Going FULL PINOY From Here On In - Week 98. Serving in Sarrat

Hey guys. This week was actually pretty long but went fast - if that makes any sense. Got a lot of good lessons in though, which felt good. I started really trying to learn Ilocano and it's pretty fun. The people here LOVE when you try to speak it. As long as you are trying to speak their language, they won't make fun of you for it. When I learn a new word, I try to make a connection with the word and something else in my mind that will help me remember the word. A funny one is "duggong" which was a pokemon that I remember. It means booger in Ilocano so now I will never forget that one.

We had an awesome day on Tuesday. We had two morning lessons which were amazing. One was with that guy who worked in Saudi Arabia and is now back with sickness. He said he would love to be baptized once he learns the Book of Mormon is true. He is actually reading it and praying about it. We teach him all in English - it's weird. Then we had a lesson with this one guy who had a stroke. We taught lesson one to him and his girlfriend. I realized just how awful a stroke is and it freaked me out to possibly end up like that. They fed us after our lesson (which is rare with a brand new investigator). We had pinakbet which is a big Ilocano dish which I love. It's all veggies and some fish sauce called bagoong. We loved it so much that we decided to buy the ingredients and we cooked it twice on our own this week - way quick and easy to cook.

 We taught a family this week and the tatay doesn't speak much tagalog. He has two sons, 16 and 21. They were all there for our appointment when we went! Tatay and his one son were sitting down with the Book of Mormon when we got there! They are so cool. The eldest son came in a few minutes after we started and he was way into the lessons and then he asked, "Elders... can we be forgiven of all of our sins? And how?" (Gold!) We are going back on Tuesday.

On Wednesday we did language day -didn't speak English all day from waking up to sleeping at night. It actually was tiring. Nothing will ever replace my native language, as much as I love Tagalog.

We had dinner with the N family Thursday night. She is a widow and has a daughter in Young Women. A prospective elder came with us and it was a great dinner. Then as we left, after our lesson with them, I noticed one of my shoes was missing! It took us about 10 minutes to find it and then when we did, it had a big bite taken from the back near the ankle. A dog had some fun with it. I was a little ticked (they are my Eccos) but it also looks pretty funny - it's got a real bite out of it with the teeth marks and everything.

We were asked by a member to go and teach a less active family. We were a little judgmental of this member in the past because he is always late for church. Then we started to notice that he is only late because every Sunday he goes and picks up as many members of this one family that he can talk into coming to church. I felt bad for being annoyed with him. He asked us to help because the tatay of the family wouldn't come. We met him at the house and the daughter said that the tatay was sleeping. So this brother went into the house and woke the man up and brought him out and said, "Sorry, but you need to be taught. This will only take a few minutes." It was a great lesson too. Then when the lesson was over, the brother said, "Every member is told by the area presidency to rescue one person this year. You were baptized before me. I am sad that you aren't at church any more, and you have a lot of sons who need to grow up in the church. I am going to rescue you." (way straight forward, but it worked really well). We went to church with two of his sons all dressed up and they loved it. The brother was just doing his part by trying to get the area goals done as early in the year as possible. He is a good man and we were really proud of him.

I realized yesaterday that in something like 10 weeks I will be giving a homecoming talk. Then I got to thinking about what lessons I have learned on my mission. I am going to keep analyzing that until I go home and see how I have grown. Anyways, I am doing great and I feel good. I am going FULL PINOY this week until I leave, which means I am not eating anything I can get at home - like cereal (my comp loves eating Weetabix) or bread or anything. Thanks for your emails guys. I love you lots!
Elder Dustan