Monday July 23, 2012

Dear Family,

This week we had the opportunity to learn from a member of the Quorum of the 70, Elder Teh. It blows my mind how deep of an understanding of the gospel that these General Authorities have. Something that was cool that I learned from him, is in Alma, where Ammon is talking to king Lamoni, and king Lamoni said about Ammon, "Surely this is more then a man." Well the answer to that is no, he is just a man. But he is more then a Natural Man, he is a Man of God. We talked about somethings that make us true men and women of God. He compared missionaries to the turtles in Finding Nemo, where they are just going with the Flow. He said that sometimes there are missionaries that just go with the Flow. He said that there are 3 types of currents in missionary work. The highest, the Pursuit of Excellence current, the PNC current which stands for Pwede na Current, which in english means, Good Enough Current, and there is the Questions current, which is where the dissobiedent missionaries are... its called the question current, because it brings up a lot of.. questions! He said a lot of missionaries fall under the PNC current, missionaries that have baptisms, work, aren't super disobedient, but aren't super obedient. But the difference between the Pursuit of Excellence current and the PNC current is that the missionaries, aren't willing to give it all to the Lord, they aren't doing everything they can to serve the Lord, the missionaries who haven't yet "Lost themselves in the Work." Its hard to say as a individual where you are, but I am trying my best to be in the Pursuit of Excellence current. 

I learned a lot of other things from him. But I think that is something that stuck out to me the most. I am excited for when Elder Cook, Bishop Davies and Elder Nielson to come to the mission. should learn a lot from them haha. 

Some exciting things happened this week in our work, we got a referral from the Rebuca family, and yesterday contacted them. They are awesome. They are a married couple about 30 years old, their name is, Pemuliar. Sister and Brother Rebuca were there as well for the lesson. The lesson was awesome, we just taught them the basics of God is our Loving Heavenly Father and the Gospel Blesses Families. The spirit was strong and, the lesson quite honestly was awesome. They have a lot of sincere interest. Brother is hilarious... they could just end up being a perfect family. They do have minor vices... but for right now those dont matter. 

We started teaching this girl named myra, she is 14... a little young, but you would be surprised how interested she is. Her uncle and his whole family are members, he is the Bishop of some ward close to Bagio City. Her dad is in Manila and is actually about to get baptized there in Manila. Her mom was taught before she went abroad and was gonna get baptized but, she had to leave to go to Quait to work.. she will probably get baptized when she gets back. So myra has a lot of support, and a lot of interest. She is just studying in Jones, she really lives in Nueva Viciya... her uncles ward. She was taught by the missionaries back when she was there.. but we are reteaching her again.. she knows everything.. just needs a testimony, and follow the commandments.. in the house that she is living in there is no male there... so we technically cant teach.. but we meet her at the Rebuca families house and teach her there. 

We haven't been able to teach the Aquino family.. no one is ever there when we go to there house. 

We taught sister Fernandez a couple of times this week. She is doing okay, she didn't come to church though. She told us that it is okay to not go to Church as long as you dont work on sunday... I didn't say this to her but I thought, well if you dont work on sunday what else do you do, that is making you not available to come to church... and is it really more important then following the commandments of the Lord... I think our next lesson is going to be keeping the Sabbath Day Holy. We will jsut have to be careful and loving when we teach it... not condemning haha.

Something else cool happened, we went to go teach this family.. the Cristoval Family. We showed up, and they told us that they were just about to leave so we couldn't teach them. But that they would come to church the next day.. I personally didn't believe them it sounded like just another lame excuse. But they actually did come to Church yesterday. I was super surprised.. hopefully it just continues. 

The branch is slowly starting to get better, the contention is gone. But people honestly still aren't fulfilling their callings... honestly as missionaries we dont have any authority there... we cant do anything, other then try to inspire, and work hard in missionary work. I just hate it when the criticize us, and tell us how to do our jobs. Yesterday someone said, "Bakit lagi wala kayong investigators." Which means, why do you never have any investigators. First of all our new focus is on less actives, and we always have less actives at church, secondly we did have a investigator come to church earlier, but no one went out of there way to shake hands with her or introduce themselves to her. Sorry I am taking out my frustration on you guys. But they don't know what it is like, leaving at 12ish everyday getting home at 9ish everyday, getting rejected by everyone, walking and walking all day, having this awesome message that you want to share but very few people who will listen.. then going to church expecting at least members to be nice, and they out of ignorance belittle us with something they have no clue about... all we can do is try our best to stay in the "Pursuit of Excellence Current", and stay positive. 

I am glad to have a companion like Elder Lasay, he is awesome, our work no matter how hard is always fun because of him, I (brotherly) love him a lot, we will and are finding miracles how ever rare they are. Prayer, Scripture study, and keeping the commandments can get you through anything. I think I have prayed more this cycle then any other cycle so far.. and its helping a lot. So I guess as a missionary I would say, pray always. Its super important.. I mean Jesus said it like 4 times in 3 Nephi 18.. if He said it 4 times... it has to be important. 

Sorry I was a little negative in this letter, but it was nice to tell someone... 

Mahal ko Kayo
Ingat kayo lagi
Elder James