1-11-12

Hey!

So much to say this week! Holy cow!

So work just exploded this week, and along with that, we saw Amazing success. We taught 32 lessons this week, saw 3 inactive families and 1 more individual come back to church. We organized a Temple Prep class for 4 individuals, 1 of who is the wife of an RM and their family is planning on being sealed shortly after she finishes the prep class. We also started teaching a family who was previously completely against us, but through our teaching their father, their hearts have been softened and they now want the missionary lessons. We are also working with the Bailys (The senior couple assigned here) in order to clean up the Membership Records, and that is coming along really well too.

So that was a very short condensed version in order to save time. So let me explain a little how this has been working. Tracting is now against mission policy, so that means that planning is very important. If we get punted, we can't fall back on tracting anymore, so we need back up plans for our back up plans. We still tract, but we tract for members. The membership rosters out here are extremely messed up to say the least, so a big part of our job is also to correct those, and find the lost members who's addresses are listed as "Cebu, Philippines." Since Cebu is such a big area to search blindly, we are honing our detecting skills and it's been pretty fun playing Sherlock Holmes out here. When we do locate members, the reactions vary. Most, not all, seem to be pretty hard-hearted at first, but they open up through diligent effort and love. Some inactives need all the lessons again, some just need a push to come back to church, and some, like the Sanchez family, are locked and loaded, and just needed to be visited a couple times to pull the trigger. The Sanchez family is my all time favorite family of my mission so far. Bro. Sanchez is an RM who went innactive and his wife went with him. They have 3 kids but were only married by law, and Sister Sanchez has yet to be endowed. When we found them last week Bro. Sanchez just about tackled me. They were so happy to see the missionaries and welcomed us in to teach them. Bro. Sanchez, and almost I as well, was in tears by the end of our lesson, and they all committed to come back to church. They did, and when we visited them again, I mentioned that we would start our lesson with a prayer, and immediately all 3 kids jumped up, and knelt in a circle with their arms folded and heads bowed. I almost fell over. Brother Sanchez, the father, has such an amazing testimony and he is in tears every time we teach them. They are so amazing, and so ready for the blessing of the temple. Sister Sanchez is now in a temple prep class and they are all preparing to be sealed.

This is just one of many success stories we've had this week, and it's blowing my mind. My comp and I are also getting along pretty well, and we are getting better at teaching in unison every day. I wish I could just go on forever, but I'm out of time for today. I love you all so much!

Elder,
Garver

P.S. You all need to be out doing your part too! It's not just members in the Philippines that need to be rescued. There are families out there just waiting for your help. Don't let them down!