Well, in short, this has been the craziest week with no
exaggeration. It's been a roller coaster
of emotion with highs and lows like never before experienced. It's been humbling, to say the least. And quite stressful as well. My brother, the newest Elder Froude, is out on
his mission starting his adventure in the Dominican Republic as my own mission
slowly comes to a close. It's been
strange for me to see him grow up and start his adventure from the other side
of a computer screen. It's been
difficult not being there for him and showing him all that he needs to know,
all that I have learned and yet, he has been prepared sufficiently enough on
his own. The Lord knew his needs and
prepared him and He will continue to guide him.
I have done my best…now the Lord will take care of the rest. Elder Froude, I hope you are out there doing
your best like a good missionary should and if you ever feel down read Doctrine
and Covenants Section 100. All of it! That goes for you too, Mom!
Now about my week.
And it came to pass that I went on exchanges with Elder
Vea on Monday night so that we could make things a little easier for us and
then switch at 8 pm the next night so that we can go on exchanges with the
elders in Malaya. Well, Tuesday was
pretty much the start of one of the worst days ever! We were in traffic for about an hour trying to
get to the mission home. There I got my
interview for my temple recommend renewal and then I went with elders Lim, Vea,
and Delaserna to Banapple for lunch. I
had nice creamy, cheesy, baked penne pasta and a muddy fudge cheesecake, and it
was delicious! But after that the
deliciousness had stopped.
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| Yummy!!! |
We walked in the pouring rain to find a jeepney to get us
home. We took a jeepney that was
supposed to take us through Taytay and through Antipolo to Tanay, but we ended
up stuck in traffic for about an hour and a half having moved only about 100
feet, so we decide to get off and walk instead. While walking and trying to find another
jeepney we find the cause for all of the stalled traffic. Apparently, the storm that got us all soaked
after Banapple caused a flooding in one of the major intersections so no cars
were able to go through. We then decided
to walk through it, barefoot, so we could get to the other side. It was about shin deep water but it was still
enough to cause a stop in traffic. We
eventually get to the other side and walk farther, with our shoes on, for
another hour and a half to get to Antipolo. From there, still raining, we ride
a jeepney from Antipolo to Tanay. It’s
about 7:30 pm by this time. The jeepney
slowly makes its way down the roads until we get to the outskirts of Tanay. Going about 80 kph and at about 8:30 the hood
from the jeepney comes up blocking all view from the driver. He's freaking out,
we are freaking out, he hops the curb and hits a few trees then gets back on
the road only to get hit by another jeepney and we started spinning. Everything happened so fast I couldn't really
do anything but grab on to the bars of the jeepney and my companions and scream!
We eventually stopped sliding down the
road and got out. Thankfully, no one was
injured. The only damage was a big dent
in the jeepney we were in. We got to the meeting place with the other
elders at 9:00 pm. One of the elders was kind of ticked that we were late but
we explained the situation and all was well after that. I got ice cream and called it a night and hit
the bed as soon as I got home praying harder than I have in a long while that
everything ended up alright in the end.
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| What jeepneys look like |
But of course that was not all. Fridays and Saturdays we've been going out in
the mornings with the Jensens and the sister missionaries to build a house in
Morong area for the Venadas family. We
were just able to layout everything and get all the materials there but I
really love the service we were able to provide for those people. It's great!
I took a few videos so I’ll send those to you when I can get a new SD
card. I'll have the Jensens send over the pictures from Brother Rodel’s
completed house.
Today, however, was pretty crazy as well. So much for a p-day! I spent most of it on the road and that really
just stressed me out like crazy. I had
to wake up at 4:00 in the morning to go to Antipolo and get picked up by the
Jensens and go to Aurora chapel by 7:00 am. After that we took a shuttle to the
Immigration Bureau of the Philippines to get fingerprinted because there is a
new law that says that all foreigners trying to leave the country need to get
fingerprinted before they could leave. So
everyone going home in the next 3 months had to get fingerprinted. This is why I wasn't able to get to email on
time. Because by the time that was done
(oh btw, it was in Manila) we had to try to get back to Morong for our zone
activity at 12. We didn't get back until
2:30 because of all of the traffic. It
practically killed me really to be in a car that long especially when I knew
that you two were waiting for me to email you the whole time. Anyway, we went through with the zone activity
and didn't get back until like 6:00. This is why I’m only able to email now. Sorry po!!! But I did get to spend a long time with the
Jensens and I did learn so much from them. One of them was a quote that said, "It’s
easier to make a willing man able, than an able man willing." That was pretty much how I felt as a
missionary. Either you are willing or
you are not, and if you are willing God will provide a way, always.
After all this time I seem to finally get what missionary
work is all about and how to be a good missionary. Isn't that interesting? We were on our way to go to an appointment
with a part member family we always visit that has a few baptism dates. On our way up there I kind of thought that it
might be more effective if we visited another family, the Austria family. They live about a huge stairway up a mountain
away from us and we were so close to the appointment we had set that it seemed
impractical to visit the Austria family at that time. Though I did not understand why and only
prayed to have the courage to follow the Spirit, I told my companion, “Let's go
to the Austria family.” He said, “why?” I said “I have no idea, but we need to go
there.” Good thing my companion Elder
Millora is so willing. He just said okay
and went with me to climb that mountain at night. A quite sketchy thing really. But we eventually made it and met Brother
Austria there. We haven't been able to
teach him for a while because he was less active and gets home late from work
but we went there and talked to him and told him about our service projects we
do building houses. Brother Austria is a
contractor so he was very interested in what we did. Then he asked if he could join us next time
and with a smile on my face I said, "of course you can!" We then boldly invited him to church and sure
enough the next day he came to church! It was a great experience and I feel like I’m
just starting to get it. Don't you think
that's great?
Doing you Proud,
Elder Froude ^_^
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| Shades, anyone? |
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| Elder Vea, me, and Elder Lim before the accident |
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| Me and my companion, Elder Millora |
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| One of the paths we take to visit families |
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