I never knew what a big deal transfers were

Magandang Hapon!

     Well, Happy Presidents Day! Hope you all enjoy your day off. Life is crazy this week. Later today we are going bowling as a zone for a zone activity, and that's where they are doing transfer announcements. They will tell us who is being transferred and who is staying, and then tomorrow at district meeting, they'll tell us where those missionaries are being transferred. Then Wednesday in Makati, they'll tell everyone who their new companion is. Crazy, I never knew what a big deal transfers were when the brothers were on their missions.

     This last week we got to go and do a CSP project with our zone on Friday morning. A member that is actually in my area (the Amores family) has a farm, so we went to their farm and helped clean it all up and harvest tomatoes and such. It was a lot of fun. They use this big knife looking thing to weed.

 

The big banana leaves that the food was on was actually 

just the leftovers of what we ate from lunch.

 
We ate with just our hands, all of us, right off of the banana leaves, 
and then when we were done, 
Bro. Amores let all of the animals eat the leftovers.  
That was way fun.

CSP stands for Community Service Project  

 
 or Culango Stromberg Party :) haha, either one 

 

And yes, I did eat the tomatoes in soy sauce, 

and that's actually really good.  You should try it!  

 

     Then the big news for the week is we were very blessed yesterday at church. We had five investigators there at church. :) Two of our recent converts who have become less-active that we have been visiting for months now finally came to church yesterday too, and we were so happy to see them! Mark came to church, and that's his first time since I've been here. Then also a sister who's inactive that we've visited for months now (She was actually the first person here in Carmona that I taught.) finally came to church also! It was so exciting! We were sitting up on the stand because Sister Culango was assigned to talk, and as our investigators and less-active members one by one came in and sat down (some late), by the last ones that came in, we just both looked at each other with tears in our eyes. It was just the best feeling. It's hard because these people we are teaching every week, and we have come to love them. It's so hard when you don't ever see them actually commit to come to church. So it was a very exciting day for us at church. I'm not sure if they came just because it was most likely Sister Culango's last day in church or what, but we were just so, so happy to see them. I just hope that they continue. So yes it was a great day.

 

     We also finished the 12 week training program where we have companionship study for two hours each day, so now just one hour for me, and I'm officially trained. :) It feels good! Even though I know I have a lot more to learn, and I am excited for a new companion that I'm sure will teach me a lot.
     One of our investigators, Tina, is really progressing, and it's so exciting. She's actually the nanny of a member (I can't remember if I told you about her.), and we've been teaching her. She's now come to church three times which is the most out of any of the investigators I've taught. And we set a baptisimal date with her this last week. Her boss Sister Que at church told us that she was so excited and told Sis. Que all about it. So that's really exciting. She is going on summer vacation in April and told us she wants to get baptized before she leaves. So hopefully she will continue. Yeah that's pretty much all that happened this week.
     I don't have a whole lot of time because Sister Culango wanted to go to the salon today and get her hair "relaxed" whatever that is. They have weird things for hair here. They also get their hair rebunded...  Mom, you should ask Annette about all these weird things they do. I'm not really sure about it. haha Just curious. But yeah the hairdressers here are all cross dressers, and it just weirds me out! I thought the hair dresser was a girl, but nope she\he was a guy. I didn't know whether to call it brother or sister, and it just was really weird. And he kept talking to me too while Sister Culango was getting her hair done. There are a ton of people like that here too.
     So yeah to answer questions... Probably my favorite food so far is chicken adobo or pork adobo! Oo it's so good! And it's actually not allowed in our mission to eat balut so that probably won't happen, haha even though my investigator Tatay Rolando is sure that I will eat it at some point. Man, he is so funny. He's not progressing, but his daughter is interested so we go to see them about once a week. The last time we did, he looked through my pictures that I brought, and he saw Ryan and asked "why is he tan (like a Filipino)?" and then went on to tell me that Ryan looked a lot like him. haha It cracked me up. I wanted to take a picture of him to show Ry, but he left the lesson early. Next time I'll try to take a picture of him for ya.
     The Swedish pancakes turned out pretty good. They weren't quite as sweet because the milk here tastes different, but it was still good. Then it was thicker in the middle because the pan is bowl shaped so different than home and, of course, not as good;), but the sisters liked it. Oh and I cooked American spaghetti for them, and Sister Culango said it's the best spaghetti she's ever had. haha. They have this store in Binyan that has an international section, and I found Ragu there so yeah. Now tomorrow we have this member family that wants to try it so they bought all the ingredients, and then we're having FHE with them and I'm making it at their house. haha It makes me laugh.
     Anyway, I'm out of time. Hope your week went well. My P-days have been crazy, and I never have time to write. Love you all, and pray for you every day!

Mahal Ko Kayo,

Sister Stromberg