Busy Lang Po

So we were suuuuuper busy this week with planning for transfers tomorrow (the plans changed like 5 times over the week, partly because my Chinese friend is getting kicked out by the Philippines government earlier than anticipated. We celebrated with him on his last night though.), and so we didn't get a whole bunch of work in, so I thought I'll just put a little bit of an update on some of the people we are teaching right now.

Carlito:

Carlito is the nephew of one of our recent converts. He's about 27 and has one daughter that is 8 years old. Carlito has been awesome, coming to church pretty much every week and he loves it there. Carlito was left by his wife a couple years ago, with no hint as to where she went, and since then he has struggled a ton. His only source of income is pretty much just driving a padyak (you'll have to look that one up). He's doing awesome now though, our only problem is that he dropped out of high school so he never learned to read or write, so it's super hard to get him to remember the things we teach him. He still really wants to be baptized though!

Ariel: Ariel is the man. He's about 46 years old, and the son of a member in our area. In the past, Ariel became a Born Again minister, super strong in that faith, but eventually got disillusioned with the system because he said he saw ministers taking advantage of people and taking their money. He dropped off the whole religion thing for a while, looking for a better alternative, even checking out Islam, and not finding much he liked. He kind of got depressed and messed with alcohol, drugs, smoking, at which point he lost the trust of his family. Missionaries tried to teach him a little while ago, but he wasn't interested. Since then, he's had a huge comeback, deciding he wants to make things right with his family. He's been reading the Book of Mormon and picks everything up super quick, and has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, even defending both against a slightly antagonistic non-member that showed up for church yesterday. He said he knew they were both true and was so grateful for the clarity they both brought to his life. And, crazy thing is, the other day in our lesson (we had planned to teach baptism) he just up and asks us about tithing and says he wants to start paying (Who does that?!). So we just taught that instead. And he payed tithing yesterday. Pretty cool, right?

Elmer: I think I already talked a bit about him, so I won't have much right now, but he's 46, has 6 sons and has been reading a ton from the Book of Mormon and everything just seems to click with him. He has a hold of the doctrine of the Fall after reading 2 Nephi 2, and made all the connections himself. He says he wants to be a true Christian and says he feels that since we have started teaching, he feels cleaner and as though there is more of a clarity in his life. He feels like the church is true, but hasn't committed yet to be baptized. He also calls in his kids to listen in when we come and teach (this is so rare in the Philippines, that I can't even explain that adequately. Honestly it's rare enough to teach a male that is genuinely interested in finding the truth.)

Well that's most of our week I think. We just spent a bunch of other time in the office, and went out as we had time. Really sad to see Elder Zou go, the Philippines government is just trying to stick it to China or something. I don't really know. And then we got a bunch of other missionaries headin out tomorrow. It's going to be really sad to see them go, but they're all excited and I'm happy for 'em. As for me, I learned a ton this week about how important it is to have a correct understanding of God and how he works. That's kind of what most of our lessons came down to this week, was understanding God and His love for all of us. Because he loves us, we have an awesome plan that is meant to help us grow and develop through being humble and following Him. So it was a pretty great week!

Love you all! Here's a couple pictures that I liked.