Monday, November 30, 2015

November 30, 2015 - Moncada, Paniqui, Philippines

Hey fam!!!
A pretty great week for my companion and I.  We are continuing to work hard even though it is super hot haha.  But things are going quite well.  Not only are we finding success with some of our investigators but also with some of our less actives, as we have had one less active attend 3 times in a row now and two others attend twice in a row so that is going great.

As far as our investigators...Bianca (11) and Charmie (13) both passed their baptism interviews this week, so Elder Ordejan and I will having two baptisms this upcoming Saturday, and on that same saturday we have an interview with another one of our investigators, JR. JR is doing great and has left smoking and is awesome.

We had 8 investigators attend church yesterday including almost the entire Sebayan family which was dang awesome.  Myrna and her husband, JR, Bianca, JR's brother and his wife.  Also Charmie came of course and even another investigator who we have been teaching but hadn't progressed yet named Mari Nica.  she finally came and she has tons of friends at church, because she is 17 and there are a ton of girls her age in our branch.  Our branch gets like 130 attendance every week, but it isn't a ward yet only because there aren't enough active full-tithe paying melchizedek priesthood holders.  But there are tons of members and we have a chapel.  It is an awesome branch and the Branch President is amazing.  Such a great branch president, but he is moving to Finland sadly in a couple of weeks so we might move into his nice big house with two A/C's :)

We taught a new guy this week named JR Andres, and he is from here in the pines but lived in Australia for 23 years so his english is awesome.  The first time we contacted him we were speaking in Tagalog but he spoke english to us.  This was when me and an american elder were on exchange, and Elder Teasedale said that my english changes as soon as i start speaking to a brown person haha, it was kind of funny.  I thought i was speaking normal english but apparently not.  I still have the broken english.  But i teach this guy in english and boy is that refreshing.  Things flow so much easier for me in english haha.  But i really feel the spirit working with me in tagalog because i really have no thought before what i am going to say except for a few things and the tagalog just flows out like a miracle. 

Speaking of tagalog.  I got to know what it felt like to be Elder Van Tassell.  Elder Parks and I (yes my batchmate from India) went on exchange this week and we are pretty sure it is the first time it has ever happened in this mission...two indian elders together.  I led all the lessons and translated for Elder Parks...that was interesting.  Everyone in our district and zone was super surprised to hear about that but it went really well, so i really have been blessed with the gift of tongues and it has nothing to do with me.  It is all God.  Everyone is telling me how great i am at learning a language and stuff, but i have nothing to do with it.  It is all God just blessing me in that way.  He blesses some people with good looks and good people skills, he just chose to bless me in a different way...Tagalog haha;)

But things are going great.  Word on the street is the visas are coming pretty soon so really hoping that happens for sure. Mom if you haven't sent the package yet i thought of a couple things to possibly add...a new gatorade water bottle, peanut butter, and a thing of shaving cream.  Mine exploded the other day because of the heat so all of it is wasted now. haha.

Sounds like things are great at home and christmas is coming up soon!!!Crazy!!!  On to month 17 now...what the heck...   Dad keep an eye on my boys for me during the ball season.  Don't let them slack off...

Love you guys! I uploaded some pics but i didn't get to upload all of them because of a slow internet connection that caused us to switch shops and this current shop doesnt have a place to plug in my card reader so more coming next week!
Elder Ball




No comments:

Post a Comment