Philippines Cauayan Mission

Monday, April 30, 2012

23 April 2012


Magandang hapon po sa inyong lahat!


Kamusta!
Sounds like another busy and fun week back on the home front! Weird that Kyle and Aimee are now off to the part of being tossed around the United States in order to do big kid doctor stuff. Today we were finally able to do something other than clean. It was fun to be able to travel through a couple of kilometers of nothing but rice fields on a caliglig (a bunch of metal welded together to make a big cart with wheels and a long front end with another set of wheels and a 20 horsepower motor strapped to the top) in order to get to a member's place to hang out and get a bunch of coconuts to make fresh coconut juice. I also got a good picture with a pig and pig face that only Bill would love. 
This week was a great week of teaching a lot of appointments and having 4 investigators come to church. I think I also heard the best excuse yet for not being able to read from the Book of Mormon. I've heard a lot of excuses before, but I think this is my new number one. When we asked one of our investigators why she wasn't able to read the BOM, she said that she wasn't allowed to because she had to wait 7 months after giving birth (just had a baby last month) before reading anything or else her eyesight will go bad. That is probably the weirdest wise tale I've heard here so far. I had to force myself to be nice and not tell her that was nothing but a joke, but when we left I just couldn't help but laugh. 
This week I also realized how sad some people are as a result of the apostasy and why there are so many different religions. One lady told us she wasn't allowed to pray because in her religion, only the pastor can pray and talk to God. How sad is that that people aren't even allowed to talk to their own God? Fortunately, after spending several minutes explaining to her that Our Heavenly Father loves to hear the voices of ALL of his children, we were able to get her to pray. Something so simple, but yet so important. With a different lady, it was a great experience to see that even though she didn't properly address Our Heavenly Father and close in the name of Jesus Christ, she cried out in tears as she gave thanks for the things in her life and talked to God. It was a neat experience and the Spirit was so strong, and helped me understand that God really does hear prayers from everyone-even if they aren't perfectly 'correct'. 
As we started focusing on and teaching a 16 year old girl after showing great interest in the BOM and wanting answers to life's questions, I realized how important the light of Christ is in all of us. After teaching her more about the BOM and her interest kept peaking, we asked her to come to church. She said she would love to except she is actively involved in the choir and youth programs of her church at the same time. It is always great to see great people of different faiths, but I couldn't help but wonder to myself, If she is truly devoted to her religion, why is she listening to missionaries of another faith? Then I remembered that that is the job of the light of Christ in all of us-to keep us interested in the truth, even if they don't know it yet. 
Well my back is sweaty from sitting in the chair too long and Elder Llorin is waiting for me, so I'd better wrap this up. Which reminds me-mom, if you could get around to sending a simple package to Elder Llorin, that would be awesome. He's been out here for over 4 months now and hasn't heard anything from his family and gotten only 1 small note from a ward member. I'll leave it up to you if you want to make it anonymous or not. He is good at English, so that shouldn't be a problem. 
Thanks for all you do and keep on keeping on! 
Mahal Kita, 
Elder Nay

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