Grateful In Any Circumstance

November 30, 2014

Hello to all of you!! 

While you are still flat on your backs from all the turkey and pie you've eaten, I'm still chugging along here in Morong! This week went well, but I am not going to lie- I wish that Thanksgiving was a world-wide holiday! As the only American here in Morong, I was not expecting to get a Thanksgiving dinner... which is good, because I didn't get one! I guess I will have to wait until next year! The closest thing that I got to a Thanksgiving dinner was some squash that I heated up in the microwave with a little bit of brown sugar on top. I tried to imagine that it was Thanksgiving yams... All I can say is that I am sure you ate MUCH better than I did!

Thanksgiving was a really neat experience for me, as I wrote a list of what I was grateful for. I re-read the talk by Elder Uchtdorf from April 2014 Conference entitle, "Grateful in Any Circumstance." He talks about how sometimes we get too caught up being grateful FOR things instead of being grateful for the circumstances we are in. If you don't remember this talk, I highly recommend that you go read it!

We taught Norma and Jose 3 times this week and they are doing AMAZING! Especially Tatay Jose. He is already in Alma in the Book of Mormon and you can just see the change in him and the new light that has come into his life. We visited them Saturday evening in which they committed to come to church, but when sacrament meeting started the next day, they were no where in sight. I was devastated. Their baptism was scheduled for Christmas Day, but because they did not come to church, they cannot be baptized in the month of December... Now we have to wait until January. I sat during the sacrament so confused as to what I was doing wrong as a missionary and why things don't seem to be working out lately. And then I remembered the talk by Elder Uchtdorf. I pulled out my planner and made a list of what I was grateful for, despite the circumstance I was in. It is amazing how much Heavenly Father continues to bless us as we trust in His plan.

After church, Sister Valdez and I headed straight to the mountain to find Nanay and Tatay. When Tatay saw us, you could see that he just wanted to cry. They invited us in and Tatay began to tell us that he was about to get into the shower this morning so he could go to church and went to grab his clothes. To his surprise, his clothes were sopping wait from the rain the night before. He grabbed his work uniform, hoping he could wear that instead to church, but it smelled bad. He was devastated and did not think that he could go to church in just a t-shirt and shorts. He went on to to tell us that he feels so unworthy to be happy and have the gospel in his life because he is so imperfect. We shared with him Ether 12:27- how we all have weaknesses, and that is why we need to rely on the Lord. We helped him understand that all of those feelings he was having were not from Heavenly Father and he began to realize that Satan is working really hard on him because he is about to be baptized. As much as I wished that Norma and Jose were able to go to church today, I think that because of their experience, they will never ever miss church again. The Lord works in mysterious ways:) 

Sooo that is that for the week! Hope you all have a great one! Love you!!

Love,

Sister Anderson