Hey Family! Sorry I'm writing this so late. I just finished with all of the monthly
reporting for our area and the district, along with my weekly letter to
President Martino. It seems like a lot, but
the zone leaders actually have to do several hours of reporting each week and a
bunch of other stuff. Anyway, as you can
probably tell, we had a bumpy start to our week but things got a lot better by
the end. We had a ton of punted
appointments this week (no call/no show), but I felt much happier this week and
felt the Spirit more consistently regardless of the negative events. We had a lot of good happen and I tried to
focus on all that.
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| Jordan with his companion and the ward missionaries who served with them this week |
We received a referral from the bishop to teach his
neighbor. She's 15 and I guess we
occasionally say hi to her as we walk by during the evenings, but I did not
really recognize her. She was really
interested to hear from us. The main
question she said she wanted answered was whether Jesus Christ was really
literally resurrected. We told her we
would teach her all about that during our later lessons, but we invited her to
pray to God about our message and ask Him to reveal truth to her. We promised that if she would do so, she
would absolutely have answers to all her questions, and know for herself
whether the things we teach her are true (including the Atonement, sacrifice,
and resurrection of Jesus Christ). We
have a similar investigator like her named Silvia, who is also 15, and they
actually attend the same church together.
We've been teaching Silvia’s brother, Mark, for a long time. In fact, Mark was my first lesson in this
area. We learned this week that Mark
moved to Manila and is going abroad to work in another country. That was a bummer, but Silvia is
awesome. She joined in one night as we
were teaching Mark about the gospel of Jesus Christ (i.e. faith,
repentance, baptism, gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end) and she
became interest to learn more. Silvia is
really smart about the gospel, because she's super active in her own
church. She developed a desire to learn
more and said she knew that the things we taught them are true. We invited Silvia to read the Book of Mormon
with Mark and to pray about it, asking Heavenly Father to reveal truth to
her. She told us yesterday that she
prayed to God asking for a sign if the Book of Mormon was true. She said in her prayer that if a Kaliglig
(farm tractor) drove by her house then that meant that the Book of Mormon's
true, but if none drove by, it's not. So
she said immediately after her prayer a kaliglig drove by her house, so she
took that as a sign that the Book of Mormon's true. (That is NOT the way Heavenly Father
generally reveals truth to us, and we did not teach her to ask for signs
other than to seek for answers through the peaceful feelings that come through
the Comforter or Holy Ghost.) When we
went to teach Silvia yesterday, I realized that she hadn't been taught about the
restoration yet, so we taught her all about the Great Apostasy and the Prophet
Joseph Smith. The Spirit was really
powerful and she later told us at the end of the lesson that she was confused
because she, like Joseph Smith, did not know exactly which church which was
true now. I just smiled and said, "Well,
I guess you're in the same situation that Joseph Smith was in. You now know what you need to do." She accepted our invitation to pray about
Joseph Smith and the answer to his prayer about truth that resulted in the
restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the earth in its fulness (as it
was during the Savior’s ministry). We
are excited to follow up with Silvia later this week.
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| Homemade Orange Julius is a rare treat |
We actually worked with the ward missionaries yesterday
for the first time since I've been here.
We went on splits and had a lot of fun while teaching some very
spiritual lessons. I taught the lesson
with Silvia yesterday with only the ward missionaries. I wasn't really super close with the members
here initially, but I am now so much closer with them. The members I was with said that they noticed
that I changed a lot yesterday (as a good thing). There was a kind of bond established - just
like that. I really hope I am not
transferred in three weeks. I would love
to be here for Christmas, because that would be awesome, and we are teaching
some great people. The new chapel that
has been being renovated for over six months now is practically done, and we
should be there this Sunday or next Sunday.
I want to go to church there at least once before I get
transferred. It's really nice and
big. I'm also going to finish Sister
Martino's "Finding Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon"
activity by the end of the transfer, so this will be my third time completing
the Book of Mormon on my mission. As
Elder L. Tom Perry stated: "It's a great book!"
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| Jordan, wielding the Sword of Truth (when he should probably be taking out the trash) |
President Martino attended our District Meeting on
Wednesday with a phone-call notice the night before, so I was worrying why (and
thought I might be in trouble - ha), but it was actually awesome that he
attended. We had a great meeting with
him. He answered a lot of our questions
of how to help our investigators out and stuff, so that was very cool. He's such an inspiring man! We have ZL/DLC again on Wednesday, so that's
what I'll be doing on my 14th month mark. (It is hard to believe that I have been
serving for 14 months as a missionary. I
love it!)
Wow. I can't
believe that you guys had Thanksgiving again (without me, too . . . [sniff,
sniff]). Thanks for the Thanksgiving Day
pictures, Dad. Those were awesome!! Royal and Beckham are HUGE! (Royal is getting fat :P - haha. They are both so cute.) I'll hit my one year mark in the Philippines
on the 30th this week [first two months were in the Provo Mission
Training Center], so that's a huge accomplishment. I love all of ya'lls over there. ;) Mahal ko kayo. Accomplish great things.
Elder Jordan "isang taon na ako sa
Filipinas!" Royal
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| Speaking of the Sword of Truth . . . we figured this would be a great opportunity to enclose our favorite pre-mission picture of Jordan |
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