Mausoleums and Crematoriums

This week was awesome!

Lots of ups and downs this week! A big rollercoaster week and I like rollercoasters so it was sweet. I’m not sure where to begin so I’m just gonna start with what happened with Eric this week.

We showed up to his house Tuesday to teach him like normal and he has continued to read lots in the Book of Mormon. He is now in Mosiah 5 so he has been reading King Benjamin’s final words to his people. He thinks those first few chapters in Mosiah are super awesome and I agree. Anyways we followed up on his drinking because it’s been pretty on and off lately and we were super impressed! He said his brother came with him to drink both Saturday and Sunday and he had “no desire whatsoever to drink.” Even though his brother bought all the alcohol he still didn’t join! It really strengthened my testimony on fasting and prayer. We’ve been trying our best to pray for him and to help him finally make it to church. He’s getting closer little by little but watching him grow has been really cool for me.

We went and found a guy who used to listen to Elder Webster and his last companion Elder Ahn months ago named Rico. He is super cool because he’s in the FBI!! He has a nice fam and everything it’s just hard to catch him since he’s always at work. We were blessed to pass by his home at the perfect time and we were able to help him really understand the Restoration. It truly clicked in his head why a restoration is needed and how we should have a prophet in our day today which is the best thing ever for a missionary to see. We’ll be visiting him again this week.

Wednesday something super funny happened. Our kabahays (Elders in our apartment) got a referral but when they went to visit him they were told he had just barely moved to the Makati South Cemetery. Well, that’s in our area so we were given his name and went to find him! The cemetery here is SUPER cool they don’t bury the people! They just put them in a cement box and you can basically just go sit on them. Lots of homeless people kinda just hang out there and we kept asking people if they knew the man and they’d just say “Is he still alive?” then laugh super hard haha! Clever clever. Well we finally found him and we asked how he had met missionaries in the past. Long story short I realized he was super familiar and it was actually me who met him outside of our church!! Every Sunday morning before church we go out in front of our church with some ward missionaries and hand out little cards to people who walk by. I totally forgot it was me who put him into the referral system! We were supposed to teach him yesterday but it didn’t work out but we’re hoping this week it will happen.

Friday we had a “meet the President” meeting with all of the mainland missionaries and it was super fun! The Fermanis family is awesome haha. They showed a family video and all of his kids played rugby and were super intense! He has one daughter and she is a boxer! One funny thing that kinda explains his personality is when a missionary asked “what is the main thing you learned on your mission?” He said, “well, lots of aussies are going to hell!” Although he’s super funny he’s also really spiritual. He’s crazy with doctrine and the scriptures and I know I’ll learn a lot from him and his family.

This week was amazing because every day we got out of the office really fast! We had tons of time in the area and talked to SO many people. My patience continues to be tried because we can’t get into a house to save our lives!! Like I’ve said, it hasn’t ever been like this my whole mission. Actually we had very low success the entire week and saw soo many appointments fall through. I think we taught 4 lessons or something this whole week. Things were a little tougher UNTIL Sunday came along!! We decided to stop by AJ, the less active we met a few weeks back. Her asawa isn’t a member yet. She had been in Cavite for weeks but she’s finally back! We had a super cool lesson with her and set a long term goal for her to one day enter the temple with Chistian and be sealed. They also have their first kid on the way. When she was in Cavite she went to church every week! It’s so cool because when we first met her she hadn’t been in about a year. She committed to having us come to teach Christian every time he has work off so they can reach that goal of entering the temple. Also, Sunday towards the end of the night we got a text from some other missionaries in our ward! Some elders gave them a referral but apparently it’s in our area not theirs. She is named Justine and is really close with a Bishop and his family in a nearby ward. She has been to the institute of religion in Sampaloc a few times and is currently reading Gospel Principles and wants a Book of Mormon! We contacted her and set an appointment for this coming Saturday since it’s the only time she doesn’t have school. It’s our p day but we don’t care haha she’s so ready! Totally an answer to our prayers. We got to see miracles come Sunday, the last day of the week after lots of hard work with little success! I know God will always bless us if we do what we’re supposed to do, we just need to constantly be gratefully noticing His hand in our lives!

Have a nice week!

Love Elder Reber

No pics from Park this week so I am sharing a few of ours from the Mission reunion we crashed!  President and Sister Ostler were kind enough to allow us to come by to say hello at the reunion they put together in Bountiful for their former missionaries. We had a great night talking with some of Parker's old companions, the Ostlers- including their awesome son Caleb,  and other missionary parents. We are so grateful for this wonderful couple and their family. 

Was lucky enough to check out one of the infamous mission umbrellas!

What a welcome site! We can spot that flag anywhere!