Sister Jones vs the dogs & lessons learned:)

Well hey there. this week was fun. we spent the whole week telling everyone about how important Jesus Christ is and how we can go to church every week to remember Him, not just on Easter and teaching what Easter is actually about. Then on Easter we had.... wait for iiiiit..... one investigator there. out of 7 with a baptismal date... we've had better attended weeks. but that's ok! we had a bunch of less actives there that we've been working with and the investigator that did come is awesome!
also we're giving one other investigator the benefit of the doubt that she probs went to her mother-in-law's branch across the way... which is ok i guess if she wants to like spend time with her mormon family in law on easter or whatevs ;)

We had temple tour on friday! sister abanggan and i were tour guides for the baptisms for the dead station... it was sweet. i got wicked sunburned. but! huge plus of having four sisters in one branch, we sent all our investigators with the other sisters so we got to take a ton of people even though we were tour guides! (usually you don't take anyone cuz you have to be there the whooole time instead of just one tour) it was really great!

so lately i've been learning lots of lessons (surprise surprise) here's one.

where there's a will, there's a way, where there's an excuse, there's a problem. (this sounded better in tagalog slash my head, but that'll do for now.)

im serious. people tell us all the time all their million excuses why they can't do ____ (fill in any commitment we try to give them but usually go to church.) and sometimes their excuses are actually legit and i almost tell them that's ok, i understand, your life is hard, maybe next time. but you can't do that! cuz you can't excuse sin. that's just what's up. so then we look a lil deeper. oh, you can't go to church cuz its too expensive aaaaaand you have a word of wisdom problem! kaya pala! there's always some other reason/problem that is really keeping them from progressing. so guess what we get to do!! just keep teaching the doctrine. when they really understand the gospel, the excuses slip away and they find a way because they actually want to find a way. its crazy how that works eh?

So for us, what commandments do we always find excuses not to do? attend church? fast once a month? pay fast offerings? pay tithing? fulfill our callings? could be anything really. and what's the real reason we don't want to do it? this reason also could be anything but im willing to bet it comes down to feelings of inadequacy or unworthiness which comes from a lack of understanding about repentance and the atonement. obviously i do not have a perfect understanding of anything but i do know that God wants us to be happy so these feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness are from God only to the point of repentance. (because repentance makes us happy!!!) after that they are discouragement from Satan.

maybe in a month or so i'll come up with a new theory. but that's the lesson i learned this week and im stickin with it :)

Lesson two. dogs are all bark and no bite. except sometimes when they really do bite lolz

we were working with a couple members to try and find everyone's house. like all old investigators, less-actives, and even active members. cuz our area is a beautiful green maze and i love it lolz

anyway we were on our way out and they were like oh hey there's a member family that lives on the way out! and we were like sweet, show us the way! so they took us to this random house that was actually really nice. like they had a car. so we were like this is really a member's house? are they active? do they have callings? the answers were sounding more and more like less-active, but that's ok! we still wanted to meet them 

one problem. we are standing in the entrance to the driveway and there are like 7 dogs in the driveway. so we call out and a teenage ish girl and a lil boy stick their heads out the window and im like hey can we come in? and they then proceed to run away. (seriously looking like in actives at this point lolz)

anyway we're standing their outside this open gate with 7 dogs barking at us and blocking our way to the door whilst the lil boy keeps poking his head out the window and then when he sees we're still there, hiding again. sooo that's lame. so i have yet to get bit by a dog here, no matter how loud they are barking at first, when we get near, they're usually more scared than we are and run away with their tail between their legs, or we just ignore them and they keep barking but nothing happens and life goes on. 

so i decided to trust in that. so my companion and the two members are standing in the gate and i walk on up to a lil window that has a bench right beneath it. i kneel on the bench and stick my head in the window (it's a big window) and inside are two lil boys looking as surprised as can be! (meanwhile the dogs are still just barkin at my feet, whatevs.) the look on the boys faces was just like how did she make it past the dogs???? turns out you need a lock to keep the missionaries out! or at least a closed gate.... lolz so great. anyway they won't answer any questions and finally i leave them with a simple, k please tell your parents the missionaries dropped by (quite literally) and peace out.

oh yeah one dog like bite my shoe, but it was the pansiest bite known to man, i barely felt it and just like shoed him away like a fly (literally, i used my shoe lolz)

So fun story, right? gets better. after that we were chatting with our branch president at church and we mentioned we found this less-active family and we were wondering if he knows any thing else about them. he kindly informs us that that particular family moved away some time ago, our CMIS is old and out of date, and the family that lives there now is so beyond in active because they are not and never have been members. kaya pala. those kids were soooo confused. anyway i guess now we'll just have to go back and convert them since we're friends with their dogs now!

also. people are just like dogs, all bark, no bite. they always yell at us and are very "confident" from afar and then we turn around and walk up to them and speak tagalog and tell them what's up and they get very quiet and very respectful very fast. lolz, also hilarious. 

k isa pa. 

we had a bunch of cool experiences that brought us to a family in mountain heights (one of our subdivisions that when we got here they were like umm you have one less-active in that whole area. no one else. so we were not spending a ton of time there) anyway we found this family. the mom was baptized like 20 years ago with 4 of her five kids, they were in the church for a few years, then they moved away and didn't know where the church was here sooo they became inactive and eventually went back to their catholic roots. sweet.

anyway we went to teach them. we show up and the mom is like ah heck its the mormons! (always a great way to start out a visit to a less-active) and then all her friends ran away. (i have mad skills now at clearing a room, no joke.) anyway she was then surprisingly friendly! and super nice, and her apo was there and wanted to know who we were and it was great! so we start teaching them and it's going really well, she is really receptive, she just doesn't remember anything. we can work with that.

then her neighbor showed up and was like oh hey i was taught by some mormons back in the day! they used to come to us every saturday at 10! and we were like sweet, why did they stop? (Always a fun question to ask) and she was like we moved! (i bet you anything they didn't tell the missionaries anything about them moving and the missionaries were super bummed about it) anyway we were like sweet! well, let's get that going again! and she was totes down.

then the mom's daughter comes! (she was baptized when she was like in middle school) and she's like mormons??? sweet, i still don't drink coffee because of that! and she sits down and joins us. 

then that brought up the word of wisdom and they were soooo curious lolz so we set a return apt and peaced out. (we like to leave them curious, it's a party)

moral of the story. we found like 3 new investigators that were there, not to mention the families of all those less-actives! just from one OYM to a tricycle driver while waiting for a member to come work with us. (that was all sister abanggan btw, she's a champ. in everything. but especially in OYMs)

sooo sweet! This is the Lord's work, and He knows His people.

oook one more. people like crucify themselves here for Easter so they can pay for their own sins slash the sins of others... or they scourge themselves with a whip..... it's cray cray. but we didn't see any of that.. we were kinda bummed we didn't immabehonestwithyou. cuz it happens more in the province daw. alas, i still have another Easter here to witness the craziess! other than that its pretty much just a holiday weekend and traffic was crazy cuz everyone goes to church or something (i didn't actually see a lot of people going to church, i just saw the traffic) and on palm sunday everyone bought these palms with flowers and then took them to their church to have the priest bless them and then they put them on their doors so the angel of death will pass over their house. good stuff.

k im outie. 

life is good, sister abanggan is preparing me to train, which i think is harder for her than it is for me cuz she is used to being in charge... lolz but it's all good.

love,

sister jones