This week was surprisingly long for only half a week of work. First things first though - I have some good stories. We are teaching this one guy that is sooooo receptive. He is obsessed with repentance. Then we found out he is defending himself in a court case right now. We don't know exactly what it's about but we know its about something that happened when he was in the army and that he is really upset about it. He is so excited to learn about the Church though. We left a pamphlet the first time and then when we came back, he came out and sat down and started praying without even being asked!!! So cool. He asks all the right questions and reads what we leave him. Then the other day he gave us two sheets of paper with all of his personal info and his identification cards and stuff. He said, "In case anybody asks you who I am."......then we got a little freaked out. I emailed the President about it today. That would suck if the NBI broke up his baptism mid dunk or something.
We also got invited to a lunch appointment this week at a recent convert of the ZL's. The nanay is a member but her kids aren't. One of them looked like she was only 17. Then we see two little kids go by around 3 or 4 years old. We asked who's they were and they said they were hers!!! She has two kids and she's younger than me!
As we were about to leave, a man walked into the house and he was kind of crazy looking. He told us he was scared and trying to hide from Jesus because apparently Jesus told the man that he was going to kill him!!! (What the kwan?). Then after trying to calm him down, the man squatted and hugged Elder M's legs and started moaning!! After we calmed him down again he got up and asked if we could bless him but before we could say anything, he went to each of us and rub our chests!!! I guess my chest has healing powers - I was uninformed... All in all, a weird week.
As for the less actives, we got a huge list and then went out to find them. Some are dead, some are in Dubai, Alaska and Canada, some are in different churches, some were just happy to see us. I realized everyone has at least one problem. With less active members it's a little more easy to find what their issue is, as they know, and you know that there was a reason they stopped coming to church. The only problem is sometimes it is really difficult to hear.
One man told us his daughter, in grade 5, was raped and he thinks he can't go to church as he feels evil because he can't forgive the guy who did it. Another one told us she got offended because she was eating at church and someone told her to stop eating as that food was for the kids.....weird reason to throw away you salvation.
The worst one was the other night, just after the baptism in fact. We finally found this one sister we'd been looking for for a long time. She is only around 30 years old, and she got married a few weeks ago. We realized we'd heard about her a few times. Some of the ladies at church gossiped about her because she "married one of them African n****rs". They say it in english too!
She married a guy from North Carolina. He's back there now but he'll be returning in a few months (I feel so bad for filipina's as they always fall for that - so many here just endlessly wait for their husbands who are abroad. They're such trusting and loyal people....too bad so many of the men never return).
People often don't see the effects of gossip because the effect is that people just don't come back. I know that we should be slow to offend but if the ones offending were more cautious then we would all be happier.
I still feel terrible. She was honestly the nicest and most down to earth girl I've met on my mission. We will keep working with her and reading the Book of Mormon with her (she said she's still happy when she reads it) but it will take a while to repair that damage. I also spoke about this in church yesterday in sacrament. I shared a story about Socrates and a man who was going to share some gossip with him about one of his friends, but socrates stopped him and asked him to "filter" what he was going to say in the "TUG" filter: Is it "True"? Is it "Useful"? Is it "Good"? President O shared that with me and I promised in front of the whole ward yesterday that I would never gossip again. I challenged them all to filter their words, as words, like water, if not filtered, will make the consumer sick. Gossip is poison. This was a huge wake up call. The things I do, really do affect the salvation of others in some way.
In Matthew it says we'll be judged for the idle words we speak. I decided to watch myself more, to make sure I set a good example for others about the church. Every kind word and smile makes a huge difference and as less active members come back to church, I see that more and more.
I love you guys and you have always been a great example for me in every way. Please make sure you do the same for every other member of our family and every other member of the church.
We are not allowed out on Christmas Day except to attend church, as people go crazy here with guns and fireworks everywhere. Last night was my first time experiencing that. It's only the 12th and there were CRAZY fireworks and bullets flying everywhere until 1am. (don't worry though, we're safe. It's mostly in the stadium, not near us.).
Gotta go!!! LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!
-Elder Dustan
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