Elder Joseph Espiritu: Slow, Steady and Blessings

Time for another official statement: I have officially been in the Philippines for over a year now! How did I spend this week? Exchanges with the zone leaders, some family home evenings, teaching a 12 year old, found a couple of interesting things out, and had some small blessings.

Around 9:30 one night all 4 of us missionaries were laying in bed starting to get a little tried and talking for a while. Elder Trinidad went to go to the bathroom, and when he came back he had a plate covered with a bowl and decided to place it on my bed. As soon as he brought it in we all knew what it was. Then he takes my sheet and whips it up, releasing the spider that's slightly smaller than my hand. Within 2 seconds everyone was out of the room except me, who could not let the spider run and hide unless I wanted to worry about it crawling onto me in the middle of the night. For a couple of minutes I had to look for it under some sheets and chased it into a corner and put the bowl back on, then slid it outside the room. Once we got it out, we sprayed it up with permit-ox which slowly killed it. To make sure it was dead, we covered him in alcohol and lit him up. We provided him with a proper funeral.

Now for the more missionary side of the week,It's always interesting to go on an exchange with a different missionary, just cause everyone's teaching style is different. This last week I went with my zone leader Elder Francia, and it was great. He was really good at teaching for understanding, and we taught Kyle our 12 year old investigator. He used a little trick with a friction pen and a lighter (if any of you know that it's a cool example) and talked about repentance. I learned a lot from him.

We also had a blast this week with a couple of family home evenings. On Monday and Friday we had 2 really successful home evenings with great food and lots of laughter. It's really nice to see the branch come together and have fun. I think it helped strengthen the branch just a little. As for a couple of interesting struggles this week, we went and taught our investigator Kyle Brent again. I learn different kinds of patience and such with every different investigator. I know he has a desire to be baptized and really if we focus on what is says on D&C 20:37, he's getting there. We just need to get him to church with his sister that's a member.

Speaking of church, we had another small success this Sunday! At the beginning we were a little discouraged due to our investigators again having some place to go and the attendance being low at the first hour, but by Sacrament after counting the attendance we had a total of 43 which beat our last week of 39! A total of 34 people actually came from Vintar which shows that the attendance is growing little by little. We had a couple more less actives show up, and if we can get a couple more of our less active families to show up, we can get it up to 50 or 60. It's a work in progress but it's getting there.

While we were talking to the members after church, we asked when this one member was baptized (at least we assumed she was a member cause she lives next door with a couple members and comes to church every week). Turns out she has been an investigator the whole time, and we didn't even realize. So we have had an investigator come to church for the past several weeks and we didn't even realize. Now the problem is we asked when we can teach her, but she told is she is too busy and has no time for that. So we'll see how that works out!

So passes another week in Vintar. How was it? Slow and steady wins the race. I know this church is true and I know that God is helping us along the way, through the good times and the tough times (which can be often at times) but he loves us and cares for us. Even though there aren't many here, the members and investigators have grown on me. I still love the people here. Just pushing though! Love you all! Until next week!

Elder Espiritu

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