Dear Friends and Family,
well this week has been CRAZY!! I
learned the true importance of following the promptings of the spirit and how I
feel the spirit which I have been trying to figure out for so long.
So....... here is the story. on Thursdays
we go to General Lim which is our farthest area and so we finished weekly
planning and were excited to go. we went to our first appointment near
our apartment and no one was home. I then got the feeling to not go to General
Lim but to stay in calungusan to work today. I ignored it! I wanted to go
to General Lim we had people to see! one of the members who has been driving us
there without any pay (which has saved us so much money) his tricycle broke and
everything just fell through. the minute I stepped into that tricycle i
literally was so stressed I was feeling sick but I ignored it. we got to
General Lim and 60 Pesos later we sat in our first appointment and literally
could not get our mouths open to teach. it is true what it says in the D
and C I think that only by the spirit can you teach. we decided to come
back later and then I turned to Sister Fuggle and said I don't think we should
be here. she said the same thing and we felt so guilty. I truly
understood the importance of repentance in that moment. we decided to
leave and as we were walking we were repenting and praying the lord would help
us. THE LORD HAS A BACK UP PLAN! we ended up getting a really great
lesson in to a less active and his friend who are really interested and then
after that we left.
OH but it doesn't stop there.
we only got a ride halfway down the mountain and then we had to walk and
that walk was about a 40 minute walk. it was already 5 and we had only
had 1 lesson so we were just paying for it. we felt so bad and we felt
even worse to ask for a miracle but we still got one. the lord truly
loves his children even if they do sin. we ended up getting 2 FREE
tricycle rides to the place we felt like we should go. wow were we blessed.
the lady we felt like we needed to go to was walking toward us as we were
going to her. she told us that she was leaving to Pilar and that she had
had time earlier. we were kicking ourselves in the butt we were so mad at
ourselves for not listening to the spirit.
(side note: this lady, Kathy, is
very into her religion. she was an I2L and she was so interested but we can't
seem to get her to let go of her religion and her calling enough to just come
to church or read the book of Mormon even though she has had a spiritual
witness that she needs to read it. it is so frustrating because she is
right there.)
so we continued on trying to figure
out where we needed to go. we went to some of our less actives and on our
way we tried to I2L this guy but oh man did he want to debate. I was so
frustrated because all the things he was saying is in our message and I wanted
to tell him off. he was saying, "yea I respect your religion but
your are wrong to think you can add to the bible. there is no other
revelation coming in this time. if it is not in the bible then it is from
men and not true." Fine be that way if you don't' want to learn more than
I am done. we were so done when the end of the day came but it
turned out to be a great learning experience.
Now for yesterday. Yesterday
was so awesome! We went to camachile and I love it there. we taught
one lesson to a bunch of guys who seem really interested and we are excited to
see if they will come to church this next Sunday. but the highlight of my
entire day was that we went to one of our investigators who literally just
freaks me out with his looks and the things he does it like he not normal and
it listening to us for the wrong reasons. so I went into saying "Ok
heavenly father help us to know if it is ok for us to teach him."
when we came to the house we called " Tao Po" which means
people and no one answered. I would have only done this for three calls
but something kept us calling and then we heard voices next door say "mga
sisters" so we got a smile on our face and decided to try and get them to
come out so that we could talk to them. when a young man peaked his head
through the door and said " walang tao diyan" which means there
is no people there. so I took the bait and started talking to him and
asked him about his life. his name is Enric and he is 18 and after some
small talked I asked if we could come in and teach him. he let us in with
a little light in his eye. I knew he was curious. as we taught him we
actually only taught about the nature of god and then prayer but he stopped us
and said I felt something when you prayed and it felt warm like I had a weight
lifted off my shoulders. his dad has been away for 2 years and was going
to see him that night and he has been struggling because he hasn't gone to
church in a long time. we took that opportunity to say "this is the
spirit that you are feeling that is how god answers your prayers."
he loved it and he is going to come to church on Sunday and wants us so
bad to come back. I wanted to cry the spirit was so strong to think that
we had been in the right place at the right time and had followed the spirit so
that this young man could know the truth and happiness of the gospel.
And the lesson to the creepy guy
turned out alright we are just going to have to be really patient and slow with
him because he literally has the mind of a child but he wants to learn and he
wants to be baptized. so I learned a lot about the spirit this week and I
am so excited to see how far these people grow.
Well that is all for
the Philippines adventure, until next week.
Love,
Sister Snow
