Hey everyone!
Life's going great here! We finally had investigators that came to church!!! haha
My parents made a comment about how legit that church was, so I figured I ought to let you know that that isn't actually where we go to church that was a different branch back in the san gabriel zone.. But it is super legit! Maybe I'll send you guys a picture of our building next time if I remember.
How is Elder Phillips feeling/doing as a new missionary in the Philippines?
He's doing really good now. He's starting to love it. But he still has been healthy like a total of 3 days so far this transfer.. haha by the end of the day he's usually just trying to get home cuz he's starting to feel like trash. But he's a really good missionary. I've already had him starting to lead us in like everything even though he's still trying to get a hang of the language but even then he can at least lead planning and study and finding and even at least start the lessons and what not so he's a stud. (he's from Logan, Ut)
Okay so I'll follow the pattern of telling you guys all about one of our days cuz I got too much to say about everything else.. so today's day is Wednesday!
It started with an awesome study.. as always. This week I realized that I really like studying... that's weird. haha I guess that will be good for when I get back to school in a few months considering studying was one of my weakest points there.. haha But I studied an old talk about Elder Faust called "A Personal Relationship with the Savior" and that was super good! You guys should read it if you get a chance.
Then in companionship study we're in this thing called the 12 week program which is a training program for new missionaries. Matt will know that here in not too long (shout out to Matt Wells who is leaving for his mission next week, YEA Matt!!). So with that we were studying about teaching people, not lessons and so we talked a lot about listening. Which is like the coolest part of missionary work! I love listening it's like seriously the most important part. Even if you're speaking a foreign language if you just listen with love.. things will work out. (see my experience approximately 18 months ago... haha).
So after that and lunch and language study we headed out to work. So this guy named Ven-ven was supposed to work with us, but never showed up... lame. but it's whatev we went on anyways. Our first appointment was with Jeanette and Kathy a couple pretty new investigators. It was awesome cuz they had like a ton of questions and like seriously they were all answered by the Restoration. Like why are there so many churches? What's the difference between the Book of Mormon and Bible? Why are there a bunch of different Bibles? What's the difference between Mormons and Catholics? But like the best question they asked was 1. Can we read the Book of Mormon?? and 2. Can we go to church so we can see what you guys do there?? So yeah.. that lesson was fun. Unfortunately I got pretty excited at the fact that the Restoration answered all their questions that I kinda hogged the lesson.. But it went awesome!
After that we went to three more appointments that actually fell through.. haha Such is life sometimes as a missionary but of course you never get discouraged just talk to people and do what you can.
So then we went and bought a cake! It was the birthday of one of our investigators so we surprised her with cake! It was pretty funny cuz the cake comes in this big bright yellow box... so we were like uhh.. paano ito.. or like uhh how are we going to do this cuz we don't want it to be super obvious that we're walking around the Philippines with a cake.. haha So the cake didn't fit in anything that we had at the house so I had to empty out my backpack and it actually fit in there! But not completely.. haha plus of course you can't wear the backpack or else the cake will get squished so I had to walk awkwardly to our next appointment with a big ol cake in my backpack carrying it in front of me as if I'm delivering a pizza.. haha But all is well we made it to the appointment safely and not too terribly awkwardly.. haha So we tought a lesson on enduring to the end cuz that's where we were in the lessons and so I geniusly used the example that we told them that if they "endure" till the end of the lesson there will be cake.. But the cake�heavenly�father has in store for us if we endure to the end as A LOT better than the cake we brought.. haha They thought that that was pretty funny.. haha So then we ate the cake and took pictures and it was awesome. It turns out that Wynbie who turned 22.. that this is her first birthday cake ever so she was pretty happy about that and it made us feel all nice and warm and tingly inside... hahaha
So then after that we went to this new investigator family. The daughter is a friend of a member family and is really interested but she says her family isn't ready. So with that in mind I tried to figure out what they really wanted to learn from us because they readily welcomed us in and willingly listened. So I asked the mom if she wanted to know more about mormons and the church and the book or mormon or if she was more interested in learning more about god's plan for them and where we came from, why we're here, and where we are going. and so she chose the second so we're going to teach them more about the Plan of Salvation and hopefully teaching according to their interests and desires will prove to be effective with them. We'll see!
Then we headed home and planned and I wrote in my journal and then we called it a night! So it was an awesome day! I love doing missionary work!�
Hope you all have a great week! Thanks for all your support and just for being who you are!�
Love
Elder Michael Gadberry
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