 |
| Sad condition Jordan's last package at the time of arrival (ugh) |
Well, this week was full of ups and downs. It was mostly "up" at the
beginning of the week, so I guess I'll just start there. On Tuesday, we had just finished with an
appointment and were walking to our next one.
It started to rain, so we just wanted to get to our appointment
quickly. On our way, I was wondering how
and when we would find someone new to teach, because our only strong
investigator is 11 years old (Jarome).
As we were walking, I was just staring at some house as we were walking
by. I had distinct impression to go and
talk to the woman outside her house. Of
course it was the Spirit, and of course I put the impression away, until it
came the second time. I really didn't feel
like talking to her, but acted on the prompting anyway. It turns out that she and her family had
already been taught by the missionaries before and they were not
interested. It wasn’t really the result
I was hoping for, but the important thing is that I listened to the
Spirit. Who knows? Maybe in a few years, she and her family will
accept the gospel and we just played a role in helping bring that about. Perhaps the Spirit has been trying to talk to
her for awhile, but maybe he's just sending one companionship of missionaries
at a time. Here in Mamonit, EVERYONE has
heard of the missionaries. That's not a
joke, either. It seems that about 99% of
everyone we talked to thus far has said that either they, a sibling, parents,
aunt, uncle, etc., have been taught by the missionaries before, and that they
do not want to hear from us. It's been
like this since I first arrived. We
must've had some diligent missionaries here in the past, because everyone's
been taught or attempted to be taught.
So, it has been a tad frustrating.
I guess I'm going back and forth with the good news and the bad news, so
I'll go back to some good news. But on
the bright side, we are here doing our best, and may well be opening unknown
doors for opportunities for spiritual conversion down the road.
 |
| Jordan and Elder Timbas visiting the Camaling River |
In other good news, on Wednesday I finished reading The
Book of Mormon again for the second time on my mission. I enjoy reading the Book of Mormon so
much. It gives me a little bit of a "confidence
boost" for the day, because we're pretty much in the hardest area in
the zone. The challenges out here would
be a lot a worse if I wasn't reading the Book of Mormon right now, but that and
my prayers are keeping very close to Heavenly Father. Some more good news: my ATM card finally
works! We took out our support money in
Camaling this week, so I decided to test the ATM card again. I was really happy to see a small amount of
cash to come out. Woo!
In other bad news, Saturday or Friday (can't remember) we
went to one of our investigator's homes (Juner, again 11 years old) to teach
him, but his mom is now against it.
We've been trying to teach her, too, and I thought we were making
progress there, but apparently not (or so it would seem - perhaps only a
temporary set back). He wasn't allowed
to attend church yesterday, which is a shame because his house is literally
right in front of the church. However,
we were able to teach him again yesterday.
His family was attending a funeral later in the day for a relative, so
he wondered if he would ever see that relative again. I told him that he would and that we would be
teach the Plan of Salvation to him this week.
So, maybe that will put some life back into the fire. (Hopefully so.)
Okay, about Mother's Day. I'm probably going to make the set-up call on
Saturday or Friday here (so it'll be before David and Kambria's wedding). Will David and Kambria still be there on
Sunday for the call? I'm planning on
calling on Monday, so it'll be just like Christmas. I'll have to use the calling card, so
hopefully that'll work the first time, because I've heard missionaries have had
problems with those in the past. Should
I Skype? I can, but do I need a Skype
account for that? Oh well. We'll figure it out later I guess. I'll probably just call.
 |
| Jordan with his zone at the Camaling River |
Well, I think that might be it for this week. We're starting week five of the transfer
already. Yeah, crazy. I've been here for over a month already. I'm a little sad that I'll be missing the
wedding this week, but I'm sure I'll get plenty of details from it (and I can’t
wait to see pictures of the life sized Jordan).
We're going to Tarlac to do some grocery shopping and also to get Elder
Timbas's x-rays done, because he's going home.
So, we'll see if he has any mga bulati (intestinal worms - yay).
Mahal ko kayo! Ingat
Elder Jordan Royal
No comments:
Post a Comment