57,600 Seconds

57,600. That is the number of seconds an average missionary has in a day. About 6,500 seconds is spent eating, 14,000 seconds is spent studying, and 30,000 seconds is spent teaching and preaching the gospel. Every second has felt more valuable to me since our mission president shared that with us. Even more short is the fact that an average life on earth is about 2 hours and 45 minutes of God's time, and each mission of an 18 month serving sister is 3 minutes of God's time. My mission president, after sharing that chuckled and said, "Elders and Sister's, can we be good for 3 minutes?" We all laughed, but it's a true principle and I've applied it to myself by asking, "Can I give my all for 3 minutes?" "Can I be consecrated and sanctified for 3 minutes?" I am striving each day to answer "YES!" with all the heart, might, mind and strength that I posses. It isn't easy, but if I do my best, Heavenly Father will make these 3 short minutes worth it. 

Well, what did I do with my 57,600 seconds x 7 days? 

We had another Zone Meeting and we shared the 57,600 second principle, as well as points from  chapter 8 of preach my gospel. I think I learned more than they did about using my time wisely and effectively! I'm so grateful for wonderful resources like preach my gospel. I especially learned, in an ironic way, about Revelation. We initially had planned three days in advance to focus on "Revelation". We practiced, prepared, and were running through it all night, when the spirit hit us and told us, "That sounds like a good workshop, but that isn't the one you are supposed to teach." It was a little daunting because we had approximately 12 hours before zone meeting that next day to plan a new one, but after praying and discussing it, we both agreed that it wasn't right. We changed it to the "Using time wisely\ 57,600 second thing" and everything flowed like magic. It turned out being a hundred times better than our previous idea. So what did I learn? Sometimes Revelation is a leap of faith. A big, giant leap. But if we take that leap, we understand that the place we arrive to is much better than the one we just came from. 

Also, this week I had a great exchanges with Sister Purcell from New Zealand and Sister Melosantos from the Philippines. As always they taught me so much and we had a great time. I really love the sisters here in this zone and I get so excited each time we have exchanges.

And as far as investigators, Thank you so much for your prayers in behalf of our investigator family. They are all reading the Book of Mormon and the little kids are excitedly engaged in Book of Mormon Stories. But even better, the mother was able to attend church yesterday. We almost died of happiness when we saw her sitting there 30 minutes early in the Sacrament Hall. She attended it all 3 hours and was excited about it all. She said that she especially loved the part of Relief Society. Thanks for your support! Keep it up! We are seeing miracles here because of it! ;)

Mahal na mahal kita! 

-Sister Beaumont 

Manila!

So, this week, we did some good, hard work as a companionship- just not in our area. After being out for a week (from the hospital and what-not), we had to catch up on some of our responsibilities. It was pressuring, but we managed to come out okay. And then we had that surprise trip to Manila, for fingerprinting. We found out the day before and even though I've looked forward to that my whole mission, I was suddenly NOT excited because it meant that we lost one more day of working in our area!  And on top of that, we had the Missionary Council this week. Oh yeah, and then practically all of our investigators and recent converts caught chickenpox, so we couldn't teach them. But if you're doing you best, truly, Heavenly Father blesses you for your efforts and will watch out for all your investigators. 

Here is just a few miracles that came from this week: 

There is a member who referred to us one of our investigators, but is never available to be in the lessons. From the Preach My Gospel, we learn that the ideal situation is when a member who referred an investigator is present in the lesson, so it's really important that he can come. But like I shared, he is never available and hasn't been for about 3 months. But the miracle is, when we got to the house of the investigator this week, he was already there! It was a truly a miracle because we have been texting and asking for one and a half transfers and even that day, we texted him. But he never replied, as usual, so we just went to the investigators house, and to our surprise, there was the member! I could see how Heavenly Father had answered our prayers and the member was just perfect in the lesson. Another was to this amazing family (the one I keep talking about) that I love teaching and everytime we do, I just picture them in white. I love teaching them and before the lesson, we sang primary songs out of the hymnbook while waiting for the mom to finish cooking and the father was in tears. I could see that although he might not have understood the English, the spirit of those hymns really touched him. And the last lesson was from our investigator that we were close to dropping because she was never home when we went, but Heavenly Father helped us to see that she needs one more chance by placing us in the right place at the right time. 

And like I shared already, we went to Manila. It was really fun, really exhausting, and everything else in between those. There were 44 of us that went, so it was a big group- party! I also got to see the elders from my old mtc district there, so that was really cool! 

Anyway, that's all I have time for! 

Mahal kita! 

-Sister Beaumont 

Finally A Real Letter Again

Well, Finally I can write a real letter. Sorry about the last two weeks. I was feeling a little light-headed and having a hard time writing a complete letter. (Because of the asthma attack.) 

But, now, I'm back to normal and ready to update you fully on my adventures here in Lipa! 

First of all, I finished my second journal on the mission. This means that I have 3 mission journals! I either write alot, or write really big. I think it's a bit of both. But I am being especially creative with this last one, because I'm pretty sure it will be my LAST. 

Good things always come out of trials, and the good news is, my doctor accepted appointments. She visited utah before and is really potential. We gave her two pamplets and set up an appointment with her for next week. I'm really excited to teach her. Another testimony that good things come from our trials is what happened on Wednesday. Our district leader took one for the team by catching chicken pox this week. Because he had chicken pox, he's been quarintined in the house for 10 days and so we were unable to have district meeting. So that's the trial part. Poor thing. Here's the good news though! Because he was quarinteened, we were able to go out earlier on Wednesday and

-we obtained new baptismal goal dates

-arrived at the house of an investigator just when she needed us

-and were able to get a great member present to two investigators who were struggling with the same problem as our member present. 

Hurray for Chicken Pox! :) 

Because I'm running short on time, here are two other miracles I want to list. 

1. I felt prompted to pray in our companion study one day that any investigators who had plans to leave their house would feel prompted instead to stay so that we could teach them. We were running low in the lesson numbers because of how much I had been sick and really needed to see our investigators. Well, the first investigator we visited told us as soon as we came, "Sisters, I had an activity that I was excited to attend, but just an hour before, I didn't feel like going any more. I didn't know why, but I felt like I should stay instead. And then you came 15 minutes after it started. I guess Heavenly Father wanted you to teach me today!" That was so cool to see the direct answer to my prayer! 

2. I was with some member children outside their home, waiting for their mom to come back so we could teach them when a 15 year old girl wandered by. I was laughing with the 5 year old member girl and we were talking about Frozen and singing it with her. The 15 year old girl was amazed at me being foreigner and asked me to sing for her. I almost started to sing frozen, but instead got the impression to sing Families can be together forever. I started and the member children all joined in. The 15 year old girl had tears in her eyes and immediately asked if we could visit her. I could see in her lit up face that the message of eternal families really touched her. I'm so glad I followed that prompting and I'm excited to see where it goes with her family. 

As always, keep our investigator family in your prayers for us. They are so golden and only need to have work off on Sunday so they can attend church! 

Love you! 

-Sister Beaumont