Grabe, malapit na ang pag-uwi ko!
This week was awesome! We were walking down the street earlier this week when we had someone call us over so we went and talked to her. She isn't a member but her son is a convert that has been on a mission for about six months. She just moved into our area, but wanted to know if her son had sent any mail to the church for her back in her old area. We did a little service to help her out and got in contact with the other branch. From that little bit of service, she really started to like us and started letting us teach her. We have only been able to teach her twice, but she has now been to church, believes that this is the true church, and wants to get baptized! It's was awesome how the Lord literally just put her in our path.
On Sunday last week, we went and worked with the branch president and a few other members to contact some inactive members. We went to one member who is the only member in his family and we also got to teach his wife. His wife has been taught before, but was never baptized because she doesn't want to leave the church that she is currently in. Every time we taught her, she agreed with the doctrine but I didn't feel like we were really hitting the topic that needed to be discussed. In our nightly planning one night, we saw that we had another appointment with her the following day and figured we would just discuss the apostasy and Joseph Smith a little more with her. However, our plans changed a little after we had companionship study.
In our companionship study, we discussed teaching people and not teaching lessons. I always try to do that, but that particular morning I felt the spirit tell me that I can do more. In our lesson with her, I strived more intently to listen to the spirit to know the things that I should say. At first my mind was pretty much blank but after a few minutes the inspiration came. After talking with her for about 30 minutes and asking what the spirit wanted me to ask, she admitted that she knows that this is the only church with the priesthood of God. I was really surprised when she said that but she still didn't want to get baptized.
I continued to listen to the spirit and eventually the real concern began to come out. In her religion, women can be called as a prophet or priest but in our church she wouldn't be allowed to hold the priesthood. That’s the last thing I would have thought of! I'm so grateful that God knows the concerns of His children and directs this work and told me what this sister needed to hear.
During the whole lesson, she was also complaining of some serious pain in her head from an accident a few years ago. My companion and I both felt the spirit say that we needed to give her a blessing, so we did. At the end of the blessing, she said it felt like a stone had been removed from her head. It was pretty cool that we not only talked about the priesthood with her, but she experienced the evidence of it for herself.
Love, Elder Smith
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
Kamusta!
Good news, I got a map of our area! This area is like a maze and it's been driving me crazy trying to find places without a map, but I think I've got the layout of the area down pretty good now. I'm loving this area! I've really been blessed to have been assigned in this area the last transfer of my mission. The members are doing all that they can to help us and even when there isn't a lot that they can do, the Lord leads us straight the people we should talk to. I don't think I can't count how many times we were walking this week and felt impressed to change our direction or talk to a specific person and had great things happen because of it.
On Saturday, we were walking down the street when I felt like we need to go talk to a tatay. I kind of hesitated for a minute thinking about how we had somewhere else we needed to go, but after a while of standing there I realized I needed to follow the spirit rather than what I thought was best. The tatay let us in and the mom started asking us what the difference was between our church and the Catholic church. I had my companion answer her question and one thing he said was we don't use memorized prayers. When he said that she started agreeing with us that there are some things in her church that aren't in harmony with the the teaching in the Bible.
I talked to her for a while and found out that she used to go to our church before she got married. She said that she felt different when she went to our church and she wants us to come back so she can know the truth. It was a pretty sweet experience and we had a lot more like it throughout the week.
We also have three families that we found this week and we have been teaching them. They are some of the investigators that I have really high hopes for and this week we found out that the three families are related to each other. It will be sweet if they get baptized because they will have their brothers, sister, and their families all there at church supporting one another. Things are going great here and I love doing the work of the Lord!!!
Love, Elder Smith
Good news, I got a map of our area! This area is like a maze and it's been driving me crazy trying to find places without a map, but I think I've got the layout of the area down pretty good now. I'm loving this area! I've really been blessed to have been assigned in this area the last transfer of my mission. The members are doing all that they can to help us and even when there isn't a lot that they can do, the Lord leads us straight the people we should talk to. I don't think I can't count how many times we were walking this week and felt impressed to change our direction or talk to a specific person and had great things happen because of it.
On Saturday, we were walking down the street when I felt like we need to go talk to a tatay. I kind of hesitated for a minute thinking about how we had somewhere else we needed to go, but after a while of standing there I realized I needed to follow the spirit rather than what I thought was best. The tatay let us in and the mom started asking us what the difference was between our church and the Catholic church. I had my companion answer her question and one thing he said was we don't use memorized prayers. When he said that she started agreeing with us that there are some things in her church that aren't in harmony with the the teaching in the Bible.
I talked to her for a while and found out that she used to go to our church before she got married. She said that she felt different when she went to our church and she wants us to come back so she can know the truth. It was a pretty sweet experience and we had a lot more like it throughout the week.
We also have three families that we found this week and we have been teaching them. They are some of the investigators that I have really high hopes for and this week we found out that the three families are related to each other. It will be sweet if they get baptized because they will have their brothers, sister, and their families all there at church supporting one another. Things are going great here and I love doing the work of the Lord!!!
Love, Elder Smith
Monday, August 1, 2011
Grabe ang bagong area ko!
It's been a crazy few days, even more crazy than usual. I got my new companion, fresh from the MTC. His name is Elder Partridge and he is from Utah. It was an interesting start to the new transfer, considering I didn't even know where our area was. We started work on Friday with no idea where to even begin. We got on a jeepney and just told him to let us off at Carissa, my new area. We somehow found the right place and started work right away. I love this area already! It just feels like there are a lot of people here waiting to hear the gospel.
When we got off the jeepney and started into the area, we found a nanay carrying a lot of bags so we offered to help. While we were helping her carry the stuff, we found out that her husband is an inactive member and she hasn't been baptized! We got her address and will hopefully talk to her later this week. We helped her to the trice then continued into our area where we were let into the first house we stopped at.
The area is pretty small but there are still a lot of people that say they haven't met missionaries. On Saturday, we returned to the area and kept on trying to find new investigators. While walking, someone called us over who we later found out is a member, it was a huge relief to finally find a member that could help us. He was kind enough to take us to another member who explained the layout of our area and took us to meet some other important members and told us where the church was. You have no idea how hard it is inviting people to church when you don't even know yourself where the church is haha, so finding the members was a HUGE relief to me.
The members in this area are AMAZING! It's just a branch but they are so strong and want to do the Lord's work. We even have a branch mission leader! When we got to the church on Sunday, he came up to me with a list of all the members and had highlighted all the inactive and marked a few part member families. I'm really excited to see what we can get done in this area; it's going to be great, and the Lord is already blessing us in our efforts :)
Love, Elder Smith
It's been a crazy few days, even more crazy than usual. I got my new companion, fresh from the MTC. His name is Elder Partridge and he is from Utah. It was an interesting start to the new transfer, considering I didn't even know where our area was. We started work on Friday with no idea where to even begin. We got on a jeepney and just told him to let us off at Carissa, my new area. We somehow found the right place and started work right away. I love this area already! It just feels like there are a lot of people here waiting to hear the gospel.
When we got off the jeepney and started into the area, we found a nanay carrying a lot of bags so we offered to help. While we were helping her carry the stuff, we found out that her husband is an inactive member and she hasn't been baptized! We got her address and will hopefully talk to her later this week. We helped her to the trice then continued into our area where we were let into the first house we stopped at.
The area is pretty small but there are still a lot of people that say they haven't met missionaries. On Saturday, we returned to the area and kept on trying to find new investigators. While walking, someone called us over who we later found out is a member, it was a huge relief to finally find a member that could help us. He was kind enough to take us to another member who explained the layout of our area and took us to meet some other important members and told us where the church was. You have no idea how hard it is inviting people to church when you don't even know yourself where the church is haha, so finding the members was a HUGE relief to me.
The members in this area are AMAZING! It's just a branch but they are so strong and want to do the Lord's work. We even have a branch mission leader! When we got to the church on Sunday, he came up to me with a list of all the members and had highlighted all the inactive and marked a few part member families. I'm really excited to see what we can get done in this area; it's going to be great, and the Lord is already blessing us in our efforts :)
Love, Elder Smith
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Ang huling Transfer!
Oh man I can't believe it! It's already my last transfer! It's going to be really crazy too this transfer. I wanted to train my last transfer, because there are 27 new missionaries coming in but there was very little chance that would happen because they want me as a zone leader, but I guess the Lord had other plans for me.
I was talking to Elder Afaga the other day, one of the APs, and he said they were talking about who should train when they came across my name and and they said no I shouldn't, that I was "the last person" they would pick to train, but I'll be picking up my anak tomorrow morning.
They decided to have me go to an area that has been closed for almost a year so we will be starting with nothing. I've never shot gunned before so this is going to be a really interesting six weeks. The church has also come out with this new program for trainers that is going to take a ton of effort but should have great results in training.
Last time I trained, I just kind of did whatever I thought was best, but now they have outlined exactly what a new missionary needs to be taught for the first 12 weeks of his mission and I'm the one to teach it to him. One of the big changes is in companionship study. Normally, we have an hour for personal study, then for companion study, and then for language study. But now we have two hours for companion study and a DVD player to watch training movies; it's going to be crazy but I'm super excited! I don't even know where to begin so I'm going to be doing some serious praying now until 11:00 am tomorrow... and then probably until September haha. I heard that my companion isn't Filipino or American so I'm excited to find out who he is tomorrow.
Other than that, it's been a super busy week. We had a lot of baptisms this week; five total and I got to interview four of them while the district leader interviewed our investigator. It's amazing how strong these people are even though they have only been taught for a few weeks. It's really awesome how the Spirit will testify to people and they are willing to act on that impression of the Holy Ghost. Well I love you all. Thanks for all your prayers. Kita kits.
Love, Elder Smith
Oh man I can't believe it! It's already my last transfer! It's going to be really crazy too this transfer. I wanted to train my last transfer, because there are 27 new missionaries coming in but there was very little chance that would happen because they want me as a zone leader, but I guess the Lord had other plans for me.
I was talking to Elder Afaga the other day, one of the APs, and he said they were talking about who should train when they came across my name and and they said no I shouldn't, that I was "the last person" they would pick to train, but I'll be picking up my anak tomorrow morning.
They decided to have me go to an area that has been closed for almost a year so we will be starting with nothing. I've never shot gunned before so this is going to be a really interesting six weeks. The church has also come out with this new program for trainers that is going to take a ton of effort but should have great results in training.
Last time I trained, I just kind of did whatever I thought was best, but now they have outlined exactly what a new missionary needs to be taught for the first 12 weeks of his mission and I'm the one to teach it to him. One of the big changes is in companionship study. Normally, we have an hour for personal study, then for companion study, and then for language study. But now we have two hours for companion study and a DVD player to watch training movies; it's going to be crazy but I'm super excited! I don't even know where to begin so I'm going to be doing some serious praying now until 11:00 am tomorrow... and then probably until September haha. I heard that my companion isn't Filipino or American so I'm excited to find out who he is tomorrow.
Other than that, it's been a super busy week. We had a lot of baptisms this week; five total and I got to interview four of them while the district leader interviewed our investigator. It's amazing how strong these people are even though they have only been taught for a few weeks. It's really awesome how the Spirit will testify to people and they are willing to act on that impression of the Holy Ghost. Well I love you all. Thanks for all your prayers. Kita kits.
Love, Elder Smith
Monday, July 18, 2011
Hello everyone,
I've had a great past few days. I can't believe how fast time is going by. When I was at the temple the other day I got my "going home X-ray" and then I was at the office the other day doing some stuff for the zone and they gave me my flight plans to go home!!! I was shocked! I was like, what is this, I've still got lots of time. It's crazy how fast this mission as gone by. I was looking at the flight plan and it says that I'll go to Atlanta, Georgia and then my last stop is in Tennessee! I like to visit new places but I really don't want to go to Tennessee. I guess there is a Tri-City airport there so they got things mixed up; hopefully I'll end up in Pasco in the end :)
Church was great. We had a lot of investigators come; some that we have been pushing to go to church for months and they finally came. We also had some good speakers so everything went great. I think the Ward piano player is trying to make me his assistant though. He is always telling me to play and I usually do for Priesthood, but I'm no good at Hymns so I always tell him no for sacrament meeting. But on Saturday, he told me he wouldn't be at church so I had to play...I did alright. I'm not the best at piano and there is no time for me to practice so I'm basically trying to sight read. It's ok though, most people sing so off key that it doesn't matter what I play haha.
I also had to play at two baptisms on Saturday, straight sight reading, it was pretty rough. At one of the baptisms, the members were already singing the opening hymn when a missionary told me to play piano, even if it was just right hand. So I started to play but it sounded horrible so I stopped. I realized it wasn't me playing the wrong notes; it was just the members being so far off key that the piano sounded bad with them haha. So I started playing super loud and eventually they adjusted to me.
One of the coolest things was playing with a violinist. After the baptism we just played a few hymns together and it was sweet. Oh man I miss music. Other than that, things are going great. We have some great investigators who are really close to being baptized. They have just a few concerns, but I know the Lord will help them. I love you all and thank you for all your prayers.
Love, Elder Smith
I've had a great past few days. I can't believe how fast time is going by. When I was at the temple the other day I got my "going home X-ray" and then I was at the office the other day doing some stuff for the zone and they gave me my flight plans to go home!!! I was shocked! I was like, what is this, I've still got lots of time. It's crazy how fast this mission as gone by. I was looking at the flight plan and it says that I'll go to Atlanta, Georgia and then my last stop is in Tennessee! I like to visit new places but I really don't want to go to Tennessee. I guess there is a Tri-City airport there so they got things mixed up; hopefully I'll end up in Pasco in the end :)
Church was great. We had a lot of investigators come; some that we have been pushing to go to church for months and they finally came. We also had some good speakers so everything went great. I think the Ward piano player is trying to make me his assistant though. He is always telling me to play and I usually do for Priesthood, but I'm no good at Hymns so I always tell him no for sacrament meeting. But on Saturday, he told me he wouldn't be at church so I had to play...I did alright. I'm not the best at piano and there is no time for me to practice so I'm basically trying to sight read. It's ok though, most people sing so off key that it doesn't matter what I play haha.
I also had to play at two baptisms on Saturday, straight sight reading, it was pretty rough. At one of the baptisms, the members were already singing the opening hymn when a missionary told me to play piano, even if it was just right hand. So I started to play but it sounded horrible so I stopped. I realized it wasn't me playing the wrong notes; it was just the members being so far off key that the piano sounded bad with them haha. So I started playing super loud and eventually they adjusted to me.
One of the coolest things was playing with a violinist. After the baptism we just played a few hymns together and it was sweet. Oh man I miss music. Other than that, things are going great. We have some great investigators who are really close to being baptized. They have just a few concerns, but I know the Lord will help them. I love you all and thank you for all your prayers.
Love, Elder Smith
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Hey everyone,
Things are going good in my area; not too much has changed since last time I wrote, but we are slowly making progress to build the area up. Lately, I've been trying to be more in tune with the spirit to try and find new investigators while we are walking to appointments. Being a white American in the Philippines, I get people calling out to me about 50 times a day with remarks like, "Hey Joe, what's your name?" and I've gotten to the point that I just ignore it. I used to go and try to talk to them when I was newer but they usually run away (literally, they run away). So I kind of gave up on that, but I was thinking the other day about how Preach My Gospel says to have hope and keep trying even when people don't accept you so that's what I've been trying to do and the Lord has blessed us with some success.
We were leaving an appointment the other day with our new investigator (the one that randomly showed up to church last week and wanted to get baptized) when someone yelled at us from their house. We kept walking about 10 feet but decided to just try. At first they were a little shy about letting us in but we did get in. We found out the the mom is a member but has been inactive for something like 15 years. She just goes to the Catholic church like she was never a member of Christ's true church. Her kids aren't members and really, really need the gospel. The son is 15 but has a few tattoos and the daughter is 16 with a few tattoos and a baby...
It's pretty sad to see this family and how lost they are with no direction. The first lesson, we tried sharing just a little bit with them about our life here on Earth but they just stared at us with a blank face and wouldn't say anything. It's been cool this week as we've taught them they've began to change. They answer our questions sometimes, are willing to read from the scriptures, and the daughter actually prayed last time! It was AWESOME! The mom also wants to come to church next Sunday so hopefully everything works out there. They also have a friend that started listening in on our lessons and she texted us this week to say we can start teaching her too at her house now.
It's pretty sweet to see the progress. We even felt impressed to give them a baptismal date which they were hesitant to accept so they are going to pray about it, but I have hope that the time will come that they will change their life and be baptized. This work is awesome! It's amazing to see the Lord touching peoples' lives.
Love, Elder Smith
Things are going good in my area; not too much has changed since last time I wrote, but we are slowly making progress to build the area up. Lately, I've been trying to be more in tune with the spirit to try and find new investigators while we are walking to appointments. Being a white American in the Philippines, I get people calling out to me about 50 times a day with remarks like, "Hey Joe, what's your name?" and I've gotten to the point that I just ignore it. I used to go and try to talk to them when I was newer but they usually run away (literally, they run away). So I kind of gave up on that, but I was thinking the other day about how Preach My Gospel says to have hope and keep trying even when people don't accept you so that's what I've been trying to do and the Lord has blessed us with some success.
We were leaving an appointment the other day with our new investigator (the one that randomly showed up to church last week and wanted to get baptized) when someone yelled at us from their house. We kept walking about 10 feet but decided to just try. At first they were a little shy about letting us in but we did get in. We found out the the mom is a member but has been inactive for something like 15 years. She just goes to the Catholic church like she was never a member of Christ's true church. Her kids aren't members and really, really need the gospel. The son is 15 but has a few tattoos and the daughter is 16 with a few tattoos and a baby...
It's pretty sad to see this family and how lost they are with no direction. The first lesson, we tried sharing just a little bit with them about our life here on Earth but they just stared at us with a blank face and wouldn't say anything. It's been cool this week as we've taught them they've began to change. They answer our questions sometimes, are willing to read from the scriptures, and the daughter actually prayed last time! It was AWESOME! The mom also wants to come to church next Sunday so hopefully everything works out there. They also have a friend that started listening in on our lessons and she texted us this week to say we can start teaching her too at her house now.
It's pretty sweet to see the progress. We even felt impressed to give them a baptismal date which they were hesitant to accept so they are going to pray about it, but I have hope that the time will come that they will change their life and be baptized. This work is awesome! It's amazing to see the Lord touching peoples' lives.
Love, Elder Smith
Monday, July 4, 2011
Hoy kamusta!
Happy 4th of July!!! I didn't even realize it was the 4th until I read some letters. I hope you are all having fun with your BBQs and enjoying your delicious food. Speaking of food, I made the jell-O my mom sent me and I let some Filipinos have some and they LOVED it. The jell-O here is WAY different, they call it gelatin... It's like jell-O but harder and doesn't have flavor except for the raisins they put in it and the evaporated milk on top. When I brought it over one of the missionaries looked at me really disappointed and said "Smith you forgot to put milk on the gelatin." as if to say "you should have just let me make it." But after they tasted it they were literally fighting over it.
It's been a sweet week! We had a lot of stuff to do this week to help our zone but it was a lot of fun. I felt impressed that we needed to be working more with our missionaries so that’s what we did. We went and worked with all the missionaries to help them get excited about the work and to lead by example and I think it really helped. We get report from them all every Sunday night and we saw that all of their work had improved so hopefully it keeps improving through the rest of the transfer.
We also got to meet our new mission president this week. Their last name is Stucki and I really like them. I know that they have been called of the Lord to lead this mission. There have been a few changes in the mission but nothing too big. The thing that I'm really excited about is that he is going to start coming out and working with us missionaries despite his hectic schedule. It's going to be AWESOME!
In other news, we were at church yesterday when I noticed that there was someone I hadn't seen before sitting in the back row. I went over to her and found out that she wasn't a member but she said "I really wanted to get baptized into this church!" Well the Lord's house is a house of order so she has to be taught first, so I set up an appointment and we went to her house a few hours after church.
We had a good lesson with her about the restoration of the gospel then I decided to give her a baptismal date to see if she was serious about what she had said earlier. I invited her to be baptized on July 30 because she has to go to church 3 more times before she can be baptized. Her reaction to my invitation was pretty funny. She looked at her calendar, thought for a few seconds then said "Saturday...I shouldn't have anything going on that day, yeah that will work." I think it was kind of funny that it wasn't a question of is this true or not, she was just making sure she was free for that day haha. It's crazy how the Lord prepares people and brings them right to us.
Love, Elder Smith
Happy 4th of July!!! I didn't even realize it was the 4th until I read some letters. I hope you are all having fun with your BBQs and enjoying your delicious food. Speaking of food, I made the jell-O my mom sent me and I let some Filipinos have some and they LOVED it. The jell-O here is WAY different, they call it gelatin... It's like jell-O but harder and doesn't have flavor except for the raisins they put in it and the evaporated milk on top. When I brought it over one of the missionaries looked at me really disappointed and said "Smith you forgot to put milk on the gelatin." as if to say "you should have just let me make it." But after they tasted it they were literally fighting over it.
It's been a sweet week! We had a lot of stuff to do this week to help our zone but it was a lot of fun. I felt impressed that we needed to be working more with our missionaries so that’s what we did. We went and worked with all the missionaries to help them get excited about the work and to lead by example and I think it really helped. We get report from them all every Sunday night and we saw that all of their work had improved so hopefully it keeps improving through the rest of the transfer.
We also got to meet our new mission president this week. Their last name is Stucki and I really like them. I know that they have been called of the Lord to lead this mission. There have been a few changes in the mission but nothing too big. The thing that I'm really excited about is that he is going to start coming out and working with us missionaries despite his hectic schedule. It's going to be AWESOME!
In other news, we were at church yesterday when I noticed that there was someone I hadn't seen before sitting in the back row. I went over to her and found out that she wasn't a member but she said "I really wanted to get baptized into this church!" Well the Lord's house is a house of order so she has to be taught first, so I set up an appointment and we went to her house a few hours after church.
We had a good lesson with her about the restoration of the gospel then I decided to give her a baptismal date to see if she was serious about what she had said earlier. I invited her to be baptized on July 30 because she has to go to church 3 more times before she can be baptized. Her reaction to my invitation was pretty funny. She looked at her calendar, thought for a few seconds then said "Saturday...I shouldn't have anything going on that day, yeah that will work." I think it was kind of funny that it wasn't a question of is this true or not, she was just making sure she was free for that day haha. It's crazy how the Lord prepares people and brings them right to us.
Love, Elder Smith
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