Sulit Talaga: Another Week...

The Andaya
family

Me, Edrian and Sis Ragragio

July 29, 2012
This week has been an interesting one. We had a baptism, Sis. Victoria Mayo. She has been an investigator now for 6 months, and she is soo dedicated, she was really ready to be baptized. It was a great baptism, but of course I have noticed that every baptism has it's challenges, it always never goes according to the plan. haha That is what I have learned, expect the unexpected- try to avoid any mishaps, but inevitably, it will happen anyways. So this saturday, we actually had a power outage or "brown out" as its called here. The power was shut off until 5pm. The baptism was supposed to be at 6 and the water for the bap font is hooked up to the electrical- so if no kuriente, that means there is no water- well, it turns out that in order to fill the bap font it takes about 3 hours- plus they still had to clean it before we used it. We tried everything- even hauling in other hoses to fill up the baptisimal font- it was crazy- even with us trying everything we could- our baptism still did not end up starting until around 7:30pm. It was a double baptism- cute little Edrian was finally baptized- completing this family. He is soo cute, my heart just melts, it makes me miss my nieces and nephews! it was still a great experience- and the members were real troopers, even though we had to wait for an hour and a half.
I have spent the last 3 or so months with Sis. Olila here before just planting and harvesting seeds, and not it's fun to see the fruits of our labors- see the people coming unto Christ and being baptized or finally coming to church after months of going to them.
We have one less active, Bro Carlos Marquez- we have gone to him for 4 months now and at first his heart was soo hard- he would just hide or ride his bike the other diretion if he saw us coming. He really didn't want to have anything to do with us. We used his children as a tool finally. A few weeks ago we just invited his children to come to church and they agreed- so we went and fetched them, and they came to church- and now..finally this week for the first time in 4 months, brother Carlos agreed to come. I about nearly died when we taught him sautrday and I asked him where he was going to be sunday morning, and he said- well we have church, right? haha I'm sure my mouth dropped I was so shocked he was willing to come to church, he with his 3 children.
Although we had a lot of successes- we also had a lot of challenges. Tears started to fill my eyes as I heard that a few of our returned less actives, one family in particular that I thought was becoming soo strong in their testimony- I found out he has been drinking, and had vulgar language and nagsugal siya or...he was gambling. Tears started to fill my eyes, I don't know what else I can do to make my teaching more affective, to really help them wake up. I know of course, we sometimes have disappointments in the mission field, but it is true it is the work of the Lord, I just pray that he will help me in order to really help these people here. I want to figure out whats missing- how to help them have that burning testimony. It's like they say; missionaries get tired, but they never get discouraged. Thats what keeps running through my head. I know we will continue to see success if we continue to do our best.

Anyways, this week was a good one- busy- the time is flying by we just have 2 more weeks in the transfer cycle- then maybe I will be getting transferred. I'm not quite sure. I dont want to leave my area. I love these people, I dont want to leave them, there is soo much work to be done. As in, SO much!
Well, I love you all. Mom & Dad- please try to keep your remaining 9 fingers until I get home :) haha Joke, I love you and I'm so sorry that happened of course you're in my thoughts & prayers.
xoxox
Love,