Ohmygoodness where do I even start?!? This week was incredible! Every day I am grateful for the decision I made to be here. I wouldn't rather be anywhere else in the world than right here in this internet-han in Siaton, Negros Oriental, Philippines :)
But I'm gunna be honest. It is HARD.
One day last week every single plan we had fell through.
Now, you may not think that is very impressive, but let me just explain something really quick.
Missionaries plan. Like, we plan the time that we're gunna plan.
Our back-up plans have back-up plans.
When I say everything fell through, it means everything. SO we got to go tracting for 6 hours and it was the best 6 hours ever... hahah well, almost. We did find some new people, but let's just say it was a long day. We did our best and that's all that counts.
AND....I have no idea what's going on here with the weather..... If anyone over there can let me know what's on the news in terms of weather... Much appreciated.
There has to be a huge bagio (storm) going on right now because since last Friday we haven't seen the sun. In the middle of our lessons on Friday, it started POURING. Two elders, one umbrella. Awkward.
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| Two guys sharing an umbrella.....weird. |
On Monday we went on a run in the pouring rain early in the morning. It was awesome. As I was running, a little nanay (...old woman..?) kept smiling at me and waving so of course I stopped and talked to her. We hadn't even talked for 45 seconds when she said, "you know, I want my kids to be just like you."
Me: "Really? Why is that, sister?"
Nanay:"Cause you're so HAPPY"
Me:"Aww thank you sister.... *explain it's because of the Gospel*.... How old are your kids?"
Nany:"30, 28, and 26"
Hahahahahah I was totally expecting them to be like... kids... Guess not. Moral of the story, BE HAPPY!
Remember always that to be "Spiritually Minded Is Life Eternal" (SMILE).
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| My Samoan Companion, Elder Tavui |
Tuesday - Wow. What a lesson. We were returning back to one of our investigators and turns out her brother was visiting from out of town. Awesome, right?
Of course it's awesome... especially because he introduced himself as "Pastor Roni". Hahah oh boy.
Side note - missionaries are always very cautious when handling situations like this because we were not called on missions to debate, argue, or "Bible Study" (as they call it here - everyone just shares what they think this verse in the Bible means).
Long story short. We had an amazing lesson. We didn't use the Bible because any missionary who has worked in a very catholic, or any religion really, culture, knows that when you use the Bible, it invites a spirit of contention into the lesson. Just because everyone has so many different interpretations of it. We shared everything we needed to from the Book of Mormon and testified.I am so grateful for the Spirit that was felt in the lesson from the Book of Mormon and pure testimony. I loved it.
I am going to talk about General Conference in another post this week, so I won't go into how much I LOVED every second of it in this post!!!
On Saturday morning, Elder Tavui and I traveled over to Bacong to help Elder Rose and his companion gather some of their investigators to go to conference (ours couldn't come because we are SUPER far from Dumaguete and that's where conference was..). Elder Rose and I went to get one family, but the father just got laid off of work the day before, so they didn't have any plete (money) to get to Dumaguete.
Sadly, we aren't allowed to give any money to help so we had to just let him know that he'll have another chance and then we left. About 30 minutes later we're waiting for Conference to start and... Up comes Edgar (the investigator). He rode his bicycle from Bacong to Dumaguete. It's like 8km... He rode his bike!! It was amazing. It's experiences like these that keep me going. Love it. I love these people. I love serving the Lord and I love where I'm serving.
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| I'm in paradise! |
Okay well I love you all so so so much and hope that you have an awesome week! I know you will, just make sure you help someone else to have a good week as well.
Love you!!
Elder Jacobs
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| Sorry Mom!!! I had to........... |
