Monday, March 7, 2016

03.07.16

Just an update, my birthday went great! I remember thinking on that day, "wow... my parents are probably at the Idaho Center right now!" I had a moment of 10 second homesickness, but then was back in the game and focused! We had a great day that day! There was a baptism that we attended that morning of the Sister Training Leaders. But the funny thing was that the person in charge of the baptism, didn't get there until 7:55 with a baptism that was supposed to start at 8.. now that's normal considering the culture here. But the problem was he didn't start the font until that time. And you know those things take 2 hours to fill up! So we had hoses from outside running into the font and we got buckets from the mission office to fill up and bring to the font to speed up the process... it was a fun experience haha!

I decided on my birthday that I was going to work EXTRA hard. So that's what we did! We met and exceeded our goals for the day and when we were on the tricycle going home, I just had the calmest and most wonderful feeling of peace in the whole world. I felt the Lord was pleased with what I had done that day and where I was as a missionary. At that moment I knew that He knew me. It was funny because that feeling that overcame me came when the motor of the tricycle was buzzing and cars were flying to and fro, but that feeling was undeniable. THIS WORK IS THE BEST!

We had MLC this last week that was completely focused on Leadership skills. President and the Assistants talked about "Higher-Law Leadership" that really focused on how to lead like Christ. It was cool how he compared the Law of Moses to the Higher Law and then put it into a missionary leadership perspective. It was great!

But we had some really interesting things happen this week in terms of the work! We had a good week this week! We have worked hard even though we had some time taken out of our schedule. We had some unexpected people come to church yesterday! The Bulacan family, an inactive/part-member family whom we have been working with for several weeks now, our investigator with a baptismal date at the end of March, and our neighbor at our apartment complex! She was totally unexpected! Elder Pandaog and I were sitting in Elder's quorum and I saw her and her son walking into the chapel. I said to Elder Pandaog, "Elder.... is that our neighbor??" "Oh wait... it is!" We ran out to greet her. That was a fun experience! Other than that the work has been going well. We've been talking a lot more about how to solve investigators concerns. Finding help as well from each other, the branch, and personal and companion prayers.

We played some basketball again this morning with Elders Higgins and Antenor cruz. They are awesome to play with! But usually on P-days we get haircuts, email, grocery shop, study, and then go out to work... its not really that glorious of a day haha :)

But sounds like youre doing well back there! Good to see pictures of you and of Jason and Megan's family! They're getting soooo big!!!! Love you and have a great week!

Love,
Elder Brandon N
you'll never imagine, but it got cold in Cauayan one day.