19 June 2011

Hey Family,

First off, Happy Father's day Dad! I'm lucky you know, because I have a sweet dad... a delicious sandwich of soup. I read about your retirement and I wish I could have been there to hear you speak. It sounded really cool.

That's sweeet Rob. You'll have to help me to buy a car like that one day. And cool about you battling poetry. I read your poems and I don't really understand, but they sound cool. But I do like the stream of consciousness. My english is dying a little. So is my Ilonggo, I just know what I want to say and whatever language comes out comes out, so it's really mixed up. I can't speak like 1 pure language though. Even when I'm speaking english sometimes I just through in random words. This morning I had to ask my philippino companion what a word in english was. The word just wouldn't come to my mind. But, he knew the word, and told me, when I showed him and asked what it was. heheh.

Our week this week, wasn't very weak, nevermind Rob, I can't do it. Anywo, our week was sweet. I forgot to get a new planner last monday so mine is full. I have 4 days of plans on one day, I had to write small and it confused me. My planner is precious to me. My only... my precious planner...but they stole its from us... just kidding, I should get a new one tomorrow.

Anyway, this week was pretty sweet. Carlito Nebor is still doing awesome. I love that man. He came to church again and he really loves it. It's hard to get him to understand because we have to yell at him, but his testimony is really awesome and he's really growing and has a testimony of church. He's telling his kids about it too. We got a couple new investigators from him. It's awesome. He's really understands everything. The gospel is really simple, and it just makes perfect sense why God is doing the things he's doing. And Carlito just understands it in a perfectly simply way. Like we asked him why God need to call prophets and he told us that obviously we need them because Jesus Christ isn't on the earth right now so we need someone to tell us his will, just like he's always done. It's way simple, and he really gets it. One of his sons seems way ready to hear the gospel too, Brother Joelito. We only taught him once but he seems good, and has 10 kids. I'm excited to see how Carlito's example helps his family.

On Tuesday, we shared with Sister Juliet again. She's the one whose mother-in-law was telling us to talk a hike and Elder Quinantoto asked if the mother-of-that-baby-that-you-are-holding would be willing to listen. Anyway, she did want to listen because she listened to the missionaries like 10 years ago and wanted to be baptised but her parents didn't want to because they were catholic. Even though they knew it's true they didn't want to change because it's just something people don't want to change here. It's like who they are or something and it's what their parents are, so it's what they'll be forever. We invited Juliet and Mark to be baptized and Juliet said she would right away. She said she didn't agree with the traditions of her fathers, and if it's right, she should do it. Mark is good too. He doesn't have any vices really and is way nice and interested. The main problem with them is we have to get them married. The main problem is they have plans to be married in December 2012, so the family has time to save money and gather together for their marriage... so it's kind of a tough spot. Hopefully we can just get them married sooner though and then December 2012 instead they can just go to the temple!! :D right? That's the only problem there. And after that we'll teach her mother in law.. hehehehe... :D Because she'll feel it's true too, and it's right. Because it is.

We have this one Less Active/Part member family that's frustrating me right now. I want to love them and help them though. Missionaries have been visiting them and teaching them for 3 years now, 2 times a week. For a couple times we tried to just share with them and get them to do stuff, family prayer for example. We discussed with them how they can do it and committed but they said they couldn't because "they are lazy" (is what they said) We tried to get them to do scripture study too or something. But they just won't. They said they'll come to church if they don't feel lazy. They know the doctrine, they know why it's important, they just won't do it. So we finally decided to do it with them. So we read with them a couple of times and it was going good. I wanted them to just get a love for themselves of the Book of Mormon and receive personal revelation through it. Anyway, we got to like 1 Nephi 3 and we were going to continue, but they were tired of it. They said they just wanted us to come and share a little something and explain it and then leave. While that's good, it hasn't helped them at all, because even though they know it, they don't do it, and they haven't become it. We're still trying to figure out what to do. We thought maybe we'd just do what they want, share a verse, invite them to do something, and then do that every single time we visit them. Share the same verse over and over and over till they do it! :D They love the missionaries and when we visit. So we'll see.

On Wednesday we went to one of our new investigators, Enrico. We met him when he was working in his field and he turned out to be way religious, and was wondering why there were so many churches on the earth. I really like him because he is a huge guy and speaks with a deep voice in Aklanon/Tagalog, or whatever it is I hear, and then randomly just says sentences in English, really dramatically, in the middle of his speaking, example "~Ilonggalog...~ I am a Religious man! ~aklanon~" Anyway, last week we kind of blew his mind with the restoration so I was excited to go back. We visited him again and he came out wearing his giant necklace and held it up and said to us in english, very dramatically, "THIS IS MY RELIGION... katholiko..." I said, "um... That's cool." And then we started talked. He was trying to get us to leave him alone and said he was tired and then gave us 2 referrals of his friends that we could visit so we would be busy somewhere else. (actually, they were pretty good referrals, they have good potential) Anyway, then his curiosity got the best of him and he asked us "Whose your pastor?" We explained we had a bishop which led into revelation and he just kept asking us questions about living prophets, how are they called? Anyway, we prayed with him and finally shared about the Book of Mormon. It was awesome. He's way interested and way religious and smart, he just seems a little scared to change. But he's sincere and I know he'll know the Book of Mormon is true and follow it. We actually offered to help him with a project so on Friday we shoveled rocks with him (my hands got destroyed though, but its cool, it just killed to do my laundry.) As we worked we talked about the word of wisdom with him and revelation some more. His wife came out later and asked if we want some coffee and he said, "Oh, we don't drink coffee, just milo is good." It was sweet, he understood that and accepted it right away. And when people walked past us. (It was just us three shoveling rocks) He would shout out, "THese are my mormon friends!" He really likes us. I was drenched in sweat as we worked though. There wasn't a dry spot on my shirt. I sweat a lot more than philippinos, it's kind of sick. Anyway, The next time we went to his house he had read more in the Book of Mormon than we asked him too and he finally prayed. He's way interested. We left him the Restoration Video as an assignment and to pray. He really has potential!!

Actually we are still teaching the family we found on my birthday. They are really sweet. They did the commitments we left and are progressing. It was sweet. I'm excited for them. I'm excited for a lot of people right now. I think this area is going to take off! I hope I'm not wrong, but I'll try to make myself right! It's goooing good. We're finally not like having to just go tracting anymore but are just being given investigators and we always have somewhere to go. Like on Sunday these members came up to us and said these random people in their neighborhood told them, "You're mormon? Cool! Would you mind sending missionaries to our house? We want to learn." So on Sunday we visited them with our member. These people were never former investigators or anything, they just have seen us walking around and wanted to know whats up. :D

Well, I think that's mostly it. I love you!
Take good care.
Palangga ko kamo!
Elder Joshua Burton