My 18 month LDS mission in the Philippines: Week 22

Week 22

This week was my bold week. Pretty sure I will remember this exact week for the rest of my life! We are officially 5 weeks into training and I can't believe it. The mission is seriously the weirdest emotional roller coaster. We had such amazing experiences this week and some really hard ones. Shout out to my favorite elder a few hours north who just got promoted to zone leader!

Okay so first for the boldness explanation: We had training check-up for my anak on thursday and President Peterson really put things in perspective for us. Basically every less-active member here has been offended. Which makes up 80% of the members in the philippines. it's kind of a cultural thing. So anyway, this week we went to see a sister who had been a fully active member of the church for a LONG time. Then she was offended and has not been to church in a year. We began the lesson talking about forgiveness but it kinda went more into repentance. She told us: Sisters, I know what repentance is. I do it every day. Don't teach me about these things I need to do. So it was silent for a while. And I realized it- everything all at once. How frustrating must it be for the people that care about us to see us making the same mistakes over and over. When they know they can help us but we won't listen. I realized how responsible we will be held for our blatant disobedience to God's commandments. And how sad He must be to see some of the decisions we make when we know better. So I looked her straight in the eyes and sad: Of course you know about repentance.You are a member of the church. What we want to share with you is how that process cleanses us. That is by partaking of the sacrament. But we can't do that unless we go to church. So we cannot fully repent or continue to keep our covenants we made with God at baptism if we do not take the sacrament. We left that lesson and I was kinda shook up. I questioned if that was the right thing to say, or if it was even right at all. But me and my companion felt okay about it and so did that sister. I had like 3 experiences like that this week!

We got some really hard news about our investigator who was supposed to be baptized in 2 weeks. We found out yesterday that she is no longer able to be baptized. We were SO sad for her. I really love her and I have seen her life changing so much for the better. I couldn't stop thinking about her all day yesterday and I got kinda discouraged. So I'm in Alma right now and today I read Alma 17. LOVE it. It answered every concern I had about my job as a missionary and how I should measure my success. By how committed I am to The Lord and His work. It was the perfect answer to my prayers. (:

My ward is amazing and had a family home evening yesterday with an investigator family of ours. They were a referral from a less-active sister who has been coming back to church. Missionary Work is such a powerful way to help people remember their testimonies. Kinda like us missionaries. We realized how converted we are when we share the gospel with others. It was such a blessing to see and hear the testimonies of this less-active family to their friends. The Spirit was so strong. The less active brother invited his friend to church before we could even say anything! He committed to come back to church finally and bring his friend. SO awesome.

Okay have a good week all! Love

-Sister Gaspar de Alba