Muzta na kao!
Thats a reference to Tagalog text language... Its ridiculous.. You thought brb, ttyl, ppl, whts up, etc was bad. . .You have no idea! haha Sometimes it takes some real deciphering.. Like if someone, not me cuz I spell stuff out, were to text "babalik tayo mamaya kay Jhun-Jhun para kumain (We'll go back to Jhun-Jhun's later to eat)" They would probably text it, "ba2lik tao ma2ya ky Jhun2x pra kain" Its napaka-confusing sometimes but I kinda love it at the same time. Elder Stirland was a big fan of it..
So this past week was pretty great! Lots of exciting stuff went down...I think. haha I'll let you all be the judge! haha
First of all shout out to Sister Demers and Sister Webb and Claire and Olivia and Jordan for their salutation in my parents email. And props for Caleb for rockin the Gadberry and gettin the eagle done the week of your birthday! (Last week when we emailed Michael there were some youth at the house tying blankets for part of Caleb's Eagle Scout project, and yes, Caleb got his paperwork turned in the day before his birthday #cuttingitclose)
Hey, did you ever get my package from Japan? Also, Sister Demers sent you a package. Did you get hers? Sister Demers is wondering how long it takes to get DearElder.com letters. Please let us know the transit time on those letters.
Yeah I sure did! thanks!!! I got them both and it was awesome! We already finished listening to the Joseph Smith CDs from Sister Demers and they were awesome and a half! The dearelders I usually actually get those about a week and a half after they're sent. In the office it was usually Sister Demers would write her letter on Sunday and then not that Tuesday but the Tuesday after I would get it. And now I don't work in the place where the letters are received so it takes about 2 weeks to get to me.. But its pretty fast nonetheless!
We get to listen to General Conference next week. Do you still get to listen in English the next week?
Nope! =( It'll be in English but its not till the 13th and 14th here. But its all good! I'm pumped!! Conference is the best! I'm reading up on the past two conferences so that way I won't forget them when the new one comes up.
So this week was pretty exciting! Looking back through the week, we had a lot of success with May's (Just got baptized) family. One time this week May was like "you know der (der was what like 90% of Filipinos call Elders cuz its shorter and they shorten most everything) its really cool when you read the scriptures when its quiet and no ones around cuz its like you really feel it its just different than when you have kids running around. Its really powerful when its quiet." I was like YEAH! Thats the Spirit! haha I was so pumped to hear that 1. She's still reading and 2. She's feeling the Spirit while she reads. And then come Sunday she needed our help cuz she wanted to pay tithing but didn't know how to fill out the form.. haha So we helped her. She's incredible! And her kids now want to get baptized. We're still working on the husband. He's gone 6 of 7 days so we keep challenging him to read the Book of Mormon while he's away so we'll see..
On Tuesday we had district meeting and it went surprisingly well! I think its because I used an analogy about dating in relation to the focus of our district meeting.. haha It was pretty funny but whenever I was planning for district meeting thats what came to mind and it made perfect sense! So it was the Spirit.. haha After that I went on a half-day split with the ZLs cuz both them and the sisters had people they needed interviewed for baptism. It was awesome to work with Elder Griffin. It was a lot of fun and we had some really cool experiences. It wasn't a full exchange so we didn't really get to plan together or what not but the whole day we kept having the same ideas! The Spirit really helped us work in unity even when we didn't have the opportunity to plan stuff out real well. It was kinda like just getting the game plan as we walked to the houses... haha We met one new less-active and had a good lesson with that family. And the mom is pregnant and told us that the missionaries who baptized her family named her youngest son so of course Elder Griffin is like well this one should be named Derek! And I'm like yeah! Derek Michael! She laughed and said she would do it.... so Elder Griffin and I just might have named our very first children that aren't actually our children.. haha And then later that evening as we were walking back towards the main town part, Elder Griffin was telling me about how there's cobras out there and him and Elder Antonio saw them a lot.. I kinda doubted it but then.. I took a step on something weird and I told Elder Griffin to shine the light on it and yup.. it was a snake.. It was kinda freaky haha We think it was dead cuz it wasn't moving but I don't know if I killed it or if it was already dead.. #CloseCall.. haha
Last Sunday we talked to Brother Joel about his parents who live next door to him. He said that they used to be taught and we asked if he thought we could start visiting them again. He said, yeah! So we started teaching them this week and it was awesome! On Thursday night we went there to teach them. Well actually on Tuesday we just planned to stop by and follow up on their reading but we got in there and over the course of the conversation Joel comes over and it just led perfectly into a teaching situation. We had a short lesson prepared just in case we did teach them but what we taught wasn't even what we planned. It was an incredible lesson though! Completely led by the Spirit. There were times when I was talking and I literally thought to myself.. "okay. words are coming too easily and coming out too easily." haha It was probably the best I'd ever explained Christ's church and the Great Apostasy. It was incredible! And then Joel bore powerful testimony of how he came to know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet. Everyone in the house was feeling the Spirit. Tatay was still a little hard hearted though cuz he's like (we found out the next day) that he told his wife that we still didn't wanna change religions. #BornCatholicDieCatholic #OldPeopleHere... haha So I don't think he's denying that what we taught was true but he just doesn't wanna change...
We had to tell the golden investigator, Lolito, this week that he can't get baptized unless he leaves his wife or waits 5 years. #StupidLawsInThePhilippines It was sad.. but he took it pretty well. I think that he'll wait it out. He knows the church is true and loves going to church and what not and loves his wife as well its just too bad that he, who got snubbed by his first wife, can't get baptized cuz the country doesn't allow divorce.
In other cool news, the Balansag family is showing some good progress! We've been working on getting them back to church forever! But now Dad is around a lot and he's really pushing on getting the family back to church its awesome! But anyways, we gave the family, mostly Mark King the 9 year-old, a children's Book of Mormon, but of course the 11, 14, and 16 year old girls read it too.. haha But the 11 year old really loves Lehi's dream about the tree of life and the iron rod cuz we've taught a lesson or two about it to them and they all really got it and liked it. But Mary Jane read Lehi's dream in the children's BoM and then that night she had it! She ran up to me after sacrament meeting and told me all about it! In short, she said that it was dark and she was with another girl but didn't know who it was and they saw a really bright white tree and they started movin towards it and found the iron rod and held onto it until they made it to the tree and they ate the fruit! She said when they ate it their whole countenance changed and it was awesome! How cool is that?!?! I told her to right it down so she wouldn't forget it.
In other pogi news, I was told by a crazy 15 year-old girl that I look like Superman.
Haha so yeah.. This week was pretty awesome! Chalk it down as another awesome week in the mission of Elder Michael Gadberry. Hope you all are still doin great!
Love you!
Elder Michael Gadberry
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