JB's Baptism

Hey!

Had an awesome week!! The highlight was definitely Jansen Belonias' baptism!! He's 10 years old and lives in a part member family. His mom was less active for about 10 years after being heartbroken by a few RM's haha but after visiting them over the past little while she's active again. Jansen is awesome I've never seen a kid focus in lessons so well my whole mission! Every time we teach him I feel we were teaching someone who was around 16 yrs old. The night before his baptism we shared Helaman 5:12 with him and talked about the amazing blessings that come when we focus our lives on Christ and stay faithful in the church throughout our lives. No matter what trials come we can overcome them and grow so much as a result. It was a cool lesson, he was super excited to be baptized. The service was really spiritual and there was good support from the ward. He gave an awesome testimony after and his mom did as well. It just reminded me really that everything we do as missionaries is worth it and that no effort is wasted. Next step now is trying to teach his dad!

I had to give a talk at the baptism on the Restoration and I mainly focused my talk on the sacrifices Joseph Smith made. I'm so thankful for him and for the restored gospel. As I've learned more and more about his life throughout my mission my testimony has really grown and trials seem so little. Joseph Smith REALLY faced alot of opposition and Satan was doing all he could to stop such a marvelous work. Joseph Smith knew that he had seen a vision, and he knew that God knew it, and he couldn't deny it. It's cool he was able to keep that perspective through the hard times and never stopped trying. God even reminded him he wasn't yet to what Job had to go through. When facing a trial we need to always have a wider perspective and remember those who came before us!

Speaking of the restoration, that was our focus for our zone conference on Wednesday! As a mission we now have a new focus, every time we meet someone and every time we teach the first lesson we are going to focus on the Restoration. We are now practicing teaching the whole thing in 4 minutes so they can feel the spirit of the restoration and especially the first vision. This is something we were doing while i was new, then the focus shifted to inspired questions and their needs/concerns, but now it's returning back the restoration. It just feels right and I'm excited to see the miracles that will come from focusing on the restoration.

President Fermanis really taught us alot during conference too. His huge focus continues to be the Book of Mormon and is doing everything he can to make our personal study more exciting. When our study is good we'll have more faith and energy to go out and share the gospel. He said how there are days where he reads something and feels like he could easily go out and knock doors for 10 hours so it's something we're trying to experience too as a mission! He pointed out to us that the Book of Mormon was published before the church was even established. What does that show about the importance of the Book of Mormon? That was super cool for me to realize and I've been thinking about it all week. It's the only way to be truly converted to the restored church of Jesus Christ and to know if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. This is done by knowing the Book of Mormon is true by the Holy Ghost. The church couldn't even be established until this great book was available. President answers almost all questions using the Book of Mormon it's really cool to see. My testimony is growing that you truly can read it your whole life and still find new things to learn. My companion and I taught a class on answering questions of investigators through the Book of Mormon. Preparing for that just reminded me of how grateful I am for the Book of Mormon in my life. It has answered my questions throughout my mission and I've seen miraculous changes in others as they've read it.

Thursday I went on exchanges with Elder Rushton. He's from Magna and goes home in 3 weeks! We worked in our area and had a great time. We focused on finding new people and "tao po"ing doors even when as President put it "you feel like your trying to push water up a hill with a rake." We got a few good return appointments and taught some fun lessons. We went back to Jaymar (the 17 year old with the huge infection on his back) and found out he actually had passed away the night before! It was super sad i couldn't believe it. They said though the hospital finally let him in eventually so he wasn't in quite as much pain as when we met him at their home. He was a cool kid though all of his neighbors loved him because he was always helping them try to fix up their little houses and doing other acts of service. We taught his brother the plan of salvation and plan to visit his family this week again.

We have a few other investigators that are progressing pretty well. Jenson Cruz will be married to his girlfriend (member) Aug 28 then will be baptized right after! He's a super cool kid and is actually as tall as I am!! James Borrero is 10 years old and his mom was baptized about a year ago. A few weeks ago he finally decided to let us teach him more and he now has a desire to be baptized! He got rid of his tea a little bit ago so now his goal date is Sept. 2 if we get the lessons done by then. Our other main investigator is Joy. She went to church again yesterday and we had some cool lessons with her this week. She still hasn't accepted a baptismal date yet but her faith is growing lots!

One quick story is we got permission to teach Jenson Cruz at 8am since it's the only time he's available. We happened to run into a less active as a result of being out so early in the morning! He is a trike driver and we may have never met him. God knows His children though and put him right in our path! Rodrigo was at church yesterday so that was a cool little miracle.

In the Book of Mormon this week I read about one of my favorite characters in the Book of Mormon- Nephi, the son of Helaman. It's crazy for me to read about the miracles that happened while he was serving with unweariness. Even after all of these miracles however, only "some" of the people believed he was a prophet of God. it's a reminder to me that the Holy Ghost is really the way for someone to know of truth. The Holy Ghost is more powerful than the 5 senses and can testify to someone better than a sign. The people in this time saw lots of "signs" and miracles from Nephi but still refused to accept. I'm glad to know this because sometimes it's not fun getting rejected! Over time sometimes I catch myself thinking "man i must not be powerful and convincing enough" but I can always remember that if I have the Holy Ghost with me it will be enough for the person to accept or deny the message.

That's about all for this week! We were a little busy with some stake reporting and zone conference but it still went pretty well! Loving the work a ton and am thankful to be out here in the Philippines.

Love you all!

elder reber

This weeks pics are compliments of the great Siser Fermanis, Parker's new mission presidents wife. I love seeing a full view of some of the experiences she is having. Many of which for the first time!  She shares not only pictures of our missionaries and fun facts like their Zone Conference program, but many pictures of the world around them. It has been such a blessing to have this wonderful family come to serve the people in the Philippines.