Ginourmas toads here....

Hello to all my BEST friends!!

Remember when I said that "flood" was crazy last week? Wait till you catch a wave of my experience this week (pun intended?) It was a week that I will never forget and one in which a lot was learned. I love being here in the Philippines. I am so grateful IN my situation, whatever happens!

This week was jam packed. I'm going to summarize a little bit. On Friday, we traveled out to Bayawan to go on exchanges with the Zone Leaders, Elder Warner and Elder Daisog. They are awesome and I love them. We had to get there by 5 because I had to conduct a baptismal interview out in Basay (very bukid - err mountainy...?) at 6pm. It went great! We slept at the ZL's apartment and woke up in the morning to travel back out to Basay to attend the baptism in the ocean!!!

It was awesome.

 I may or may not have been allowed to stand in the dagat (ocean) as a witness. Loved it. 

After that, Elder Rowley and Elder Daisog traveled back to work in Siaton while Elder Warner and I went to Zamboanguita to conduct two more baptismal interviews. We have so many baptisms planned for this month!!! Elder Daisog interviewed Kent (our investigator) and he is all set to go for this Saturday at 6pm!!! I am so excited for him! Anyways, the interviews basically took the rest of Saturday. We traveled back to Bayawan to sleep. Such a crazy busy awesome schedule!

 Now we get to the even crazier part.

A member drawing of our Zone...guess which one is me!?!?

On Sunday we woke up and got to church early because I had another (yes, fourth) baptismal interview for the ZL's. 

The interview and church both went well. After church there is a special sacrament held out in Basay for the members out there. We traveled out there with the Branch Presidency and everything went well. 

About half way through, it starts POURING. Like crazy.... and wind... and everything. Storm conditions. Nothing I've ever seen before. 

Long story short, after sacrament, Elder Warner and I had to run get some signatures of the family that was baptized yesterday. Remember I said it was pouring? And about the wind? Ya, don't forget it. 

We were running/walking and all of a sudden my head hurt SO BADLY!!! I realized I just got hit on the head with a coconut!!! Now you're thinking, "okay very funny... You would die if you got hit on the head with a coconut (because of how high those trees are)." Ya... That's 100% true! 

That's why I was so grateful that it was only the size of a baseball. But... uhh... ouch? 

I learned a lot about Diabetes at the clinic when I got my head checked out!

I can't explain how grateful I was that it wasn't a fully-matured coconut. People get paralyzed (or die) here because of things like that! Okay... moving on! 

That's not even a smidgen (word?) of what happened that day.

There is another member out in Basay that is confined to her home and the elders always take a special sacrament to her every week with the Branch President. Well, the Branch President said that he didn't want to go because the wind and rain was too hard. He said the trees might fall over. 

Haha. At first, Elder Warner and I were like, "okay.. guess we won't go." Then we thought about what the sacrament means - how important it truly is.

 We decided we would just ask if we could go do it. The President said yes we could, but he himself wouldn't go. 

We get to the "trail head" (only English I could think of for the thing at the bottom of the mountain that leads to where we want to go..) and immediately see that the entire dalan (path) is 200% flooded. And it is still POURING. We decided to try anyways. Nothing could be as crazy as last week, right? Wrong. Remember the Narrows in Zion? Ha.. It was just like that. We literally hiked up a mountain up to our knees in water rushing down.And the wind was, well, just think of Typhoon conditions. I am so sad to say that I didn't have my camera that day. Just trust me that it happened. Because it did.

So why did we go? 

I wanted to take a minute and bring this all together. The Sacrament is a vital ordinance 100% necessary for our Salvation and Exaltation. 

I hope we can all have the attitude that, no matter what the world throws at us, we will be determined to get to church and partake of the sacrament. 

I know that this is a true principle. I know that, as we partake of the sacrament, we allow ourselves to be sanctified by the Holy Ghost. We also covenant to Heavenly Father that we are WILLING to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ. I encourage you to study about what that really means. I'll give you a hint: there are at least three meanings to the phrase "willing to take upon us the name of Jesus Christ". Only one refers to our baptism.

Don't worry Mom..I am eating well.

I love you all so very much and am so happy in the situation I have been blessed with. I am beyond excited for Kent and his decision to be baptized this Saturday. I am nervous for Transfer Calls on Monday, but know that it will be according to the will of the Lord. Until we meet (...read...) again. I love you all!!

Love,

Elder Jacobs

This is where we go to get new white shirts......they LOVE us!