Sunday, November 17, 2013

EXTRAORDINARY - as in, the best 10 7 13

Hello Family!
To describe this week in a couple of words: ...busy, sudden, happy, exciting, random, crazy, loaded, exchanges, tired, food, home, sleep, fun, exhausted, eat, laugh, bless, smile, whoops, uh-oh, haha, tired, sleep...BEST! --> This week was the best!  I'm going to try so hard to keep this short.  Just triast that every single sentance could have been it's own fuill-length report.
Coming into this week, it was supposed to be a nive, smooth last week for E. Alldredge.  Then it turned into this: MOnday, Pday. Tues, MLC (Leadership Council). Wed, exchanges in Tiwi. Thurs, exchanges in Santo Domingo.  Fri, zone training. Sat, baptism!  Sun, last day of E. Alldredge/ best day of church.  Much more between the lines.

I'll try to break this down a little.  Starting with the unfun things:  Lost two pens two days in a row and ate throat.  Yes... I ate throat.  It wasn't too bad, but still... throat.  Highlights: Exchanges with Max Moncur!  The classic drinking mango juice out of a plastic bag at a town fiesta was made even better with someone from home (I got to work with him all day, see pictures).  Also, remember that super progressing less-active family? (Bondad).  WEll now they've got their friends coming to church and their kids will be baptized!  Then best for last, right?  The baptism on Saturday.  The baptism, the baptism, the baptism.  This was so great.  Better start a new paragraph.

So the baptism was actually for the sisters.  A family.  They met President Guanzon (mission president) at a district conference then requested that President would be the one to baptize them.  He said yes.  This of course meant that now we had to do all we could for the week (when we actually had time to work in our area, only 2 1/2 days!) to get an investigator there!  Remember that guy named Noel?  Maybe I didn't mention him.  Anyways, we had the most spiritual lesson ever with him weeks ago then never got back to hom because he was always busy :(  Nonetheless, we decided to visit him at work (selling bananas) and invite him to the baptism.  he came.  It was the best.  Then he came to church with his daughter the next day.  Why though that the baptism the best?  During the actualy ordinance, he lookds at me and asked if we have  a picture of a baptism then says, "I need to show my family this.  We're getting baptized."  Then during the testimonies after, a baptized girl was vrying and Noel leans in and whispers, "I know why she's crying.  She's feeling the Spirit.  That's what I felt when you first taught me."  Then the young baptized son mentioned not drinking coffee and we were worried because Noel doesn't know the Word of Wisdom (we've only taught him once) but Noel says to us,"Okay, that's it, I'm not drinking coffee anymore."  It was better that anything you could imagine, or I could describe.
For Alldredge's last week of the mission, not only did we hear a thick Filipino accent of "God be with you 'till we meet again" over and over, but we also reached our companionship goal when we started three months ago: 50 people at church.  Yesterday... 51! (:  I was going to include a quote but I couldn't find it.  It was something about incredible, everlasting joy and happiness,  I'm sure you get the point (:  I can't say more!  Love you!
Elder Shane Brown
P.S.  I'm in Legaspi right now with two temporary companions and I'll get my new companion tomorrow.  Also, we watch general conference this coming weekend so I'll mention those things next week.








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