Dear Family-
Life in the Philippines is continuing as normal. I do have a cool story to tell though so I will drop that before anythingJ
So…Thursday Elder Duco and I went on splits. He went to this place called Los Banos, and I stayed here. I got a new companion and he worked here for the day. Now, this wasn’t any normal companion, he was this guy from Canada who spoke French. His name is Elder LeBlanc and he has possibly the coolest accent that I have ever heard in my life. So, our day started out like any normal day-studying in the morning then work before we hit up lunch. We decided to go to this lady that we have been teaching for the past little bit named Maloo. We hopped a jeepney and went to Ate Maloos house and started teaching her. So, in the plan of salvation pamphlet, there are 3 questions-1) where do we come from, 2) why are we here, and 3) where do we go after we die? Elder LeBlanc is just one transfer ahead of me (I actually saw him in the MTC cause he was there the same time that I was) so we are about on the same par with each other Tagalog wise. So, I initially wanted to teach the 2nd and 3rd question, but, because of some circumstances I decided we were just gonna teach the 2nd question and then tie in the 3rd lesson (don’t be confused, you don’t really need to remember all these numbers.) So, I started teaching and taught about the 2nd question-why we are here, what we should be doing while we are here, how we can do those things more efficiently, etc. and then handed over the floor to Elder LeBlanc. When I started teaching the lesson, I had this little kid in the back of my mind that kept saying, in the “are we there yet?” voice, “did you give her a baptismal goal date yet?” over and over and OVER again. At first it was just like yea yea, I’ll get to that when she seems ready, but as Elder LeBlanc taught I got the strongest feeling that she needed a baptismal goal date. No matter what response I ran through my head, the thought was clear, almost as if someone was screaming at me “GIVE HER A BAPTISMAL GOAL DATE.” Now, you have to realize that being on splits, you get no knowledge prior to arriving at the apartment that night about the area, the investigators, or their specific goals. Because of a misunderstanding, Elder Duco and I waited for them for an hour and a half until they arrived (finally at 9:30) at their apartment and then Elder LeBlanc and I left-so basically I am saying that we got home WAY late and didn’t talk about our work for the next day cause Elder Duco and I had already planned. So, fast-forward to the next day. Elder Canada and I are walking to the appointment and he asks what we are gonna teach, and I tell him the plan of salvation. That was it. That was our conversation. Ok, fast-forward again to the teaching. So, while Frenchie was teaching I kept saying over in my head, how are we gonna give them a baptismal goal date when not all of them are here? BAM. In walks the father who I had never seen before. How am I gonna offer a baptismal goal date to someone who doesn’t know what we are teaching? BAM, Elder LeBlanc does a re-cap. Finally, I was just like how in the WORLD am I gonna tell Elder LeBlanc to extend a BGD when he has no clue about these people. Almost 3 milliseconds after I thought this Elder LeBlanc drops a BGD on them. My jaw just dropped (which isn’t a good thing because the floor wasn’t that sturdy in the first place and it could have broke) and so we continued out the lesson. As we were walking home, I was like dude how did you know that they needed a baptismal goal date, and he was like uh…I don’t know, I just gave it to them. Yea, he didn’t raise the dead, or heal a leper, but it was cool in itself.
That same day something that I will probably remember for the rest of my life happened. A few days before, I had seen these two white guys completely smashed out of their minds. There were like 64376 beer bottles around them, and they were speaking “frunk” (for the record, that is French spoken by drunk people). I went up to the people who were not drinking around them and I asked where they were from and they said Canada, so when I learned that LeBlanc and I were gonna become companions for a day I wanted to go tract them, just to hear this French coolness. So, Elder LeBlanc and I decided to head over. That day I had been kind of down in the dumps because of a few things and so I was kind of emotionally dragging. Well, we got to the place that we were gonna teach, and the drunk chaps weren’t there, but there was this awesome nanay who, just maybe, was the epitome of kindness. We started talking with her, and found out that she is a member. I hadn’t seen her before so I was like you know, we haven’t seen you at church for a little bit, what happened? She was like well, I used to be really diligent in my church attendance, but I stopped going. Knowing that church attendance doesn’t just randomly stop just like that I asked what happened, and she told me it was a “secret” and that other missionaries know. I was like ok, well that’s fine. You have your agency, and you can do with it what you will. We asked her if we could share a message with her and she said sure, so I turned to quite possibly one of the most awesome scriptures in the new testament-Luke 15:4-7
“What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance. “
I told the nanay that Christ was waiting for her and that he was just a hand away. I don’t know why, but the spirit in that lesson was probably the thickest that I have felt in a LONG time. If I wanted to, I could probably have cut it with a knife (which probably wouldn’t be a good idea. If denying the holy ghost is unforgivable, I don’t want to know what poking him with a knife is…). I don’t know, it is cool how the Lord answers your prayers in random ways that you would have never expected. A general authority once said that you are probably least likely to receive an answer to your prayers while you are kneeling in prayer. It comes when you are listening, when you are in the right place at the right time. It was the strongest assurance that the Lord loves us, and that Christ went through our agony, our pain, our sorrow for us so that we don’t have to. Awesome, this work is absolutely awesome.
Then, after we talked with the nanay, we asked about the two French chaps that we saw, and she told us that they went to the embassy, but that they would be back. So, later that night, we returned because Elder LeBlanc really wanted to speak French to them. So, we returned to find not the white guys, but their wives and their sisters-all of which are Pilipino, and all of which are fluent in French, English, and Tagalog. So, we all went down into their basement thing, and it was a clash of languages. French, Tagalog, and English. It was way cool to hear French even though I didn’t understand anything that they were saying (and they spit a lot, which was kind of gross). There was even this little girl there who only spoke English so we had a deep conversation about the doll house that her daddy bought her-she is going on my list of the top 10 cutest kids that I have seen in my life.
That is pretty much it, nothing really cool went on this week, it was a rather uneventful week. Our ward missionary asked me yesterday what the best explanation I could give about the endowment session was. I looked at the sister that was working with us and we started laughing. He was like why are you guys laughing and I was like the best explanation that I can give is this-its sacred. He turned to the sister and she was like…its sacred dude, sorry:/ He is SO excited to get endowed but still has 2 years to go haha.
General Conference is quickly approaching, but I have to wait an extra week to see it. It will go on this weekend, and then next weekend I get to watch it. SO, don’t tell me what went down in conference in your next email. That would NOT be cool.
As for the pants thing, yea, I got some made. I pick them up tomorrow, and as for the scriptures-I have to wait 2 months to get them back once I put them in. I am probably gonna finish the BOM again before I put them in to be covered. No, I didn’t feel the earthquake at all actually and I wouldn’t have known that there was one if you hadn’t have said anything. I haven’t heard anything from other people so we will see if it goes thru the grapevine and eventually reaches me.
That is crazy that the lady who moved into Trish’s house is a Pilipino. Ill be sure to talk to her when I get back. Do you know where about in Quezon she lives? If you see her again, tell her my last area was Lopez, quezon. That is way way cool.
So, my email this week is really really weak. Nothing cool happened, and so it is just life as the Lord dictates. I am stoked for conference though cause it is like a moral booster when you are havin a bad day. Please tell everyone that I say hi and I love you all!!!
Love,
Jake
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