The Work Continues

Okay here we are in the land of the Philippines reporting more and more action week by week.

How many e-mails will have have by the end of my mission?

First off, I just want to say that everyone who is sending me letters from home, I am receiving them and I love reading them, they make me smile! I won't be able to send letters back home just because it is soo expensive to send a letter oversees and it takes a lot out of our support that we shouldn't be spending. So i am sorry that I am not writing letters back but I am receiving them and I do read them! Thank you for all of your support and love I really do appreciate it!

Anyways so to start off this weeks e-mail I have been called as a District Leader here in the Lucena. it was pretty random actually because it is half way through the transfer and we all ready had a District Leader, but some crazy things went down and I got a call on Thursday from the APs and they just told me that I am the new District Leader and just to jump right into it haha so okay now I am the new District Leader! I am pretty excited, honestly I have been kind of waiting for this experience. I have been told that Its not to bad, and it is really fun. I just have to report numbers to higher authorities conduct District Meetings, and go on exchanges with everyone in my District. So that sounds pretty fun to me! Looking forward to it!

So the results from  our week of Exact obedience was pretty successful we saw many blessings, and a more sensitivity to the spirit this last week. We had a lot a cool things happen that were just plain weird, but we knew that it came from our desire to be exactly obedient. Of course we are not perfect and towards the end of the week it turned back into our normal routine, which is still obedient of course but we just kind of lost the focus of being exactly obedient! Which wasn't good, but after this week we have a stronger desire to be more obedient as missionaries!

Here was a pretty cool experience:

So we were tracting houses and we came across the 17 year old, and we were just talking to him about the restoration and how it can help him and stuff like that, and after I got done talking to him I asked how he feels about what we have said, and this is what he said to me in English. " honestly man, I can't understand a thing your saying." WELL there goes my confidence in my language skills.... hahahah I laughed pretty hard, the kid speaks perfect English. So I try again in Tagalog to share a little bit about the restoration, saying pretty much the exact same thing. I then again asked him to tell me how he felt about what I was saying and he said, once again in English. " okay... now I feel like i want to go to your church." haha what the heck! ha it was cool to see the spirit hit him and help him realize our purpose. He didn't come to church but we are going to try and follow up with him.

This last week lesson wise, and numbers wise was the same but just with more spirituality, which helped a lot. It ended pretty sad though which wasn't fun to deal with but our Investigators Sisters Anabel and Elinor who were suppose to be baptized January 25 are just going downhill and were probably going to have to drop them here pretty soon. They say they know everything is true, and they read, and pray everyday. But they just want the baptisms to be "THE DAY"and they are just not ready to prepare for that because they have family problems, and they are to busy. They stopped coming to church and it just... sad. It was heart breaking to hear those words come out of their mouths. Just to see something that Elder Strobelt and I have been working so hard to help these people obtain salvation and happiness in their life, to help them be happy, and to know their savior in a more personal sense, and to see them kind of turn it down, is heartbreaking. Elder Strobelt and I pray for them everyday, and I pray for them so hard that they might be able to overcome their trials and challenges, but I guess its just not there time. So we will see what happens with them In the future.

The work must go on!!

So I can't think of anything funny that I did this week. I will try and remember to write stuff down thats funny and just plain different, to give you guys more of a laugh in my e-mails. but for now this is all I got! Thank you everyone!

-Elder Kikel

Just us Elders trying to be buff! The tall Elder next to me (Elder Crockett) is from Tacloban Mission, he is probably going to be back soon.