Ohmygoodness what a week.
On Friday, Elder Samon and I had the awesome opportunity to invite the Henrichsens (A Senior Missionary Couple) to come out and work with us. They are great. From Oregon and at least 104 years old! They have such a great spirit about them. They don't speak a word of Bisaya so they just sat and listened (I translated a little so they could follow the topic of the lesson) and then they bore very powerful testimonies at the end of our lesson. I LOVED the spirit that they brought with them. We visited Tatay Arnaiz who is a less-active member that came back to church two weeks ago! Elder and Sister Henrichsen were great. Side note.....MOM AND DAD. You need to get out here!!! When are you planning on serving a mission?? We need all of you! Senior couples are the BEST! (not saying you two are tigulang na...)
Later Friday night, we went to visit with Lomer - one of our baptismal candidates this Saturday! This was the highlight of my week. Hahaha okay so here we were teaching a little 10 year old about the Word of Wisdom.
For those that don't know, the Word of Wisdom is the health code that we follow as members of the true church of Jesus Christ. We follow this health code because our bodies are gifts and we need to take care of them.
We were discussing the things that aren't good for us. There are 5 specific ones revealed to Joseph Smith through revelation in Doctrine and Covenants 89. Here is how our conversation went as we were reviewing: "Okay, what's first brother Lomer?" "Kape (coffee)"
"Sacto!! Maayo man.. second?" "Cigarilyo (cigarettes)" "Awesome!
Third?" .... All the way to the fifth one. The fifth one comes:
"Sige, so what's last?" "Manumbag". Hahahhahhahhhahaha Manumbag means to punch someone. Keep in mind, he is 10 and we are talking about things that are bad for our body. OF COURSE that's bad for our body!! Hahaha we couldn't help but to just say he was right. I love these people. Especially the kids.
Saturday was awesome!!! In the morning, Lomer, Barbie, and Juliebert all were interviewed by Elder Edvalson for their baptisms. ALL of them did great!! They are all being baptized this Saturday at 2pm :) I am so excited. Also, fun fact. The sisters' three investigators are being baptized on that day as well (6 total) and the kids asked me if I could baptize them. I only met them once, when we gave a blessing to their mother, but I love them so much! I'll let you know how that goes!
Saturday afternoon and night we actually went up to Basay (past Bayawan) for a baptism. It was our Zone Leaders' investigator. Elder Glines and Elder Antonio are amazing. I love them. What's even more......... She was baptized in the OCEAN!!!! In the dagat! How cool is that??
Basay is way out here on the island and I think I heard someone say that there are a bunch of wild monkeys everywhere .....but I didn't see any :(
Speaking of monkeys......
This is the monkey that lives in the trees outside of our house! Every time I mention the monkey I have to reassure my mom that I HAVE NEVER TOUCHED THE MONKEY NOR WILL I EVER TOUCH THE MONKEY!
Sunday was amazing. It was like Christmas. Thank you EVERYONE! Mom and Jordan for packages! The Dappers, Mosses, Blake, and Mom for letters! It was honestly one of the better days of my life. At church, we helped a sister in our branch start her mission papers. I was the only one who remembered how to do it! And then we trained our Branch President a little bit on how to do his side of the process. President Conde is so great. He is so willing to serve and learn. I love him. The members here are very inexperienced, but they are all willing to work. That's what counts!!
Monday was interesting. As some may already know, I have a weird rash on my arms and hands. Sister Schmutz said I needed to go down to the hospital to get this thing checked out. So Elder Glines and I spent the entire day down in Dumaguete at the doctor's office!
In short, during the check-up, the doctor asked me to take off my shirt to see if it spread anywhere else.. When she saw there was a little on my stomach, she said I needed to take off my pants... Uhh.... no? I will not.....Hahaha Elder Glines was sitting there with me and I just looked at him and he was cracking up.
She saw me look at him and said, "He can leave and go out of the room if you'd like".... HA! YEA RIGHT! HE'S STAYING RIGHT HERE NEXT TO ME.
So anyways.....I had to take my slacks off (that's it, don't worry) and she checked my legs and stuff. Haha anyways, great experience. She tried to charge us 4,000 Pesos so we called Sister Schmutz and she just said go get the stuff at a different pharmacy - so that's what we did! Then, we treated ourselves to a delicious, very American pizza in the mall in Dumaguete.
So Wow. This week was unreal. I loved it.
I just want to end with something that may have been the biggest lesson I have learned in my life up until now. The credit goes to my dad and baseball.
Attitude.
Attitude is crucial in this life. As most of you know, when I got to this area all the way out in remote Siaton, we had NOTHING to work with. No teaching pool, no progressing investigators, nothing. Elder Samon and I were lost for about a day or two. We realized that we probably weren't going to have any baptisms this transfer; HOWEVER, we decided to work.
Every day I prayed for strength to be happy and just go to work.
After we made that decision, we started finding people. We were happy, energetic, optimistic, and talked to EVERYONE. Can we just look at this for a minute? Three baptisms. Three. This Saturday. I have such a strong testimony of the power of attitude - optimism specifically. When you are happy, you want to help. You want to work.
One of my favorite all time scriptures is found in D&C 123.
"Therefore. dearly beloved brethren [and sisters], let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed," (D&C 123:17).
Know that I love you all and am doing my best to serve the Lord with everything I have.I love you all and hope you have an amazing week just like I know I'm gunna have!
Love,
Elder Jacobs
P.S. AHHHH Sister Gonzalez and her son, Jusel, got baptised two weeks ago in Pardo!!!! Remember them?? The family that Elder Ferris and I started teaching. I love that family.
