Our Investigators Are Experiencing Great Blessings

September 5, 2011

This last week was just fine. Nothing Really amazing or fantastic. Just normal work.


Though we did have good success in investigators attending church. Not quite as high as we wanted, but we got some that we have been working on for a while. And even though it was testimony meeting, I feel that it was a good experience overall. Still had some weird things though.

Two of our investigators are experiencing great blessings. Ryan and Rica Mabalon need to get married before they can get baptized, and getting married in the Philippines is the most ridiculous process in the world. The worst part is that no one really knows what you need to do. In my experience as a missionary I have now learned all the requirements, but complications still come up. Despite it all, the marriage will go on.. on September 17.

Things that really stood out this week were things from my personal study. We are currently doing a Book of Mormon challenge. So I started re-reading it, again. But as I read 1 Nephi chapters 2 and 3 something new popped out. We all know 1 Nephi 3:7, but if we look at the last half of chapter 2 and 3:1 we can see how Nephi was prepared to say "I will go and do." He was coming from talking to the Lord, he had just obtained the promise that if he and his seed keep the commandments they will prosper in the land. So, I'm thinking that that provided certain motivation/ confidence behind the "go and do" response.

Another thing came to me as we were teaching Ryan and Rica. We were talking about Lehi's dream of the Tree of Life. As we were talking I notice that people were feeling their way to the great and spacious building, so even with the mists of darkness, they could still see the building, but not the tree. It's just like our life here, we can see the worldly things, but the ultimate goal of Eternal Life is sometimes hard to see. We are just going on the word of God from the scriptures and living prophets that the tree is there, and we'll get there too if we just keep going.

That's really all I can think of right now.
Ready to tackle a new week. It's gonna be a long one, I can already tell. We've got exchanges this week, I get to go back to Handumanan!! For one day. And then we have Zone Leaders Council. That should be fun... I'm looking forward to it, but also not...

Love you all!
Elder Phelps

PS The restaurant is kinda just a fun idea to play with. If I was to go with it, it would be because the pilot thing didn't work out for some reason. And I would be more on the business end, with a hand in the cooking too. But mainly hire chefs. Just a fun idea.