Happy December everyone! Less than 20 days until Skype! I'm looking
forward to it so much! Don't count on me having the same account as
last Mother's Day or last Christmas. I will be making a new one once
again since I have no idea what my username or password was for either
of those two accounts. I'll let you know my new username so you can add
me when I make my new account in a couple weeks. Oh by the way, got the
letter with the kids' school pictures. I can't believe how much they
have changed! They are growing up way too fast! To be honest, almost
made me want to cry when I compared the first pictures I got of them to
these most recent ones! Can't even imagine what 8 more months is going
to do to them!
Another week down and
another week closer to Christmas. Everyone is already saying Merry
Christmas to each other like it is Christmas day. Everyone except this
one Nanay at the Christmas party Saturday night. It made me laugh when I
heard it. Everyone was saying good-bye and Merry Christmas then when it
got to this one Nanay she's like, "It's not even close to Christmas
yet!" Then she just walked out. I thought it was pretty funny! But
Christmas season in the Philippines is so awesome. You can honestly see
the difference in the people. Everyone is just all around more happy!
Then we get to go around and teach them the reasons why they are happy!
All around just a super happy season.
Work
was okay this week. Still are not having good luck with investigators.
We don't even have that many. The sad thing is, members always ask us
how the work is doing and they only ask about investigators. We have to
tell them we are struggling with investigators but then I'm like let me
tell you about the less actives that we're teaching! But by that time
you can just tell they don't have the desire to listen. They just focus
on baptisms instead of retention as well. It's not bad because baptisms
are important as well but they don't see a lot of the progress that we
actually are doing. That's okay because we are happy with the progress
and the Lord knows what we're doing. The Quisisem family has had heaps
of progress! They came to church the last two Sundays and the children
are starting to build relationships with the other youth and single
adults. We have also been able to build a strong relationship with them
just in the last week. We just need to work with the mom to come back.
She hasn't attended church with the rest of the family. She came to the
Christmas party and had a great time. She even participated in one of
the games and ended up winning! We have a great relationship with her as
well but for some reason she doesn't have the desire to attend church.
They are probably the most progressing less actives. We have quite a few
that we are teaching and even came to church last week but a lot of
them didn't return yesterday for church.
Saturday
night's Christmas party was great! They just planned last Sunday after
Church that it would happen this Saturday. Great planning right? So it
was never announced in sacrament meeting. All week, we were asked to go
around to all the members and spread the word that it was happening this
Saturday. With late planning and nobody knowing about it, it turned out
to be pretty well! When we got there, there were more less actives than
members! It was great! We met a lot of new people and spent a nice
night together. Had lots of people there and a lot of fun with the
performances and games.
Sunday morning,
get to church, no people. There was barely anyone there! I'm thinking,
what happened to everyone that was here just 12 hours ago?? Then Bishop
announced that we were starting and there were only 24 of us! Bishop was
the only one there in the Bishopric. Probably the lowest there's been
at the start of the meeting since I've been here. I was shocked. By the
end of the meeting, it had gone up to around 80 which is about where it
is normally. Almost everybody was late. Like a Christmas party hangover
or something. But church was still good and we had some good lessons.
Even in Elders Quorum we had a good lesson! Focus was home teaching
related with pure religion.
Sunday night
we went to Alicia and President and Sister Rahlf had a devotional for
Alicia stake. They taught about the birth of Christ and the importance
of some of the people and objects in the story. One of the things I
learned was that angel Gabriel is prophet Noah in mortal life. I never
knew that! Alicia zone has Christmas devotional tomorrow so we will
learn more about the birth of Christ and President will expound more on
the significance of the people and objects in the story. Definitely
looking forward to that!
Over all we had a
good week and continue to find success in teaching and returning some
less actives. I hope you all have a great week this week. Love you all!
The elders at the ward Christmas party.
No comments:
Post a Comment