"And we preached in their streets..."

It's MONDAY!!!!

What a week it has been. Lots of ups and downs. Lots of great experiences. First off, THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH FOR THE EMAILS!!!! It really brightened my day to see a full inbox. Not sure if I'll have enough time to respond to all of you because we're headed to a FHE with a less active family in about 20 but I'll give it a shot.

We got to work this week. we really got down to business. We ended up teaching 17 lesson. 11 of which to less active families, This mission is a rescue mission but it's still important in bringing souls to Christ. One thing of note is that we do have 1 investigator committed to baptism already! Elder Cottle and I first started teaching Angelo Sinining this past week and we have plans to have him baptized in the OCEAN on CHRISTMAS DAY! He's 12 years old and living with a member family. He's really smart and I can tell his faith is growing.

On Tuesday we went to Palompon for district meeting and shopping. Theres a whole lot more options because Villaba is kind of smaller than most towns. My new favorite thing is ChocoMucho bars. Theyre safe and delicious. I'll be just fine because theyre cheap like 6 or 7 pesos a bar. The fruit here is AMAZING! The mangoes are unbelievable! The vegetables are great too!

Regarding the language... My trainer Elder Cottle says I know more words than him and the members say I have pretty good grammar. However, Filipinos speak really really REALLY fast. It is very hard to understand everything especially when they abbreviate all their words. I hope it will all start making sense with time.

We've had a goal to increase church attendance. It was up to 66 this past week from 47. I'd say thats progress. I have a personal goal to get a chapel built. there's just a smaller meeting house right now. The lots already been purchased and I walk by it every day almost. It'll take 3 straight months of at least 80 people consistently attending.  KAYA NATO! (We can do it!)

And yes it's always hot here. It's rediculous really. It's always hot and I'm always sweating. I miss being dry haha. I also miss washing machines. I've done my laundry by hand for the past two weeks and probably will for the rest of my mission.

On Sunday I was feeling a little homesick (as well as tired and hungry from fast sunday) Some of the priesthood holders that were at the activity on friday werent at church. After walking to Kabungaan and back because nobody was home and we don't pay for rides on sundays I was exhausted. I knew I was doing the right thing but I had feelings of inadequacy. We went and visited the Porquiado family later that night just a few blocks away from our apartment. Nanay Porquiado said she was in Alma 32 for her reading. I opened my BoM and looked at the scripture mastery card. I didn't really have the Spirit with me for the past few hours. My eyes kind of unfocused and I wasn't really listening to the conversation. All of a sudden I felt the Spirit prompt me that there was something on that page that I needed to read. My eyes refocused and the first thing I saw was verse 1.

"And it came to pass that they did go forth, and began to preach the word of God unto the people, entering into their synagogues and into their houses yea and they did preach the word in their streets."

The Spirit filled my soul. All my feelings of homesickness were gone. I know that the Lord answered my prayer and helped me feel loved. We closed the lesson and I bore my testimony. We then went and taught Angelo the Plan of Salvation. I love being a missionary. This is the best thing in the world. It's hot sweaty hard work. But I love it!

At a Zone Meeting this morning I found out that we had quadrupled our numbers from 2 weeks previous. I think I'll be just fine here in Villaba. We have Mission Christmas Conference this Friday.

As always I love you all and I pray for each of you each and every day. I invite each of you as I invite people here, to make sure you pray morning and night and have daily scripture study. The Lord will bless you if you follow is commandments. D+C 14:7

Until next week

Hurrah for Israel

Elder McGuire