We are not alone in this work

Wow!  So time’s not slowing down at all!  Monday evening we went out and visited a referral of a member that lives pretty far away, and they were nice enough!  They’re this couple who have a lot of teenage sons, but they weren’t around.  Apparently the people this member wanted us to meet really bad was their daughter and her husband, who turned out to be a Methodist preacher.  But he accepted a baptismal goal date back before the old missionaries got pulled out.  But they weren’t home either…but these members, the Bulacans, ended up feeding us dinner!

Tuesday we were excited and ready for the work again!  We met and taught a lesbian woman named D in the morning...that was  interesting.  We taught Michael and Mariel the law of chastity, which they currently aren’t living because they aren’t married.  Then while we were teaching Marlon, my head just started aching super bad.  We taught Mia, who had tons of questions about the apostasy and gaining a testimony.  We read Alma 5:45-46 and left Alma 32 as a reading assignment.  I hope that helps!  We taught April and her grandma, but the environment wasn’t super great for teaching, so we didn’t finish teaching them.  We taught the Llamas boys lastly, and I was kind of out of it.  Sleep was much appreciated that night!

Wednesday morning we had district meeting and transfer announcements!  My house (Elders Westover, Tufele and Palabrica) are all the same!  Elder Armatage is going to train AGAIN, which means we get one more transfer together as zone mates!  Two district members are transferring, Elder Gallego and Sister Acosta, so those will be replaced by two new faces in my district!  And that’s all I have to say about that!  Wednesday afternoon we had a way cool new investigator, but she and her family are going out of town until after New Year’s.  We didn’t have anywhere to go at one point, so we started talking to this teenage kid and it turns out that he is a long lost member!  We taught him right there on the side of the road.  I hope it helped.  Thursday we had a really good lesson with Maricel and Lyn, who are starting to progress a little bit!  We taught April the rest of Lesson 1 and we taught Mia the Word of Wisdom.  She had great objections with the no coffee part.  We asked her if she could stop the coffee and she said no, then asked again why it is bawal (forbidden).  We told her again that God said it wasn’t good for us and we need to trust him.  That wasn’t flying.  So we then explained that it’s addictive and she protested against that as well.  Then we just used logic: it it’s not addictive, just stop it and prove to us that you’re not addicted.  Then she started to see. 

Friday we visited some new investigators and one of them, Novilyn, is so golden!  But, she’s moving to another province on the 27^th L.  We’ll refer her!  We also went by a member’s house that texted us because he was fuming mad at another member.  We listened for a while and shared Ephesians 4:31-32, and let him know that we are always here to help.  And it was the branch Christmas party that afternoon! 

Palayan Elders at the branch Christmas party!

Palayan Branch Christmas Party

Bien's mom doing kareoke!

And so many less actives came!  We had the children of some of our investigators come and Dahlia, Bien’s mom, came!  She had stopped listening to us these past few weeks;, but she really opened up at the party.  Heck- she belted out some karaoke! 
Big success.  We taught Dustin and the crew.  As Dustin’s been doing this scripture study every day, you can really see his growth.  He’s started asking great questions like, “Who’s Heavenly Father’s dad?”  Friday was also the day that a little red bump started to form next to my right eye.

Saturday was a good, solid day working in the vineyard.  We shared the Book of Mormon with Novilyn Gose and her family.  In the afternoon we taught Bien, then we taught Maricel and a couple of her in-laws who were rather receptive!  We had a great lesson with Mia!  She said in her praying to know that she’s felt a small change.  We talked for a while and what it comes down to is that she believes our message is true and that she needs to be baptized, but she hasn’t had that desire yet.  We taught a couple of less actives, then went home.  And that night I was starting to feel a bit irritable and exhausted.  Well, Sunday morning I woke up just not feeling good and that little red bump next to the side of my eye?  Not so little anymore.  It was kind of swollen and it hurt pretty badly.  At church I was not so hot either, then they asked me to teach the youth because the teacher didn’t show up.  I tried, but I just was really not feeling good.  I eventually went home.  I called Sister Clark and she told me to rest.  We had some appointments we needed to get to, so we went to those and then came home early.  I just rested and whatnot, but man, I just was not in a good mood.

This morning (P day) my eye is HUGE!  I’m feeling a bit better and I’m in a better mood, but my eye is almost swollen shut!  But it’ll get better. 

Painful, swollen eye :(

And as far as spiritual insights go this week, I had one thought.  Especially in this area I’ve always been praying for guidance and revelation as to what we need to do to break this area open, but it has never come.  BUT what has come has been very clear inspiration in making our lesson plans for our investigators, and the result has been incredible lessons where the spirit is super strong.  God always gives us direction, just maybe not the direction we expect.  We’re not alone in this work.  He’s working with us every step of the way!

Love you all!  Merry Christmas!

Elder Christensen