Nothing too amazing happened this week
except for the fact that life is good! Nope no damage, no car accident, just
working in the office and getting everything ready for the new apartment leases
I’m supposed to get money for by Jan 1st . It is a long process as
you can imagine. On the bright side, we have a baptismal date for a part member
family on 24th of November! Yay!!! His name is JR Nietes. He is 10 years old and is quite smart. He
does the reading assignments so we committed him to baptism. We also have another potential baptism from a
house we tracted a few weeks ago. His name is Ricardo Castillo and he has so
many questions about doctrine that can all be answered with the Plan of Salvation.
*Special note to those of you who want to serve a mission* Study the Bible more
than you do now! There are many people that you will meet who will not listen
to you unless you use the Bible, then afterwards you can work your way into
bearing testimony of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon and then solidify
what you know with that second witness. Trust me. It will help you so much! But things are going well with Ricardo; he is
taking the lessons well and feels enlightened whenever we come by so, hopefully,
we can work him to baptism as well. ^_^
Missionary
work in Cubao Ward is pretty interesting. Most of the members are RMs (returned
missionaries) and former APs (assistants to the President) and MTC (Missionary
Training Center) teachers that want to live close to the Temple. The bishop is pretty
much amazing at his job and they have like 97% home teaching! As for their less
actives (our area focus), they only have like 40 less actives and they are all
either super offended or moved out. And we have 6 missionaries in our ward.
Therefore, I guess all we can do is do more finding and teaching like all of
the other missionaries. Haha! The ward is super functional. We do not have to
do any workshops or trainings like I used to do on Mindoro and when we met with
bishop and brought up some things he could help us with as missionaries, he
said that they were already talking about it in their meetings and changes
would be made soon. Awesome! It feels good to not have to worry about the ward and focus more on missionary
work, for what little time we have every day to work. Haha!
Just a little update on church worldwide
missionary work:
The Brethren have projected that
because of the new age change we will approximately get 90,000 missionaries by
next year around June or something. That means, with the 310 missions we have
now, each one would get around 267 missionaries per mission. We have 171
missionaries right now and some areas of the Philippines only have like 85. So
in order to compensate for the new amount of missionaries, the First Presidency
has asked each area presidency to request the creation of 3 new missions each!
So with that they project around 234 missionaries per mission for the summer of
next year. Crazy right?!? That’s a lot of missionaries! Our complement (?) has gone up from 180 to 212 missionaries since the
announcement so we’ll be getting in a new wave of missionaries pretty soon. Still Crazy.
Do you know what else is crazy? Well,
we were in zone interviews on Friday with the Quezon City South Zone (the zone
our office is in) and it is a pretty big zone. We’re talking like 18
missionaries. Anyway, so President was making these announcements and such and
was saying how the office Elders will now officially be a part of your zone.
Which is a good thing! I was like, “Okay,
so we have a zone now… that’s good.” (Before we didn’t have a real zone, it was
the zone with all of the senior couples in it and the APs because we work in
the Office. Haha!) Then president says something else…he says,
“And as part of this growth to your Zone we’ll have Elder Froude be a new District
Leader in the new 4th District in the Quezon City South Zone next
transfer. O.o Say what? The most I’ve ever heard of was 3
districts in a zone. Wait? What!?! You’re making me a district leader?!? I was so surprised! And everyone else was too because being in the
office is already a leadership position in itself, now I’m a district leader
too! I’ve never heard of this happening, of course I’m still pretty new. Elder
Waite says it’s happened before but I think he’s just messing with me like he
always does. Of course this will start
next transfer which will be Thanksgiving Day! Haha!
But
yeah, that’s my news for this week. As a
closing part to my blog for this week, I’m giving a birthday Tribute to my Mom
whose birthday is tomorrow. ^_^ Love you Mom!
Doing you Proud,
Elder Froude ^_^
PS. When I said nothing amazing happened this
week, I wrote that part around Wednesday before any of this happened. Haha! Sorry
;)
Dear Mom,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
I just wanted to wish you a special
happy birthday and hope that all is going well for you. Wow! It’s almost been a year now since I left to
serve a mission. Man, does time fly by fast!
How are you doing? Gosh, the hardest
part of writing is choosing what to say, so for right now I’m just going to
write down what’s on my mind. Mom, I love you. I want to thank you sincerely
for all that you have done for me. I still remember all of the things you taught
me in order to be a good man like saying please and thank you palagi (all the time).
I even remember all of the things you struggled to teach me, like washing the
sink after cleaning the dishes. I have found that I tend to do the things that
were harder to learn more often now because it makes me feel closer to home.
Haha! I really do appreciate how much you’ve loved me all of these years and
for everything you have blessed me with. If there’s one thing I’ve learned
being here in the Philippines it is that I have been blessed beyond belief to
be born in this family and to have had an amazing, loving mother like you. A
lot of people say they have the best mom ever, but that’s because they haven’t
had you as their mom ;) luckily I have. And I frequently pray in thanks for
that.
From your famous cooking to helping me edit my
essays…(even in college, haha!) to every weekly letter you’ve sent to me, you
just make me Love you more and define for me that I should strive to find
someone with no less love and no less
greatness than you (of course, after my mission ;) ). You have been there for
me every step of my life and I feel so lucky to have you as my mom. I don’t
know what I would have done without you. I knew I could always go home to a loving
family and a loving mother. That kind of feeling and welcome in a home is
priceless for a person in their journey through life. Many, many families do
not have that and many more do not eat together at dinner, which surprised me
most. Because of you I have learned what it means to raise a family and how
influential I can be in the lives of my family and those around me. Don’t
worry, I’m not planning on getting married for a good while ;P. Many of my
memories of pure happiness always bring me back to the great times we have had
together. Shoot, this is so hard for me
to write without tearing up every 2 sentences. That’s why I started writing
this on Tuesday, Haha! so I can make sure it’s perfect by the time Saturday
rolls around. You know what I’m trying to say, right? ^_^
One of the things that always brings
me home is the sound of your voice in my head, singing a song of 20 years of
compassion and comfort that has constantly brought me peace when I needed it
the most. (Naks naman!) I can always think back when times are hard and say,
okay I’m not just doing this for me, it’s for the people and it’s for my family
as well. That too gives me the strength to press on when times are hard. What
brings me inspiration to do my best for the people here in the Philippines is
the thought that, you know, maybe if I am worthy enough I can help a family
become like us. A missionary converted
you when you were young. I am hoping
that my works, a few decades down the road, will lead many families somewhere
on the same road that we are on and that they will have a love for each other
as we do. The full moon looks beautiful at night…I can just imagine looking at
it for a second and know that you are looking at the same moon. How it kind of
brings us closer together.
What is success? How does one measure
success in life? These are a few questions that I have pondered about lately
being on a mission. I had much time to ponder the things in life and what I
want for after the mission. For me, it always leads back to whether or not you
have true happiness. Many people in this life have happiness and pleasure mixed
up pretty badly. Pleasure is so
temporal, so fleeting, so selfish; it’s great for a moment or two, but when the
dust fades, all you find is yourself alone. Happiness on the other hand, is in
itself eternal. No matter where you are or what you are doing, if you have true
happiness you will always be happy. Like
I am right now. Even though we are
apart, I am happy knowing that we will never be far apart with the Plan of Salvation.
This happiness and peace I have attained in my life is how I measure my success
on the mission. Even greater success in life is if I can bring that to other
people. It truly is a great happiness that comes from helping someone find
their happiness.
Thanks for everything, Mom! I love you so much! Have a great birthday! ^_^
Love, Elder Froude
No comments:
Post a Comment