Sister Tune and I had a great
week. This week was the highest our stats have been for at least the last 6
transfers. I don't know about before then. We have really been trying to
maximize the members and it has been working. Bad news, we had to change Bro. D’s
baptismal date again. June
28 now. He drank again last week. But, Brother D’s 13-year-old
son did come to church with him on
Sunday which was good. Brother D
has now read almost the entire Book of Mormon…Stupid word of wisdom problem is
the only thing holding him back.
Also, Sister M is still having
a big problem with cigarettes. She doesn't seem to be making a whole lot of
progress. But yesterday we had great lessons with both of them with members who
had similar word of wisdom problems before they were baptized and that seemed
to help a lot. I think both of them were pretty
inspired.
Yesterday when we were teaching Brother D it was
raining really hard. His 7 year-old son then stripped off ALL of his clothes
and went outside to play in the rain. Then he came back and his mom gave him a
towel. Then, he thought it was so funny, to come and stand right in front of
us, then open his towel and flash us and laugh and laugh. Crazy kid! Last week, he flat out threw a fit when I
left. His parents literally had to pry him away from my legs. He was sitting on
my feet refusing to let me go. Then somehow he escaped and followed us for a
long time. We were getting a little worried because we were pretty far from his
house. We had to give him some candy to get him to go home.
Nothing too out of the
ordinary has happened this week. On
Saturday, we were walking to the family in Tuding. Whenever I walk there
I feel like I’m in Indiana Jones because of the incredible scenery. Sister Tune
loves this story. So I was marching confidently along the path, singing the Indiana
Jones theme song, waving a big banana leaf over my head. Then I came upon a
giant dead rat (about the size of a medium size cat) on the trail and flipped
out. Sister Tune doesn't think I’m Indiana Jones material...["Rats." Why'd it have to be "rats?"]
We have really good lessons with the family in
Tuding, but they won't commit to come to church. She said she will schedule one
day to come to our church. Hopefully that will be soon. She is still reading a
lot and understanding everything.
Here are some more funny
things about our ward... So remember the guy (counselor in the stake
presidency) that kept saying "you cannot get to heaven without your
bishop?" Well, he decided to do another 3rd hour combined chastisement of
the ward. Here are some of the highlights: "if you say the name of Deity
more than 3 times in a prayer, you are profaning!" or "if you're in
the hallway during the sacrament and you don't hear the 'amen', you are not
allowed to take the sacrament." and about 6 or 7 others, including a big
lecture on using thee instead of you in prayers. This seems a little silly when
English is everyone’s second language here.
It is absolutely ridiculous the amount of gossip
and talking about people behind their back here. They call it
"chismis." We just run around trying to reactivate people that were
offended by a member... almost always a leader.
Gossiping is definitely a Filipino culture thing. Also,
a lot of times they are very passive-aggressive. But, someone being offended in
my opinion usually comes from a lack of faith. If they had stronger
testimonies, it wouldn’t matter what the relief society president said to them.
Man, we had a really rough lesson this week with a less active. She was
basically yelling at us about how fake "plastic" our members are. She
said the missionaries are always fine, but it's a different story when you come
to church.
Also, we have had a ton of anti-Mormon stuff thrown
in our faces recently…hard questions that we can't really answer any other way
then by telling them to have faith and pray about it. There is this old man in
our ward. He is 85-years-old and been a member since the 70s. He is tiny and has
these glasses that magnify his eyes to 3 times their size. We noticed he hasn't
been at church, so we went to visit him. He informed us that he was a little
bored with our church so he has been attending Baguio Bible College. He made us
look at all these papers they gave him. Straight up anti-Mormon stuff. Turns
out he was offended by the guy in the guy in the stake presidency. The thing is,
he still has a testimony and whatnot. So, hopefully, he’ll come around.
We've just been telling people that we're not there
to prove to them that the Book of Mormon is true, but we just try and explain
it, testify about it and then help them to read and pray about it so they can
know for themselves.
Sister Tune and I had a creepy experience last
week. We were walking home and then we both started to feel really nervous. We
didn't know why. We were trying to figure out why we both felt really nervous. Then
we walked underneath a street light and it just went off. Sounds stupid, but it
was so scary! We sprinted home. Right when we got under another street light a
little ways away, it just came on. Sounds really silly, but it was the scariest
feeling ever. Everything was ok though. I don't know if something would have
happened. I usually don't believe dramatic missionary stories like that, but
that one actually happened to me!
I need to go. Love you very much! Have a great
week!
Photos from Brother S's baptism in San Fernando
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