Elder Joseph Espiritu: It's the Simple but Powerful

Hello to family, friends and whoever is reading. How is Miss Universe? :) I am technically pretty close to where it is happening, but of course I couldn't go. Oh well I'll find out who won later :). Can you all believe it's already January 30th? Time flies!

So this week there were a couple of struggles, but it is the simple and powerful things that made me love the experience this week. One of the harder parts of this week is one day it rained without end. I ended up getting cold actually and we were soaked for the whole day. We didn't let rain stop us though. It can be hard to go out like that but that can't be a reason to stop.

The next day, we traveled to so many of the far areas we had. We had 11 lessons planned. Almost every person we tried to go to, they either were busy or weren't there at all. On one of the far areas we took a shortcut back, but it was really muddy, especially after the rain. My pants, shoes and socks turned brown that day, and by the end of that day we only ended up having 1 lesson out of the 11. What I am grateful for is that didn't get us down.

I have already come to know that there are good days and bad days and that's a part of life in general. Elder Andon and I just laughed it off. I liked what he told me when he said, "It's alright, the Lord knows we worked, even if we have nothing to show."

This Tuesday 3 zones got to travel to Appari to have a zone conference. Sometimes meetings can be dreadful, after all the conference goes from 9 AM to 4 PM. But I actually have come to love them. President Andrada gave most of the talks, but the AP's and Sister Andrada talked too. President Andrada talked about how important scripture study is and how important the scriptures are in general. The AP's talked about how important it is to keep the lessons simple and clear. Sister Andrada talked about how we need to be barges (as in firm, tight and ready for everything.) All great talks and I learned a lot.

One random thing I enjoyed was a quote by sister Andrada. She was talking about how she fellowshipped one time, and was talking to a non member mom with a member family. She told the non member mother how important it is for her to be a part of the church. The quote she used I really liked is "Mothers are the light of the house. The fathers may be the foundation or the 4 corners of the house, but without the mother there is no light." I really appreciated that quote and remembered how important it was to me that both of my parents built a solid foundation and gave light to my world.

Now towards the end we watched a video about Brigham Young's conversion into the church. In the story, Brigham was listening with his family to the gospel. After one man gave his talk, he asked a simple and shy man to bear his testimony. The man was not a public speaker, but when he spoke, it was simple yet very powerful. His testimony filled Brigham Young with the Spirit. I want to relate this to an experience this week.

On Saturday I got our 2 progressing investigators to attend the baptism of the other companionships investigator. It was a great baptism and I am glad they were able to attend. Afterwards, 1 stayed a little longer Kat Kat, and she had to walk home alone. We had somewhere to go so we weren't able to walk with her. I knew though she was capable of taking care of herself. I didn't think much of it.

That Sunday, Kat Kat and Raja were able to attend church. We brought them to the YSA for 2nd hour and stayed with them. The YSA are pretty loud so every time I go there I am nervous that our investigators don't learn that much. It's hard even for me to focus a lot of the time there. Then towards the end someone asked Kat Kat to bear her testimony.

She then told us about an experience she had the night before, right after she left the baptism. On the way home it was really dark and while she was walking she noticed a man close to her. She knew that the man was watching her and following her from a distance. As she walked, she decided to pray to God for protection. After she finished praying, she felt as if the roads lighted up for her, and someone was with her protecting her from danger. After she finished she started crying.

At the time she bore her testimony, it was really loud because the YSA were distracted and she was speaking Ilocano. I tried to focus in so hard, and even though I didn't understand, when I focused I could feel the power of her testimony. We talked to her afterwards and had her tell us the story in Tagalog so we figured out what she said. So even with loud people, a different language and all, I felt the Spirit so strong coming from her. I love seeing how much she has grown in the gospel. This experience was worth all the other hard experiences. Really what I have learned is that some of the most powerful things can be so simple. Other people may not have noticed the power of her testimony, but I did and I am so happy to know she will be baptized soon.

Sometimes so many things in life can distract from the important, or sometimes we all have hard times. But if we really focus on the important, even when there is a lot of bad things around, there are good things to find which even if they are small, they are the most powerful.

I hope you all had a good week again, make sure to always focus on the important!

Elder Espiritu

**You can email Elder Espiritu at joseph.espiritu@myldsmail.net