families if that is our focus. He gives us what we ask for. Usually but not always, every person has a family. Every child has parents. We have to look at the individuals we OYM as people who have families. We need to teach their families not just them. It's sometimes hard to schedules times where the whole family is present, but it is worth it!

Sister Aloc made Bicol Express this week. She is from Bicol, which is famous for spicy foods. It is fresh coconut milk, TINY shrimp (as in thousands of tiny squids in a couple cups), peppers, bagio beans, sugar, salt, pepper, chicken or pork. Really simple. Really good. She showed me a tip. She said if you have spicy hands from cutting the peppers, you can rub oil on your hands and the heat will come off. But then she did it and still had hot hands the whole day. So when I used the peppers last night, she told me to put oil on my hands AS I was cutting. Obviously that isn't recommended on cooking shows. But I left the hot peppers as the last vegetable I cut, and was careful cutting them, and I had no heat on my hands! So it works. Haha! I thought of Papi every Sunday.

I also ate balut!! It is sold in the evening. It is a duck egg that has a tiny piso or bird inside. I ate one that was a really small piso. Not really a bird yet. More like juicy egg with a hard white part. Crunchy. But we have an investigator, Sister Lolita, who sells balut every evening, and we OYMed her customers as they came! Haha. Then one of the customers bought us balut. So we ate it. It was good. They eat it with salt and flavored vinigar.

I loved how investigators this week have been surprised that we have a living prophet. "Tuod ka? Buhi sya??" Which means, "Are you for real/serious? He's alive?" I love that. I know that we have a living prophet TODAY, Thomas S. Monson. He is very much alive.

Salamat gid,

Sister Marriott

P.S. Sister Aloc's birthday is on Wednesday, but we will celebrate next Monday. I will bake her a cake because we get an oven this week! The supply elders are delivering one to our apartment. She is really curious about baking because Filipinos do not have ovens. So I want to bake a cake. And cookies!! and buiscuits or anything. Maybe bread as well. Can you send me recipes?? It should be really easy since I typed up all the recipes on the google docs. Please do.