Hello!
Elder Simmons and I's first full week together! And after just thgis short time, we've had a great work together. We experienced quite a few cool things this week, despite it being 92 degrees in our apartment at night. So besides the constant buzz of our electric fans, we've also had a bit of excitement in the air with what we've accomplished this week.
To get us started, Simmons' Tagalog is really picking up. After trying to only speak in Tagalog while out of the apartment, he was able to narrow his major mistakes down to just one this week: Quick Tagalog lesson - puso means heart, and pusa means cat. I think you can see where this is going... Hah so we were teaching this family how to pray and instead of telling them the important this is that the prayer comes from the heart, Simmons confidently told them that prayer should come from the CAT! Whoops. Other than some improvement in the language, we were able to reel in plenty of new investigators through sharing an Easter message. Basically, no one here will deny an Easter message about Christ. We have a few different approaches, but my favorite is sharing Matthew 28: 1-6 where the angel announces the Christ is riden then after some discussion we move to D&C 76:22 where Joseph Smith plus Sidney Rigdon proclaim "That He lives!" It's a great way to have people trust us and be a little more open as we read together from the Bible, but then we also get to slip a little modern revelation in to set up more for next time. It's pretty cool, and probably all we'll be doing this coming week seeing as it's "Holy Week" here.
We had countless amazing experiences this week. We really felt the spirit as we found new people who completely opened up their lives to us and as we were asked to give blessings. I could talk (type) your faces off, so I'll just share one. Basically, there is this old guy (about 50....ancient!), Tatay Aquino. He has a sickness where his whole body hurts and sometimes (last year it happened for the first time just once) the pain is so bad that he can only lay down. Well last week, the really seriously bit began to return to him. He was completely bed ridden, and couldn't even open his eyes when we found him. We gave him a blessing of healing. Next day, the Branch President comes to see him, which was good because his family all of a sudden had to leave. The Branch President left so it was only Tatay Aquino laying down in excruciating pain. As he suffered there, all he could do was pray (I was about crying at this point in his story). Then he felt the presence of someone in the room. He was able to just barely squint his eyes open enough to see someone in pure white sitting on his bedside chair. He kept praying for relief, not being able to speak, and slowly, he began to feel his pain leaving. Before he knew it, the person in white got up and left. Within moments, Tatay received all his strength and could get up to walk around (first thing he noticed was that all the doors to the house were still locked and closed...). Now, I can't say who was sitting there at Tatay's bedside adorned it white, but I do know that I saw a miracle. A loving father who was crippled to his bed, was now up and walking. Since then, he has been able to afford his medicine and is now making his way to a complete recovery.
My heart is really being touched here. Also, we were given Welch's Grap Jelly (!!!!!!!!) from a family with a sibling in America. That was about on par with everything else (:
That's it. Love ya!
Elder Brown
Pictures -
1. Me standing in a field.
2. Same field, closer picture.
3. Kinda bright but I figured I'd send it anyways ah
4. Our group leader's kids
5. Standing for a picture
6. Again, standing there to have my picture taking.
7. Me and Elder Simmons at this very moment that I'm typing this in the internet shop.
Elder Simmons and I's first full week together! And after just thgis short time, we've had a great work together. We experienced quite a few cool things this week, despite it being 92 degrees in our apartment at night. So besides the constant buzz of our electric fans, we've also had a bit of excitement in the air with what we've accomplished this week.
To get us started, Simmons' Tagalog is really picking up. After trying to only speak in Tagalog while out of the apartment, he was able to narrow his major mistakes down to just one this week: Quick Tagalog lesson - puso means heart, and pusa means cat. I think you can see where this is going... Hah so we were teaching this family how to pray and instead of telling them the important this is that the prayer comes from the heart, Simmons confidently told them that prayer should come from the CAT! Whoops. Other than some improvement in the language, we were able to reel in plenty of new investigators through sharing an Easter message. Basically, no one here will deny an Easter message about Christ. We have a few different approaches, but my favorite is sharing Matthew 28: 1-6 where the angel announces the Christ is riden then after some discussion we move to D&C 76:22 where Joseph Smith plus Sidney Rigdon proclaim "That He lives!" It's a great way to have people trust us and be a little more open as we read together from the Bible, but then we also get to slip a little modern revelation in to set up more for next time. It's pretty cool, and probably all we'll be doing this coming week seeing as it's "Holy Week" here.
We had countless amazing experiences this week. We really felt the spirit as we found new people who completely opened up their lives to us and as we were asked to give blessings. I could talk (type) your faces off, so I'll just share one. Basically, there is this old guy (about 50....ancient!), Tatay Aquino. He has a sickness where his whole body hurts and sometimes (last year it happened for the first time just once) the pain is so bad that he can only lay down. Well last week, the really seriously bit began to return to him. He was completely bed ridden, and couldn't even open his eyes when we found him. We gave him a blessing of healing. Next day, the Branch President comes to see him, which was good because his family all of a sudden had to leave. The Branch President left so it was only Tatay Aquino laying down in excruciating pain. As he suffered there, all he could do was pray (I was about crying at this point in his story). Then he felt the presence of someone in the room. He was able to just barely squint his eyes open enough to see someone in pure white sitting on his bedside chair. He kept praying for relief, not being able to speak, and slowly, he began to feel his pain leaving. Before he knew it, the person in white got up and left. Within moments, Tatay received all his strength and could get up to walk around (first thing he noticed was that all the doors to the house were still locked and closed...). Now, I can't say who was sitting there at Tatay's bedside adorned it white, but I do know that I saw a miracle. A loving father who was crippled to his bed, was now up and walking. Since then, he has been able to afford his medicine and is now making his way to a complete recovery.
My heart is really being touched here. Also, we were given Welch's Grap Jelly (!!!!!!!!) from a family with a sibling in America. That was about on par with everything else (:
That's it. Love ya!
Elder Brown
Pictures -
1. Me standing in a field.
2. Same field, closer picture.
3. Kinda bright but I figured I'd send it anyways ah
4. Our group leader's kids
5. Standing for a picture
6. Again, standing there to have my picture taking.
7. Me and Elder Simmons at this very moment that I'm typing this in the internet shop.
