Secret Assignment

Hellooo

Well this week was pretty awesome. Lots of crazy adventures haha. Being an office elder is a little different and sometimes I miss being outside more but it’s been good and I’ve learned a lot this week.

So one crazy thing that happened this week was on Monday Sister Ostler stopped by the office and asked if we’d watch over the mission home while they went to Palawan to teach some zone conferences for the week. When she said “watch over the house” it basically meant “will you sleep at our super nice house every night and enjoy hot showers and air con?” We humbly accepted the opportunity to serve. She asked us to do three things- 1. Don’t let anyone rob the house. 2. Feed the fish and birds. 3. Eat ALL THE FOOD IN THE FRIDGE AND FREEZER. It was great. We showed up that night, opened the fridge and found tons of American food. Lasagna, fettucini, pancakes, ice cream, etc. The three of us especially went crazy when we opened their freezer to find 6 leftover pizzas in there. Every night we each had 3-4 pieces haha! We did our best to fulfill Sister Ostler’s commandment. My stomach has actually been trashed all week because it has been trying to adjust back to American food. Usually we just eat 7-11 and some other good spots then at night we ate tons at the mission home. They actually have a scale at the house too and I gained 6 pounds in our six days there. That makes me 21 pounds heavier in total here in the mish. Haha I’m turning into Richard!

Tuesday one of my companions, Elder Webster, had to go to St. Luke’s hospital in Global City. It was like a culture shock going there haha. It’s a really wealthy city with like Ferraris, Lamborginis, turf soccer fields, crazy buildings etc. The AP’s had to go too so we planned to eat Denny’s which was pretty delish. Anyways my companion surivived his surgery thing so that was nice.

We had a cool week in our area. We didn’t have tons of hours proselyting due to planning for upcoming transfers but we got some good work done when we could. Office work stuff has gone pretty good, I’m realizing how much planning really has to go into missionary work. I’m definitely not taking it for granted now haha. Anyways the area actually doesn’t have any people with a baptism date set and only one progressing investigator. We did some sweet bahay bahay finding “house to house” which is always my favorite because you never know what to expect. After a while we stopped and said a prayer to know where to go and as we prayed I felt like we should “tao po” the house right next to where we were praying. So right when the prayer ended I just walked right through my two comps and called tao po to the house. Well a guy came up by the door and like started yelling at us to go away haha. So I guess we were a big 0/1 after that prayer, but we kept goin. A few doors down we had some success. I yelled in their house and used my tallness to my advantage by looking over their little gate. I saw there were people in there and they were ignoring us. At first we were about to just move on but I felt I needed to yell tao po for the fourth time to them haha. A guy came over a little irritated and asked what we wanted then outta nowhere another guy comes flying out looking really excited to see us. His name is Eric. He lived in California for years and refused to speak tagalog to us haha. Turns out though he used to live with his grandma when he was a child and she was LDS! A few months back he had seen Elders at the street corner talking to trike drivers but by the time he had gone in to put on a shirt he came back out to find they had already left. He told us to return so the next day we stopped by. He went on to tell us he’s been looking for direction in his life because ever since getting in a divorce and leaving his family he hasn’t done anything but just sit around sad. He has really good faith and he believed we had come specifically to him for a reason. It was super cool to see. It’s cool on my mission I’ve had so many experiences like this that I can now trust God more than ever before in my life. As long as we’re exactly obedient as a missionary, we can really expect blessings to come if it is God’s will. It’s great to know that even though we aren’t perfect people, we can all be obedient. All of His children have agency to help them learn and grow. It’s important to continue to improve to where we can trust Him more and He can be able to trust us as well. Eric is super cool. We’re very blessed to cross paths with him!

One night it started raining like CRAZY outta nowhere. It was probably the second biggest storm I’ve seen in my mission. We were trying to walk back to our car and at one point we had water up to our knees! It was crazy. Streets here just flood so much it’s kinda hard to explain. It’s like a bunch of mini rivers flowing through the streets.

The dab is starting to get popular here out of nowhere. I don’t know how it didn’t hit earlier but it’s hitting as I write this email. I went to give this little kid a hi five earlier in the week and he totally faked me out and hit the dab. I was laughing so hard haha! I got him back though as we passed by again later on. Idk if you guys have forgotten about that thing by now like me or what- but it’s funny seeing kids starting to do it here.

Favorite thing about the week though was going to the temple for our P day on Saturday. Our P day is actually on Saturday until 4:40 and we do emailing on Mondays. I just love the temple, it’s definitely one of the main foundations of my testimony. Every time I go there my perspective really opens up and I feel my Heavenly Father’s love for me. I think the feeling I have in the temple alone testifies to me how true all of this really is. I’m thankful for this church and for my mission. I know that missionary work is the most important work here on earth and I encourage you all to somehow get out of your comfort zone this week to share the gospel. The first step is always the hardest part, but I know that blessings will always come after the trial of our faith. I’ve seen it over and over again here in my mission even in small ways. Even the other day when we decided to call at the people a few extra times. We would’ve never found Eric! In Alma we learn that the sons of Mosiah were next in line for royalty, but they were willing to leave it all to help their brothers. They had tons of success and none of it would’ve happened if they would’ve never left the kingdom in the first place. After leaving their “comfort zone” they were truly blessed even through the tough times. You will never be disappointed in yourself for trying! You may never know something so small could be so important! J

 Love you all! Elder Reber