The week before we went to Naga for the new missionary training which is kind of a follow up after our first couple weeks in the field. We just talk about how it's been and if we've been having any problems. Nothing to special but fun to see some of my batch from the MTC. Then we went to SM, the huge shopping mall there, for a few minutes to grab some things not available in my area. And I heard Christmas music. Without the break of Thanksgiving, there is nothing stopping them from celebrating early. So it's Christmastime already here in the Philippines. Don't worry. I bought a Santa hat.
As for our investigators we are still having a tough time. Salvador is still shaky on committing to baptism, but we keep trying. One cool experience was that we had a potential investigator that isn't really ever home because he is always working (driving his padyak) so we hadn't gotten a chance to follow up with him. On the way to his house we saw a huge storm coming and Elder Cawit was considering going back to the apartment. But I told him I felt like we needed to go see him that day and that he would be there. So we waited out the rain under some trees and it was coming down hard. But after it lightened up we hurried over and he was home! So we got to teach him some of the first lesson and now he wants us to teach his whole family. We are still having trouble working out times to teach him, but I think it will work out really well. We also had our first lesson with another potential investigator named Ramon. He's a Born Again. He makes gowns for a living. And he's gay. But he accepted the lesson and I gave him a Book of Mormon and he seemed very interested in it. The next day he even asked for one for his friend! We still are waiting to have our next lesson. Elder McBride in my apartment told us that they went to an investigators house and walked in on his funeral. They had no idea anything had happened to him! I haven't been as unlucky as that yet with any investigators.
Last week we had zone training and I got the belts that I ordered from an RM in Naga! One is made of coconut, another Kamagong wood, and another is Carabao horn. And I got one for Elder Cawit. Later that day we went and looked at some stores around the area so I got to see a bunch of knock off stuff that was way cheap, but nothing I really wanted. I also found out that at our District Conference two weeks ago they had double the attendance from last year. So the Iriga District might finally become a stake after 19 years! And then we get to watch conference next week on Saturday and Sunday because the time difference makes it impossible to do it this past weekend.
As for me, nothing really new. I've been working my way through the Old Testament. Some of those books are a struggle. The Book of Numbers? Just a lot of numbers. Leviticus? The procedure for every sacrifice there is. Chronicles? A bunch of genealogies and names from Adam to David. So it's taken me a while, but I'm about halfway through now. Starting Second Chronicles today.
This week was actually pretty tough with my companion. He's in the last transfer of his mission so there's a lot of times that I feel like we should be working but he just wants to go back to the apartment early without me really ever getting a say in what I think we should do. Also he doesn't like helping me a ton with the language. So I was feeling really down last night, and I decided to read D&C 122, one of the strongest and most powerful scriptures I've read, which is about how no matter what happens, it's for our experience. Christ humbled himself and suffered more than any of us ever could. Are we greater than him, that we think we don't need to have trials? And it made me think of the story by Elder Holland's son that Mimi and Bubba sent me for my birthday a few weeks ago about how sometimes we are led down a path, so that we can know with absolute certainty that that is the wrong path and we can go back and follow the right one with full confidence. That's how I feel right now. That I am being shown one way to do missionary work that isn't always as it should be, so that after this experience, I will know how I want to really do things and how I want my mission to be.
So that is my message for the week I guess. That things may be hard. You may be far from home, struggling with a new language. Or you may be just struggling to deal with college, or every day life. But everything we go through, everything that happens to us is for our benefit. We must choose how to come out of it and to learn from it and be patient in our afflictions and "hold on thy way...their bounds are set, they cannot pass" the second part meaning that no one and no thing can get to you and tear you down unless you let them.
I hope you are all doing well and I miss you all! Mahal ko kayo!
Elder Jakob Van Boerum
Mark 16:15 "...go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."
Handmade Belts
Typical Jeepney
