Monday, February 9, 2015

January 19th,2015: Climbing the Steep Mountains and Finding Less Actives

Maayad nga hapon!!(Gabi-i para kaninyo)
So I had a great week this week! I have a lot of fun stories and stuff, but first I'll answer your questions.
Our walk to the "Chapel" I would say is about 3 minutes.  Its close. Culasi might be 35000 people but Culasi is like a county.  There are a bunch of villages in it. The center part of it, where we live is probably like 5,000 i would say.  I don't know.  Its not big.  
The biggest spider I have seen would probably be the ones I saw in Pandan. Everybody says in the mission that the further north you get, the bigger the spiders are.  But, I saw a bunch of spiders with webs in the phone lines, and they were probably honestly about 6-8 inches long.  Pretty massive.  They were black, with no hair.  haha.  I couldn't get it a good picture of them though because they were far away and it was dusk.  
So, my pillow...hmm interesting question haha.  Its a pretty standard pillow.  I think it might be a down(sp?) pillow, but I'll leave it here if I'm transfered. By the way, transfer day is the 29th.  I have a feeling that I might be transferred.  I don't know though, its tough to tell.  

The craziest thing that has happened this week. hmmm.  That's a tough one.  Maybe the most memorable thing that has happened was that we got a referral, in fact we got a couple of referrals this week that are just way out in the boonies(we are excited haha)  in a barangay that is way in the mountains, in fact it is on top of one.  haha.  So, we are supposed to contact referrals as soon as possible, so on Sunday we took some of the members and took a trip out there.  The path though was pretty intense.  It was like a straight up wall.  The members were going to die, I thought.  Francis after about 5 minutes.  just sat down and said, I can't go any more! haha.  I just quoted a verse in the bible, which I knew was his favorite, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!  haha, he just popped up and started up again.  He just said, come on, you can't just pull out my favorite verse! haha.  It was kind of funny.  Anyways, we made it to the top of this mountain, and had one of the best lessons I've had yet.  I came out of that lesson feeling so good.  There is no greater feeling than that, just having a lesson where the spirit was.  I just walked out of that lesson with a smile on my face and I felt like I could convert that whole village! haha.  It just feels good to be a missionary.  I already know I'm pretty much done with a quarter of my mission, as excited as I will be to go home, I am just scared for this to end.  It is just so much fun!  The people are kind and funny.  We just get to go out every day and our only job is to talk to them and to love them and share with them what we know.  
So, I have only thing to say about the Connor situation.  Just always stick up for the right!  Its hard, but if you don't just take a stand, it just makes you feel guilty.  There is no better feeling then choosing the right, even if at the end of the day, you end up with no friends.  You've got great cousins who are your pals!!  haha.  Just hang in there.  You will look back at these experiences after you have graduated and realize that it was a blessing that you have those kind of problems because that's how you grow stronger!
Elder Coronel and I this week have really tried focusing on just talking to everyone and inviting everyone to hear the gospel.  I can testify that it helps in more than one way.  Although we did get more people that just run away from us, we did have an increased number of new investigators, and of them, people who are genuinely interested in our message. We have come across people who are prepared by the Lord. I mean people that are just ready.  Its interesting, even though most of those people at first are kind of avoiding us and are nervous that we are talking to them, as soon as they get comfortable and can feel the spirit, they can open up to all of these things that they are wondering.  People who are first tell us that they are devoted Catholics, are asking us if they are really going to see their spouses again.  The thing is though, that if we don't open our mouths to talk to these people, we never find them.  Even though there are some moments in talking to everyone that are...unfavorable... its worth it because you are more likely to find those people who are prepared by the Lord.
One other story that is pretty cool.  Last week, we were walking through a barangay, and we were just passing through, but we decided to walk through it a bit to look around because we had never been there.  We end up walking to the back corner, and we decide to talk to this group of people. It turns out that one of them is a member.  She was baptized when she was fourteen in bacolod, and moved here with her husband and never knew there was a meeting house opened in april. She has lived here for ten years!  And then we just miraculously found her out in this tiny village out in the sticks. We visited her once this week but she didn't come to church.  She lives really far away and is way poor.  I really hope that she will decide to come to church though. I am really excited though because this is my first experience with a less active, everybody in my area is a recent convert, so there are pretty much no less actives.  We kind of had a funny lesson with her though.  She was cooking in bamboo hut, and it was so smokey.  Elder Coronel was like crying becasue of the smoke.  Elder Coronel was like crying and then he goes to speak, and I'm pretty sure he was going to say something really spiritual or something, but he ends up saying, sister, can i sit on the ground, its really smoky in here. haha.  It was pretty funny.  
This morning we had a zone activity where we hiked to some falls in Sibalom.  It was pretty fun.  I sent you guys from it.  I wore flip flops though and it was not a good choice.  It was so muddy and hiking through rivers and up and down pretty steep and loose gravel, so they kept coming off and stuff, so I ended up going barefoot for a lot of it.  ouch haha, but it was really fun.  I'm so tired today though.  I slept over in Bugasong and there was a festival going on all night.  ALL night.  Loud music.  I think i'll be fist pumping for a least a week haha.  On top of that though I was sleeping on a tile floor, so yeah, I didn't sleep much last night haha.  
Anyways,  I hope you guys have a great week!

Halong kamo, 
Elder Robertson












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