Elder Joseph Espiritu: Being Full

One of the best feelings I have is being full. What type of full would you say? Physical. Just kidding. Although being physically filled is important, being spiritually filled has a great value of importance in our lives.

I know we're a week late so this might all be old news to you, but we just got to finish General Conference which was great. Along with that I had an interesting week adjusting to a new companion, sweating and bringing souls to Christ. Let's break it down.

Monday I said goodbye to Elder Nichols and was helping other new Elders get to where they needed to go. All the new district leaders are just released zone leaders (and Assistant to the President) which is actually really cool, cause I know all of them really well.

Anyways, Tuesday came around, Elder Ballan came, a Filipino from Bicol Philippines. So far what I've learned about him: he's a nice guy. He's very observant and really detailed in teaching. It's a bit of an adjustment going back to being companions with a Filipino. After spending 4 1/2 months with 3 American companions, it's different being with a Filipino again. We get along, but are just working on random adjustments such as teaching and food :D

I am privileged to lead the area after 6 weeks. We actually had a good week for teaching. We had several good lessons with a very strong spirit. Every day we tried to track down some of our referrals (we have a lot) and we found a good amount.

One had several good questions about religion in general and then about ours, and listened very intently. 2 of the referrals we found really want to be taught, even though their parents don't want them to, and a couple always ask us when we can teach them. The Spirit is strong as we teach and I love teaching all these new people.

Along with the new people, I love the members in this branch. We were invited several times this week to eat with people, and this last Sunday we went from drinking coconut juice with my recent convert Grace, to eating a nice meal with Nanay Ligaya, then having a snack with Sister Rosalina. After teaching we had some bread and juice with some of our younger investigators. The people are awesome here in Allacapan.

So like I said the biggest highlight this weekend was General Conference. I've really come to love conference while I've been here and I learned a lot. A couple of big changes and awesome announcements in this church, and we're just going to keep improving. There are so many things I liked during conference. I'll just share a couple.

First: I really liked Elder Lynn G. Robbins talk about success. It's not only about going from failure to failure, but growing from failure to failure. We all fail and struggle sometimes in different areas, but if we give up then we will never learn.

Heavenly Father lets us fail and taste the bitterness of failure in order for us to grow. An example for me is the language. I'm still not perfect and make several mistakes but that's how I learn. The same principle applies to several things but that's how we grow!

Second: we never know when the opportunity is to teach our families. I don't have a family of my own yet, but I am grateful for the parents that taught me. We never really know when we are able to teach so we must always be ready.

Another statement that Devin D. Durrant said was how we need to teach obedience to others by showing our obedience. I thought about that while I am a missionary. I want to tell my kids (especially my sons) that I was an obedient missionary and they need to be too. So we can show others to be obedient through our actions! Always be obedient!

General conference was in a neighboring town and no transportation was provided, so none of our investigators and many members weren't able to come. It will all be better next week.

I'm excited for this cycle with Elder Ballan!

The Church is true and was restored through a loving prophet Joseph Smith. I love you all!! Email you next week!

Elder Espiritu

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

Riding back from Conference in a van

The Allacapan Elders and sisig

The Ballesteros zone sisters (Sister Cheney, Sister Altre, Sister Fontinilla, Sister Asetre, Sister Canoneo, and Sister Libre) (minus Siste Alejandro at Sister Fausto)