2/4/13

NOTE TO THE READER:
ELDER MOLNAR HIT HIS 200 DAY MARK ON SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 2ND!!!

Oh oh hey there:

Aight aight... so for this week, we had another temple tour on Saturday. those are always a blast. since me and Elder Waite and his comp are in the same ward, we rented a jeepney with them and took like 20 of our investigators and less actives. It was way dope. Acouple of the girls we took, one recent convert and one less active, bore their testimonies yesterday in church about how much they enjoyed it. So dope. Oh which by the way, church was way good yesterday. We had a ton of our investigators come to church and so our gospel principles class was packed. One of our investigators who was supposed to get baptized soon has been too shy to come to church, but we taught her the other day and her friends who were over and they all came to church Sunday. So now we're teaching her and her two friends. Yeah. My new branch here is soooo much better. Still nothing compared to the states, but I love having people actually do their jobs and their callings.

Elder Waite - my MTC companion

Oh I got my first kiss here in the Philippines yesterday! Ha people always kiss each other on the cheek when they say hi in this area, but yeah. So yesterday a ward missionary told this five year old kid to kiss my cheeks. ha... yup.

Nothin' too crazy this week, but Saturday night I woke up like 3 times in the middle of the night (sick), so Sunday morning I just laid in bed and did some personal study. I read this talk and studied my scriptures for like 3 hours straight. Pretty proud considering how much I hate reading. But it's this talk a missionary pres in Chile gave called "Becoming the 4th Missionary" by Lawrence E. Corbridge. ( I highly recommend it if you have time, it's pretty long) but I'll just share a couple things I liked.. 

He talks about 4 types of missionaries. 1st - the ones who get sent home or go home early. 2nd - the ones who are disobedient, but still finish their mission. 3rd - the obedient ones who work hard and labor through it but withdraw their heart. 4th - the ones who give their heart to the Lord, and also the only ones who actually come home changed from their mission. The other 3 don't. 

He talks about how we can choose who we want to become. "your life's greatest work is you... do you think about that?.. have you planned your greatest work?.. we can choose who we want to become. but if we don't plan who we want to be and act on our plans, we'll never be that. 

He then talks a lot about how the 3rd missionary is great and works hard, but the whole time he labors and wishes he was back at home. Trunky stat. That missionary won't go home changed because "the good that you do, will do you no good, unless your heart is right." also "you can't be happy if you don't want to do the things that lead to happiness even if you do those very things." we need to give God everything. "you will create an ordinary man, he will create a God." Kinda like how the army says "be all you can be," the Lord says, "Let me make you all you can be." "It's easier to walk with the Lord than to labor against him." A swimmer once said his key to success is, "kick when you don't wanna kick and stroke when you don't wanna stroke." and then one last thing I liked that is a good reminder to me on days like Saturday when I'm chillin' with Elder Redder and he's showing me all his pictures he taped to his planner of him skiing Park City. Ah haaaa truuunkyyy.. but yeah.. "Don't itemize the total of all you left behind to serve a mission. Don't count the cost." If you think about all the blessings we receive as a missionary, eternal life, etc. it's really not much of a sacrifice at all... well yeah that's of good stuff. dope eh?

Well that's about all for now! write ya guys again next week! see ya in just 17 more fast sundays!

Ay-ayaten ka launay!

Peace!

Oh and then pictures... one's from temple tour. one's of me in a tree, duh. and the other is this nice lil' spider we found the other day. so many in this area.