Monday, November 20, 2017

Week Fourty-Seven!!! 10-23-17

Hello friends and family!

This week was really cool, on Thursday we all got to go to Cauayan and have our zone conference with our area seventy Elder Bowen and his wife Sister Bowen. Before the Zone Conference he wanted us to study about the Abrahamic Covenant, The House of Israel, The Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood, and the Baptismal Covenant. During Zone Conference he taught us about how having a greater understanding of these things, especially of covenants we have with the Lord, will greater help us to learn more about ourselves personally and our purpose here in life. It was really cool and it helps me understand more about covenants with the Lord. We had a broadcast here in July when I first got to the area and I remember one of the speakers was talking about the balance scale of the Lord and how incredibly off balance it is, especially when it comes to covenants with the Lord. It helps me realize that what the Lord asks of us is just so incredibly small in comparison to the blessing that He so fully desires to give to each and every one of us here on earth. It was a really great Zone Conference. We were also combined with the zones at the bottom of the mission so I got to see Sister Fookz's other trainee, Sister Tanedo. We always e-mail each other and send each other notes through the mission but we haven't met yet, so we finally got to see each other last week and she's just the freaking best little Filipina I've ever met. Me and her are very best friends now hahah.

This next week we have 4 baptisms coming up, and we couldn't be more excited for these young brothers and sisters. One in particular is probably going to be my favorite baptism so far in my mission, let me tell you a little bit about this brother. We tried to contact a group of young men standing on the road about 6 weeks ago while we were asking for directions. At first we hesitated to even contact them because they were all teenagers, some were even smoking and none looked like they would be even a little bit interested to speak with us, but we have to talk with EVERYONE so we started our contact. one of these boys just completely walked away when we started to ask an inspired question about the Restoration and the rest followed him so we just moved on. About a week later, as we are teaching a lesson outside around the same area, this same young man walks up and just sits in on the lesson and immediately starts to ask some really great questions. We were only teaching an overview of lesson one, the Restoration of the Gospel through the prophet Joseph Smith, but he was asking things about how the Lord told the prophets of old that they were prophets, and if they held the power of God, how did God give it to them. The way that this boy looked and the way he was speaking, we could feel his sincere, genuine desire to understand the way the Lord works. We were happy that he had the change of heart to listen to our message after all. And since that day he has been the most progressive investigator I have ever seen in my mission. Every single lesson we have with him this 17 year old boy impresses me so much with how deeply he has been pondering the doctrine by the questions he asks. He has a desire for his own salvation as well as his family's. We are so excited this week for this brothers baptism. 

Something else cool was that me and my anak had to teach Gospel Principles class yesterday in church, hahah. Our topic was about Service so we got to teach a lesson about that and me and sister capa decided to base it around a quote from the last conference's Saturday session (I dont remember who the speaker was, please let me know) but they said, "Love without SERVICE, is like Faith without WORKS." Me and Sister Capa both really love that quote.

I love you guys lots and lots and I miss you all, it's crazy that I only have about 7 months left here. Time goes by so incredibly fast, and I already know I will be so, so sad when my time here is up, so I really try to do as much as I can here for the Lord every single day.

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