Happy New Year Friends and Family!
I hope your New Year's experience was a lot more exciting than mine! We had a lockdown from the Area President telling all missionaries had to go to their apartment at 6:00pm and remain there for the rest of the night, following the sleeping schedule for missionaries. Consequently, I ended up going to bed at 10:30 after reading the scriptures for four and a half hours. I'm not complaining, it was a really awesome experience to feast upon the words of Christ, just not what you normally expect on a New Year's Eve.
This week was alright. The new Elders coming to our apartment showed up a day late based on a Typhoon that delayed travel times. The problem was, they didn't inform us that they would be late, so we waited outside in the Typhoon for 4 hours looking for their bus, only to return home soaking wet at 10:30. The next morning we were then informed that the other Elders would be arriving on Wednesday rather than Tuesday. So we had to wait the rest of Wednesday morning for them to show up by Jeep-ney. It was a pretty nice experience.
The rest of the week wasn't very eventful. New Year's is pretty big here and people we talked to were simply not interested in taking time away from their festivities, so we focused mainly on Less-Actives and Member Training lessons because they were willing to listen. We had some awesome lessons to some of the less-actives in our area. The spirit was felt so strongly and they committed to come back to church the next Sunday. They didn't. But that's OK, I know they felt the Spirit because we felt the Spirit, which lets me know that I did my job as a missionary.
My companionship is still... interesting. I've essentially become the Senior Companion in planning/evaluating/updating the Area Book, but my companion decides to not follow the plan I created and shared with him, so we're kind of in an interesting situation.
Now for the Spiritual Thought. I was reading in Mosiah this week about Abinadi and his words before the priests of King Noah. He rebukes them for preaching the Law of Moses but not keeping it themselves. This is a warning to all of us to not become hypocritical. If we preach something, we need to teach it. In other words, if we say we're going to do something, we need to really do it. Words mean nothing if actions do not follow. This new year, I hope all of us have made goals on how to help ourselves become more like Christ. I know I have. However, how many times have people made new year's resolutions and simply forget them by February? We say we're going to change, but we hardly do. In Tagalog, that characteristic is "Parang Salita," meaning "Just Words."
I'm sure all of us have been "Parang Salita" at times in our life. However, we can always repent and change. This year, let's try to do our very best to accomplish the goals we set for ourselves. Do not be like the wicked priests who are righteous in words but not actions. Let us all truly strive to accomplish the goals we have to become more like Christ.
Until next week,
Mahal ko kayo!
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