CALLED TO SERVE: receptive with a return appointment

receptive with a return appointment

hi mama,

nay! buhay pa! lifes going good! the past 3 days we have had a lunch and dinner appointment. truly the promised land.

so i finished reading dans mission book. time for round 2! loved that book. great kid.

a little bit more about my area, our house is a couple minutes walk from the chapel and there are an insane amount of members on the street! super fun! theres a couple youth in the final phases of their mission papers so we work w them everyday! very fun and sunny!

and about the house. so we had a surprise apartment check and.... they were not stoked. but tons of love still! in dupax we were pulling off perfects!!

but yeah timmy was talknig about cockroaches in our emails and joel mentioned he had a couple too. before my mish i thought that would freak me out but in dupax when i was washnig my clothes there was always a couple running around when i would rage on my yellowish white shirts, it was nice to have something to distract me. but yeah, cockroaches don't faze, super chill house mates. and everywhere has like salamanders on the walls but they are your friends bc they eat flies n stuff so you invite them in. but other than that we've had mice! but back home that stuff freaked me out but its been fun having them around. occasionally they pop out and it is fun trying to keep track of them. basically i'm shocked that they don't faze me anymore! you just adjust. but then he started eating the cereals you sent! so Elder Castro managed killing 3 with a broom! the kids a whiz. i only thought there was one but the fact that we've killed three explains a lot.

on a more spiritual side, i met a man i never want to forget. his name is paul and he has had it rough since birth. his body has some issues meaning he can't control his legs (knees and down) and can't use his right arm hardly at all. super hard to explain his body but he gets around by crawling on his knees with like pvc caps on them (his legs are folded in half, like feet touching his thighs) and his left hand. or he will drag himself on the dirt floor of his house. the members built him a tricycle hand crank bike for getting around. he bikes every sunday over 5 kms to church. and seeing him crawling around at church makes me literally feel guilty standing up. the thing about his bike is he lives at the bottom of a rough bumpy dirt road. so we taught him and sung to him "be still, my soul". after the opening verse, we were all pretty much in tears and then we shared DC 101: 35-38. the spirit was insane. hard to explain what this man means to me. my whole mission has been worth it to meet him.

i never want to forget this man, paul

another cool experience was to interview 3 people for baptism (responsibility of a district leader). 1 on 1. tagalog lang. all three took close to an hour and all were very different and special. the first was a 12 yo who blew me away with his desire to get baptized and knowledge from the lessons. we were in a very cool location surrounded by jungle and a cool view. then his mother, testified how grateful she was for you for raising me in the church and giving me that blanket of safety even when i maybe didn't want it and how important that is for her son. again some tears. i love interviewing.

this week has been spiritual almost every lesson. saw tears from lots of people. w so much love, i told a LA lady "you need to repent and come back to church".

sorry, but these once a week letters don't even cover 10% of the mission experince. my journal maybe 50. theres just so much.

ugh love it.

hymn 124 Be Still, My Soul

"when disappointment, greif, and fear are gone, sorrow forgot, loves purest joys restored."

"thy best, thy heavenly friend through thorny ways leads to a joyfull end"

TATAY KEARL