How is everyone doing? Happy late Thanksgiving to all you Americans out there and and early Merry Christmas! Man oh man was this week busy and man oh man was this week amazing. To explain the pictures last week, we had a Zone Activity where we all got together, broke into groups, and played a bunch of "minute to win it" games! It was such a blast and a good time to be able to come close to everyone in the Zone as well! After the P-day shopping and clothes washing stuff we went to work! Decided to visit our man Brother Mario to see how his foot was doing! He has a hole as wide as a nickel and the hole is about a quarter inch deep! We totally understood his reasoning for not being able to come to Church! He told us he would try next sunday to come (yesterday) and there will be more on that later ;) After we visited with him we also visited the Maaghop family, who again is Jeric and all of his relatives! Jeric is a rockstar I tell you what. He helps get all of his cousins together and family to have us teach a lesson, and his whole family is just as great as he is! He asked us if he could come working with us during the day, how crazy is that! (more to come later haha!)
On Tuesday we had exchanges! In our apartment there are 4 very handsome missionaries, and the two Filipinos are Elder Alvarez and Elder Wenceslao! Both are amazing and so hard working. Elder Wenceslao is actually finishing his mission in just 9 days!!Before we went on exchanges we all went to the Vallentos family in the morning in order to build a house! Thhats right you read correctly! Brother Vallentos asked us if we would help him build a house! Of course all 4 of us were 100% in, and decided to put all of our house building knowledge together to do it! We all agreed that step one was to get wood, so we did! After smoothing out the branches from the wood we dug 6 holes about 2 1/2 feet deep to bury the wood in, then refilled the holes and steadied the wood! Not to mention we had the help of Brother Liberato, a member of the Church, who is also a contractor, with us telling us what to do!There are pictures at the bottom of the email to see the progression so far! It has been a veryy fun project and a cant wait to build one of my own when I get back! During the exchanges, I was Elder Alvarez's companion for the day and we worked in their areas here in Narvacan! Their area is very big and we did a lot of walking, and it was also very fun. Elder Alvarez has only been out on the mission for about 11 weeks now but already is in a groove! We ended up running across a family that used to visit our church and take lessons from the missionaries but have since stopped. They asked us for a Book of Mormon and the look on the moms face was impacting. During the Typhoon 2 years ago all of their books and items in their house got soaked and ruined, but before that had happened, she had read the Book of Mormon all the way through and was too nervous to back to the Church and grab a new one! Now she has one and I hope Elder Alvarez and Wenceslao will be able to teach her and her family.
On Wednesday, I hit my 8 month mark a missionary and wished that it would stop going by so fast! Time is flying and I am learning so much! In the morning we had Zone Training once again in Candon so we went there and after the training, we practiced for our presentation at our Christmas Devotional! And then after the training, we had exhanges again! This time I went to Santa Maria, the next town over, with Elder Avisado! His companion, Elder Calo went to Narvacan with Elder Scott! By the way, Elder Scott killed it leading the area during exchanges. He has only been here for about a month and was able to lead the entire time 2 days in a row. Killin it Elder Scott! Killin' it! Exchanges were really fun in Santa Maria. Elder Avisado is also fairly new in the mission but is such a great teacher! We met with a family who had relatives in town from Utah! I dont know if it was as weird for them to see me as much as it was weird for me to see them, but hey who knows! We talked about Utah and about the State! Before we left, their wife handed me a bag of kit kats and hersheys and said "Happy Thanksgiving!" Thats when I remembered that Thurrsday was Thanksgiving!
After the exchanges on Wednesday we went to Narvacan on Thursday morning to switch off companions again! I woke up with a solid sore throat and an unfriendly headache, and when we got to the house it only got worse. I ended up sleeping almost the whole day of Thanksgiving trying to get rid of the headache and sickness! It was pretty lame but we were able to leave the house later in the day when I woke up. After we worked, we hopped on a bus for a 3 hour trip to San Fernando for a meeting on Friday! And dont worry, we stopped at McDonalds on the way so Elder Scott could have an American Thanksgiving Dinner! The chocolate sundae was good ebough for me too! (Dont worry Mom i am feeling 100% now!)
We rolled into San Fernando at about 10:30 ish and slept in one of the apartments with other missionaries from the mission! It wwas fun to catch up with them and listen to their stories! The meeting was for all of the new missionaries so Elder Scott was able to see all of his batch from the MTC and others as well! Elder Rochardson and Smith, the AP's, put together a video for us about obedience, and knew how to teach the lesson! They had clips from Star Wars 3 where Annikan and Obi-One have their famous "you were the chosen one!" "you were my brother!" Fight scene! I tell you what it was so good to watch the 30 seconds of Star Wars that they showed, and it really did help us learn a lot about how training should help new missionaries be the missionaries they should, and also how to learn from new missionaries! After we had our meeting we ate, got to say hello to Sister and Elder Thurman, the ever-so-awesome office senior missionaries, and went back to Narvacan to resume our work! When we got back we taught the Valdez Family and the Maaghop family! Both of them are so nice and genuine. Each time we go to their house, we learn about their life experiences and also learn about humility. Everyone here is so humble and loving towards one another and its such a good feeling to see the love someone has for you through their actions.
Now we are on Saturday! In the morning we again went to the Vallentos house, this time to see the house, plan the next time, and set a time to do it! After we left we helped Nanay Zeny move some of her things to the market for her to have a lechon baboy stand during the fiesta that is coming up! You already know Ill be there as much as I can eating as much Lechon Baboy as I can! While we were wokring, the Elders in Santa Maria were holding a baptisml service so we invited our investigators and we went to Santa Maria to the baptism! Tony-boy Alafriz tagged along with his new friends, the Maaghop children, and we were able to see a baptism into our Church. Sister Maaghop, and her neice, Jenny, had a lot of good questions about the reason people are baptized and what it truly means. Jenny when we first met, simply wanted to learn from us how to teach people about God, and now she has commited herself to being ready for her own baptism before 2016 ends! Same goes for her brother Jeric, and some of their aunts and uncles! It was such an amazing oppurtunity to be able to help them see the importance of baptism and also to feel the Spirit testify to them of the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. When we got back to Narvacan, Jeric came with us to our appointments! It was the first time Ive ever worked with someone who isnt even a member of the Church yet. But at our lesson with the Cabe family, he bore such a strong testimony about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. His testimony was so spiritual and touching. And I am so glad we have been able to grow close to Jeric, and his whole family.
Lets take it to yesterday! Sunday! At church we were blessed to have so many people attend, including Brother Mario! Jeric, his sister Jenny (who has worked at the Catholic Church all day every sunday for about 5 years now, and didnt in order to come to our church) their neices and nephews, and the Valdez family! Church was so good and Elder Alvarez gave a talk about the Bible and The Book of Mormon. In the class time, we talked about the importance of prayer and how at any momment in life, times of trials, hapinness, sadness, boredness, or any other time, we can pray to Our Heavenly Father directly. We can ask him for answers, for help, for guidance, and can thank Him for all the things he has done for us. Whenever, Wherever, for whatever reason. Once again being a missionary is the best feeling. Every day I am coming closer to Our Father in Heaven and I am able to help others do the same. I love you all and hope you all have a great first week of December! Drive safe if theres snow, and when youre really cold wishing you were in the Philippines, know that I wish I was in the snow freezing my toes off! Love you all! In the wise words of a wise man "After all that has been said, the greatest and most important duty is to preach the Gospel." Ingat po kayo!
Make sure you dont forget to wish the one and only Darren Pitt a happy birthday!!!
-Elder Pitt
Pics: Jeric workin with us one night
Selfie after cleaning the church on saturday
Service Projectin'
Selfie with some bike riders drafting the tryke!
No comments:
Post a Comment