I'm okay guys. I'm over the house and the bugs haha. My arms and
face look like war zone though from the mosquito bites. I bought a
mosquito net today so hopefully I can get it to work tonight. I'm still
a little homesick though hehe. I miss Utah and English.
I've come to discover that the main source of all my emotional hardships stem from the language. I want to help these people, and I want to bear sincere and powerful testimony that I have about the Book of Mormon, and about Christ, and about the Restoration, but I cant yet. I can somewhat teach to them, and ask them questions, but I cannot understand any thing that comes out of there mouth, so as a result I get discouraged. Usually I am excited and motivated after my study and I am eager to fulfill my purpose and help these people. Then we go and proselyte and usually by the end of proselyting I am discouraged and frustrated because of my inability to understand and communicate with these people. Then the cycle usually repeats the next day.
Its going pretty well with elder Tajada and I. He is funny, and he doesn't want to go home because their is a sister in the mission who he wants to marry, but she has a boy friend in her home ward at home. He won't tell me her name and where her area is haha. But I do know that she is a pinay and is like an inch taller than him. Hahaha poor guy. He is pretty clean, but yah..... basta (what I have said is sufficient=basta) He cooks a lot, but he leaves meat and dirty dishes out over night all the time and it bugs the poop out of me cause there is always an army of ants feasting on the food residue after only about an hour. I try to clean the dishes as much as possible so that doesn't happen, but some times he eats when I don't know and then leaves them out, or he puts them in the rice cooker thinking they are safe. DUDE THERE ARE SO MANY BUGS IN THIS APARTMENT, CLEAN YOOO PLATE. Whatever haha.
But I did have a few concerns. After the first few days, I noticed that the lesson we were teaching to our investigators, especially in lesson 1 and 2, only covered 1 to 2 principles at a time. ( halimbawa- Lesson 1 priciple 1-2, and then the next visit would be principle 3-4, and then 5-6, and then 7-8. ganoon. So basically these investigators wouldn't be introduced to the Book of Mormon until the 4th lesson.) I also noticed that we have many investigators, but most of them are not reading the book of Mormon, praying or going to church. Yet Elder Tejada had us teaching them about the Law of Chastity or the Word of Wisdom or something like that, and these people haven't even prayed to know if the Book of Mormon is true. Technically, if these people don't keep their commitments after the first 3 to 4 lessons, you have to drop them. But it seems like Elder Tejada and Elder Pasqual (his old companion) Have taught like 7-8 lessons to some of these people, and they haven't prayed to know if the BOM is true.
So I expressed to Elder Tejada my feelings during one of the nightly evaluations and of course I prayed for the Spirit before hand. He told me they were instructed to teach shorter lessons by the old mission president because many missionaries were in people homes for to long, but they took it as don't teach the full first lesson in one visit, which is not good according to PMG and the MTC. And he agreed to teach our investigators full lesson one, and emphasize on the Book of Mormon.
I've come to discover that the main source of all my emotional hardships stem from the language. I want to help these people, and I want to bear sincere and powerful testimony that I have about the Book of Mormon, and about Christ, and about the Restoration, but I cant yet. I can somewhat teach to them, and ask them questions, but I cannot understand any thing that comes out of there mouth, so as a result I get discouraged. Usually I am excited and motivated after my study and I am eager to fulfill my purpose and help these people. Then we go and proselyte and usually by the end of proselyting I am discouraged and frustrated because of my inability to understand and communicate with these people. Then the cycle usually repeats the next day.
Its going pretty well with elder Tajada and I. He is funny, and he doesn't want to go home because their is a sister in the mission who he wants to marry, but she has a boy friend in her home ward at home. He won't tell me her name and where her area is haha. But I do know that she is a pinay and is like an inch taller than him. Hahaha poor guy. He is pretty clean, but yah..... basta (what I have said is sufficient=basta) He cooks a lot, but he leaves meat and dirty dishes out over night all the time and it bugs the poop out of me cause there is always an army of ants feasting on the food residue after only about an hour. I try to clean the dishes as much as possible so that doesn't happen, but some times he eats when I don't know and then leaves them out, or he puts them in the rice cooker thinking they are safe. DUDE THERE ARE SO MANY BUGS IN THIS APARTMENT, CLEAN YOOO PLATE. Whatever haha.
But I did have a few concerns. After the first few days, I noticed that the lesson we were teaching to our investigators, especially in lesson 1 and 2, only covered 1 to 2 principles at a time. ( halimbawa- Lesson 1 priciple 1-2, and then the next visit would be principle 3-4, and then 5-6, and then 7-8. ganoon. So basically these investigators wouldn't be introduced to the Book of Mormon until the 4th lesson.) I also noticed that we have many investigators, but most of them are not reading the book of Mormon, praying or going to church. Yet Elder Tejada had us teaching them about the Law of Chastity or the Word of Wisdom or something like that, and these people haven't even prayed to know if the Book of Mormon is true. Technically, if these people don't keep their commitments after the first 3 to 4 lessons, you have to drop them. But it seems like Elder Tejada and Elder Pasqual (his old companion) Have taught like 7-8 lessons to some of these people, and they haven't prayed to know if the BOM is true.
So I expressed to Elder Tejada my feelings during one of the nightly evaluations and of course I prayed for the Spirit before hand. He told me they were instructed to teach shorter lessons by the old mission president because many missionaries were in people homes for to long, but they took it as don't teach the full first lesson in one visit, which is not good according to PMG and the MTC. And he agreed to teach our investigators full lesson one, and emphasize on the Book of Mormon.
Yahhh. So I ate snail. and it was not that bad, but still kinda weird.
And yah basta my arms looks like a toad.
Also
we have been biking, but we have these 2 old bikes that have so many
problems, and we have to take them into the bike shop like every day.
All the mechanics and the security gaurd laugh every time we come in.
They are so nice and cool though, and fix are stuff for free a lot. But
its okay because we gave out a book of mormon to one of the mechanics.
Also, on Friday,
This guy named Tabasan, came up to us in the bike shop. He knew we
were Mormon, and also that we were preachers. He spoke good English so I
talked to him a lot. He told us that he owned the bike shop. He is a
catholic (90% of the Philippines is catholic) and when he was a boy he
trained for 12 years to be a priest, and he told us a story about how he
went into the mountains and preached to the guerrilla rebels. He said
he was very learned in the bible and he like our church and our people,
and he said we are nice, but he doesn't like Iglesia ni Cristo ( Ill
tell you about them another time. Look them up) We gave him a
restoration pamphlet and he said he reads every night and that he will
read the whole thing. I was so mad because I didn't have a BOM on me.
We
had to go to the bike shop again the next morning and he was there! I
offered him a book of Mormon but he said he doesn't like to read in
Tagalog, so I gave him my beloved English pocket BOM :( But he said he
will read it! He is in Manila for business as we speak to I hope when he
returns he will want us to teach him. I can already tell that this man
was sent to us by God, and I think that he will be baptized eventually,
I've been praying for him every night.
My English is
already becoming broken and I'm getting a Filipino accent haha. You can
probably already tell by the way I word things in these emails, my
spelling is trashed haha.
Well its my b-day in 5 days haha. Send me stuff :D
-Elder Andersen
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