Area: La Castellena
Companion: Sister Dequina
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| Our house :) |
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| Sister Dequina doing laundry :) |
Family!!! :)
This week started with an amazing MLC in Bacolod full of the spirit. It was really incredible!! One thing that really hit me was about what Elder Rasmussen said about getting the check to the owner of the apartment. Him and his wife are in charge of all the supply and things like that. But he made it spiritual and related it to us and our support right now and our future we always need that money and this people do too. He said something that answered my question. I really do need to go to school when I get home. It's so simple, and just more of an announcement, but it's so cool how the Lord works in mysterious ways. The rest of the training was also amazing and helped me a ton!!
Tuesday night we came home and taught a couple lessons and that night, we actually stayed up a little late, oops... trying to figure out what to teach. We started planning two separate trainings because that's what we've done before. Then I went to the bathroom and Sister Dequina was like I don't understand it! Help! I went and looked at it and the two trainings we were giving we decided to put together and we redid the training i did and honestly, it turned out a lot better than my original training. It was good!!
The next day going to La Carlota, we sat on the LC bus thing for about 40 minutes before it left and ended up being late for the zone training, we felt so bad. Right when we walked in the doors of the church, we prayed and asked forgiveness and asked for guidance to give our training this day. We were so blessed and I know Heavenly Father loves us and will always help us if we turn to him. I know that for a fact!! We had the spirit there so strong and we gave it a little differently than planned but so amazing! I loved it :) Thank you to Heavenly Father's guidance :)
Wednesday night, we found out that a member of our ward had her brother pass away. She was having a really hard time and we went and shared a little to her and I hope and pray with all my heart they will be okay. As well as the other family members. There's also her sister who is married in our ward and we visited her as well. They are two sisters and both returned missionaries there brother isn't a member, but so incredible the experiences we have had just visiting and sharing with them.
Thursday we had a good lesson with Rona and Kenneth, who were referred. It was the first time we met Kenneth, but we talked about families being forever and they said they got married a few years ago, but the way they treated each other was as if they were barely married. They have a 5 year old and Rona is pregnant right now as well. She still had butterflies. It reminded me of Talia's song at her wedding. It was so cool to share about how they can be together forever! It was incredible to just help them know that and they said it was something they wanted. It was just a cool spiritual lesson.
Friday, we had a cool lesson with one of our recent converts mom's who isn't a member. She is so busy, but loves to listen. She always is too busy to come to church. We shared Mosiah 12:35 with her and it's the 1 commandment of the 10 commandments, "Thou shalt not have any God before me". We told her as she does these things for money she's making money her God and putting it before God. Our ward mission leader was also with us and shared a cool story about a fake pearl she always wore around her neck no matter what. Ever night her dad would ask do you love me and she said yes and he would ask for the pearl, but she would give him her teady bear or something else. Then one night he came in and the little girl was crying and her father said what's wrong and she said, Dad I love you and gave her the pearl. When She gave him the fake pearl, he reached in his pocket and pulled out a real pearl and strung it around her neck. He related it to life that God will ask us to sacrifice something for something better. It was a really cool analagy! I liked it!! But We left and I kinda forgot about what was said and everything. I didn't feel like an overwhelming of the spirit but i felt the sweet spirit there. Then sunday came and Sister showed up!! I was like wow!! Our recent convert, Kim, who usually passes the sacrament, was so happy. He's about 16 i believe. It was a cool experience :)
Saturday, we were at the point of the night when we were going to go home and then sister Dequina said, lets just stop by Villanueva, the family that is kind of less active but returned. Anyway, we showed up and we hadn't seen them at church the last 3 weeks or so, and we shook there hands kind of being funny saying we were the missionaries from the church of Jesus Christ and we want to share a message. They are really close to us and so the kids kind of laughed and invited us in then we did the same thing to the mom who usually is just funny and happy. We sat down and she said, Sisters, mainactive na ako. Which means she's going in active and she was serious and we were just silent and she explained some things and I won't go into detail, but it made me cry. It was just little things that the church wasn't providing, she i guess gets offended really easy, but I didn't ever see it in her until now. She really is so incredible! They had been sealed in the temple except for the older kids and her testimony is still there is what she always says. I had a feeling just to see what a testimony was to her. I asked her if she believed the church is true, and she said She knows there's a God. I guess that's a problem, she doesn't know the basics and It's so important to know those things. I guess that's where it all starts. You need to know the basics. It's nice to know where we can go back to help them :) It's what we are teaching to everyone else. It's what EVERYONE needs including members!! I love it! I learned a lot from this experience. About following the spirit to go somewhere he needs you. My companion said it was just a thought and the spirit is what we are studying right now because we will be training in chapter 4 of PMG about Recognizing the Spirit. It was a cool experience we talked about this morning in companionship study. It was amazing!! I love the lessons you can learn even from an experience that makes you cry. (yes i cried... i love this family so much!!)
Anyways, sunday came and we had an investigator, suppose to be baptized this saturday but won't be, he will be in 2 months. He is super strong, super honest and loves the church. He wants so bad to be worthy :) Learning about peoples lives are truly incredible all the things they've overcame and learned and how the church really helps them when it comes into their lives. It's truly incredible!! We also after church were walking to go to an appointment through our little mountain path and saw a little boy we had taught before and felt like going to his dad and we did and his dad wasn't there, but we found his cousins grandma who we started talking to and she said her kids are members but she didn't become a member with them because she's too busy. It was cool!! She leaves a lot but we are going to try to go back to her, but because we talked to her and we started walking to our next appointment, it was perfect timing to meet this one brother who's 21 that passed by us and he said, wow! guapa!! then we kept walking and he looked at us and said, how do i become a mormon? I was like what?! We never made it to where we were going, but we talked to him and he took us to his house and we talked to him and man he had a lot of question!! Like, where's the true church? how do you become a missionary? why are there so many churches? do you eat pork? And just random but really from the heart questions, he wasn't there because someone was pretty, he really wants to know and he said his previous girlfriend was a member and elders taught him before but they stopped because there wasn't people at the house probably, but he didn't remember much. it was just a really cool experience and we will follow up with him on tuesday :)
I love this work and I love studying about learning to recognize the spirit and I am also reading in Alma mga 18 19 and 20 right now about Ammon and his experience with King Lamoni. He prayed in faith and his prayer was answered. It's so important also as we pray that we listen to the spirit in what to pray for. Heavenly Father knows what we need more than us. I love that also!! It's amazing!! Anyways, I hope this is a good detailed letter for you :) I tried to pick something out each day to share. There's lots more every day but this is what I tried to remember :) I love you all so much and hope you continue to be amazing!! I can't believe Jade is already gone!! I feel closer to him now than I did before :) I love it!! :) Keep being amazing!! I am so grateful I have the family I do to support me in this wonderful experience!! :)
Love, Sister Smoot
Pictures from Elder Mu's camera that I wanted :)
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| yes they did a baptism with a carabaw :) hehe |
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| elders baptism :) |
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