First Baptism!

October 21, Aborlan, Palawan

Hello, y'all!

Saturday was a monumental day for me; It was my first baptism! It's the day us missionaries sweat for! It was monumental not only because we could check it off that we had a baptism, but because after her baptism, Sister Decila Corpuz gave a very spiritual testimony which was so pure I couldn't believe it! 

Her testimony strengthened my resolve to try harder as a missionary, and helped me realize the awesome and epic power conversion has upon investigators in our religion! After the baptism, Decila asked us if she could work with us. !!! That's one way to have a member come to you in your lessons! We were able to go out with her on Sunday and it was possibly one of the best days I've had as a missionary.

This picture is of us missionaries and Decila Corpuz. 

This is a little quote I liked.

I feel like my journal entries either start with "Today was possibly one of the best days I've had as a missionary," or "Today was tough, not going to lie." But the latter is definitely fading from my pages, mainly because day by day the language is becoming less and less of an issue.  

Next Saturday will also be very eventful for us missionaries. Two people are being baptized: Michael Sevilla and Anthony Jadlock!  As I think I've mentioned earlier, Michael is getting married on Saturday morning! He's sent around a bunch of wedding invitations.  I got to teach him on Wednesday when I had the opportunity to go on an exchange with my old Tatay, Elder Balonsong. That, I'm pretty sure, was the best day I've had as a missionary going proselyting. We went from lesson to lesson, without fail. And the best part was I enjoyed it all. "We don't even have to try. It's always a good time." --Owl City.*
 That was definitely my feeling I had on the exchange. Tagalog flowed. We taught. People listened.

*This song plays all of the time, along with that P!nk and Fun. song, which I forgot the name of.

This is when I went on my exchange with Elder Balonsong. Guapo ba ako? Aborlan is blessed with a wonderful natural garden everywhere I go, most of the time. 

But I was glad to get back with Elder Hart, because we have a lot of people to teach, and not enough time to do it all. 

This is a monkey. I'm feeding him a Mentos. One RM in the ward who goes out with us owns him. He (the monkey) was scared out of his mind, because of the new faces, but warmed up after the Mentos, which took him like 20 minutes to eat cuz it was so sweet to him, it seemed.

One thing I've come to realize is that people's lives do not revolve around the missionaries. In fact, sometimes they avoid us. One day, we had a few people we were all visiting, but they were all busy. We didn't have anybody to teach, and we were in a pretty big dead zone. So, we said a prayer and saw a trike in the distance and waved it down. When we got in and the driver asked where we were going, we simply said "doon" or there, and pointed down the road. So we started down the road, not knowing what we were doing. Then we had a conversation that was as simple as it was original.

Us: "Where are you going?"

Him: "Magsaysay"

Us: "Oh, okay."

Him: "Where are you going, again?"

Us: "uhhh"

Us: "hmmm"

Us: "Magsaysay!"

And that was what we did. And it was magnificent. While we weren't able to teach anybody there, we were able to meet a ton of people and get return appointments that day. So if you want to pray for us, pray that we will be successful as we return to our new area, Magsaysay! I'm sure it'll be fun.

My internet time is running out here, but I have one more thing. I am extremely lucky to be emailing you all right now because the power has been out for about three days. It came on last night, but subsequently turned off again in the morning. We were going around shopping here, getting stuff (I got a sweet Lacoste watch for about 5 bucks! Woop woop!) and then we saw the power come on, so we hippity-hopped back to the internet cafe, since we were close. Because a university is right next to us (Western Philippines University) the students needed to come here to print papers. So right now there's a huge waiting line for me to finish here. So yeah, I feel very lucky today. But then again, I feel lucky any day. I couldn't say this earlier in my mission, but it's hard to believe that my life will be getting better than what it is right now. Maybe, just maybe, the Lord’s hand is being extended to the people in Aborlan.

In closing, I know that the church is true, and that missionary work is as fun as it is important.

kita kits mamaya! (see you later!)

Elder Thurber

PS

Staying healthy and wild! I am so in love with coconuts after being here in the Philippines. 

All clothing here is super cheap! Like, all of these shoes are about 20 bucks.