Sunday, May 27, 2018

Sparking Testimonies and Refrigerators

Hey y'all it's Elder Espiritu here just living in the heat of the Philippines and doing the Lord's work. You know for having mostly the same schedule it's pretty amazing to see what interesting things can happen week by week and the weird things I can say that has happened to me while I've been here, such as my back drying up to the point where I feel like a lizard and our fridge having a firework show early in the morning. 

We are happy to report that I got to talk to an awesome 14 year old about how he came to know the Church was true and attend his baptism along with our baptism of Elizabeth!

I'm not sure how or why, but Monday night I just noticed my shoulder was really dry and it kinda hurt. I called the Sister missionaries who are in charge of medical stuff and they asked if it was just my shoulder. Turns out my whole back was just red and cracked. So I had to buy some random medicine and for the most part it's getting better. I'm just confused why this would be happening right before I go home. I mean I've been here for so long already and it only now starts to dry up. Oh well, it's all good.

Anyways here's a little fun story: On Wednesday from 6AM-6PM we had a scheduled black out (except here they call it a brown out). This isn't the first time I've experienced it so I'm used to that happening. You just endure the heat. It passes by fast and it's no big deal. But because there was no power the whole day all the ice in our fridge melted and leaked out.
 
Once we got back later that night we discovered a dead rat in the puddle that the fridge caused, so we threw it out, didn't think much of it. Turns out the rat was chewing on the chord the whole day so around 2:30 in the morning all 4 of us woke up to bright lights flashing downstairs and the sound of loud bangs. Once it stopped we went down to investigate and found out that the chord of the fridge got wet and because it was chewed on the chord basically blew up. The copper inside the chord was gone. 

We were not expecting anything like that to happen, but luckily for us, we got it fixed the following day. I never thought I would be able to say I've had a fridge blow up at 2:30 AM, but now I can!

Another fun story: As we were teaching a couple of kids we saw the mother come home and when she saw us she didn't really do anything, just kind of ignored us. So after the lesson we went over and tried to become friends with her. She didn't look happy at first and the first thing she said to us was "matigas ang kalooban nyo" which really confused us, because usually when you hear matigas (hard) said to you personally it's kind of an insult such as matigas ang ulo mo (you have a hard head) but what she was trying to say (but had a little harder time cause she is Ilocano and not Tagalog) was "Malakas ang kalooban nyo" which means we're strong willed. 

The woman was very nice and we learned to be friendly to everyone even though they may not seem nice at first. Just talk to and love everyone!

Alright now to the more spiritual side, because I'm now serving as a District leader, I get the opportunity to interview the other missionaries' candidates for baptism. The person I interviewed was named Christopher. 

Although only 14 years old, it was awesome to see how strong his testimony was. When I asked him why he says this church is true, it's because he prayed about it by himself and heard a voice tell him it was true. It was awesome and he was baptized and confirmed this last week.

Because of the hard work of the last 2 Elders in Cabugao, they left behind a wonderful woman named Elizabeth. She is an awesome 57 year old who has such a strong testimony. 

We were able to have her interviewed and baptized this last week with Christopher. She is so good and I already love her even though I've only known her for 2 weeks. You just come to love people so fast here on the mission and it's awesome.

The people here in Cabugao are awesome and I love it here. The work here is still a little slower because we're still building it up, but time flies fast. I'm lucky to be able to serve here in Cabugao and it's an awesome experience. 

I can't wait to meet more people that are ready to come closer to Christ! That's all for this week! Love you all!

Elder Espiritu

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

Baptism and Chopping wood :D







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