Week 30: Do you Feel the Love? I Feel the Love

This week has been a pretty interesting one to live through. In the moment, not gonna lie, there were some pretty crummy moments, but now that I'm taking a step back and looking at the whole week, I can really see that the Lord has blessed us with so many tender mercies in this work

Sort of a headliner for this week is that Sister Grace Garonita got baptized on Saturday! It was great. Her husband, son, and daughter are all already members, and their family was made complete this Saturday, which was such a humbling experience for me to be a part of. They're such a strong, hardworking family, and I love the fact that I've been able to share my testimony with them, and be even a little part of their conversion to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Also after the baptism we had pancit (sorta like a filipino lo mein kinda deal) and Royal (literally just better-tasting Fanta with a different label) which was really good, and also a very humbling experience to be a part of.

After the baptism, we got to teach this old 'nay, who doesn't speak Tagalog, and cannot understand our Tagalog, which, If you could believe it, was another very humbling experience for me. It was fine though, because we had a fellowshiper who could translate for us.

Something that has stood out to me this week is that miracles from God can only be manifest if we are sufficiently humble. Otherwise, we could take credit for the accomplishments. This is the lesson that Gideon learned when he was trying to build up an army to defend Israel against the Midianites, but the Lord kept telling him to whittle down his numbers. In Judges 7:2, he gives his reason:

2 And the Lord said unto Gideon, The people that are with thee are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hands, lest Israel vaunt themselves against me, saying, Mine own hand hath saved me.

This is why I'm so grateful for humbling experiences, because they really allow you to see the Lord's hand in your life, and teach me, that even with all my inadequacies, I can still be a servant of God.

Love,
Elder Menzie

P.S. Just a reminder to keep those affected by the recent attacks in Mindanao in your constant prayers. Intolerance of any kind has no place on these beautiful islands, or on this earth, for that matter.

The Deathly Tagalogs: Part 1:
Nanay (or 'nay) -- literally means mom, but also what you call call elderly women here

It's Picture, It's Picture TIME:

Elder Adams and I with Garonita Family

The Garonita Family and I with members of the branch

Me and a vvvv good boye

Week 29: Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head

Hello again, friends and family, from one half of the elders assigned in Gosi, Tuguegarao. It's been quite a week this week. I saw a monkey. and, as you can probably guess by the subject, it's been kinda rainy. But I can tell you right now, that does NOT mean my eyes'll soon be turning red. Because when it rains here, that means it's not blistering hot, so as far as I'm concerned, the rain is welcome.

This week was a freaking rewarding week for us here in Gosi. We're still working our tail ends off, and not even district leader splits is gonna stop us from getting to all the people that we need to. Speaking of, we had splits with our District leader and his companion this week on Friday, but we've got a sister that we're prepping for baptism this next week who we needed to go to, so we asked if we could do splits some other time, to which our district leader replied no. but he did say that we could keep Elder Adams in our area to work with him, while I went to his area to work with his companion, Elder Stevens, who is from Ohio and super cool. I saw the monkey while I was with him, had to hit a 16 year-old girl with my umbrella for texting during the prayer, and one of his investigators thought we were prophets, which took a little bit of time to explain to him.

It was great.

Then I came back to Gosi, found out some ants had gotten into my rasins, and got right back to work, because as the famous saying goes: there ain't no rest for the righteous missionaries who don't know when to quit.

You've never felt the sweet comfort of a bed until you've been out on the hard streets of Gosi from 10 AM to 9 PM running all over the place like a chicken with its head cut off from person to person to teach. Sufficeth to say: It's very comfortable, and no matter how much sleep you get, it's never enough.

Love,
Elder Menzie

The Order of the Tagalog:
basa .... tuloy -- read .... continue

Pictures come and pictures go:

The Monkey

The District (and Elder Afoa in the corner, with the sisters)

Us and John Paul, this super cool kid who you'll probably hear more about next month ;)