Expect the Unexpected

           Thanks for the late Super Bowl update, Dad.  I probably shouldn’t care that the 49ers lost but . . . Man!  I can't believe the 49ers lost! :(  How long has it been since they've won a super bowl? 18 years?  At least Dennis Pitta got a touchdown for the Ravens.  I didn't even know that he was actually playing, but I’ll take that as a nice little consolation prize that a BYU alum is now a Super Bowl champion.  Good for him. 

            Since I didn’t write to discuss a Super Bowl I will never see (and really don’t care all that much except . . . Man!  I can’t believe the 49ers lost!), I will get to the things in my life that really matter.

Jordan with his zone in Tarlac just before the last transfer

            I really enjoyed my experience at ZL/DLC with President Martino and the other ZLs on Tuesday.  It was a good experience but . . . wow, a lot of zones got chastised, corrected, or interrogated by President from some of the goals that were being set (yes, including ours).  Well, we'll know for next time, right?  There's been a real decline in the work here in the mission since December, which needs to be turned around.  We only reached 50% of our mission goals for January (James was one of those baptized. yes!).  The number of new investigators mission wide has been really down, so that's what Elder Dadizon and I planned to fix for our Zone Training the next day.  To have more investigators, you need to talk to people, but what exactly are the quality of our initial contacts?  A lot of times, and I'm guilty of this sometimes, street contacts are just really simple with not that much feeling.  We read from Finding section in Preach My Gospel that discusses testifying while contacting, and we felt that we needed to teach that.  That's something I can really improve on personally - testifying to everyone that I talk to about the Restoration or the Atonement.  We put together an awesome workshop that really helped us all out as a zone.  I tried it, and I noticed that the more I testified with every single street contact that I felt the Spirit always backing me up.  A lot of people completely changed as we talked to them and shared about the Gospel.  I don't know how many of those will become investigators, but I'm satisfied knowing that I did my best by testifying to everyone.

Jordan with Chris (right) and Jerimiah (left).  
Jerimiah recently turned in his mission papers

 

           We had a good week with our investigators, most notably the Manuel Family (the part-member family that I wrote about last week).  All of the four children are supposed to be baptized this week, except for the oldest, Lovely, who's now expressing doubt that she doesn't know enough, or doesn't want to leave her present church.  She likes everything about the LDS Church, but said she does not yet have a firm assurance of the Book of Mormon.  After thinking for a bit, I asked her: "Have you read the Book of Mormon with a real desire to know that it's true and have prayed to know?"  She said she hadn't.  I took her Book of Mormon and marked some scriptures to read that night and committed her to pray about whether the things she was reading are true.  (Moroni 10, 2 Nephi 33).  She wasn't interviewed on Sunday, but one of the APs is working with us tomorrow, so she could be interviewed tomorrow and be baptized on Saturday with her siblings if she chooses to do so, but we always assure her that there is no pressure.  The decision to follow Christ 

Jordan with Noreen Tadaya and Rey Noveda
visiting Nanay Elsa

through baptism is critical and must be made by a sincere exercise of agency.  I enjoy working with investigators like her who really want to know for themselves if what we are sharing is true instead of the others who always say, "yes" to everything we say.  It would really be special to have all four of them baptized on the same day, but that will be up to Lovely and her test of faith.  I'd rather her be baptized next year with a firm and unshaken testimony of the Gospel than for her to be baptized quickly with no testimony at all, only to fall away.  We’ll see what happens.

This is a picture of what Jordan's group painted

            We also had a service project at the Manuel's house to paint the grills on the second floor of their house.  We were supposed to have another set of elders join us so that it would go by faster, but it ended up only being the four us painting this massive grill thing.  (Grills are bars in front of windows, doors, or balconies to keep people from getting in the house.)  It took a couple of hours in the hot sun, but we got it done, and the bars (grill), look a lot better.  We were happy with how it looked afterwards.

Another view of the grill painting service project

            Interesting stories for the week:  We were teaching one family that lives in the same building as another family, but has a wall up for privacy, so it's two different homes.  Anyway, while we were teaching, we just heard screaming and commotion from next door.  Apparently, their 13 year old son came home completely drunk.  We all stopped during the lesson and kind of just listened as this was all going on.  The kid was crying and then shouted, "I'm going to kill myself!"  They thought he was joking, so they left the house as this kid was crying.  Then it all the sudden got really quiet, and then all the sudden there were people running to the house.  The kid tried to hang himself and almost succeeded, but luckily, there was someone still in the house who then told the parents.  The kid looked like he got knocked out from a fight as they took him to a pump-well and poured water all over him.  As we left and felt really bad for the kid, we saw the kid run into an alley and tried to hide.  We taught another lesson after that, but they were able to find the kid after the lesson we taught.  It was pretty scary. 

Jordan with Bro. Rey in a sugar cane field

             Another one:  Last night, we worked with some of the branch missionaries and ate dinner at the Branch President's house to close the night.  As we were about to leave, we heard a woman crying outside.  We looked outside and found no one.  We went back outside again and this drunk guy stands in front of Elder Dadizon and says, "What's your problem?  What are you guys watching?"  We thought this drunk guy was going to flip out, but luckily his other drunk friends stepped in between us and apologized to us for his behavior.  Pretty eventful week.  Hence, the title of my email

            We almost caught a rat this week, but it barely escaped out the window. Ah rats!  (Pun intended.)  Oh, and yes I did meet Nanay Adonis' mother yesterday at church. What a small world that we live in!  Oh, and Mom, I got the package you sent with Brad and the insoles are awesome!  I can actually now use the new shoes you sent me!  I also put the other extra insoles with the ones I was using before, so now they're extra comfortable.  Best gift EVER!

Jordan at the last dinner appointment he would have with the Tadaya family in Victoria

            I think that's about it for this week.  I hope that you enjoyed your week and that you guys will be safe.  I have my camera with me now, so I'll be sending some pics now from Victoria and also a couple from here.  Alright.  Ingat kayo. 

             Elder Jordan "A Disappointed 49er Fan But Not THAT Disappointed Because He Loves Sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ Way More Than Football” Royal