When the Floods start to sweep you away, Christ can pull you to safety

We finally had the long awaited Stake Blitz activity that we have been preparing for forever. It has been a lot of work and now all we have to do is the clean-up work. This Pokemon Go project was fun and all but I am excited for a break from walking around in rain and flood for 8 hours. Didn't think it was possible but I have lost weight this transfer.. But now we can get back to business: teaching God's Children about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The project itself was a pretty chaotic start but it ended up being successful. One part of this activity is finding these members who have not been to church in a while. One of them had an address that was almost impossible to find: Jasmin St. That's it, no number. Jasmin street is way long and I was not even thinking of trying to find this person. However I got the impression that we needed to try and find this family even though we were short on time. Even though the street is probably as long as the Mississippi River, I felt prompted by the Holy Ghost to try this one house in the middle of the Street. The very first house that we knocked on was the right house. We ended up teaching them and hopefully we can help them return the the path of Christ. #thechurchistrue

The flood hit an all time high this week even that there were CNN news crews right outside out apartment. I was half tempted to rewind back to my elementary school days and splash/do a belly flop in some nice Malabon water. I could just imagine the headline: American missionary playing in the Malabon floods. However I restrained myself so that we could make it to our next appointment. As we were walking along admiring the cool tidal waves from the jeepneys, my foot did not hit the ground. I stepped right into the gutter thing and my foot got stuck. To be fair, I could not even see the ground because the water is... let's just say... not clear. As I felt the floods start to take me away into the gutter, my companions helped me out of what could have been a classic quicksand situation. I am glad for great companions. As I pondered this situation I realize that my companions were very Christ-like. When we start to go down a rough path or feel the floods of life start to sweep us away, Christ can pull us to safety. All that we need to do is make sure we always stay close to Him when trials and challenges come our way. And that is our purpose as missionaries: Invite others to come unto Christ.

After all this rain and floods I have gotten sick again. Just the classic cold and some digestion issues but that's just life. We cannot waste a single moment.

Due to the floods, the traffic here is really bad. We had a meeting this week with president and our zone leader in Valenzuela at 12:30. We left at 11:00 thinking that it would take us the usual one hour to get to our meeting. However the traffic was as congested as my sinuses have been this week. Luckily our bus driver was way smart and took a detour route so we ended up getting there at 2 pm. Our other district member were not so lucky. They got to the meeting around 2 hours after it finished. Let's just say President was not too happy with the situation.

One of my role models and best friends here in the mission has been going through a real rough time, Elder Ewing. A couple of his family member have passed away including his brother, cousin and grandparents. He had the opportunity to go home to attend the funeral but he felt like God wanted him to stay and finish his mission. Elder Ewing is one of the most diligent people i have ever met. Please keep him in your prayers.

Allright that is about all for the weekly update. I know that as we do the basics and strive to do what is right, no flood can sweep us away and we can find answers to prayers. Hope you have a great week!