Quick prayer for help and guidance

01.13.13

Hello all!

So this week was really wet. I am not sure if we had a storm or not because we don't have a radio or TV so.... ya. It was so rainy though! Holy smokes. I got really muddy a few times, and have had to wash my pants like 5 times already because they were so dirty.

Mickey Mouse in Asia

Also, a few other funny things, so a member in my branch just got back from DISNEYLAND, HONG KONG. --Hong Kong?? I will be honest. I had no idea that even existed. So he comes back and says "I have a gift for you!" and he hands me a High School Musical 1 shirt. My size. Hahahaha. Man I love that guy. He’s also our Elders Quorum President, too. It’s going be a sweet shirt to wear around when I get home! Haha it’s the thought that counts though. Maybe I will wear it when I feel like being weird or something. Who knows!  

Anyway, so this week was kind of slow, but fast. It’s so weird how that works here in the field. A lot of good things happened though! Where to start...

So we found another family of investigators that are willing to listen to us. The B family. Here’s the funny thing... the dad is a leader in the local Baptist Church and the mom is a leader in the local Catholic Church and the rest of the kids are Catholic, too.  Odd, right? I am not really sure how they are so happy. We will make them even happier! So it’s a family of 6: mom, dad, 3 girls, and one son. All of them listen except the mother. We taught them 2 times this last week and she wouldn’t listen either time. We will see as time goes on though. Anyways so we got through lesson one and as far as commitments go, we committed them to pray about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. They said they would, and if they believed in those two things, they will gladly get baptized! So... as long as they pray no worries right? We follow up with them tomorrow so I will let you know more about that next week. As for the other two investigator families, they all came to church again yesterday. Both the P Family, and the DR family. They all have a baptism date for February 3rd too! So as long as they all keep coming to church, and the P couple gets married, we will have 8 baptisms on that day. 8! Haha now I am not saying it will happen for sure, but it’s just a cool thought that’s all. 

We did have an Area Broadcast this past Saturday as well. The Philippines Area President and two members of the Quorum of the 70 spoke on the goals for this year. They really want to focus on getting more temple marriages this year, with an increased number of temple recommend holders as well. Also, they want each member family to have their own set of scriptures and each member pay his or her own tithing.  And as far as missionaries go, the branch is supposed to give the missionaries 15 Less Active Family names that we need to visit.

Yesterday - funny story. So I am in the church bathroom just washing my hands, and the branch president comes in and tells me I am the concluding speaker and I say "what?" then he leave.   So, I have all of 45 minutes to put something together, in a language I am still  trying to learn. I mean if this was in English, I would have no problems at all doing this. Piece of cake. But...news flash... haha…can’t do that. So I sit on the stand and begin looking through my Book of Mormon. I was having no success at all. Zero. I couldn’t think straight at all... so I said a quick prayer for help and guidance. Next thing I know, I find Moroni 7:16-19. Light of Christ. Perfect. I then spoke on that for 15 minutes, in the language!  I could totally tell that the Spirit was guiding me too. Best feeling in the world right there! After sacrament some members came up and told me that in the past when new missionaries were assigned here in this area as their first area, they would have spoken in English. They were really impressed with me.  That feels good to hear! 

That was my week! A lot of good things and a lot of thinking and pondering. Thank you all for all you do for me. I love you all so very much. Until next week!

Love From The Philippines!

-Elder Garner