There hasn't been much flooding here, Mom, so don't
worry. Just the usual areas that get a
little flooded when it rains. I know!!! I'm
so lucky I got transferred out of Pasig. The apartment is okay now, but Elder Barrow
texted me and told me that he was getting evacuated from the area. They loved it, they said! Haha!
Anyway, kawawa naman sa Manila talaga. Grabe, ang daming baha jan. Pero wag kang mag-alaala, mabuti pa rin po
kami dito sa Mindoro. (Anyway, poor Manila. There was so much flooding there. But don't you worry, we are still okay here in Mindoro.)
Things in Mindoro have been great lately. First off, I had the opportunity to go on
exchanges in Magsaysay this week with Elder Alvarez. He is just full of such love for the people. One thing I learned from him is “This Church
should be a fun church (or an enjoyable church), not something people dread
whenever Sunday or the missionaries come around. So, let's show them a little bit of happiness."
The reason being, the people of Magsaysay
have been taught by many missionaries for most of their lives. So, when the
missionaries come around, they are like, "oh great, the missionaries are
here." So, we did things a little
differently and made fun, enjoyable lessons. ^_^ It was well received. Elder Alvarez's love for the people also
allowed us to discern the needs of everyone we taught. I felt the spirit strong in all but the last
lesson. In all of the other 6 lessons,
we didn't go with what was planned and taught the people, not the lessons. Even the very cold less actives were open to
us, he said. He's a great missionary! They have several beautiful looking places in
Magsaysay called “Sa Langit,” which means “In Heaven.” (pictures in the email) I loved it there! It was talagang (real) Philippines. It was a lot of province area and very quiet. I enjoyed the whole day I got to work with
Elder Alvarez. He's from Cedar City,
Utah.
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| This is Magsaysay area. Beautiful place! |
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| Elder Alvarez from Utah |
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| Rice field and a carabao grazing |
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| I am going to ride a carabao before my mission is up! |
This week, Elder Olvido and I have been assigned to
meeting with the Branch president weekly and helping the branch grow while the
ZL's focused their work with the district leaders. Before, they would do both
and all of those meetings was just too much for them. So, President requested we help them out with
the branch. I think it's been good for me, personally, to work more with the
branch. I get to know the leaders more
and see what the concerns are among them. It's been interesting to see how they
work and what they have questions about. I've actually been studying the red handbook,
the Church Handbook 2, in order to help them out and it's really cool to see
how things work in our church. Reading D&C works well, too. But, the good thing is I've had the
opportunity to do more for the branch and for that I am grateful. Oh, we had a record 18 less actives come to
church! And 4 people returned to being
active. YES!!! It's finally great to see how our efforts are
paying off and helping people come back to the church. The problem is, a lot of
people get baptized but not a lot of people are active in the gospel or converted
to it. Because if they were, they would
be coming to church. So, I've made it my
personal goal to not baptize people for numbers, but rather for conversion. If you baptize people too quickly, you'll get
them baptized, yes, but then they stop going to church when you leave. That makes things difficult for the branch and
for the work.
Speaking of Conversion, more news on Sister Noemi! It's always great teaching her because she is
so converted to the gospel. During our
weekly planning, we prayed specifically for Sister Noemi that a way may be prepared
for her to get married and for her boyfriend, RJ, that his heart might be
softened and he would get the desire to be married and baptized, too. So, when we went to visit Sister Noemi on
Friday with President and Sister Whiting, the lesson ended up being like a gospel
marriage counsel. Haha! I loved what
they shared in Ephesians 5 about the duties of a husband and wife. When we were about to close, we were asking Rj
how he felt about what we've told him (he participated much in the lesson and
has really opened up to us). He said he
wants to get baptized, too! O.o OH MY GOSH!!! AHHH!!!! BEST DAY EVER!!! It was a great spiritual experience! So, see how specific and meaningful prayers
are answered by God and miracles can happen? I guess I should thank you all, too, for your
prayers. Just so you know, you were a
part of this miracle, too. All of your
support and prayers. Now, we just need
to wait until they get the money to get married or the branch president gets a
marriage license. (The mission rules say
that it's bawal for us to help them get married financially...sayang...but
President and Sister Whiting will do something to help out. Thanks for offering though!)
We got stuck in the mud going to Sister Grace's house...for
the 3rd time! President Whiting made a
wrong move and we got stuck. The fun
part is that everyone basically got muddy because the car slid and got us all
muddy. Haha! Pictures!!! Elder Olvido got the most of it. Kawawa
naman! (Poor guy!) Sabi niya (He said) it was his favorite
shirt. It's okay..it can wash out. But, we related it to faith when teaching
Grace. I said that faith without works
is dead. This means, we had the belief
that we would get the car out of the mud but it wasn't until we called for help
and did all that we could to get out that we were able to escape. ^_^ It
was a great experience.
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| Getting a little help from our friends |
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| Got dirt? |
Today was our zone activity…we had our version of the Olympics. Sand castle building, straight face contest,
volleyball, tug of war, and sack races. It
was a lot of fun. My team won 1st
Place! We even had the medals and
everything! It rained on us, but it was
fine because we were at the beach.
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| 1st Place!!! Mindoro Olympics! |
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| Elder Quinton, Sis. Sanchez, Sis. Motuliki, Sis. Whiting, and Me |
Wish I
could write more but I’m out of time. I
hope my letter was able to brighten your day.
There is a bagyo coming soon (a storm), so we need to head back home. Hopefully, it won't be too bad. Keep doing what you can to build the kingdom, and counsel
with the Lord in all your doings. Love
you and miss you all so much!
Doing you Proud,
Elder Froude ^_^
