Sayang na malapit na ang paguwi ko!

Things are great in our area! We are having a lot of success and I wish I had more time to see all these people progress and be baptized. I'm lucky though because I'll get to see Jimmy and Dominico get baptized on Saturday. Right now, we are trying to focus on referrals and trying to get the members to help us in our work; it's going good but sometimes it's a little slow haha. In our companion studies, we have been learning about effective ways to get members involved in the missionary work and I really feel like it is something we need to take advantage of in this area. The members are great and love the missionaries, they just need a little push and I know that the work will explode in this area.

On Sunday, all of our investigators weren't home so we started going to a few members and inactives. We had some good work but weren't having the success we wanted which was a little disappointing. We were just about done for the day when we felt impressed to talk to one more person while walking by their house. They are going to be gone for two weeks but they are really interested in the gospel and have really been prepared by the Lord. They are so interested that they had us come back Monday morning to teach them before they left and then promised to come to church in two weeks.

This week I had one of the coolest experiences of my mission. Way back in my second area, we taught and baptized Cherry Ocampo. And this week I had the chance to see her go through the Temple for her endowments; it was awesome! She is a super strong member and she has wanted to enter the Temple ever since she was baptized. It was a huge blessing to be there at the Temple to support her. While at the temple, I found out that that old area is doing awesome. The membership is so good there that they are going to build a new stake center and a Bishop’s Store House there. It will be the first Bishop's Store House in the Philippines! That was my favorite area so it's awesome to see whats happened there. The work really is moving along here and it's awesome to be a part of it! :)

Love, Elder Smith