Q&A

Question from Dorothy:

I just found out that this is the 50th anniversary of the Church in the Phillippines.....I wonder if [Elder Grow's] mission is going to do anything special in recognition of that?

Answer from Elder Grow:

“I do not know if they are doing anything special for it.. i do not think so.. I have known about it since my first area”

Question:

Missionaries that return from poor areas tell us about church members who have very little but are still happy. Do you experience that in your area?

Answer:

“Yeah we have families that live in very very SMALL houses but they still have a tv, cell phone and what not. Sometimes they do not eat great food just veggies or canned sardines but i think if they did have money for food they still would eat those things with their rice cause they like to eat that. some houses just have dirt floor or rocks. They are happy for the most part but will always complain about rich people.. so yeah desires of the heart play a big role around here.”

Question:

Anything in your area that you will miss when you leave?

Answer:

“There will be a whole bunch of things that i will miss around here hands down. Most likely the things that we do not have in america but life will go on! There will also be a lot of other things i will not miss. Anyways i still have a good amount of time to enjoy life here thats for sure!”

Question:

Have you had a Halo Halo? Is it the season for that delicious drink?

Answer:

“yeah its that time of year and yes we did have them. We have been eating mango and making shakes “

Question:

What is Easter like in the Philippines?

Answer:

“it is a big day in the Philippines they do weird things... like whip themselves or some will puncture their hands and feet.... they do this in remembrance of Jesus.... yeah i can not see one thing that is good about doing that. it is so sad that they do not understand”

Conference was good

Conference was good... We did have investigators came to church on Sunday morning session.. They struggled with the english [Conference is shown in English to the Philippines wards and branches] but still stated that they did notice or felt a difference in the way their [conference speakers] voices sounded and facial expressions. Most people when they hear that leaders of a Church are going to speak [they think that] it will be a Chastisement Sermon with Shouting and Condemning, also with the need to be scared of God and prepare. That is always one thing i do not like when parents tell their children to fear God and obey. I always share that we should not fear God but Love him by following his Commandments and following his teachings. I normally will ask, if they would like their children to fear them and be forced to say I love you, to them. They all say no They would like them to just do the things which would help them and would want them to do with out having to ask. I then ask, do you not think Heavenly Father would want the same things from his Children? And of course they will agree and probably think of things that they said or commanded their children to do and ended in bad results. I always hope this will make them want to do and keep commitments because it is what Lord would want them to do. I think that one thing i realized in conference was the way Apostles and Prophets teach us is with Love and how much they Care for us because it is how much the Lord loves and cares for us. We have a choice to Show our love by following what they are teaching us (which is coming from the Lord). I shared the story of The Sons of Mosiah to a less active member. I shared the part about how they wanted to do whatever the Lord asked them to do to be forgiven of what they had done. He told them to Go amongst the Lamanites and teach them. They were scared but the Lord Comforted them and told them to go and have patience and bare the afflictions because your work will be worth it later. Then i continued to the Story of Ammon where the Flocks of King Lamoni where being scattered and unable to drink the water. Now i had no idea why i was teaching this.. Why did this part of the Story enter my mind and how can this story help these people. After reading an explanation or expounding of these things enlightened me maybe more than them. In the Story we have Ammon the servant who wants to help. We have the servants of the king who failed and are scared to return to the king because of Death. We have the sheep who are scattered and can not drink the water. We also have the enemies of the king who are scattering the flock. Now we can find ourselves in this story so very simply. Most people will say i am the sheep that is lost because of the robbers or temptations from satan and Need to be found. But i noticed that most of us are the Servants who are scared to return because they will die. Few of us are the Ammons who will go and do things to save our fellow brethren (who he just recently met and calls them his Brothers) and helps them to find the sheep and bring them back to drink the water (or our desires to follow the Lord and partake of his offering repentance) Now who would you want to be, Ammon the one who helps save the people with inspiration from the Lord, The Servants who are to afraid of death, to just go find the sheep that they have lost, so they can be welcomed back, or the Helpless sheep that have no choice but to just run and be lost waiting to be found. There are people that DO [want to be like Ammon] and people that DO NOT, we know that. But there are People who DO things not for themselves but to help their "Brethren". Such a great insight that was given to me by the Holy Ghost. So which one are you and which one do you want to be?? and what are you going to do-- be that one or not be that one? The simple little stories that have great values.. most of the time we will just focus on the Awesomeness of Ammon chopping off the Arms of the enemies which is just awesome! hahaha Well love the work and the simple insights i have gained.

New Investigators

my week has been good. we will watch conference on [next] saturday and sunday sooo that will be nice days

This week we taught and found [investigators] and had a lot of successes. We did not however have investigators come to church. We followed up with our investigators who were positive that they would come to church and ended up having personal things to keep them from attending. We did have some great spiritual lessons earlier this week that really helped our investigators in keeping commitments about reading and praying. They explained their feelings when they had read and prayed and how they felt something different. We helped them understand that what they had felt and they have started to be more direct with wanting to keep commitments, especially like wanting to come to church. We have found a good amount of new investigators that are continually becoming more and more interested. They are interested in the Book of Mormon and have a lot of questions about Church and Baptism. Most of our investigators in certain areas are acquaintances of each other, so hopefully that will help them have someone to come with them to Church. I think some of the hardest parts [of serving a mission] is when you slowly move away from old investigators that have just stopped in progression, because of [their] personal issues or [they are] just too busy, to teach new investigators that are becoming interested. There is always that moment when you walk by the house of an old investigator and you are not going to visit and it’s just hard. But I know that there will come a time when they will be more ready for the Gospel. Elder Tandas is an awesome teacher and is really good with talking to people. At first he was a little hesitant a few times but now he just talks to people more openly. He does a really good job with helping people understand why we are here and what they expect from us. Well hopefully we will see the fruits of our labors in the up coming weeks with lots of investigators who want to come to church. Well still having fun out here loving my area i am in. The members help keep things fun even though we are bummed about our investigators struggling to come to church. Well thats about it for this last week Love ya all thanks for the support as always!