Rock City

Dum du du duh!!!!!

I've been transferred! I'm down here as a zone leader in Maasin Zone in Bato, Leyte. Bato means rock in cebuano. Yes I'm back to speaking cebuano. To make things a little more interesting the missionaries call it cebuano-j because it has a lot of influences of Boholano since Bohol is so close. That means that the Y's become J's. Maayo (good) becomes Maajo. Yep already I'm missing waray-s but it shouldn't be too hard to transition. The gift of tongues is real. It's been a year and 2 months since I left Villaba but I can still speak and understand the language for the most part. My companion is Elder Empase. He is from Escalante, Negros in Bacolod Mission. He's a native cebuano speaker so that helps. He goes home at the end of this transfer. He's a great teacher though and is really determined to finish his mission strong.

From what I've seen so far in Bato these next few months are going to be a challenge. It's going to be hard adapting from Calbayog where there was a baptism every week and the attendance averages 170 to Bato, where there hasn't been a convert baptism in almost 2 years and the average attendance is 65. There's a popular Tagalog song called "Pusong Bato" meaning Heart of Stone and that basically describes a lot of the people here.  We meet in a rented meetinghouse. On the bright side, the active members are pretty great. On Saturday morning we had a reactivation activity. That really made me happy because they do that every Saturday in Calbayog. Our branch president, Pres. Gonzales is awesome. He has been a member for 7 years and the branch president for 4. He's 27. He seems to really know how to delegate the work to the auxiliaries and lead the members. He has 3 small children and drives a pedicab for his job. Their family is sealed in the temple. They're really great.

We have had a bit of success so far. We started teaching Julius. All his family members are members already but he's not because he was at school in Manila when they were being taught. We taught him Saturday night and he committed to be baptized. Elder Empase told me that that was the first time that Julius actively participated in the lesson. He said that his whole countenance was different. Sometimes on the mission, you just feel like Heavenly Father is preparing people for you. He didn't go to church yesterday but he's a low hanging fruit that we are going to go after. He lives in the Matalom Sisters area but he wants us to teach him because he prefers us instead of the sisters. Matalom isn't a branch yet. Still a special sacrament group. I love being in this phase of the work. Where the church is still being established and it really requires us to be good examples and show what the doctrine of Christ can do for one's life.

In other news, I finished Jesus the Christ for the second time. Afterwards I wrote my testimony in it and gave it to Cian. He is going through some tough persecution from his family. If you get a chance, please put his name on the prayer roll in the temple. His testimony is super strong though. He continues to work with the missionaries and members for reactivation. He gave me one of his jerseys as a remembrance of him. It's a NBA AllStars West jersey with his last name on it. It's pretty legit.

So this is President Andaya's last week. It's kind of a bummer that I transferred because he is doing a devotional on Wednesday in Calbayog and then working with the missionaries on Thursday. I'll miss him but I'll never forget what I've learned from him. I'm very excited to meet President Maurer. I think we might have MLC next week so that we can meet him but I'm not sure of the schedule yet. 

My personal study has been in the war chapters. I'm studying about the stripling warriors. I finally found the verse I was looking for. Alma 56:27.  (And yes I got the package you sent :)) I love the quote in the student manual from President Packer, "Keep your covenants and you will be safe. Break them, and you will not." It's so true. When these covenant people were moved with compassion to help out their brethren by breaking their covenants, Helaman stepped in and told them that they had better keep their covenants instead. Can you imagine if they had broken that covenant? We would have never been able to learn from the example of these faithful young men because their fathers would have gone off to fight. We would never have the verses about how these young men did not fear death nor did they doubt the Lord's protection. I also love the fact that these young men were so faithful because of how their parents lived their covenant lives. I'm so grateful that I grew up in a home where sacred covenants were honored. I'm grateful for every sacrifice that was made to give me the opportunity to let me develop a testimony of my own.

That's about it for me. Pray for me that I can understand the people. Pray that their hearts will be softened. Pray that the members will be faithful the the covenants they have made.

Go share the Gospel. Tell your friends about the joy you have because you know you can be with your family forever.

I love you all!

Hurrah for Israel!