Dear Family and Friends!
Happy New Year! I hope you guys all had a great New Year! It was interesting here. It was kind of weird it turns out New Years is a really big deal here. It is bigger than Christmas here. For Christmas all the stores and stuff were open, but on New Year everything was closed. We still had early curfews for two days, but it was a great week. I always tell sister Flake to remember back to our first weekly planning session together when we had just a handful of investigators and now look at our weekly planning last week and there has been so many miracles. You can really see the Lord's hand in this work.
Thank you all so much for all the birthday wishes. My birthday was really interesting. It turns out birthdays are a really really big deal here. So this is what happened: Sister Phillips and Sister Eracho were at a member's house on Saturday night and they were talking about how old all the missionaries were in the branch and they just mentioned that Sister Richins would be 22 on Sunday. Of course the member got so excited and decided to tell everyone and then she got the brilliant idea to tell the branch president so he could announce it over the pulpit. So there we were on Sunday and Brother Bontigao who is the 1st counselor in the branch presidency was conducting and he went and announced that it was my birthday. Then after he bore his testimony he asked if I would bear my testimony because it was my birthday. Then afterwards before they closed the meeting he wished me a Happy Birthday again. I think that he could tell he was really annoyed because I was glaring at him really bad and he just kept on laughing to himself.
Church was really great yesterday though despite the fact that I was a little annoyed that everyone knew it was my birthday. But anyway it was a really exciting yesterday. Brother Rodel came to Church! and brother Ceriel and Brother Rodrigo! It was really exciting! I don't know if I have talked about brother Rodrigo, but we found him last transfer. We were tracting and he said oh my son, Ryan is a member. We started teaching Rodrigo and it was always an interesting experience because I would speak in Tagalog and then he would answer in Tagalog mixed with Bicol and Visanan. I have to listen so intently to understand him. I can usually understand most of it, but we always have to have a member with us to teach him because I can't understand everything. So we started teaching him and then he came to church last week. He said he had a good experience, but said it was just like going to church in another church, but he said it felt good so he said he would come back every week. So yesterday he came back to church. And then he got up during fast and testimony meeting to bear his testimony. It was kind of intense. President Bontigao was making eye contact with me and was like "what is going on" I we were exchanging glances for a few intense seconds. What was he going to say? Well he got up and said that he had only been to this church twice, but he really felt that he had really found the Lord finally. He had been to a lot of churches, but this one was different and he said he hoped this was the true church. It was really a neat experience. After church we went to his house and he said that he had been reading the book of mormon and just felt good. He said he wanted to be baptized, but he figured he better give up smoking and drinking first (we hadn't even brought up the word of wisdom yet). Then he started to get a little nervous, he said he had been smoking since he was 8 years old and didn't know if he could stop. He said he would just go to church, but he couldn't get baptized because he couldn't stop smoking. We had a great member with us that told him that everyone at the church was there to help him and if he was a strong desire with the help of the Lord he could do it because the Lord can work miracles! It was a really strong lesson even if I couldn't understand every thing he said in his half bicol, half tagalog. The Spirit is what matters most!
Brother Rodel also came to church, and it turns out that Rodel and Christian are really good friends so they had a great time at the church together. Speaking of Christian, he is doing great! We did have to extend his baptismal date to next month so that he can overcome smoking, but he has a lot of desire and he is continuing to increase his testimony.
We also were able to find some new investigators this week hopefully we will help them understand how our church is different than other churches. I am always reminded of what it says in Preach my Gospel that a lot of the times the people won't recognize at first that they can find greater happiness here in our church. So we just have to keep on teaching them and eventually they will understand.
This week I have also reflected on what one of our AP said. He said that of course we can't reach the standard of excellence on our own, but if we do it the Lord's way then we can achieve that.
I am really so so thankful for this area! I love these people here so much. I don't ever want to leave Bulan. Our branch is so supportive and we have a great branch mission leader, brother Bunso-who just got back from his mission. He literally is the life the of branch and such an asset to us. I have seen so many miracles, and I just can't wait to see what else is in store.
-Sister Richins
No comments:
Post a Comment