"Searching for the Truth"

It's just a wonderful morning here in the Philippines.  It's still hot.  I have so much that I need to tell you about this week.  It's been a pretty crazy week.  Alright. Elder Diamse is the man.  He's half Filipino, half American but grew up in Utah. He loves sports, music, singing, joking around and just having a good time. We're pretty much best friends. Like I mentioned last week, I know him pretty well. I've gotten to know him pretty well over the past 6 months at MLCs and other such functions. All I gotta say is that we are going to have a fun time over the next transfer or two. 

So the past few weeks our area has been going through some struggles. We have been workin hard, but success just hasn't really been happening. At the end of last week and the beginning of this week, we had to drop numerous investigators and it left us with very little to work with.  So this past week, we have been talking to everybody and their dog.  It's not too easy to talk to everyone when you're in the Philippines because there's millions and millions of people packed into a square mile. If you truly tried to talk to everyone, you could spend your entire day on one street.  So when you're in the Philippines, you really have to find with the spirit.  One principle that you have to learn is that in order to receive more promptings from the spirit you have to prove to the Lord that you'll actually following the ones that he's granting you know. That's what we've been doing. It's brought great success. We've found numerous families that are ready to receive the gospel. I'll tell you about one real fast. So the other day we moved into our new apartment. Upon moving in, we saw our neighbor outside so we started talking with him.  Turns out, he doesn't speak Tagalog.  He's a Filipino that was born in the states and only speaks English (Great thing that both elder Diamse and I speak English pretty well). He's here for work with his wife and brand new baby that was born 19 days ago (their baby is dang cute). His name is Myles and is a really cool guy. Not only is he a cool guy, but he's also been "searching for the truth." Luckily for him, we have the truth. He's been to countless religions, read through the whole bible, cover to cover twice and has talked with members of numerous sects. We set up an appointment with him for later that day.  Later, we taught him and his wife about the message of the restoration (in English. Oh my gosh I love English). It was amazing.  It was powerful.  He had so many questions and we had all the answers. Myles embraced the Book of Mormon and is stoked to read. They have committed to be baptized on July 19th.  The Lord truly places us where he wants us to be.  It's then our job to execute the will of the Lord in the situation that he has placed us in. Fear and being shy are often two hindrances that we all face, hindrances that can be overcome. Never let such feelings keep you from following the promptings of the spirit. 

We had an awesome member bring a friend to church yesterday.  The member's name is Polo and is one of my best buds in the ward.  He brought his neighbor, Elsie. She loved church.  We taught her last night.  She testified to us about the different feeling she felt in our church. She wants to be baptized and she will be next month. Bring your friends to church. It will change your life and the life of the one that you brought.

So pretty much we have the best recent converts in the world.  Three of them (JunJun, Shela, and Geo) are young single adults and love working with us. We've all become great buds.  On Friday, they told us to meet them at a bakery near our house after we finished weekly planning.  Upon arriving at the bakery we were met by these three recent converts who were sitting at a table with McDonalds for us. (Let me also point out that McDonalds is like the nicest place to eat around here. It's not cheap. Plus they are YSAs who don't make a ton of money). They told us that they just wanted to thank us for everything.  How nice is that? We then received a text from Shela later telling us how the lessons that we've been teaching her are "not only changing her life, but making her capable of changing her own life." Those are the times where you just wish you could be a full time missionary forever.  I love this work.

Couple other highlights.

Our apartment is sick. We play basketball every morning.

One of the families we're teaching has finally made the goal to be sealed in the temple. They talked to the bishop about it and are on their way.

Neither I nor Elder Diamse know how to cook. We're in trouble.

Zone meeting is tomorrow.

Well that's about it for this week.  I hope you guys have a wonderful week. I love y'all so much!