Eades, Oakley P

God is so good, lots of good experiences this week!  We were out knocking doors one night having no success. Almost everyone outside was drunk and all the doors we knocked on rejected us. We came to a dead end so we turned around to go back and we saw a small, dark alley to the side of us. At the same time, me and my companion stopped walking, looked at each other, and said “let's go there”. We walked through this tiny alley and knocked on the first door we saw. A woman opened the door and before I could even finish saying “Hi we're missionaries for the…” she immediately said “Pasok, pasok, pasok!” (come in, come in, come in!) She didn't even ask any questions and immediately got us chairs and told us to sit down. We shared a message to her and her family about the Book of Mormon and they were so interested! About 3 minutes after we had left, we looked back at her house and she was already reading the Book of Mormon!  A few days later on Sunday, her 14 year old son, Darel, ...

Haven't written an email in a sec because I really haven't had much to write about but… this week we put 2 of our friends on date for baptism!  This transfer I have really come to understand the importance of obedience!  When I first got to this area 4 weeks ago, my comp told me this was a “dead area.” Because it had been a long time since someone had been baptized, no one was on date for baptism, and no one was receptive. I don't believe there's such thing as a "dead area". Every area has people ready and prepared for the gospel, but I think God waits for his missionaries to work hard and be obedient before helping us find the elect. And I KNOW that obedience brings miracles! Me and my companion have been working on being exactly obedient this transfer. Its taken some work, especially to help my companion understand the importance of obedience. But after a long time of this being a “dead area”, we have 2 friends with a baptismal date and we are so excited for...

Had some megaaa culture shocks this week. Transfers were this week and I got transferred to Marikina as an STL! (So scared I do not feel qualified). My new companion is Sister To’ia from New Zealand. And my new area in Marikina is closer to the mountains so I finally get some fresh air and get to see some green!  Anywho, I thought my last apartment was small and gross but boy do I take that back now. My new apartment looks a little like this: -No AC -No shower (you use a bucket and a ladle) -Ant infestation. Literally millions of ants everywhere. On the walls, the counters, the floors, etc… If we leave food out for 2 seconds it instantly gets covered in ants. Or when I get out of the shower I have to shake my towel out first and tons of ants fall out. And they are always crawling on me and I can feel them biting me lol  -The garbage truck here hasn’t come in like 4 weeks so we just have piles of trash stacked outside our door  Lol I feel like I’m camping every day but it'...

Hi hi! Been a couple weeks since I've written an email but I LOVE IT HERE. Being a missionary is the greatest thing ever. Training has been so fun and my companion is like my best friend. We have worked so hard this transfer and seen so many miracles!  To start… ELEVEN friends came to church yesterday!! This whole transfer the work has been soooo slow, but we've been working so so hard, and we're finally seeing the miracles!  (see pictures) This is the mom of our bishop, Nanay Marina. All of her kids are members except for her. A few years ago she had a baptismal date, but the day before her baptism, the elders came over to visit her and they started playing with Nanay Marina's pet bird. This bird was Marina's pride and joy. It was like her best friend and it even talked! While the elders were playing with the bird they accidentally let it go and it flew away. Marina was so mad that she canceled her baptism the next day and has held a grudge ever since! So missionar...

Christmas time!!  Here in the Philippines they celebrate Christmas for all the BER months… SeptemBER, OctoBER, NovemBER, and DecemBER. So Christmas time has started!! Besides eating balut… a GOOOOOD week. Google photos link for the video of me eating it:  https://photos.app.goo.gl/ ycyL7nS7RNG8KdVQ9   •We saw sooo many miracles getting one of our friends to church this Sunday. Too long to write everything that happened but the short version is that we fasted and prayed so hard for our friend to make it to church and HE DID. Miracle after miracle happened and he made it. God is so true and I know the power of fasting is so real. •2 Baptisms this week, John Dave and Aljear! Per usual, they showed up 30 mins late to their own baptism, but I'm unphased by it now haha. That's Filipino time for ya. They were both so happy and excited to be baptized. It has been so amazing seeing their growth and progression in the gospel. It was such a good and spiritual day! •Our favorite rich...

Skip to the end of this email if you're only here for the funny stories. I promise it's worth it. But spiritual thought first. One night we were finding and just trying to talk to everyone we passed on the street. There was a woman walking in front of us who me and my companion both had a prompting to talk to. For some reason we both ignored the prompting, and we talked to another person who was passing us instead. She was not interested, and by that point we lost the woman in front of us. About 30 mins later I had a very clear prompting to go knock on the door of one of our old friends. This time I didn’t ignore it and we went to the house. No one answered. But we turned to leave, and boom, right in front of us was the woman from earlier. We went up to her and she told us that she has been searching for the true church. She has been going to all the different churches and none of them felt right to her. We told her we have a very special message about a boy named Joseph Smith ...

I'M TRAINING!!  Thursday was transfer day and so I got to spend the whole morning and afternoon at the mission home with the other trainers and trainees. My new companion is sister Peras from the Phillipines and I LOVE HER! She is so so sweet, loves pink, loves chocolate, and loves rocky road ice cream. So yes, we get along great haha. I also feel like I'm having to relearn the culture of the Philippines. This whole time I thought all Filipinos were awkward and quiet and so I became awkward and quiet because I thought that was the culture here. Lol it's not. My last companion was just awkward, which made everyone else awkward haha. Love her but people skills weren't quite her strongest trait. So it's been so refreshing to have a companion that can actually talk and be friendly with people! I was super scared to be training because I literally just got out of training myself! And it means I have to know how to teach all the lessons! I feel so unprepared and inadequat...