Happy Easter!

First off, Happy Easter to you all!  What a great time of the year for us to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ :)  Because He lived again, we will too :)  What a great message!

This week we have been able to really share this message to the people here by sharing the video "Hallelujah" which is found on FollowHim.mormon.org.  If you have not yet watched it, please go and watch it.  And if you want to just for fun to hear it in Tagalog, you can switch it to the Tagalog language.  It is such a beautiful language :)  You won't understand it, but it might be fun for you to hear!

This past weekend we also had baptisms in our area!  We were supposed to have 4, but one of the baptisms was invalid because they did not say the name right because it was copied wrong.  But she will be baptized in the upcoming weeks!  The baptism was great though, the spirit was so strong and the mothers and daughters who were baptized just glowed with the light of Christ :)  We also had a district baptism so two other people from the other ward were baptized as well!  It is so happy and exciting!

We also continue to have a lot of investigators attending church which is wonderful, but the hardest is finding time to teach them because they have school or work, or they only come home on Sunday and then they leave and go back to work.  Hopefully in these next few weeks we will be able to begin teaching them and preparing them for baptism as well :)  

The Estrabela family is one our focuses, they went to the ward activity this past week at a swimming resort and they had so much fun, but we were not able to go :(  They got to meet a lot of members and become friends with them, but they did not come to church yesterday, so hopefully we will be able to meet with them soon.  We struggle finding time when they are all together as a family, because they are so busy, but they are a wonderful family, I love them so much, and they are searching for truth :)

What an exciting time coming up that we get to hear from our living prophet and apostles soon!  I think general conference is this upcoming week, but we won't watch it for 2 more weeks.  I am so so excited!!  It is a great time to receive guidance from our leaders and to receive personal revelation!  I hope you all enjoy it.  Well, I love you all so much, thank you for all your love, support, and prayers! I am so blessed to have you all in my life. 

Love, Sister Latham



This is our one day mission that we had with the ward yesterday! We all went out and shared the gospel and visited those members who have fallen away just a little.  It was a wonderful experience and as you can see, this ward is awesome!! 

Temple Day and a Wonderful Week in the Field

Hello Family! 

It has been a wonderful past week! The work is hastening like crazy here!  We have 4 BAPTISMS this upcoming Saturday!  The first two is Susan and her daughter Venice, and the other two is Arlyn and Akira.  Arlyn is the mother of Akira.  They are part members, the dad is a less active but coming back to church!  So wonderful!

We had a very spiritual experience this week with Arlyn and her husband.  Her husband has word of wisdom problems and before we wanted to baptize the wife and daughter, we knew that it was important for the husband to be in a good position and strong in the church.  Sister Liguayan and I prayed about what we should do and we decided that we would extend their baptism until brother has control over his word of wisdom problem.  But something amazing happened.  We were teaching them and we told Gary, her husband, that we were going to extend the baptism date for his wife and daughter because we want the whole family ready and strong in the church.  Gary got really quiet and seemed a little scared.  He looked as us and said "Sisters, please don't do that.  I will stop drinking and smoking...today. I don't want my family to not receive the blessings of being baptized because of me.  I will stop sisters."  

I felt the spirit so strongly that for his family he was willing to forget himself, and make the decision on his own to quit the word of wisdom.  Until now he is doing really good.  He is really addicted so its been a little difficult, but he is improving and his wife and daughter will be baptized on Saturday :)  

We also just got back from the temple this morning and it was so wonderful!  I only have one more temple day which will be in June!  There are a lot of lasts that are happening, like we just had our last zone conference with President and Sister Revillo.  They are starting to get emotional a lot of the time when they get up to speak, they love the missionaries so much and I love them too!

I want to share a quick thing in my personal study this week.  I've been reading the New Testament lately and I have learned so much.  Because it is Easter I thought I would share this with you.  

Acts 5:31-32:

31) " Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins"

32) "And we are his witnesses of these things; as so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him."

This upcoming Easter Sunday we celebrate the Atonement and Resurrection of Jesus Christ.  That because of Him, we can be made clean.  Because of Him, we can we be forgiven, and because of Him, we can gain a new life :)  My life has been changed because of Him. I always say to my investigators "nabago ang buhay ko dahil sa kanya" I love Him, and He loves us. 

I love you all so much!  Have a wonderful week and a great Easter Sunday :)

Love, Sister Latham

"The Lord is Merciful"

What more is there for me to say than I am loving this work! :)  This is truly the work of the Lord because He is helping me through every step and is guiding me in all that I do.  I see His hand leading us, pushing us, and guiding us.  This is His work and how great is this calling.

I first want to share from my personal study this morning.  It really inspired me.  I read in Helaman 3.  This is the time where there has been so much war and the Nephites have experienced many difficult situations.  Despite that, Helaman "kept the commandments of God;  he did do that which was right in the sight of God continually."  I'm sure that this also included a lot of prayer and faith that Helaman showed to the Lord.  I'm sure he prayed for the Lord to protect his people and to guide them.  In Helaman 3: 27-28 it says "Thus we may see that the Lord is merciful unto all who will, in the sincerity of their hearts, call upon his holy name. Yea thus we see that the gate of heaven is open unto all, even to those who will believe on the name of Jesus Christ, who is the Son of God."  

The Lord hears our prayers, he knows the desires of our hearts, and if our desires are sincere and are aligned with the will of the Lord, He will be there the whole path and will give us the things that we need.  We just need to show our faith, ask in sincerity, and continue to give Him thanks. 

I've seen this happen throughout my entire mission experience.  I have called upon His name so many times.  I have plead with Him to help me and to guide me.  I have cried and prayed for Him to give me comfort in my hardest times. He has been there.  He has lifted me up.  I know He loves me and I know that HE LIVES.  He will be our best friend if we let Him in.  His ears are open to hear and His hands are there to help us.  Because He lives, He can help us.  Let us walk everyday with the Savior on our side.

We have two families that we are teaching, the Estrebella family and the Jorge family and they are so potential.  Although we do not have a lot of time to work in our area, the members are so supporting and we know that the Lord is helping in their conversion.  They all came to church this past Sunday where we had stake conference.  The talks were amazing and helped our investigators as well to feel the spirit and to recognize the truthfulness.  Please continue to pray for them that their hearts will be softened and they will accept the gospel fully into their lives :)

We also had exchanges this week, and I was able to return back to my old area in Sumulong where I trained Sister Tio and we opened up the area! It was great to see the progression that has been made and I was also able to visit my recent convert Maica.  They knew that I was coming because they texted them, but as I turned the corner, they saw  me and started running! I could barely keep my balance when all 4 or them were hugging me and crying because I had come back! hahaha I love that family and hope one day you can all meet them :) 

We also had MLC this week so our week was so so busy, but I've learned a lot and I am ready to apply all the things that I have learned!  This upcoming week we have zone conference as well!  Next Tuesday is also our temple day and P-day so I will not be emailing till next Tuesday.  It means you will have to wait an extra day, you can do it! hahaha

I love you all so much and hope you also enjoy all the pictures!  The picture of the food is sinigang and it is delicious.  It might be my favorite filipino dish and Sister Bergonia and I cooked it :)

I will make some when I get back to the states for you to try :)  Love you all so much!

Love, Sister Latham

I LOVE THE PROVINCE :)

Well, I hope you all are looking forward to this email and some good news! I know that last week was a little surprise and might have freaked you out a little bit, but I am so so safe here and I am loving it!

The first thing that I want to talk about is our exchanges with the sisters in Morong!  It is PROVINCE and it is gorgeous!  There is no ocean, but there is a big lake, fishing, water buffalo, and huge rice fields! I was loving it, it was gorgeous!  And the sisters we worked with were just so much fun and are doing great in their area!  I love the people there as well, they are so down to earth and their lives are wonderful and peaceful :)  I was also able to work with one of my past kabahays..I don't really know what that is in english.  Its close to a roomate, but they are just other missionaries that lived in our house.  I will just stick with kabahays.  We had a blast, and she is struggling a little bit with her companion and a bit of disobedience with the other sisters she is with, but we were able to just enjoy the work and she was able to talk to me about things that she is experiencing and I hope that I lifted her up and gave her a little boost to stay strong and keep being obedient.

All of the the sisters in that apartment are all about to go home and there is still some disobedience.  It is really sad because I love them all so much and I want them to go home with no regrets and although sometimes they think they are happy being disobedient, we know and the Lord knows that that is not true happiness.  I'm grateful and I see blessings happening everyday in my area and I know that obedience has a great part to do with it.  I know that my Tagalog is not the best, I'm not the best teacher, but I know that the Lord makes up for our weaknesses when we show to Him that we will obey Him and will do our part :)

This week we also had an STL meeting at Aurora where we talked about the upcoming zone conferences, and the sisters conference that we will have :)  We are so excited!  We then went out to lunch with President and Sister Revillo, the food was the best and I had the BEST halo halo that I've had here in the Philippines!  One day we will all come back and eat there, it was so masarap!

MIRACLE:  I want to share this with you all because it is a miracle and a blessing that Heavenly Father is giving us!  We don't have much time to work in our area with all the meetings, working in other area's with the sisters, and fulfilling our responsibilities, but the Lord is blessing our area so much!  We had 11 INVESTIGATORS at CHURCH!  And they are all really progressing!  Sister Liguayan and I are having so much faith and are really setting our standards and goals high for this transfer, and what a great way to start!  They are families as well which is our goal in our mission for this year.  We need to establish the church and that means focusing on families :)  We owe such thanks to this ward as well who is helping so much, visiting our investigators when we are not here, and having family home evenings multiple times a week to invite our investigators to attend! It is wonderful!  Sister Liguayan and I are so blessed with this ward and area and we are just loving the work!! 

I love you so much!! Thank you again for all your prayers.  I love you all more than I can express!!  I look forward to hearing from you all again next week :)

Love, Sister Latham