Chistmas is Coming!

It's been a good week here! We had a full week of work which was nice. Since my companion is now a District Leader we're going to have to start traveling more which will slightly affect our work here. Next week will not be in our area as much because we have a Zone Conference, a full day of travel to the Zone Conference, 1 day of interviews, and a baptism with more interviews.

Christmas is coming up! It's really starting to come fast! Thanks so much for the advent calendar! It's actually turning into a missionary tool. Our neighbors next door are so nice to us and run a Tindahan(store). They're always busy and have something going on so we're never able to teach. However they saw our calendar and the kids loved it. They looked at the circle things and couldn't understand it because it was in English so one of the kids ran up and got their Book of Mormon that past missionaries had given them. I took the pieces of paper and stuck them in the pages where they were in the Tagalog. They loved it! They're going to be waiting at our door every night for the day’s scripture!

We had a baptism this week for a girl named Princess. It was really nice and she'll be a good addition to the youth. We were teaching her and her friend who's a member this past week. Cell phones are a huge huge distraction here. If you think it's a distraction back in the states, think again, it is SO much worse here. Anyways their phones are always going off in lessons so we asked for their phones at the beginning of the lesson. You should have seen these girls' faces! It was like they were honestly not sure if they were going to be breathing at the end of the lesson. Well, they survived! And guess what, the sun still rose the next morning!

We got a referral from a ward member that we contacted last week. We tried to get over to visit him again all week, but because of the short time window in which he's available and just other things that came up we couldn't make it. We went back last night and talked about the Book of Mormon. At the end of the lesson, we asked him to read 1 Nephi Chapter 1 and he said I already read that. We asked where he was and he flipped the page, flipped again, kept on flipping until he got to 1st Nephi Chapter 8! Wow!! He starting talking about the stories he had read and how clueless Laman and Lemuel are. Poor Laman and Lemuel. Sometimes investigators don't understand anything else in their reading other than that they were just morons...

I've picked my reading of Jesus the Christ back up. What a phenomenal book. I've really been thinking a lot about the Apostles'. I never really realized about how much correction they actually needed from the Savior. It wasn't that they were bad people, but the Savior was truly preparing them for their mission. They learned so many lessons in such a relatively short period of time. And then it struck me, hey, that's kinda like me! I've learned so much here and know that I will continue to learn. I may not have the opportunity to see the Transfiguration, or see the Savior raise the dead, or preach to the multitudes, but I'd like to think I'm learning similar lessons to that of the original apostles and disciples of Christ. We're all disciples of Christ, and have the opportunity to learn from him and become like him. I'm grateful for the opportunity to serve him, and to learn from him in everything that I do. ” Oh what joy this sweet sentence gives, I know that my Redeemer lives!”

Love you all!

Love,
Elder Yost