Two Areas

On Tuesday, we taught Salvador but he is still too afraid to commit and offend his family. We have taught him nearly every lesson, and I feel like lately Elder Cawit has been kind of picking topics at random to teach him that really aren't addressing his fears, so I've been working on a list of scriptures to give him next time we visit. Then we went to visit Ramon, but he was busy working on a large order of gowns for later in the week. He even showed us some and they looked pretty good, all hand made. After we headed over to the other area to teach the Hosanah family about the Restoration and they seemed very interested and we gave them a couple Books of Mormon. At our lesson after that, (in one of the nicer houses I've seen here) when we went in and they had Shrek 3 playing on the t.v. so I was laughing really hard because we got to see a few minutes of it while we waited for the rest of the family and it's been a LONG time since I've had any humor like that. Then we had a great lesson about the Plan of Salvation.

Wednesday was pretty slow. All spent in Elder Esteves' area, but we had some good lessons. We went to probably the nicest house I've been in so far here. The member there is the Elder's Quorum president. We also were picking up some medicine for Fermin there because he can't really afford it himself. The member served in the U.S. Navy so he got a bunch of health benefits after he retired and had some leftover meds, some of them turning out to be the kind Fermin needed and I guess they are cool with sharing here. He also told us what the meds are for. Something to do with mental illness and schizophrenia so I guess Fermin's condition is worse than we thought.

On Thursday we went to drop of the meds to Fermin with Tatay Antonio, a member that lives on our street who was sort of friends with Fermin. Tatay also bought them a pie. Fermin was still just tied up and laying down, kind of out of it, but he was glad to see us. Then we went back to the Antonio's for a lesson with their grandson.

Friday was pretty uneventful. Mostly we just helped Elder Esteves prepare his investigator for a baptismal interview. Then we taught the Dellahestia family. They are working on their English so they all read the scriptures in English, while I read Tagalog. One of their sons clapped for me when I read at my turn as a joke. So then I clapped for him when he read English and everyone laughed. The mom was telling me she wouldn't have let me leave home so young because she would miss me, but I told her that my mom was sad too but that she knew I was doing a good work here.

Saturday was great. We did a service project at the Dellahestias by helping them weed their yard. They have a ton of pets too like parrots, rabbits, guinea pigs, geese, a turkey, and some other birds that we got to see but one goose kept trying to bite everyone. We had a cool experience at one of Elder Esteves' investigators later. His wife had been baptized, but his date had been pushed back because he was smoking still, but he finally quit. He told us that the other day, he had a dream of a man wearing a lose robe with a long white beard and all he said was "Come Again." They previous week had been his first time to church in a a while, so he took it as his sign to return. So on Sunday, there he was, smiling and super happy to be there again.

Sunday was frustrating after church. Elder Cawit decided to take a nap that went past the time we need to leave to make our appointments. When we got to the houses, we found out that the investigators had left just before we got there so we missed the chance to teach. And it almost made us late for Elder Esteves' appointments, but luckily we still made them and had some good lessons. 

I hope you all are doing great! I tried to respond to all of your emails, but if I didn't get to one I'm sorry! Sometimes I get a little rushed. Anyway, I love you all and can't wait to hear from you again! I will have a better message next week!

Elder Van Boerum
10/20/13