Dear Mom and Dad
- I have still not received the package with the shoes...
-I got a Dear Elder from Sarah Signore and a letter from
Alissa Wheatley, thank you thank you!
-Shout out to Tori Leonard, get better and keep on fighting!
Know so many love you, are thinking about you, and pray for you every day!
Well, the last week was certainly not boring! Today I'm
emailing you probably close to where Survivor Philippines is going to be!! Ok,
that's probably a bit of an exaggeration, but I'm not 30 minutes from the mall
anymore :-( I'm emailing you today from
Lopez, Quezon. Don't confuse Quezon with Quezon City, I'm in the province which
is pretty far out there! We hopped on a bus from the Mission Home and got here
6 hours later! My new companion, would you believe it, is another American! And
he's from New Hampshire! Probably the only two East Coast kids in the whole
mission became companions. Elder D.Y. (my companion) was the missionary I replaced
in my first area, Pola, when I came into the mission! He's got 6 months left
here. We're getting along really well.
I've also been called
to be a Zone Leader here. It's a little scary but I'm excited for the
opportunity. There are 14 missionaries in our zone, 12 Elders and only 2
sisters. Our house here is not bad at all. We live on the second floor above a
maternity clinic, which is good because there are gates and all that so we're
pretty safe. It's pretty much two apartments on the top floor, we have one and
two other Elders live in the other. One of them is a Filipino and the other is
an Australian of Tongan descent. Our town is not too small, but we just have a
7/11!! We're about 4 hours away from the nearest mall...but monthly I'll get to
go to the mission home with all the other Zone Leaders for a meeting so I can
pick up anything up there. Also our area is so far away from the Mission Home so
we won’t get packages and letters as often but I hope people will still write
to me! This area is a lot poorer than
Cuenca, and reminds me of Pola a bit. There are train tracks here that the
Japanese built here in WWII that people use here for transportation! They make
these rail cars that are basically wooden platforms with benches that can ride
on the tracks. There are ones that operate like a bicycle and others that have
a small engine. A lot of the people we teach live along these tracks! It's like riding a mini roller
coaster!
Right now we're covering a ward and a branch! For the first time in my
mission I get to go to church in a real church building. We go to Sacrament
with the ward at 9:00, after that we set up our investigator class, then we do
sacrament with the branch. We had six investigators come to church, and three
others that had to go to Laguna to get paperwork signed for their wedding! It's
an 18 year old girl whose is going to deliver her baby in the next few weeks,
her 19 year old soon to be husband, and his 9 year old brother who lives with
them. I haven't met them yet, but I hear they're awesome.Their wedding is
scheduled for this Friday, but that's still up in the air based on paperwork.
To answer your question Dad, travel to the Mission Home on transfer
day was the most stressful part of the day. What should have been an hour and a
half of travel turned into three because of traffic and we were really late to
the meeting and missed the transfer part! Luckily President P. understood that
sometimes things happen just out of our control so he was completely fine.
A new area and assignment brings all sorts of challenges,
struggles, questions, great things, and worries. This week I was thinking about
why bad things happen, or why we have struggles. Why is life so hard? I thought
of one of my favorite passages of scripture from the Doctrine of Covenants in
Section 122. In Liberty Jail, the Prophet Joseph Smith and his companions there
were exposed to some of the worst conditions imaginable. The ceiling was too
low for them to stand on their feet, there was a window with no glass, so cold
air from what had been the coldest winter in history would come into the room. In all that, the
Prophet received some of the most beautiful passages of scriptures ever. This
is what the Lord had to say to him about
his experience:
6 If thou art accused
with all manner of false accusations; if thine enemies fall upon thee; if they
tear thee from the society of thy father and mother and brethren and sisters;
and if with a drawn sword thine enemies tear thee from the bosom of thy wife,
and of thine offspring, and thine elder son, although but six years of age,
shall cling to thy garments, and shall say, My father, my father, why can’t you
stay with us? O, my father, what are the men going to do with you? and if then
he shall be thrust from thee by the sword, and thou be dragged to prison, and
thine enemies prowl around thee like wolves for the blood of the lamb;
7 And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit,
or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; if
thou be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against thee; if
fierce winds become thine enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the
elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell
shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these
things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
8 The Son of Man hath descended below them
all. Art thou greater than he?
Let's ask ourselves that question, Are we greater than He? I
know that we are all called to pass through this earth life and our experiences
are for our good and benefit. Sometimes we think the very jaws of hell are
gaping open to devour us. Yet, it's all for our good. Nothing will prevail over
us if we remember that everything that happens to us is for our experience and
learning. Next time you think you've had a bad day, think of this, think of the
Prophet Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail, and most importantly, think of the Savior
in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross on Calvary. That should help us realize how good things actualy are!
Love,
Elder Yost
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