Gospel Centered Converts

Hello hello hello!!!

So first of all, I just have to have a moment and say, listen to this....we went to the mall today to get a whole bunch of stuff, and, of course, we went to the National bookstore....did you know the last book of the Eragon series is out!!! WHAT?!? Are you kidding me! Oh my goodness, I just wanted to sit in that book store all p-day and read. And then, I was flipping through Sun Tsu's "Art of War"...ah, it nearly killed me. I've been wanting to read that forever! grabi I miss my politics. I flipped through a couple books on the economic crisis and terrorism in Africa too....I just couldn't help myself :)

 Sigue, so for this week...I'm trying to think of what happened. This week was pretty busy because we were the tour guides for temple tour and then we had other meetings so it was pretty nuts. But yesterday though we got some new news with the direction the mission will be going in the new year. They changed our key indicators, where our member present lessons are now way low and our Less Active lessons are way high. As in, they no longer care if we are baptizing people. Of course, we'll still take referrals and do finding as usual, but the new focus is on less actives. President doesn't want any more missionary converts, welfare converts, or church converts, only gospel converts, which means we will be thorough with our teaching with investigators and doing a ton of finding people who joined the church and went immediately inactive, instead of adding to the pool of less actives here. Which is kind of funny actually, because that's basically what Sister Ramilo and I have been doing. This week we found 3 less actives and have been teaching them. One of them is a family where their dad is a former branch president, one is a convert when she was 18 that just honestly does not remember a single thing (she came to church last week, yes!), and, get this, found out our next door neighbor is the former Stake president.  Less active too.  Although I think in this case it was due to getting offended. Anyhow, that's our focus. And let me tell you, it's actually a lot harder for find less active members than it is to find a new investigator. It's like finding a needle in a haystack. So this'll be fun and a new shift in how we do our work. I'm excited though! I think it's tamang-tama, meaning, exactly, or something like that in English. Ha, that doesn't translate very well. But I’m excited. 

So I'm learning to cook Philippino food! I haven't told you that yet, but Sis Ramilo and I have a deal where every other day we cook lunch. So she's teaching me Philippino food and I'm teaching her "American" food, whatever that means. Let's be honest, American food is just a rip off of everybody else's...lasagna, tacos, chow mein. But I cooked lumpia for the first time this week and the best part was, it was actually good! So proud of myself :) I've decided I'm practically Pinay now...cooking lumpia, have a hole in my gym shorts, "Ay" is my new expression. Hahaha, too funny.

So in your letter mom you asked if I had figured out why I'm in the Philippines. I don't think I've figured it out completely, but one thing I have figured out...I'm here to learn charity and how to be giving. Let me give you an example. We have a family in our ward that is struggling for money. They don't have electricity anymore and they're struggling to buy school materials for their daughters because they just don't have the money. But they're so awesome and so faithful. And every time we go over there, without fail, they will always buy us a merienda. We can tell them no a million times, but it won't make a difference. They just want to give, even if it's just a little bit. Whatever they have, they are willing to give it away. It's incredible. And there's so many people here that are like that. They will bend over backwards to serve a guest and make sure that you're comfortable. And it's like they don't even think about it. It's just second nature. My companion is the same way and so is sister Lorente...they just think of other people before they ever think of themselves. It's so good for me because we all know most of the time I'm in my own little world and I don't stop to think of others as much as I should. It's humbling and I feel like I've learned a lot about what it means to just give because that's what will make not just them happy, but you happy as well. The people here are awesome.

Anyhow, that's all I can think of for this week. Love you all! I'll pray for some snow for you Ry!! :) Have a fantastic week!