Dear Family and Friends,
This week was great! To start off, this week I was blessed and privileged to be the baptizer for a wonderful sister who has come a long way to receive the blessing of baptism. It has been really impressive to see the change of her heart over the course of the past 5 weeks. She used to be so bored with the lessons she found watching the bugs fly around the lights more entertaining than the lesson. As we took it slow though, she became more interested, and as we made the lessons more personal, she found more meaning behind the words of the gospel. When she bore her testimony, it was sweet and you could tell it wasn't just things she thought were true, or things she had heard, but things she had faith in, and things that she desired for her family. So that was definitely a highlight for me!
This week was great! To start off, this week I was blessed and privileged to be the baptizer for a wonderful sister who has come a long way to receive the blessing of baptism. It has been really impressive to see the change of her heart over the course of the past 5 weeks. She used to be so bored with the lessons she found watching the bugs fly around the lights more entertaining than the lesson. As we took it slow though, she became more interested, and as we made the lessons more personal, she found more meaning behind the words of the gospel. When she bore her testimony, it was sweet and you could tell it wasn't just things she thought were true, or things she had heard, but things she had faith in, and things that she desired for her family. So that was definitely a highlight for me!
This week the city of Binalonan has been having a festival for the Miss Binalonan Contest (Johnson Family, I could help but think of you guys and the Miss USA party). For a whole week they have other things, Senior citizen dancing party (about as entertaining as you think), Binalonan Idol (There are some very good singers here), and huge marketplaces set up everywhere. Now something I thought I should tell you about, the marketplaces here don't list prices, because you barter for everything here. One disadvantage of being American here is the Philippinos will take advantage of that and charge you almost triple. So if you ever visit, make sure you talk down the price by at least half. In addition to eating dinner at the festival we have used this as a good way to track down and contact Less Active members and Investigators. Along with the festival they installed a new fountain at the town hall which was huge, al night they have people sitting and watching the fountain, and I will admit it is pretty cool, especialy since it changes colors!
e also received new missionary vehicles, and I have had the privileged of being the designated motorcycle driver. In the picture this is the 1st time I used the bike when we received it. If you haven't heard already the church is trying to see if it can cut the costs of transportation by giving companionships motorcycles. Its been fun.... Just joking... I wish, but this is a members bike that I realy like so I took a picture on it!