Kamusta, tanan! {Hello all}
it's almost December! I totally forgot about Thanksgiving with them not having it here, but then again we should always have a season of thanksgiving in our hearts as we thank the Savior- all throughout the year, and especially as we try to remember the real reason for the upcoming international holiday of CHRISTmas.
Things are going well here in Naga with my new companion, Elder Seumanutafa; his parents are both from Samoa, but he was born in New Zealand and grew up in Australia. It's different having a Polynesian for a companion, but it's also awesome at the same time. Most of the time they assume he's Philippino because of his skin - I guess with how he's gotten skinnier here, he has become Filipino! :) He's doing his best to adjust to his first time being a district leader in a new area, but he's actually doing a great job with that. I'm learning a lot from him with different views and ways to teach and so much more.
So this last weekend, we had 7 baptisms!! I got to be the one to baptize all of them :) We were going to have one of the young men in our ward baptize some of his friends but there wasn't enough baptismal clothes for him to do that. I got a lot of compliments on mine with the white pants, shirt and tie. One of the coolest thing about the baptisms is that for all except the 8 year old girl and one of the guys from Seaside, for the other 5 I was there from the finding them all the way to their baptism! All the rest of them I was only there at the end or beginning. However, It was so cool to find, teach and prepare them for baptism, and then be the one to baptize them. We had one nanay {mother} that wasn't able to be baptized because she got sick that day, but she's going to be baptized this coming Saturday so that's okay. Her name is Rosita Ornacion and she's just a really nice old lady. She was friends with a less-active we were teaching, and joined the lesson at their insistence. She felt the spirit and continued to take the lessons, and when she came to church, she said afterwards that she had tried a lot of different churches, but this one just felt right to her. There was a different feeling there, and she really felt that our church was the one. Despite her memory gap which sort of keeps her from remembering all the specifics of what she's taught, she has a true and strong desire to be baptized and I feel like she has the faith and diligence to endure to the end as long as she keeps praying all the time and going to church every week and having people read to her from the Book of Mormon (she can't read because her eyes are "daot" {defected}). At any rate, she's super solid and I look forward to helping her be "born of water and of the spirit" John 3:5 [baptism on Saturday, and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost Sunday]
The weather here, on the other hand is a lot more unpredictable. Most of the time it's hot, but sometimes it gets super hot, and sometimes it goes from a hot morning to a rainy afternoon - I just make sure to keep my umbrella with me just in case.
So yeah, that's what's going on here! Hope's all well over there! ayo-ayo!
og misyonaryo sa Ginoo, {missionaries of the Lord}
Elder Dallin Carlson
it's almost December! I totally forgot about Thanksgiving with them not having it here, but then again we should always have a season of thanksgiving in our hearts as we thank the Savior- all throughout the year, and especially as we try to remember the real reason for the upcoming international holiday of CHRISTmas.
Things are going well here in Naga with my new companion, Elder Seumanutafa; his parents are both from Samoa, but he was born in New Zealand and grew up in Australia. It's different having a Polynesian for a companion, but it's also awesome at the same time. Most of the time they assume he's Philippino because of his skin - I guess with how he's gotten skinnier here, he has become Filipino! :) He's doing his best to adjust to his first time being a district leader in a new area, but he's actually doing a great job with that. I'm learning a lot from him with different views and ways to teach and so much more.
So this last weekend, we had 7 baptisms!! I got to be the one to baptize all of them :) We were going to have one of the young men in our ward baptize some of his friends but there wasn't enough baptismal clothes for him to do that. I got a lot of compliments on mine with the white pants, shirt and tie. One of the coolest thing about the baptisms is that for all except the 8 year old girl and one of the guys from Seaside, for the other 5 I was there from the finding them all the way to their baptism! All the rest of them I was only there at the end or beginning. However, It was so cool to find, teach and prepare them for baptism, and then be the one to baptize them. We had one nanay {mother} that wasn't able to be baptized because she got sick that day, but she's going to be baptized this coming Saturday so that's okay. Her name is Rosita Ornacion and she's just a really nice old lady. She was friends with a less-active we were teaching, and joined the lesson at their insistence. She felt the spirit and continued to take the lessons, and when she came to church, she said afterwards that she had tried a lot of different churches, but this one just felt right to her. There was a different feeling there, and she really felt that our church was the one. Despite her memory gap which sort of keeps her from remembering all the specifics of what she's taught, she has a true and strong desire to be baptized and I feel like she has the faith and diligence to endure to the end as long as she keeps praying all the time and going to church every week and having people read to her from the Book of Mormon (she can't read because her eyes are "daot" {defected}). At any rate, she's super solid and I look forward to helping her be "born of water and of the spirit" John 3:5 [baptism on Saturday, and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost Sunday]
The weather here, on the other hand is a lot more unpredictable. Most of the time it's hot, but sometimes it gets super hot, and sometimes it goes from a hot morning to a rainy afternoon - I just make sure to keep my umbrella with me just in case.
So yeah, that's what's going on here! Hope's all well over there! ayo-ayo!
og misyonaryo sa Ginoo, {missionaries of the Lord}
Elder Dallin Carlson
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