Dear Family-
Elder Franciscus Jacobus Muller III is alive and kicking here in Calamba 2nd ward-and that is definitely a surprise. Why do I say this? Because this week was pure drama week. Never before have I had to deal with so much drama in one week. I thought that you became disinterested in drama when you reached 18…or 30 (ill explain later)…but NOPE. Ill just stop rambling and go straight into why this week was pure drama.
It started with this family that we are teaching. The mother and her sister were baptized before I got here, but we are teaching her 2 daughters. They are my favorite family here in Calamba and quite possibly one of the favorites in my mission. They are kind of like a home away from home. The mom is 30, her sister is 17, and the two girls we are teaching are 11 and 9. I love them to death, but they are all drama queens. When Duco left he didn’t tell them-he wrote them a letter which I gave them. When I gave it to them they exploded on me and yelled at me because I didn’t tell them. I told them that Duco didn’t want me to tell them and they said that it didn’t matter, there are no secrets between us and them. They are a little weird, ill admit, but when they aren’t mad they are pretty normal. The 30 year old has had A LOT of problems in her life like really traumatizing stuff that has kind of left her scared of the world, and the 17 year old is close with her family and the missionaries, but no one else. You all following me?? Ok. I am gonna give some background real quick so you all understand. Being a missionary, one of my favorite lessons to teach is eternal marriage (that’s not stereotypical at all…), but not for the regular reasons. The doctrine goes deeper than a lot of people know-deeper than the “RM syndrome.” Well, the other Sunday Elder De Leon was teaching about the Lord’s covenant people and explaining the importance of covenants…one of them being the new and everlasting covenant. Church ended and we went our ways. Still following me? After the lesson we taught to the little girls that night the mom came and sat down and was like elders I need to be honest with you all cause we have no secrets between us. I was like ok go ahead dude, whatever floats your boat. She was like church is a formal place. I was like that it is that it is. She was like and you elders minimize the importance of church by bringing your love life into your work. I am pretty sure I started choking on my own spit at this point and I was like woah woah WOAH stop the train. What in the 2 Nephi 9:34 do you mean? She told us that we bring our love lives into our teachings at church and that we were the English equivalent of giddy. I was like how do we do that? She was like you taught about marriage in church. I was like uh, ate, Eternal marriage is a doctrinal based in revelation given to us through Joseph Smith. I am stoked to get married in the house of the lord-the most beautiful place on the whole planet. She was like even if you were happy you shouldn’t have mentioned marriage. I was offended and I am sure other people were too. I was like so…you don’t want us to teach about marriage. She was like you know what I hate elder? I hate prideful and hypocritical people who say they will take advice when they really don’t want it. I was like ate what in the world? We mentioned eternal marriage because it is doctrine. I’m sorry if I am excited to start a family. We are taking your advice, but you have to realize something-we are gonna teach doctrine whether it offends people or not. Being missionaries, we aren’t gonna say or do something before thinking about it (man do things change when you serve a mission…). We know the possible effects of our teachings, and we accept that the truth may offend some people. In the words of Nephi relating one of the most significant truths of our time-
And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center. And now my brethren, if ye were righteous and were willing to hearken to the truth, and give heed unto it, that ye might walk uprightly before God, then ye would not murmur because of the truth, and say: Thou speakest hard things against us. (1 Nephi 16:2-3)
Obviously, the circumstance in which he said it was different, but this woman was offended because she associated love life with marriage, and because we taught about marriage she thought we were giddy. We were like thank you Ate, we will try to cut all elements out that may have offended you, but we aren’t gonna apologize for our doctrine-no matter how offensive it might be to you. She then looked me square in the eye and said, literally translated “oh really? Too bad. I thought you were like Elder Duco and Elder Call-willing to take advice. Its late now-you should go.” Elder De Leon and I were just sitting there in awe. Where in the world did this come from? Because I said “wooot” when Elder De Leon mentioned marriage? We went to shake her hand and she literally punched my hand and was like leave. I was like uh…ok. We returned back there a couple nights ago and the same girl sat down and was like Elder Muller, I have to be serious with you. I was like oh jeez…here we go again. Elder, please keep your hands and feet inside the vehicle at all times and try to enjoy the ride. Ate was like Elder Muller, I was not angry with you, I was angry with Elder De Leon cause he is prideful. I was like how does that work ate haha I was the one who answered for us? She was like it doesn’t matter he is prideful. Elder De Leon apologized and she was like oh its ok:DD We were like uh…ok. Well, despite the fact that you just chastised us, called us prideful, told us to leave, we tried to apologize and you wouldn’t accept it…we still love your family to death. What happened in the past happened in the past-just drop it. SO, now everything is a bowl of cherries and her two daughters (the 11 and the 9 year old) are gonna get baptized on Saturday which I am way excited for. They are gonna look absolutely beautiful in their little white outfits (not to sound like a creeper). I have been teaching them for coming up on 12 weeks now. Stuff kept happening so we post poned their baptismal goal date back and back and back until the time has finally arrived. WOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!!!!!! Andrea, the 9 year old, is like a sister to me, and Catriona is like the neighborhood kid you grow up with haha. They are awesome. So that happened.
One of our zone leaders hates Americans with a passion. He bags on Americans, America, Utah, and everything English every chance he can get (and yet he is gonna go to BYU Hawaii…uh…I don’t get it-how does that work?). He blew up something that happened and separated our zone to Americans vs. Pilipinos which caused A LOT of stress but things are fixed now so it doesn’t really matter. Grudges are overrated so there is no sense in keeping them! That is all I am gonna say about that matter. Ugh…I hate stress.
I learned something else from Elder De Leon this week. He frequently gets really bad head aches which put him in a REALLY bad mood. When he gets in a bad mood he is…not the easiest to get along with. At a lesson we taught yesterday the lady comment about how I talk a lot (joking) and he was like yea, he has a lot to say, but doesn’t understand any of it (implying that I don’t understand Tagalog.) I sat there and got frustrated for a bit, but then decided that it was not important at all to get mad over because the investigators know I speak Tagalog. Man, the Lord really seems to be pounding into my head stuff about patience and conquering my temper. I have patience with little children…not with people. I learned something valuable that day. His headaches happen every single day, and he says really rude stuff to me whenever he gets headaches, but I still love him for who he is and I understand that sometimes we can be at wits end which makes it easy to yell and scream at people. Obviously I can yell at him and say not nice things and go running to my zone leaders, but it isn’t worth it. When someone says something hurtful, let it go in one ear and out the other. Its not important. Sarcasm can be funny-it can make bad weather turn sunny…but if said to hurt someone one, it can dig a hole in a relationship that can be hard to cover up. Don’t EVER say something sarcastic when you are mad-you will regret it. I used to be the master of saying things before I thought about them…and it caused A LOT of problems in A LOT of my relationships with my friends and when I look back at it I ask myself why? To get the last word in? To have the last say? “How dare he say that to me…”? Guess what? We DON’T need to have the last word in. Hymn 235 is one of my favorites and it applies amazingly here-the last line of the first verse: “ …many words in anger spoken, find their passage home again.” So true. The gospel rocks my size 13 socks.
Many other stuff happened this week, but I have no time to type about them cause it is late and we have appointments to go to. Life here is amazing. The ability I have to spread the gospel is one of the greatest blessings I have ever had in my life. I hope you all are doing well. Haha sorry this email kind of sucks…time is on the shorter side:/ I love you all like lucky (the guy on the lucky charms box) likes using his irish magic to escape his credit collectors:D
Love,
Jake
Aka Elder Muller
Ps-ha-sorry for real. My email is weak sauce this week. Next week I am going to Enchanted Kingdom (the only amusement park in the Philippines) for p-day so that will be awesome. Ill try to rock you all with an amazing email next week:D
pss-sorry mom, no pics this week. But, I do have a memory card of 300 pictures to send home sometime soon:D
No comments:
Post a Comment