Day 299 Allen, Philippines Oh caribao. . .

Well, this week is supposed to be transfer week if this was a normal mission, but as we all know my mission has been far from normal. New missionaries are supposed to be coming sometime. . . but we have no idea. Basically we don't know what's up; we just do missionary work until someone tells us to move, haha. But the work is really progressing here in Allen! We now have six investigators working towards their baptismal date!

We had a funny experience yesterday. After a long motorcycle ride to the bukid, one of our farther areas, we went to a house our elders had told us about (the elders in our ward usually work in this area). Apparently kono daw there was an inactive member at this house, but it turns out she had passed away three years ago. But the parents there were really receptive and invited us in anyway. We ended up flowing naturally into a discussion about religion and stuff. The man, his name is Toni, told us it bothered him how so many pastors debate the Bible and none of them can agree. He recognized that the Bible is kulang (lacking)! He said he thinks the Bible needs a guide or some help or something. Of course, we bring out the BOOK OF MORMON and he was like "whoah." He had awesome questions, but he tends to overanalyze everything. . . at least he knows some English so we can understand his deepness, but he has true intent. We just have to go slow and be very clear. :) We then road home in the rain and got SOAKED on the motorcycle, but it was totally worth it.

I got MAIL this week. Yes, real mail. And I received some from OCTOBER!!!!!! And I got the Bonny family's Christmas card, haha. :) I think the mail finally caught up now, so we'll see if mail comes more regularly in the future.

I'm working on learning the 1st Vision in my THIRD language: Tagalog. :) My brain is so halo-halo (mixed up). . . .

Well. It was bound to happen. I had one of those classic mix-ups in the language during a lesson. I was talking about how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. In Cebuano, translate is "hubad," but in Tagalog that means to get naked. Whoops. Fortunately, my comp covered for me, hahaha. The people's eyes got really big, haha! But then in another lesson, my comp accidentally said we have to be "taba" (fat) instead of "tapat" (worthy) to enter the kingdom of God. Oh, good times. . . :)

Oh. We almost got trampled by a caribao! We paused to look at this poor skinny cow on the side of the path in this bukid area, when we hear a giant caribao come up behind us! It was white and had giant horns! It had broken loose from the rope so it was just wandering around. We slowly hid behind some bushes and ran back up into the village until it went away.

I was reading in Moses 7 this morning and was touched by the conversation between Enoch and God. Enoch was asking God the Father why He was weeping. If God is perfect and has all power and sooooooo many creations, why would He cry? God responds that He is weeping for the wickedness of His children. He has perfect compassion for them and understands perfectly the consequences of their sins. God has a greater capacity to feel and empathize with us than we can ever understand. His love is real and passes beyond all understanding. He is a real Being with emotions and feelings, but He has complete control over Himself. I know we can become like Him and gain self-mastery through living the principles of His gospel. :)

LOVE YOU ALLLLLLLLLLL!!

Apparently caribao is really carabao and it means water buffalo.