This week we doubled our numbers in terms of lessons we taught. We had some members working with us which helped us be able to teach people that we other wise couldn't teach. We also focused on some LA this week as well. My companion doesn't know a lot of the members in our area so I told him that they were gonna be our focus this week. And they were! We really made them the focus and executed really well. I was really happy about all that and we were expecting a big turn out of people coming to church in terms of LA and investigators, but no one came... Like no one came. We had 3 investigators at church. One was Bro. Alvin Gatus, someone who is always busy and we can never seem to teach and then we had Bro. Kenneth (the one who was supposed to be baptized 2 months ago). He left early though and then a little girl who sometimes sits in on the lessons with Manuel family. So that was a little heartbreaking. I love my own free agency. but the free agency of others is a little difficult sometimes!
We had some good lessons this week. The Manuel family is slowly progressing towards marriage and hopefully to baptism. It is a really slow process here in the Philippines for stuff like that to happen. We just continue to teach and to follow them up. We had our ward council yesterday and the fellow shippers of the Manuel family was there to explain their situation and we sort of formulated a plan to get them married and baptized. So that was REALLY good and a huge help for us. They seem to be doing well. Their area is a gold mine because we always get neighbors who come and sit in on lessons with us. We had 2 new people come sit in on the lesson on Saturday and they both committed to go to church with the Manuel family. The problem is, is that the Manuel family ended up going to Cavite and didn't come to church, therefore those two new investigators didn't go to church either. So that was tough. We had another new guy we started teaching this week. His name is Derek. He was a catholic before, and then he found some flaws within the church and now just kind of bounces around. So he started listening to us. We taught him on Tuesday, and boy it was quite the lesson. EVERYTHING that comes out of our mouth has to be from the bible. And anyone who knows me knows that I am not the best at the whole Bible thing. Actually I am not bad now, but it was hard! He questioned everything we say and expected us to whip out a verse for everything. In that first lesson we touched on priesthood to prophets to John the Baptist to families all the way to Adam not being a prophet!? It was difficult especially in our religion we believe the bible to be the word of God as long as it is translated CORRECTLY. We also believe because of the apostasy that the bible has some errors in it. So its hard to show him a verse that explains what we are saying but kind of in a vague way. So the first lesson was a mess. The next lesson was a lot better because we knew what to expect and we prepared. It was a well planned lesson that was based on the Bible and we even explained apostasy really well. So it was a success! We haven't quite gotten a baptismal date out of him but we are working toward that. He said he would go to church and then... Didn't. So yeah. The struggle.
We are teaching the niece of the super active family in our ward as well. She said the best thing that I have heard in a long time. "ELDERS ITS TRUE. I WANT TO BE BAPTIZED." WOOOO! So we have a date set for July 30th. We can make that happen. We teach her around three times a week and we always get a good meal so its a good gig I look forward to that. That is about all that we had this week in terms of our investigators. We are doing much better. Now, transfer day is in 2 days so hopefully I stay here to see some of this unfold.
We are having fun though here in the area. This area has so many people in it. It blows my mind. Lots of fruit to harvest. We are doing the best coordinating with the ward too. Bishop A is SUPER good and works really hard, and then it's the full time missionaries... We do our best to build but its hard to baptize with not too much help, but the ward does their best too. All in all, its a good area with tons of potential. I also have some pictures that I will send in separate emails. I love you all!
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Elder Lambert
Philippines, Manila Mission, Earth |
| This is the Manuel family and a bunch of neighbor kids! |
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| This is us with Mama Cynthia. She is an RM from the Bacload mission. She went less active but was reactivated by Elder Sacay (Tanner's trainer) a couple of years ago. |
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| This is another family we have been teaching. I haven't mentioned them because they are progressing really slowly... |
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