Ang mga butang sa maayo kaayo diri sa Cebu! (Things are really great here in Cebu)
Elder Arbado and I had four baptisms on Saturday. It was really awesome. We once again had to fill the font with buckets. But this time it was because there was no hose to fill it with. It took us two and a half hours of straight bucket-hauling to get the font filled. I baptized Ging Ging Ciniza and Michael Hintica, Arbado baptized Annalynn Hintica and a new member Alvin baptized Aljon Hintica. We're still waiting to find out what counsel president hansen is going to give us on the Hinitica parents since they aren't married to each other. BUT they are married to different people. Makes it even tougher. So we're praying for a good turnout with that situation.
Its awesome. We went over to Ging Ging's house to teach her and her kids who are also preparing for baptism and her countenance was so different. She was very mellow. She's so cool. She's really sensitive to the Spirit. Its that way with a lot of people here. Its because of their humility that they are able to be taught so easily by the Spirit. Love it.
The Miranda family is getting baptized this Saturday. Those girls are hilarious. They are so excited to get baptized. And their little brother Eljon. My little homie. The kid makes me laugh so hard. He's like 3 and a half feet tall and he runs things in that house. I love talking with him because he always has something to say
to tease one of his sisters. I respect that
I started reading the Book of Mormon again. I'm in Alma now. REALLY getting through it fast. Any downtime that we have I whip it out and start reading. I'm buying a set of scriptures today that are my "mission scriptures" with Grandma and Grandpa T's Christmas money. I'm really excited. They're going to be exclusively for lessons and finding little nuggets that I can share with my investigators. Its cool. I had been wondering why our investigators were progressing so rapidly. But then I realized that we only use the Book of Mormon to teach. We never teach out of the Bible. They dont have the King James version translated in Cebuano so its hard for us to teach out of it. But because we only use the pure and true doctrine contained in the book of mormon, our investigators are ready to be committed in 2-4 weeks depending on how many lessons we've been able to teach.
So last week I told you about the dogs. They all have tumors in their private parts and it makes them really angry. So Elder Arbado just started spraying any dog that barks at us with rubbing alcohol. Since they have so many open wounds on them from scratching their fleas, the dogs are out of there so fast! Its great!!!! And a little humorous. So speaking of dogs, I told Elder Arbado that I'm afraid of getting bit by a dog. He laughed at me and said there's nothing to be worried about. Then he continued to make fun of me for the next week. Everytime we saw a dog in our path, he asked us if I wanted to turn around. But what goes around comes around...
So we were out tracting and we went up to this door. I called out, "Ayo!" which is like knocking and the biggest, loudest, meanest dog I've seen here comes ripping through the house growling and barking at us to the front door. The family freaked out because it was their ATTACK DOG!!! So Elder Arbado (Elder Bravery) makes the whimpiest little "eek!" I think I've ever heard and jumps behind me and cowers at this dog. So what did I do?
I stood my ground. Yeah. But I was praying SOOOOOOO hard in my heart. "Please Heavenly Father. Please don't let this monsterous dog kill me. I need to live to see BYU and the Jazz win a championship!" Okay. Not exactly all that. But close. And the dog stopped. When I opened my eyes (yes, they were closed so I wouldnt have to witness my own death) the daughter of the family was holding the barking, slobbering, teeth-bearing dog at bay by the collar. That was my near-life experience for the week. (When you post this on the blog, Daniel will find that last sentence humorous. I'm sure)
So this week I saw another large animal. A rat. I'm sending a picture so you can understand the size of this rat. You see it there next to a bag of potato chips. Like, a medium sized bag. So it was no small rat. Like, this was the size of Ratigan from The Great Mouse Detective. Huge.
Anything else?
I had a really bad rash all over my body from not rinsing my clothes. So the detergent gave me a really bad rash. it cleared up tho.
Also, my eyes get irritated easily from all the pollution so my eye puffed up REALLY big one night. I have to fight to keep them clean now. Its not too bad tho.
I think thats about it this week.
OH! I got Opa's letter this Monday. Still waiting for any others.
And I can receive emails from anyone. So I'd like to get emails from Jenny, Daniel, Nick tyelar and jordan and then just respond through you, mom. Can you get their emails for me? Or have them email me?
Sweet. I knew I could count on you.
Love you all, take care!
Anyways....
gugma,
Brandon
