New Year, New Goals

Wow it's hard to believe it's 2013 already. It feels weird writing it and everything. This past week has been great! From all your letters it sounds like youre all making goals. It makes me so happy.:) Goals are like the greatest thing ever. If there's one thing I've learned so far in the mission is that making and acheiving goals is one of the most fulfilling things in life. For example, Elder Cottle and I made a goal this past week to get certified. Him to be a district leader and myself to be a senior companion. Part of the certification includes memorizing scriptures, daily language study, learning to cook and clean, teaching skills, and developing Christlike attributes. All the things a missionary needs to learn in order to be a leader. In the past week we've memorized 10 scriptures and their references. I've also memorized all of D+C 4. Memorizing scriptures is fun! Elder Scott actually gave a talk on it in general conference not too long ago if I remember right. Our goal is to be certified at the next Zone meeting in 8 days.

We also have a goal to get a chapel in Villaba in April. That's the branch goal too. We have to average an attendance of 80 from January to March and continue to sustain it. We set a goal to have an average of 90 to leave no doubt that the Church is growing here in Villaba. This past week we had 74. However that is an improvement because the week before was 75 but there were 2 visitors from the Stake Presidency. We are totally going to do this.

We also have another baptism this Saturday! Angelo Areque is 10 and his 3 older sisters are members. His parents are not members because they aren't married. That seems to be a common problem here. We have at least 3 couples that we need to get married in order to get them baptized. From what I can understand from asking people, it's not a totally difficult process, it just costs like 500 pesos. 

Angelo Sinining is so solid it's amazing! He passed the Sacrament yesterday. He also brought his older brother Joseph to church. Angelo also wanted to work with us so he helped us teach his family and also accompanied us to visit a less active high priest. He participated in Young Mens and Sunday School. He has just really embraced the Gospel in his life. 

Also yesterday for the first time we had all the meetings of church that are supposed to happen. There was YM/YW, Elders Quorum, Relief Society, Primary, and Sacrament. We would have nursery however the meetinghouse is not quite big enough. For now they're just with their parents or with the Primary.

What is really surprising to me is that all of this happened but we could only work for 5 days out of the week in Villaba. We couldn't work on New Years Eve because President Andaya said so (there's a TON of fireworks and it's a huge deal here in the Philippines) and on Friday we had exchanges in Palompon. The Lord definitely poured down some blessings on this area this week. I'm so grateful that He listens and answers prayers.

I'm feeling great. I finished D+C and the Pearl of Great Price so now I'm just chugging along on the New Testament. I also am eating a lot of bananas. I bought a giant bushel for 40 pesos and I think some members saw me because the next day 2 different families gave us more bananas. The people here are incredibly nice it's unbelievable!

As always I love you all and I'm praying for you! Keep up the good work and "do everything in your power to achieve your goals" -PMG ch. 8

Talk to you all next week.

Elder McGuire