Area Broadcast

Hello family and friends!

How’s it goin? Happy summer! It’s funny because dry season just ended here and rainy season is starting. Basically the opposite is happening as far as weather goes! The other night I turned my fan on the medium level for the first time in a looong time.

Funny story about the rainy season. Every missionary in the mission got a new huge umbrella last zone conference from the Ostlers that have wording talking about eternal families. They’re actually for Christmas haha but everything is late here in the Philippines. Anyways a few weeks they were stored in the supply room for awhile and we had to climb over them anytime we were trying to get something. Sure enough the one time we need umbrellas in quite some time we don’t have them with us haha! We walked across all of Makati for about 30 minutes just getting wrecked! Streets turn into rivers haha. It totally poured on us and even though we’ve been around umbrellas for weeks, we didn’t have one when needed. Pretty ironic.

We’re still doing our best to get more investigators. We had quite a few appointments this week that fell through but we still got to teach some new people. We taught three moms with a member named Ed and they all had good questions! They asked why there are so many churches and we had a really good talk about Christ’s church, the apostasy, and the restoration. One then asked how we can really know a restoration happened and we went right into the Book of Mormon. It was fun having a lesson where they understood really well.

Eric is still doing good. He is in 2 Nephi 24! He rereads each verse like 3 times haha he has read over an hour every day for the past few weeks. He still hasn’t been to church which was disappointing! We thought this week was going to be the week. We asked him though what changes he has seen in his life since he has started reading and he said “lots!” The main thing though was that he doesn’t drink nearly as much now. He said the desire to buy alcohol has somehow left him. I’ve noticed his prayers have been super awesome lately too! Even if he’s not going to church yet I’m really thankful we’ve been able to help him out. We are his best friends he said and he looks forward to our two visits each week.

Sunday we had an area broadcast! We got to listen to lots of authorities, including Elder Bednar! He started off by saying “I’m so much grateful for this opportunity to speak with you.” Back when he visited the Philippines (including here in the manila mission) he noticed the term “so much grateful” is a term lots of members/missionaries use here when praying! Somewhat because their English isn’t perfect and they’re trying their best in front of an apostle of God. It’s a phrase I’ve now heard many times in zone conferences and other meetings. But the phrase “so much thankful” is a phrase that really kinda shows how the people are here. Although they don’t have much, they count their many blessings and are willing to give anything to a stranger. I’m super lucky to be serving in such an awesome country with such great people. I’ve learned so much about gratitude on my mission and feel really happy and blessed every day. I know that our attitude will make our day better, not our circumstances. I challenge you all to follow Christ’s perfect example of being humble and loving, no matter what challenges come your way.

Love you all!

Elder Reber