Ano ba iyan?!

Bye Sister Garcia

[NOTE from Mom---She would never say it but Erin is having a rough couple of weeks and sure could use some love from friends and family.  Any notes of encouragement will be awesome.   erin.koncurat@myldsmail.net]

Where do I start. This has probably been one of the craziest weeks of my mission so far. I guess I can start from last Monday. 

Our P-Day went about normal. Did the normal emailing in the morning, some grocery shopping, went to "MacDo" for a fancy lunch (McDonalds here is like a 5 star restaurant lol). We came home to do our laundry AND....we have no running water!!  "Ano ba iyan?!" (meaning; what?)   Its been a week now and we still don't have water in our house. UGH!!!  At least we have a handy dandy manual water pump outside in the yard.  Sounds fun right?!   I swear, it's like living in the pioneer days.  No big deal, for our morning showers we get a work out pumping and then carrying buckets of water up the stairs to our CR (apt).  By the time we get it fixed, I'll be stronger than Seth ;) ..better keep up that weight lifting, lil' bro! 

[note from mom-so the landlady downstairs doesn't want to fix the water pump tank...she thinks the sisters are too destructive and keeps threatening to kick them out.. crazy lady for sure.  I confirmed that the mission home does know about the situation but she's not sure how or when it will be remedied.]

Tuesday morning we had our monthly zone meeting, also pretty normal. It was all about magnifying our calling as missionaries. One of my favorite take-a-ways was a scripture found in Philippians 4:13, which says, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." It was a good reminder for what was about to happen next...

After the meeting, Sister Garcia and I took a nice 3 hour bus ride up to Cauayan City where we spent the night in the comfort of the mission home and had a REAL SHOWER in the morning, complete with hot water...It was a good break before having to pump and carry that water again. 

Wednesday morning, I had to say goodbye to Sister Garcia, who needed to return home for just a little while, but will be back to finish her mission soon, I hope.

The rest of the day I worked with some sisters in Cauayan City until I was able to find travel companions for the way back to Bayombong. I stayed the night at the Sister Trainer Leader's apartment in Solano and met my temporary part-time companion. She served her mission for 13 months in the Davao mission, but had to come home for health reasons. While at home, her health improved enough to try out mission life again with me. Unfortunately by the morning of our third day together, her migraines came on full force, so she went home again as well. So for this next week and a half I'll be working with a member from the branch here and living in a threesome at night with my fellow apartment sisters.  

Though things are going a little bit differently than the normal, the work still goes on. The blessings still come and I can definitely feel Christ's strength with me.

Mahal ko kayo!
Sister Koncurat

P.S. If you missed the young adult fireside, check it out! https://www.lds.org/broadcasts/article/worldwide-devotionals/2015/01/living-with-purpose-the-importance-of-real-intent?cid=HPSU011115617&lang=eng