Hello my dear momma :) Hello my dear family and friends :) Thank you so much for all of your wonderful birthday wishes. Can you believe I'm 24?!?!!?!? I tell everyone "matanda na ako!" And they just shake their heads.

This week has been a good one. Tuesday our district meeting was on having the Spirit ALWAYS in teaching in walking in praying in eating breakfast in riding in a tricycle. After saying a heartfelt prayer on my knees to HELP MEEE, I shared those things with Sister B, and honestly, the difference is drastic. That day we had some beautiful lessons. We say all of our prayers together--morning, night, at meals, before we leave the apartment, etc.

And do you know what? Once we made these changes, people have been coming to us. A man on a tricycle asked US when we were available to come share with him. As we sat waiting for an investigator to come home from his work, his next door neighbor came and asked us who we were and told us he's been listening to us teach from his window. Another woman, about 30, told us she has a tumor in her stomach and wants to find the true church for her children. I am so sad to think of the things we could have missed had we not made those tiny changes. Can you imagine the blessings we could be missing out on by not doing little things--like reading scriptures, or praying, or carrying a bag of groceries inside for an old lady.

President Carlos came into town on Friday to do some interviews with some special cases and asked to interview us as well, as a companionship. Sister Carlos observed our companionship planning and when Sis B was in the bathroom, told me that she really felt the spirit in our planning and she knows this is a divine companionship:) President's words were so beautiful and inspired and I appreciate him so much. He treated us to McDonalds and wished me a happy happy birthday. YUM! I never thought that I would ever actually like to eat at McDonalds ;/

Saturday we had a baptism!!! Sister Agnes Ambrose. All of her children were baptized about two months ago, and she's gained a beautiful testimony since then. For the most part, my birthday was a secret to everyone, but she knew and apologized profusely that she didn't have a gift for me. I told her that her baptism was the most beautiful gift she could give me. At her baptism, all of her children bore their testimonies as well as her. We saw her later in the day by chance around town and she said that she felt so happy.

We taught about 7 lessons on my b day. One of which was with Sister Katherine Lopez--the woman with the tumor. In our first lesson with her, we talked about priesthood authority, in our next we talked about prophets, and in our last on Saturday, we talked about gospel dispensations. I saw a light turn on in her head when I showed her another crappy drawing of mine and photos of all of the prophets from the time of Joseph Smith. She asked about a million questions--one being "Why are all of them American?" Cuuuuttte :) and we left with a commitment to her to pray for an answer. She didn't know it was my birthday, but sent us home with four free, fresh, cleaned Tilapia. She is lovely.

We had a PEC meeting with the branch president and one of the auxilary leaders there was flipping through a calendar and casually asked, "When's your birthday, SIs Fort?" I said "Ngayon araw." They didn't believe me for about 10 minutes. Then president told me to treat them all to Jollibee, and he wrote "Happy Birthday Sister Fort" on the chalkboard.

My birthday night, the Elders here made me dinner!!! Tacos. We went to their apartment and ate on their terrace. Elder Apin cooked, and gave me a Tagalog comic book and Elder Miller decorated a trompo (top) for me with a big box of candy. They made me play this game called Ooga Booga and tried to get me to sit on a balloon filled with water, but I wasn't stumped. I made graham/mango dessert for everyone (make sure you tell Sister Morgan I provided the dessert :) ) and went home smiling from ear to ear. It was such a wonderful day!!

Today we went to Banaue again and I bought the most beautiful light-wooden carved nativity set, and I found some wooden carved owls too! We actually hiked the steps this time and my legs were shaking from exhaustion by the time we were done. It is so lovely there, even though its brown this time of year. We took pictures with the native ladies there again that say "yay!!!" every time you count down to take a picture and now I am here in this stinky, smoke filled internet shop.

We have a baptism next saturday too. :)

I am sorry to hear that you have all been sick over there. I will attach more pictures.
Tell Matt I don't miss him at all and to write write write.
Tell grandma I love her!!!

I love you all so much!!! Thank you all for being such a great support to me 
I will send you more pictures.
Love,
Sis Pork
I'll be out 7 months March 4th.