Every Day is Another Adventure!

This week a talk has been a huge help for me by President Nelson called, "Begin with the End in Mind." First I was thinking of what I want people to say at my funeral like he suggests, then I did it at a Mission level. Here is what I decided I want people to say about me at the end of my mission.

1) I served God with all my heart, mind, and strength

2) I lifted, encouraged, inspired, and blessed my fellow missionaries starting with my companion.

3) I had a burning desire to be better than I was yesterday

If I wake up every single day focusing on these three things I know I will have a successful mission. It takes a long time to build up a reputation and when evaluating this list the one that I need to most work on is with lifting, encouraging, inspiring, and blessing others. As a zone leader, my leadership skills have greatly improved. Before the mission I had taken on leadership responsibility but served halfheartedly. Now I am doing all I can for these missionaries. In no way am I perfect but I will strive every day to improve and be better than I was yesterday. 

I have been using this same question with my investigators to help sort out their priorities in life and to help them see how the Gospel can help them in their lives. All people will live life to the fullest once they learn to set goals, design a plan, and then act on the design. 

This week we had another miracle. On Thursday I had a prompting from God that we needed to go visit one of our investigators named Mary Anne. We have been teaching her for a while and have gotten to be good friends. When we went to her house we found out that her husband had just left her and that she felt hopeless. She wanted to end her life that night. We talked to her for a while and turned to the Book of Mormon. We read though many different passages to help her feel of God's love in her life and to recognize God's plan for her. By the end of the night we were all in tears because of the intense, almost tangible love that we felt. I know that God has a plan for her, and for all of us. We should never feel like hope is gone because we have the Atonement of Jesus Christ. He died for us so that we can overcome all pain and suffering.

I feel so blessed to be serving here in the Philippines. Every day is another adventure!

                                                Brother Willy with his DOPE hat

     Elder Peterson's first time eating Balut (fertilized duck egg). He couldn't eat the Sisiw (little baby duck)