Called to Serve

Hey all! How is everyone doing! As I’m writing this I’m trying to upload some pictures but the computer that I’m on isn’t reading my camera for some reason so hopefully soon I can figure it out cause I took some good pictures of me this week. Like me crossing a waste deep river with a pretty strong current! That was was fun! haha. I had to go waste deep and cross a river. It was probably a good 100-150 ft. wide! It was sweet. We were just crossing rocks to get to one point but then there came the point where we had to almost just swim! Elder Lengs balance is terrible and he slipped within the first 2 steps in the water and looked like he just jumped in the pool! haha. I was laughing hard cause for me I got through pretty easily. Oh sweet... yeah I just loaded them so I’ll send you pictures. I got like 5 pictures coming this week!

So this week has been pretty good. Not much has gone on. Little teaching for some reason. Every house we went to the people like weren’t there so it was a little frustrating but that didn’t get me down cause we did teach and the lessons we taught I felt like went well. But for me I felt they went real well. I feel like I was able to express myself much more and was able to feel the Spirit guiding my words and what to say. Even still sometimes I can’t understand the people. The old people here are so hard to understand cause they have no teeth (like seriously. maybe three teeth total. no front teeth at all!) and they just mumble all their words and speak so fast. Before I would have let that get me down but now I just go into those lessons with the mindset that I’m just going to listen and act like I know what he is saying. And as I do that I feel like I may have no idea what he is saying but I know excatly what to say. There is a Quote in PMG that I love. It’s Jeffery R. Holland and he just talks about how listening is the most important thing we can do. Look it up cause I forgot what section it is but thats how I feel when I teach those type of people. I can really see the Gift of Tongues coming into my teaching and as I keep progressing and doing the things that I need to do to excel in this language I know I will be an instrument in the Lords hands like it says I can be in the scriptures. Everyday is just an adventure here and I’m starting to actually wake up just ready to go hit it hard. Before I would be like ahh man... 6:30. I wish I was still asleep and able to go watch some college b-ball today. But the more and more I wake up and just work, the more and more I look forward to the day and what it has in store for me! The people here actually understand me when I speak which is nice. We were talking to this one lady the other day and she was asking me how long I’ve been in the Philipines and I was like almost 2 months. Then she asked Elder Leng and he said almost 5. She looked at us and was like you’ve only been here for 2 months and you’ve been here for 5? We were like yeah why? And she points and me and says to Elder Leng ''he's learning the language way faster then you'' it was way funny. Good thing Elder Leng keeps his head up!! He's improving more and more which is good. His biggest problem is he speaks really choppy and the people don’t understand. But it’s getting better. I’m helping him with pronounciation and flow cause that’s one thing I've picked up really easy!

Well fam. I know this letter wasn’t the best but I have had a good week. I find new things about my self every week that I didn’t know about me before. Like how much my personality is like dads. Here in the Philippines they can’t find scriptures that easily so Elder Leng will always just grab the scriptures for them and in my mind I just say ''stop grabbing.'' I don’t know if you guys know what I’m talking about but dad would always say that to us kids! Natalie and Shauna probably know whats up!

Well fam and friends! know that I love you all and miss you all! You are always on my mind but the work here goes on and like I said everyday it just gets better and better! I can’t wait to see what is in store for me in the near future! I know that this is the true church and we have a living prophet who leads and guides this church today! It’s truly a blessing that we have and I love that it is in my life. I have the oppurtunity to share it with others here in the Philippines and there are others everywhere in the world sharing the same message in different languages and different cultures but the thing that stays the same is the gospel and the feeling of the Holy Ghost that testifies of the Truthfulness of these many things!

I’m truly so thankful for that!

Love you all!

Elder Sargent