Amy's April 2nd email home!!


Hello my wonderful family! 

I always love reading all the emails and hearing about how everyone is doing. I am so blessed! Mom, thank you for all the pics! I loved them! 

Christina, holy smokies stop growing up!! ;) You are so tall!! And so grown up looking already! Your face has matured in these past months. Gorgeous!! I had to brag and show the pics mom sent me to my comps. They said "Matankad siya!" (She's tall!) Haha. You're taller than me now! But more gorgeous than ever! I'm proud to call you my sister. :) Love ya!

It sounds like there's been a lot of fun going on over there. I'm glad you had some time to relax and enjoy for a bit. You definitely all deserve it. 

We got to go to the temple this morning! It was beautiful and a great boost. I love the temple.

Transfers are next week. One of us may transfer, or we may all stay. We may get another sister and become two companionships again, or we may stay a threesome. We'll see! 

This past Sunday was Easter! Because it was the 5th Sunday of the month, our bishop asked us to give talks and teach Sunday school. Sister Abonitalla and I each gave talks and then Sister Paloma led the Sunday school lesson. It was really fun preparing for the talk this past week. Bishop asked us to relate our talks to the Easter message and to missionary work. I chose to talk about "Discipleship" and what that meant. I used the general conference talk by Elder Holland called "The First Great Commandment," or something like that. We are blessed with so much! Christ atoned for our sins and died for us, overcoming spiritual death and physical death. Because of this, we can return to our Heavenly Father's presence if we do our part. We must have faith in him, repent, be baptized, receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, and then endure to the end. That's it!  It is so incredibly simple, and so beautiful.  As mortal people, we make mistakes and sin. But we also know that "no unclean thing can enter into the presence of God." If there was no atonement made, we would be helpless and hopeless.there would be no way to return in our perfect Father's presence. But we can!! With our families, too! He is so merciful! With this kind of knowledge, how can we not share it with others? There are so many people that are ready to hear and accept the gospel. We can become true disciples, or followers of Christ by "Feed[ing His] sheep." 

Tatay Jun's baptism is this Saturday!! He is so excited and we are too!! His testimony is amazing. He is willing to do anything in order to become "in-line" with the teachings of Jesus Christ's gospel. He shared with us something this past week. He's 75 now and his neighbors have been teasing him a lot for listening to us "Mormon Sisters." He is confident and has not been afraid or ashamed to tell them, "I'm getting baptized on Saturday. I'm going to be a Mormon because I know it's true." Wow. He is so amazing. He is diligent in his reading of the Book of Mormon, and takes notes and underlines. He comes with questions to the lessons, and has recognized so many blessings in his life. I am learning so much from him. He's learning a ton, but I feel like I'm learning more from him than he's learning from us. He is amazing.

I love missionary work. It is definitely not easy, and Satan tries to tempt us a lot. He is active in trying to influence God's children away from the gospel, and works double time on the missionaries, too. But the work will go forward!! "No unhallowed hand can stop this work!" I am so grateful for this time to give my all to my Savior and my Heavenly Father. It can be so hard to give up your will for God's, but when we do, we are blessed sooo much!! I still have sooo much to learn. I am learning to trust in my Savior.

I love you all! You're in my prayers!

Love,

Sister Harston

pics: 1. Pic of us sisters at our zone activity last week! Ready for Volleyball!
             Sister Dickson, Sister Abonitalla, Sister Paloma, Me!

         2. pic of us sisters and Lito, the deaf man in our ward

         3. pic of our zone!