Another Insanely Crazy Awesome Week of Misson Awesomeness May 25, 2015

There is so much I want to say this week, but so little time to say it in... My new companion is Elder Lanuza from Cainta, Rizal. He is from right by Manila. He's actually my first companion who dosen't know another dialect from here in the philippines. He is pure tagalog. He is really nice and has a strong desire to find. And to cook... which is nice. I've kind of been lazy about cooking recently. It just takes a lot of time... Our district actually just got smaller... and it is kind of sad... There are only four of us. I really hope it gets bigger next transfer though... It is kind of lonely here with just four of us.


I've noticed here that almost all of the people want to do good things and to help others. This is a really good thing, but it can be a problem when it comes to religion. We had a really sad experience when teaching a less active family this week who went back to their old religion (I heard that they originally stopped going to church because they were offended by a member). They just kept telling us that all you have to do is keep the commandments and put the Lord first in your life and you will be saved. They just don't understand that doing good won't get us all the way there. Heavenly Father has provided us with a way to come back to his presence and if we don't follow his plan we simply can't do that. We have to have faith in Jesus Christ, repent, be baptized, receive the Holy Ghost, and Endure to the End. There's no other way. I think people just get confused when they know they are doing something good. They forget that they could be doing something better. We really have a debt to our Savior and we can't pay it back by being good. We can't cancel out our sins with our good deeds. We must follow the Gospel if we want to be forgiven of our sins.


I think this sort of confusion happens to missionaries too. They forget the fact that they promised to serve and obey and give their all... I think a lot figure that it is ok to hold back because, after all they are still finding and teaching and baptizing and that is still something good. It is good to do good, but I feel like we have a responsibility to do more than that.


Thanks for listening to all of that.


In other news, I feel like the work has been going kind of slow. Elder Lanuza and I are doing great though here in Pili. I am so thankful to be his companion. He has a great desire to find people to teach, which is exactly what our area needs. I feel like the biggest problem with our area is that the people we teach are so spread out which creates a big problem when we make plans to teach someone and they aren't home for the appointment we set. We plan on working hard to find, find, find when this happens. I'm not really too excited about the prospect of finding more people to teach in far away areas, so we are going to focus on our closer areas first. It is kind of frustrating when we walk forever to get to a teaching appointment only to find that no one is home or they are busy and things like that. I really feel like our area has so much potential. It is huge and there are a lot of places that I don't think get visited a lot by the missionaries, so that could be good.


I am super excited to see you guys in just a few months. It is going by so fast. I will definitely miss the mission too though. It is a weird feeling being so close.


Well, I hope you guys have a good week :)
Love you tons!


Elder Merrill