Memories of a Mission – Page 18 – "We will work for the glory of our Lord"

I learn that I will be transferring

Tuesday, October 5, 2004

Well the biggest news for today is that I’m sure now that I’ll transfer on next Wednesday. I found out because Elder Alongo told me that I have to go to the PBO tomorrow and get trained on how to do branch work. This means that I’m either going out to an island or to Cavite. I’m excited to change but I’m really going to miss the Greenhills and San Juan areas. Also I’ll really miss Elder Tipton. We’ve really gotten along well and we’ve done good work here. In all truthfulness I hoped that I’d have one more transfer with him. Also it’s kind of disappointing because we were just starting to see some good success here. I guess I have to content myself that I’ve helped this area and that now it’s time to move on.

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Learning comes from the spirit and I run into a wire

Monday, October 4, 2004

Well we actually implemented the new schedule today. We didn’t leave the house until 10:30 and we came back in at 9:00 tonight. We also took an hour break for lunch. It seemed like we really didn’t have much time to work at all. I just have faith that if we follow the rules that we’ve been given that we’ll be blessed with good work.

This morning our only appointment was with Bro R. He’s really started studying the scriptures and today he started out the discussion with a prayer and then asked us about when the Sabbath day really is. Well we discovered, again, that the bible doesn’t have all the answers. I didn’t think that it says anywhere in scripture what day, specifically, that we should go to church. We just have to realize that the established pattern is that the Christian world goes to church on Sunday. If the prophet told us that we should change and make Wednesday, for example, our Sabbath, we’d obey and change it. I also realized again how important a testimony is. If people simply realize that the Book of Mormon was true they wouldn’t have trouble accepting that the rest of the patterns and doctrine of the church. We challenged brother again to just focus on the Book of Mormon and to put away doubts from his mind and ask God if the book is true. He gave the closing prayer and I personally, and I think Elder Tipton as well, felt the spirit really strongly. We were disappointed thought because when we asked him how he felt after the prayer he said that he just felt normal. I really hope that he’ll open his mind and try to feel the Holy Ghost.

I had a sort of embarrassing experience today. We were coming out of an esquenita[1] and of course I’m too tall for everything here. Anyway, I walked right into a string/rope that was holding up a tarp. I really hit it hard with my eye! It was pretty sad but I really didn’t see it coming.

[1] I have no idea if I spelled that right. We called the very small alleys between buildings esquenitas. They were literally only 2 feet wide and always had things hanging across them. I started walking with my hand in front of my face when we went through them after this experience.

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Joy for people at church

Sunday, October 3, 2004

Today was another long day at church. This morning we had a great surprise at the San Juan Ward. One family, the Delos Santos family, came to church. They have been inactive for some time now and we actually visited them twice last week. Elder Tipton was really makulit with them. I actually didn’t expect them to come. I was so happy when I saw them! It’s amazing how I’ve changed. Before I couldn’t have cared less if people were inactive but not I’m filled with joy because one couple came back to church for one week. We didn’t even really say very much to them but I guess that they felt our love and wanted to come back to church.

I’ve been marveling at how fast time goes sometimes. It seems like I”ve been with Elder Tipton for hardly any time at all. With Elder Sangco the six weeks of the transfer seemed really long but now here I am again, close to the transfer and it seems it’s been no time at all. Elder Tipton showed me a scripture earlier that says that the Spirit of God quickeneth all things. We were thinking that one of the reasons that mission time goes so fast. We have the spirit with us and so the time goes faster.

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The power of members

Saturday, October 2, 2004

Well last night we fell asleep while we were planning so I obviously was really tired and forgot to write. Today was an okay day. We tried to go to visit Brother W.R. this morning but he was still at the hospital being treated for “high blood.” I thought that he’d be better this week but he still hasn’t been able to come back from the hospital. They told us that he should be back later on.

This guy was super drunk and I couldn’t help but get a photos . . . don’t look too closely.

I just remembered that I wanted to write about one thing that happened yesterday at our service. We did service over in the Sister’s area in Sta. Mesa and what we did is we swept an over-pass that people use to cross over the highway. There was trash everywhere and it looked really bad. While we were working of course people were still using the cross-walk. I was amazed that the men still said “hey Joe” and all the delagas, young women, still wanted to flirt with us. Here we were, two Americans, who are, supposedly, respected here and we’re cleaning up their mess and yet they still showed no respect. Elder Tipton actually got makulit with one of them and just told him straight out that he was being really rude by calling us “hey Joe.” I don’t mind serving them but when they don’t even care I get a little bit frustrated.

We weren’t eating dog. With Elder Tipton I found peanut butter and chips and ate PB&J all the time.

On a happier note we got to teach a really cool second discussion to R. C. We got a referral card with his name on it and taught a first to him on Thursday. Of course we committed him to read and pray. When we went back today, we asked him how his reading was going. He told us he’d read and then summarized what was in all of the suggested readings. He really read all of them! I was so happy. We then asked him how his prayers were and if he’d gotten an answer. He told us that he had prayed and he got an answer. Wow! We were so excited. We taught a good second to he and his mom and he accepted baptism and said he’d come to church tomorrow. He’s really an awesome brother. He’s 24 years old and he was referred by a family friend who works at the PBO. They are really close and the friend is really helpful to R. R told us the reason he accepted a visit from us is because of what he saw in his friend’s family. He said they were always so happy and welcoming of him. This really is the way it should work. The members have so much more effect than they think they do. People really do notice us and we need to take care that we’re always showing good examples to everybody.

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My first member referral

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

Looks like I can’t seem to write on even days or something. This has been a really long week already. We’ve had somewhere to go almost every day only in the morning and there hasn’t been a single day that we’ve actually gotten up at 6:00, it’s always been earlier.

Today we had a zone activity at Rizal Park. It’s right on the ocean and it was fun to see even if it is only a bay and is all dirty and grimy. We played games there and just had a good time. There were people there who were doing ballroom dancing and I sort of started missing my dancing. Oh well. The Lord’s work always comes first and then our own personal wants.

Zone Activity in Rizal Park (b. Cayubyub, Durbano, Graham, m. __, Antanante, Riparip, _____, ________, Tipton, Arnesen, f. Sunnex, Alongo)

Tonight we forgot to schedule with Bro A. T. so we didn’t get to teach him. Instead we went and followed up on a referral that we got yesterday at Zone Conference, which by the way, was excellent. The referral lived down in 4^th Ave in Cubao. He’s a 23 year old brother who was introduced to the gospel by a friend who he works with. We really had a good discussion with him. R. C., and he was really attentive while we were sharing. I know now more why member referrals, and member preparation of investigators, is so important. Hopefully, of course, he’ll be strong and gain a testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.

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Marriage

Monday, September 27, 2004

Today has been a really long day. We had district meeting today because we have Zone Conference tomorrow. When we came back we went to visit the Arandia family. They just moved here from Bicol and actually the Sister OYMed us yesterday while we were walking by her house. They’ve been taught all of the discussions and really have a testimony of the gospel and of Pres. Hinckley. They only reason that they haven’t been baptized is because they haven’t been legally married. The government here is so messed up that it is really hard to get married. They require tons and tons of the people. We told the family that we would see if we could maybe find a lawyer to help them to get legally married. They are a really nice family and in fact we decided that we’ll write to the missionary that first taught them and tell them that we found them. Well I don’t have much time so that’ll be all for today.

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A letdown

Saturday, September 25, 2004

Today has been a really long day. We had a lot of appointments but all or our “solid” appointments fell through. Bro W. R. who is one of our strongest investigators, was drinking when we went to him this morning at 10:00. We were walking up and I saw the beer and I just thought that I sure hope that’s not Bro R’s drink. Well it was. He said that he’s going to come to church tomorrow so I really hope that that actually happens. Hopefully if he comes tomorrow, we’ll teach him a fourth discussion and commit him to follow the law of the Word of Wisdom. We had a surprise today at lunch. We actually had time to have a lunch today and it was really nice. Well the interesting thing is that we got a call from the Bishop in San Juan ward today, ten minutes before we were supposed to go back to work. And he said that we will speak tomorrow in sacrament meeting. We’re supposed to speak about “missionary work.” I’m not really sure what I’ll talk about but I think that I’ll talk about how to prepare for a mission both physically and spiritually. Hopefully I’ll do okay because I have to get up early tomorrow in order to prepare.

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Records and Tagalog and a really cool jeepney!

Friday, September 24, 2004

This morning again we didn’t have any service to do. We’ve been looking all week but we haven’t had any luck. Because we didn’t have any service to do, we decided to go to the PBO and fix the church records that Elder Tipton had brought from Mindoro. We went up there and worked with one sister there getting the changes updated on the computer. The situation of the church records is really horrible here. Filipinos don’t really have any concept of keeping track of things. For example, if someone moves out of their house, nobody around knows where they went. In the states, if someone moves they tell everybody exactly where they are going. The same type of thing is true for the church records. They don’t do it right the first time so other people have to go around trying to fix all the problems. It’s a never ending process. I’ve learned that it’s so much better just to do the job right the first time and not just create more work for others.

Me with “my” jeepney (outside of corazon de Jesus). I love space and seeing a space jeepney totally made my day.

Elder Tipton and I started studying out of the “Intermediate Tagalog” book today. It’s really a good study tool. I usually would just study the scriptures for language study but that doesn’t really help with talking to normal every-day people. That book has good vocab etc for lots of common situations. I’ve already gotten a lot of good Tagalog out of it.

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Baptismal interviews and lots of questions

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Today has been a strange day. We had follow ups this morning over at the MIR. We also had Juris’s interview this morning. It was weird because we told her to meet us at the Pinaglabanan Statue, the problem is that there are about 4 “Pinaglabanans.” She waited at the next one down from where we were. We waited for her for almost half an hour but she didn’t come. We got on a jeep and were going toward the train when I saw her at the stop. I don’t know why I was looking out the back of the Jeep but I was and that’s why I saw her. I guess that she did okay in the interview except that she thought that the correct way of baptism was through pouring water over your head. I have no idea where that idea came from because I thought that she’d really understood all of what we’d taught her. We’ll go back and re-teach her some of the basic doctrine.

In front of the pinaglabanan shrine. The statue in the background is the shrine.

We also had a really long, as in three hour, discussion with Bro. Bony. I don’t know how to help him. He has so many questions and almost all of his questions are “why” questions. I really have trouble working with him because whenever I ask him a question he avoids answering it and goes off into another area. This is especially true when I ask about his feelings. For example, today in our discussion the spirit was really strong at one point. I asked him a simple question, “What are your feelings right now?” He couldn’t answer and totally avoided the question and the next thing I knew we were talking about Mary. We just can’t seem to get him into a position where his thinking mind and feeling heart will connect. He prays all the time, supposedly, but I’m not sure if he’s really read or not. I really want to be able to help him to feel and recognize the spirit.

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Spirit bears witness of Joseph Smith

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Well I didn’t write last night because we got in late because we had a family home evening with one of our retention families. We had our schedule change this week. We now have District Meeting on Tuesday morning instead of Monday mornings. Our Monday mornings we have a 2 hour companionship inventory/planning session. It’s kind of a big change because we’re all used to the old way. We also have new daily schedules.

Today our district meeting was actually a Zone development meeting. Elder Allongo taught about teaching with the spirit and with testimony. He talked about how powerful the story and testimony of Joseph Smith are. He told us that the story of the first vision is the most powerful part of the first discussion and that we ought to strengthen our faith in order to testify with power about the Book of Mormon and about Joseph Smith

We had one first discussion today. We taught a brother that we had just OYOM’ed. He was really good. When we asked him how we get the commandments from God he answered us that it was through the prophets of course. He really understood well. We also applied what we learned in meeting this morning. As I was bearing testimony about Joseph Smith and the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, I felt a more powerful spirit than I’ve ever felt before in a discussion. It was awesome. I really hope that I’ll be faithful enough to have the power to always bear powerful testimony of these things. They really are what converts people. If people can have a testimony of Joseph Smith as a Prophet of God and of the Book of Mormon as a modern scripture, then they will be converted. That is where the converting power is located.

Adam21 September, 201414 September, 2014 Greenhills & San Juan 2 Comments