Dear friends, family, and esteemed colleagues,
Hey! =D
So how's it goin?? If you for some reason put money on me having another great week this week then congratulations! Glad I could help you get a little richer.. haha This week was different but awesome! We had to go to Manila for a couple days so I kinda expected our week to be not so hot but it ended up being awesome! We worked super hard while we were here and we saw the Lord bless us and those that we're teaching and the branch as a whole. . . . and we had a lot of fun doing it. =)
So was there very much monsoon damage in your area? The newspaper here are reporting that approximately 60 (now 98) people were killed in all of the rain/flooding. I am assuming all of the missionaries are OK. Let us know.
Yeah we're all good! Here in Ternate there's some damage but most places aren't crowded enough to be terribly affected by flooding. And the people here are used to it so they know what to do and what not. There were some missionaries though that couldn't get out of their apartment cuz the water on the street was up to their chests.. hahaha
so are you back to writing in your journal? If not, consider yourself reprimanded and get going on that. "You will have experiences you will never forget." "But, write them down anyway..." : )
Yeah. . . you know how its really easy to say yeah..I'll do that tomorrow or later? Yeah. . .good stuff. . . =D
So we got hit by a pretty good storm early this week and got rained on a tonnnn! But recently it hasn't been too bad. But it was the real transfer week this week and transfer day was Thursday but we had to go in to Manila a day early cuz I needed to train/help Elder Grob on some things and Elder Handy had a doctors appointment, so we were going to leave early wednesday morning to get there but because of the storm none of the buses were running Tuesday and they were afraid they wouldn't run Wednesday either. So the Paddocks (senior couple serving in his new area) ended up taking us up to Manila Tuesday afternoon cuz they were going up there anyways. So that stunk cuz instead of getting a full day of work in Tuesday we got like one lesson in.. haha
So we were in Manila for the last half of Tuesday and then all of Wednesday and most of Thursday. Manila was cool. It was a lot of fun to see Elder Pugmire and Elder Grob again, as well as the Dietrichs. It was kinda weird cuz it was like helping out with transfer week all over again.. haha But then transfer day came and it went well too. I was supposed to get new DL (district leader) training but that got cancelled cuz they were just trying to make transfer day really short cuz of the flooding and what not. So now I'm a DL with no training and no idea what I'm doing.. haha =) just kidding I kinda know what I'm doing but whatev! So after transfer day we were finally able to get heading back to Ternate and we got back around 4ish so we only got that evening to work but its all good cuz at least we made it back!
Friday was cool though! We decided to do what we called a "Fast & Find" cuz our teaching pool was kinda small we were just going to the same so many people every 2 or 3 days which is good cuz we got lots to teach and its going good but we wanted some more people and what not. So we picked out a bunch of names on our CMIS (I have no idea what this stands for) that were less-active and had gone to the temple or were Melchizedek priesthood holders. Cuz we knew half these people had family members that weren't yet members that we could hopefully help. So we went out to work not really knowing who these people were or even where they live cuz the addresses here are terrible.. haha So that day was hard but it went pretty well! It was kinda weird cuz we didn't immediately see the blessings from that day. We contacted most of the people and some were receptive and some were definitely not.. haha So we ended the day with just one new investigator but at the same time I felt that it was successful. Elder Handy wasn't as happy with it but we just pressed on!
So then Saturday we went to work and it was awesome! We taught this family that we were able to give 4 baptismal dates to! and three of them were new investigators and it was just a really successful day! So thats where we saw some blessings. We also decided as a companionship to start asking referrals from everyone! Preach My Gospel says to ask referrals from everyone so we were like I'm pretty sure like no one actually does that so lets try it! Let's try to get it to be second nature so we started doing it and we got a lot of referrals this week too!
Then Sunday rolled around and it was AWESOME! Last week we had a good 90some at church and this week we got 132! And Elder Handy and I had a bunchhh of our less-actives show up as well as twelve investigators! It was cool because like some of the less-actives we're visiting, we found out, are actually occasionally visited as well by the relief society and so I'm sure that helped a ton! It was just so amazing to see all these people make to church after working so hard to help them any way we can and just encouraging and coordinating and then they make it to church and its awesome! We didn't fit in the sacrament hall.. haha we had to set up a good 15 or so chairs out in the hallway haha I just stood in the back of everything just beaming.
So our week was way good! Numbers aren't like important but it was really cool that, inspite of us being in Manila for half the week, we were still able to achieve many of the Standards of Excellence set in our mission and a couple other ones we just barely missed. So like seriously, this rocks! I love this work! I love the Lord and I'm incredibly grateful for this opportunity I have to serve. I hope all of you guys take the opportunity if given a chance and you young men better start preparing now so you can rock it even better than me cuz I feel I definitely didn't adequately prepare myself. I'm just lucky I had awesome leaders and teachers that kinda did the preparing of myself for me.. haha
Have a great week!
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
Pictures include:
Incredibly cute children that love us
Incredibly muddy pants #TheWorkMustGoOn!
One of our favorite caribou, Devil Horns
Update on our garden service project
Beautiful skies in Ternate
And I tried to take a picture of the stars cuz they're AWESOME out here!
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