Masarap ang buhay talaga!
It's been a truly amazing week! The spiritual growth I've seen in people lately has been remarkable.
Tuesday: The district surprised me after our meeting and threw me a little birthday party since the elders couldn't be there last Saturday. They made lunch and everything. We also got to see a recent convert family be completed as their daughter was baptized on Wednesday.
Wednesday: Our area presidency had a change and Elder Bowen of the quorum of the 70 is now in the presidency. So he did a mission tour and came with his wife to talk to every zone in the mission. President Bertin requested that we do a mission wide fast to ensure it would be a truly meaningful experience for each of us. Elder Bowen also gave us study topics to prepare ourselves. We were given as study topics the Abrahamic covenant, the oath and covenant of the priesthood, and the house of Israel. It was an incredible meeting that probably changed my whole mission. I could tell our leaders had really prepared spiritually for this because I felt like the spirit was speaking right into my ear. The things that were said were like the answer to a prayer I didn't know I had. Elder Bowen first talked about the 3 things we need to do that will change our missions and then tied it in with our study topics, helping us realize the significance of them being all tied together and how we are involved in those 3 things by covenants. His purpose was to help us realize who we truly are so that we can act accordingly. Each of us is the esed of Abraham, son our daughter of a king entitled to ALL the father has if we are obedient. He emphasized the importance of marriage and becoming rulers together in the eternities and how if we peeked behind the veil, would we be doing the things we are doing right now? Amazing. His wife gave us an assignment. She asked us to write a book -- a historical book around 531 pages long. It has to be a record of a people - their culture, religion, money system, battles - but this group of people has not yet been discovered. And when they are discovered, our record has to match up with the facts. We have to write 9 pages per da with no mistakes, with an education level of grade 3. It must coincide with the bible as well. Haha, the Book of Mormon is TRUE! It has the power to help people spiritually overcome physical addictions and weaknesses. President Hinckley urged a young man to read the BOM to help him stop smoking. As he read, the man didn't understand how it was related to his addiction but President Hinckley told him to keep reading. When he finally finished, his testimony of Jesus Christ was so strong that he had no more desire to smoke. Amazing. I came out of this meeting with the most intense desire to do missionary work.
Thursday: Our ward mission leader worked with us, a freshly returned missionary as of a month ago. We had a beautiful lesson with our investigator, Sushmita, about the BOM. After Elder Bowen's committing us to do the 3 things he talked about and to be obedient, the quality of our lessons skyrocketed! Sushmita gave the most beautiful prayer I've ever heard, basically bearing her testimony directly to Heavenly Father and truly thanked him for what she has learned. I feel like we truly taught a person and not a lesson. Right after that we taught Danielle, our investigator, who brought a friend and bore testimony to her friend that this church is true in our lesson. We also taught Janice, who went from having earphones in and her cell phone out in the first lesson to taking notes and eagerly accepting every invitation we extended. The change in her from 2 weeks of church attendance and scripture reading is unreal. Carlotta's baptism is Saturday and we are thrilled for her. She is golden! Yesterday we were sitting in church with her and she started smiling and kicking her feet and we asked her why. She just turned to us and said, "I'm just so happy and excited I'm getting baptized."
Anyway, I continue to be amazed and humbled by the Filipino people. Their diligence and faith floors me. There's a member family who lives very far from the church but every
Sunday, flood or dry, the old 70 year old tatay pedals his family to church on a bicycle with a side cart attached. Let me tell you, it is a LONG way. I will never find excuses to not go to church ever again.
Now for the funny story: Two days ago we lost our power because the fuse blew so we had to go buy a new one and ask the old man next door to help us replace it. He chased around the other sisters trying to kiss their hands instead... he's so lonely! Then yesterday we lost our water. The control panel for the water control of the whole neighborhood broke so we're dry for 3 days. Soooo we had to take buckets, swimming pools and a wheel barrow and pump water from a well 5 blocks away in order to do our laundry, shower, do dishes and use the toilet. Pretty much the worst morning ever but it's pretty funny how it's one thing after another. I woke up with a cockroach bite on my leg this morning - a 2 inch welt. Yaaay! ;)
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