NEW Area!

Dear Mom and Dad

-I got some letters from the Christopher Yost family and one from Elder Tenny!

Well I'm writing you today from a new location! I'm writing you from Lemery, Batangas! The bordering area is Cuenca! (Elder Yost served in Cuenca 6 months ago) Pretty funny how that works out! We're not in the same stake as Cuenca and we are far enough that I'll never see these members, but it's still kind of fun to be so close! This new area is a bigger town, and is probably the biggest area I've been assigned in. We have a McDonalds, a ton of 7/11's, and some Filipino fast food restaurants. This area isn't by any means rich, but there are a lot more well-off people than I've ever had in my past areas. 

We cover two towns, Lemery and Taal. In Taal there is the biggest Catholic church in all of Asia and is pretty cool from what I hear. We'll probably go check it out at some point! My new companion is Elder Cook, and he's from Plain City, Utah. (Plain City is close to North Ogden and not far from the Great Salt Lake) I kind of knew him before because he was working in the Mission Office . He's has been out 19.5 months. We've really clicked!

We have a branch here in Lemery and as far as attendance goes it's the biggest branch that I've ever been in. We had 152 people this last Sunday at church. The missionaries have worked with a lot of Less-Active members. We need to find some new investigators as well as working with the less-active members. 

The members here are obsessed with Mitt Romney! They honestly think that if he gets elected all the problems in the world will get solved! As we fasted this Sunday, I thought to myself, how many members are fasting for Mitt Romney? I asked Elder Cook about it, and later at church he asked a member, and he said, "That's a great idea! Why didn't I think of that!" That's my bad...

We are working with  a recent convert right now named Charelton, and he is just hilarious. He was named after Charlton Heston because his mom saw the 10 Commandments and loved it! Before he joined the church,  he walked into the LDS Chapel because he was curious what was inside, and met the missionaries! He is so strong and faithful, and even though he's very talkative and hard to teach sometimes, he has such a great heart. This Sunday we helped him pay his tithing for the first time!!

I'd like to share with you some things President Peterson shared with us at Transfer Day. As missionaries we have a lots of rules, that are sometimes hard for missionaries to keep. Here in the Philippines, it's so easy to get a cell phone, not like back at home where you get a plan, here you can go anywhere on the street and buy credit for a certain amount of text messages or calling minutes. Sometimes that's a temptation for missionaries! President brought up an interesting point I'd never thought of. We strive to live the higher law as taught by Jesus Christ, the laws of consecration, sacrifice, and obedience. And yet, sometimes we can't even keep the Mosaic Law ,or the mission rules. How does that work? Sometimes in our lives, we don't realize the true law that we should be living. We strive to consecrate our time, efforts, energy, money, and may I even say, thoughts, to the service of others, and sometimes we have a hard time living the simple Mosaic Law. As it says in the New Testament, the law is simply the "schoolmaster" leading us to Christ. Let's keep the lower law, and strive to live the higher law of consecration. As Christ said, he who loses his life shall find it. Especially at this time, may we live the higher law as taught be Jesus Christ, and  consecrate our lives to his service and the service of others.

Love,

Elder Yost