Some of Elder Wayne's friends sent reports on what they did for Christmas, so I'll do the same. Early in the Morning, We were invited to breakfast at the McCurdy household with the zone. That was wonderful, they had pancakes and egg stuff. There, I got my package, as well. Quickly we ran home, took a picture of me opening the package, and then went to the Deiparine house, counselor in our bishopric, where we skyped. And then we worked. That was my favorite. We didn't have a ton of appointments, we just tracted, visited a few members and found new people to teach. We showed the video of "A Savior is Born" to our Recent converts, the Villanocha family, and their investigator son. We taught a little family who live on the side of the road and invited them to come to church. They said they would go. We visited a family who lives in this "disputed territory" between our ward and the next one over, and saw the sister missionaries there. That was fun. At 6 pm we had a baptism in our ward of a very happy little couple, Brother Tata and Sister Rowena. They were found and have been taught by the sisters, came to church for the last month or so, and were ready to be baptised this Christmas day. That was very exciting, especially because of our mission goal of having a "white Christmas," or having baptisms this Christmas season. It was cool to see that come to pass. President and Sister McCurdy attended. It was a really good service and a cool way to end our Christmas.
On the evening of December 26, there was a fire in Barangay Lahug, in the Kamputhaw sisters' area. Around 100 houses burnt down. There were no deaths. We were working at the time, and saw the burning smoke plume from a hill in our area. It was scary. Still my favorite thing about this was the next day. We drove past the burn site. The fire had reached up to the homes on the side of the highway, and one of the buildings affected was a little bakery. The back wall of this bakery was burned out, the buildings on its sides starting to be demolished. Yet they were still selling bread.
We ended up working with the Barangay (local government) to provide some kind of relief for the victims. Most of the people there were renters, and in the time that they were looking for a new place to live, they were staying in the local school, which was right across the street from the burn site. The McCurdys got some foodstuffs to give out, and they asked us to do the same. So we ended up going as a zone to the school and put on a little program for the children. We sang "I am a Child of God," and led some games, and handed out snacks for the kids. It was really cool to see these happy little kids. Afterwards, we had a ton of bananas left, so we passed them out to the people staying in the school. It was a neat experience.
This mission is changing me every day. I feel like I'm growing, and I hope I am. I know that every day, we can rely on our Savior. I know that we need to. We can become clean. We can become greater. That is all just so that we can glorify our Father in heaven. It is all so that we can help someone else gain faith in the goodness of God.
Love you
Elder Dunford
No comments:
Post a Comment