Magandang Umaga sa inyo lahat!

This week was another great one, it was kind of hard to adjust back to having 2 missionaries, and some of our investigators were a little weirded out there was 2 of us because they met us when we were 3, so they didn't know that there is usually just 2 haha. But teaching is way smoother with just 2 people, I love it way more. The hard thing is that both me and Elder Lang Siu are not great at Tagalog, so it makes us really rely on the members. Elder Lang Siu is pretty good, he has been out for 11 months now, so he can understand a lot, but speaking is still hard, and for me I can speak faster, but about the same level. But this week actually was pretty smooth, and we taught some really neat lessons. 

One lesson I learned this week was the importance of the area book, and how the Lord really does prepare people. We were kind of running out of investigators because either they weren't progressing or they got baptized, so we went to the area book and I saw some people that seemed so awesome and the only reason the missionaries stopped going was because the people were too busy or they were on vacation, so we tried to contact as many as we could, and we found one lady, Joanne, who is 23 and her sister in law is a member, who is really awesome. So we went and she let us in and was so excited we were there, she had been in Bicol, (legaspi mission) and had the missionaries over there teach her, the only problems is that she isn't actually married, which is such a common problem. It was so awesome getting to know her and she knew so much, usually people forget but she basically taught us everything about the restoration and why it is so important and how she knows it's true. She just hasn't come to church because she feels guilty about not being married, but we just told her it's not a problem, and she kind of got teary eyed and she committed to come, and she wants to get married so she can get baptized. How awesome is that! 

The other thing I did this week was pray for spiritual experiences. I was kind of feeling that missionary life was just getting into a routine, which it kind of is, but I was losing the power of it, and so I prayed to have spiritual experiences, and it helped so much, because I was actively seeking them. In a lesson I looked for the Holy Ghost a lot more, and it helped me realize the things that I was doing. I was always trying to have a spiritual experience so I would try to make it more spiritual. We taught this one lady who we have always passed by and said hi to and we have asked to teach her and she said sure but we never really followed up because she is pretty solid in another religion, called 7th Day Adventist, I'm not really sure what they believe but I know they do the sabbath day on saturday, hence there name. But anyway we taught her and I gave her this list of questions to pick from (I made this list of questions from PMG, called Questions of the soul, and laminated it and have people I talk to pick one sometimes. Another elder did it and it is pretty effective, because you get to figure out what they want to learn) 

So she picked how to make her family stronger and  as we started talking to her at the beginning, just getting to know her, she was just not super interested, and then she started changing and then opened up and we didn't bring up the question that she picked, just getting to know her, but she brought it up and started just opening up to us. It was so awesome. I can't wait to go back.

The thing I realized this week, was that spiritual experiences are always there, we just have to look for them. I think it was Henry B. Eyring that gave a talk, so long ago, but I think he made like a journal and every night he would write in it specifically for blessings he received that day. I think it was like that, but by doing so he realized how much that the Lord blessed him. It really depends on our perspective. 

I'm loving it here, as always, it's so awesome. I always want to write funny things that happened to me, but always forget ha. One thing I do remember is that a member who lives across the street from a church said that he heard them singing songs from the Hymn book, but they sang 'Praise To The Man' haha. One thing is it's harder for me to understand English when Filipinos speak it, because sometimes they pronounce it so different. Example, my ward mission leader was saying that he like the ookla college basketball team, pronounce like ookla or ukla. I could not figure out what he was talking about, maybe oklahoma? but he was saying Ukla, and I asked him to spell it, and he says UCLA hahaha, so UCLA is Ukla ha. The other word was raw. A couple was telling us about some kind of fruit and in tagalog said it wasn't ripe yet, or still raw. And so I asked what that meant and they said row after thinking for awhile. Me and my companion were so confused, we thought they were talking about fruit and then they say row like rowing a boat, haha, and then we asked them to spell it (I should do that a lot sooner) and they spelled it, raw. Haha, still raw or not ripe. 

Maybe those aren't that funny, but to me, so funny. I hope everyone has a great week!

-Elder Rock