Hey everyone.
So as always, I'm just taking things a week at a time. Things are going well and the work is treating me nicely. On Saturday we had the baptism for sister Hydee Tan. Her son is serving a mission in the Philippines Butuan Mission. She decided about a month or two ago that it was time for her to be baptized and so we were blessed to teach her and now baptize her. She's great. At times I was kind of nervous about her conversion because she seemed really quiet about how she felt about the church and gospel. I was also worried that she may not continue going to church because she had been taken to church by some members because she had a surgery and couldnt be on bumpy roads. But she came to church this Sunday on her own and I found out that last week she had turned down the invitation to be picked up for church because she wanted to make sure that she was doing it all for herself. I was stoked to see that kind of conversion. She made a statement in her testimony after her baptism that she was doing this all for herself. Nobody was pressuring her. I was really happy. I also attached the pictures from Editha and Ladyvale's baptism and also the baptism for Melissa Aya-ay. You can tell how happy Duane is in the picture to be able to baptize Editha and Ladyvale.
As for the work, Elder Himarangan and I found the tiniest hole in the wall. Literally, its a little tiny pathway that you take and it leads into this ENORMOUS collection of houses. Like thousands of people are in there and it stretches forever!!! So the last couple of days we have been going door to door and tracting our faces off!!! We are in desperate need of investigators and its nice to have a place like this relatively close to the church that has barely been touched by missionaries since the late 90s! We taught this guy that has pneumonia and he is full of questions about why he has this happening to him and what he is to learn from it. I was so mad at myself because yesterday in order to be able to fit more Books of Mormon in my bag, I left my scriptures at home and took my little New Testament and a paperback Book of Mormon. I felt strongly that I needed to share a scripture from Paul but I only had it marked in my quad!!! ughhh.... That is the last time I leave my weapons at home. I repented on the spot. haha.
We had to do another emergency transfer on Friday. Two elders were really not getting along and it was getting to the point where any problem resulted in them calling us to come settle it for them. So I was fed up and called the APs and told them that I wanted one of them out. My zone is working at top performance right now. We had 13 baptisms last month, 5 baptisms last week and there are a lot more to come in the month of February. At this point, the zone cannot afford to have its progress hindered by those who refuse to change themselves and try to improve. We have no disobedient missionaries. Pride is gone from the zone. Its just 14 missionaries working their tails off for the Lord and the fruits are coming. So we moved one of the Elders out on Friday and got a new Elder in. He's a great guy--from Laie , Hawaii
Thanks for all your prayers and support.
I'll be home for Christmas,
