I've been on my mission Thirteen Phast Sundays....Crazy!

I can't believe I’ve been here for a year. On my one year mark, we had zone interviews with the mission president. I got my letter that has information so they can book my flight for home. Crazy! I still have 1/3 of my mission left.

On July 31, I looked down at my favorite shoes [crocs] and realized that I had worn a hole completely through the sole. They're the best. Don’t worry though, there are these people that go around and fix shoes, so I had a guy sew some new soles onto mine.

Here’s an interesting story. On Saturday we were walking down the street and this guy comes out of this gross bar (he wasn't drunk though) and starts to ask if we're Mormons. We’re in a kind of sketchy part of town... we start to talk to him and tell him about the church. I notice that he is dressed extremely well... fancy shoes, nice jeans, nice jacket, a fedora, a diamond ring, and a diamond bracelet. We ask him his name and he just says something super quickly. He told us he was an attorney but he refused to tell us his real name. He also spoke to us in flawless English...very impressive. Then he starts saying "I have to talk to you right now. I need direction in my life. I’m so sad all the time. I have everything, but at the same time I have nothing." then he just snaps his fingers and all of these guys from the bar come to him and start saying "yes, sir. What is it?" they're like his servants! They were just there to do his bidding.  He tells them that he's leaving. Then he tries to make us get in his car, but we told him we couldn’t do that... so he says we will go to a restaurant and he will buy us dinner so we can talk to him. Since we couldn't ride in his car, the only place within walking distance was this crappy pizza place. We walk in and he just snaps his fingers at the pizza people and tells them to get us the very biggest pizza. They just all immediately start calling him sir and doing whatever he wants. We talked to him for like 45 minutes. He had a ton of deep questions about our purpose in life and stuff. We read several scriptures with him from the Book of Mormon. He refused to take a copy of the Book of Mormon though. When he opened his wallet to pay for the pizza I saw just a ton of 1,000 peso bills... he also gave the pizza guy a huge tip (and no one ever gives tips in the Philippines). He gave us his phone number, but refused to tell us his name, or where he lives. I don’t know what to think. We will be careful. I think we might just teach him at public places. He really likes us though. He just bosses everyone around but treats us with great respect.

Our investigators are doing ok. Something miraculous happened. One of our less active members came to church. One of our other investigators  wants to be baptized, hasn't come to church, and the only contact we've had with him this week was when we ran into him on the street and he was really drunk. So sad! The others are doing ok. Sister M is continuing to progress. We found this family last week that seems really promising. They didn't come to church though. We also got two referrals on Sunday, which literally never happens. I’ve only had 3 legit referrals since being in this area. One is a 13 year -old girl that apparently has been coming to church with her friend for a while and she wants to be baptized. I don't know if president will let her though because she's underage and her only support system is another 13 year-old. Hopefully though! Someone came to church yesterday with a member who is their neighbor. We are going to teach her later today.

We taught this less active last week. He’s the really old guy that gave us a bunch of anti-Mormon stuff that one time. He started to tell us some things he's been learning from the Baguio Bible College. He informed us that it has now been revealed that on Noah’s ark, all of the animals reproduced very rapidly. Cats reproduced the most. So many cats were born that the ship sank. We asked him how on earth he knows that and he pulled out that scripture in John that says how there are other words or whatever that aren't in this book. So based on that scripture apparently you can make up anything and then say it happened. We tried to explain that that scripture is talking about the Book of Mormon but he wouldn't listen.

It's been raining like crazy. I’m never dry. My hair is ok…not getting worse. My skin is getting better.

I saw many gross things this week. I’ll share one thing.  Dogs here eat plastic when they don't have food so I see a lot of multi colored dog poop because they eat colorful plastic bags... that's pretty gross and very sad.

My testimony was strengthened this week through a talk called "The fourth missionary.” It was a great talk. Also, my testimony continues to be strengthened as I study about the restoration including the apostasy and all that jazz. Also I read the chapters about the Atonement in Jesus the Christ yesterday. We have been trying to focus on teaching by the spirit and teaching according to needs. Last night we were supposed to teach one of our families about tithing but when we got there we felt like we should change it. We shared 3 Nephi 13:31-33 and talked about seeking the kingdom of God first. They were very touched and realized that God hadn't been their priority.

It's time for me to go! Have a wonderful week! I love you all very much. Thanks for your example to me.

 

We went to Mineview. There's an awesome view and then you can dress up in these Igorot costumes. Don't you think I look awesome! They tried to just give me this dumb little flower thing to hold. I said, "Excuse me, but could I please have the spear and shield?" Much better!