1-16-13

Good Morning Everyone!

Thanks for the advice on the college application Mom.  I'll start that later today.  I'll email you again with an update later.

A little bit more info about my new area; I am still a Zone Leader, and My Zone consists of 20 Elders and Sisters.  My companion is a boss, and my area is sweet.  We teach a lot of less and inactive members here, which I love because it allows us to boldly proclaim repentance just like the great prophets of old.  I love proclaiming repentance. 

We are going to see the huge influx of sisters this next transfer.  I think I heard there are 30 that are coming in this transfer alone.  7 Filipinas and 23 American Sisters.  Things are about to get crazy...

So this week was good!  I got a little stomach virus last Saturday but I've almost completely recovered. 

We went to ZLC and taught another awesome Zone Training about the Spirit World and how great or how awful that is going to be, and how to teach that more effectively to our Less Actives.  It's pretty simple.  If we were offered a trip to Disney World for a week with free lodging in a super nice hotel, and all we had to do was fulfill some little requirements like going to church once a week for a couple hours, think of how easy it would be!  We can see what we want, and in comparison, the requirements seem trivial.  In the eternal perspective, if we can just get our less active members to understand how wonderful spirit paradise will be and then the celestial kingdom, they would do anything in order to obtain that.  Then once they also understand how awful hell will be in the spirit prison followed by eternal damnation, it's not even a question anymore as to whether or not the sacrifices in this life are worth it.  I realized this week just how bold we are in our teaching here.  I don't know about other missions, but here in the Philippines, we are direct and bold.  Really bold.  Now of course it's with love that we say these things, and I have yet to have even one person take offense to what we've taught because we teach through the scriptures and speak through the Spirit.  I wonder though if we would teach the same way in English.  Probably.  It's the exact same way the book of Mormon missionaries taught.

We also got invited to teach in a college this week; that was awesome.  We stood in front of a little under 100 students and taught them that we had the only true church on the face of the Earth and that we had a living prophet and the priesthood of God.  It was great.  We were invited to come back next week as well so we are super excited to teach more.

This week is Sinulog, the huge fiesta that Cebu is famous for, and I am pretty close to the main city where it is held.  I don't know if it'll reach here but I hear it gets pretty crazy.  I'll tell you about it next week.

Love,
Elder Garver