Days Left: 51 Can-Avid, Borongan Zone Principles of godliness

Dearest family,

First off, I am some questions for all of you:

When did you first know the church was true? Or, what events in your early life contributed to your growing conversion? I want to hear your conversion stories. :)

Also, as parents, how do you cope when your children are outright defiant and disobedient?

We had a busy week! We had Zone Training Meeting, Zone Interviews with President, and of course GENERAL CONFERENCE!!! We were worried that we would have to go all the way to Borongan for conference, but a member here downloaded the talks so we could watch here.

Our investigators are continuing to progress and they attended General Conference with us. It's really so nice to be united with the members. We plan together for the area, they know most of our investigators, and they help us know where to go and how the investigators are progressing. And it's I love how the Relief Society is more involved than the single adults (usually it's the other way around). Now we can find appropriate fellowhippers for our investigators.

Aquino continues to be awesome. It's been 11 days since he's smoked or had a drink. Going strong! He's also inviting his friends and neighbors to listen to the gospel. He's on track for his baptismal date for November 8.

Dennis, his nephew, is also staying strong with following the Word of Wisdom. Before, he used to avoid the missionaries and wasn't really interested. Now, he'll randomly show up at our lessons with other investigators because his wife always works with us. He is thirsty for the word of God. And this week he gave away a Word of Wisdom pamphlet to one of his best friends, Peleo. Cool story: we were punted at one of our appointments while working with Dennis's wife and suddenly she had a strong prompting to drop by Peleo's house. He is a policeman who lives alone. His wife died of a heart attack 3 years ago and all his children have moved away from home. He just drinks and drinks every day so he's rarely sober. As we passed by his house, Sister Morales (the wife of Dennis) peeked in the window to check on her husband to see if he was drinking with Peleo. She jumped away excitedly and exclaimed, "They aren't drinking!!! Quickly, quickly, let's go inside!" So we taught brother Peleo about temples, the Plan of Salvation, and related it all to the restored gospel, our unique message to the world. He didn't say much during the lesson, but he was captured by our message. At the end of our lesson, he said that from his childhood and throughout his whole life he had never heard the gospel explained the way we explained it to him. He committed to really search and pray to know if our message is true.

Glenn, an active member of the Catholic Couples for Christ organization, just committed to be baptized! He's been searching online at mormon.org to find out more about Joseph Smith and he watched the Restoration video. He speaks like a member of our church and he loves how we have more complete knowledge about the Plan of Salvation. We feel like he knows this church is true, he just needs to sacrifice in order to come and follow. We will keep working with him to develop the faith in Christ to attend church and face his friends about his decision.

I know that this life is for our self-improvement, not self-contentment. We are being given trials to shape and mold us; we are learning principles of godliness. I really loved how Jorg Klebingat talked about smiling, looking upwards, and saying, "I know what this is: a chance to prove myself."

Anyhoo, I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

 Love always,
Sister Amanda Smith

sister chu and i at the beach

homemade dumplings taste sooooooooo goood! i'll make some for you. it's pretty easy. the dough is just water, flour and salt. you roll it out as thin as possible and make sure it's not too sticky. then you fill it with ground pork, cabbage, corn, ginger, pepper, and carrots. then you boil or fry it! dip in soy sauce with garlic. soooo yummmy. . . it makes a nice soup too.