Family!
Welp it is now once again this time of week to write the letter, everything has a place and time, and its 2pm here at scc in centro santiago on monday so it is the right place and the right time! This week seems like a blur all the days now are just meshing together, I couldn't tell you what day some of these things happened I just remember that they happened. So so this was a very "successful" week, we taught a lot, had a decent amount of investigators and less actives at church, we taught some solid lessons this week, yep Im really happy dito in baluarte. Oh first things first, dont email me about general conference this week no matter what happened or how awesome presidents hollands talk is. Just wait a week, because gen conference here is a week after it is there, so my gen conference is the 7th and 8th?...its for a couple of reasons, first they gotta translate it from english to tagalog...even though most people listen to it in english..even though there are tagalog rooms in the church they could go to here. Most Filipinos can understand english alright...most filipino missionaries prefer the english b.o.m just cause the tagalog that they use is suuuuper deep and a lot of them dont even know the meanings! the other reason is because when it is the 31st for us it is still the 30th for you so of course our times are different then yours...i am kinda of jealous of you cause i have to wait another week before conference.
Well this is what happened as far as the people we teach, we taught Micah about the Restoration, the spirit was super strong during the lesson and she had lot of really good questions, we taught that if she prays to know if its true she will feel the spirit and come to know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and that we need to ask to receive. There is a popular phrase here...kung walang katanonang walang kasagutan..which means if no questions no answers. So we taught her that she needs to ask, she asked me, when I prayed about Joseph if I asked for a sign...so we taught her a little about the holy ghost, and explained the way he works. then the next lesson we taught about the b.o.m and we asked if she asked, she said she did and she felt something that she has never felt before and it felt good! she is so awesome she might be my new favorite investigator...i dont know if its a bad thing if missionaries have favorites...but until someone tells me its bad..she will be my favorite! she is just super sincere she really wants to know, most people just sit there and listen, she sits listens and listens to understand and if she doesnt she asks questions.
Sarani and Vivyean, they live at Tatay Pagbilaws...I think i wrote abou them last week, anyway, you will never guess what happened. They all came to Chruch...Japey the Apostate RM and his girlfriend, Jenny Pagbilaw and her boyfriend Sarani...I dont really understand them, our lessons with them are good, but during the lessons they dont seem that interested, but sarani has come to church 2 and vivyean basically forced japey to come to church! and they do all of the reading...i thnk during the lessons they are just kinda shy and think that they are supposed to just listen while we teach...basta they are keeping all of the commitments and they are solid. they just need to pray and ask if its true...its funny how everything hangs on one thing and thats them praying and asking...with a sincere heart. if they dont do it nothing will happen. even if they are baptized they wont last...you need that confirmation that its true.
Sister Leal....noooooooooooooooooooo (breath) noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! She is moving to manila, to train to be a house maid so she can go work abroad and leave her family behind here in the Philippines....sorry but this really bugs me. Do you think that thats a better life for your family, leaving on the hope to get more money for them. I dont understand it, her husband napakapakapakpakayaw niya....(really really really doesnt want it). Anything that pulls a family apart cant be good, she will be gone in Manila and then find a job abroad. I guess the desire for worldy things will always look more appealing to people...i guess satans good at that, making less important things more important then the truely important things. The thing is, if she trusts in God, stays here with her family and relys on the Lord, he wont fail her, he will provide for her family....she just cant understand that though......but there is good news in all of this..we picked up a new investigator because of it and Brother Leal said that he wants to come back to Church.
When we were over at their house he told us about sister cause she was already gone, but he had ths 16 year old boy with him that we taught and got a return appointment too! So there is some hope there.
We werent able to teach vincent this week, his cell phone is down, and he lives malayo na malayo! (very far away) he lives in the mountains. So we dont really want to go out there unless we know he is there..once we walked all the way there and he wasnt there, it took like a hr and a half out of our day...for nothing just a very hard walk. anyway we still havent taught him in about 2 weeks.
Richard is still Richard. Love him, if I am sad, I love going to his house, he will cheer me right up. So funny, he thinks he has 3 girlfriends, i asked him if the bishops wife was his girlfriend, he said yes...replied in english pa! haha Love the man.
Sarah, still doesnt understand what a promise means...she cant keep a commitment to save her life. She said with no doubt she would come to church..wala! Nothing! Dropped her baptisimal date and she isnt even a progressing i anymore!
Hahah we taught this super old tatay, he is still strong, haha still works even though he is like 70. Anyway we taught him...and man that was a weird lesson. He is Inglesia ni Cristo, he thinks God is a Spirit and Jesus is a ordinary man like us. He was a old investigator I guess, he read like half of the B.o.M. and went to church back in the day. But he wont give up his old beliefs, he is about to be excommunicated from the Inglesia. We are gonna go back to teach him again....He has potential....if he will soften his heart.
Thats about it we had a great week, got a lot done. There was a small bagio here..i cant remember what its called in English...like a hurricane. Just rain though and minor wind it would have been like a small tropical storm. I cant remember anything else that happened...we went fishing earlier today...haha we had bamboo fishing pole is was awesome...didnt catch anything the place where we went to kinda sucked. Oh yea we also harvested some Palay..or rice this week. That was fun...hard work, the bukid workers make like nothing...they get 5 pesos per bag of palay that they harvest. And out of 10,000 sq. ft, they get about 100 bags...but if there are 5 of them working they only get one peso per bag, so its either you harvest 10,000 sq ft by yourself and get 500 or get some buds and get 1 peso....
oh yeah i forgot, so elder alfonso and I played a game last week, like on tuesday we only spoke english, and wednesday only tagalog, thursday english, friday tagalog...ect. and whoever with the most mistakes loses. And if he lost his punishment was a 2 meals without rice, if I lost it was i had to eat chicken intestines, there are all these little street bbq that see all this gross stuff, chicken blood, one day old chickens, chicken skin, chicken intestines, and hotdogs! i only ever got hotdogs...but i lost so i had to eat the intestines...grooss...i am sending some pics of it. it actually wasnt too bad...just a gross thought of it.
Mahal Kita
Elder James
p.s. cant believe the broncos got Peyton Manning that is ssiiiccckkk superbowl time baby!!!
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