Wawa Dam and Progress

Well this was one of the best weeks of my life. We had the opportunity to see four great souls go into the water of baptism. Jemuel, Karen, Gloria, and Bryan have had a gigantic influence on me in my life. They have made large changes in their life in order to improve and become happier. Each one of these children of God had their own personal challenges, passions, dreams, and fears. The change that the Atonement can bring in our lives is remarkable. I realized this week the difficulty of things that we expect of these people to do. So many people in this world desire change, but little change is ever made. We need help. We need Christ in our lives.

Even after our four baptisms we had the most amount of investigators at church that I have ever had in my mission. This is all because of God and his great mercy. All we can do is pray and give our best efforts, and He will fulfill our righteous desires in ways we would never expect. The time in the mission is short and we have no time to waste in order to do the work of God.

Batasan Hills second is a wonderful ward and is very supportive of the work. We have started a new initiative where every week we will assign a different member every week to give out a Book of Mormon and then report on it in each quorum. We are hoping this will increase the wards desire to share the Gospel even more. We are also starting a ward Family Home Evening to help these investigators feel comfortable and see the importance of having a great time with the family. 

I had some interesting opportunities this week as I got to give my grandmother a blessing, participate in a baby blessing of the child of my cousin, and give a teary-eyed message to my uncle and cousins. I am trying to figure out exactly why God has called me to this specific place and am trying hard to live the way God would like me to live.

Personally I am also doing great. Every day I am feeling more and more confident as a leader and teacher of the people. I know that my calling as a missionary is great and that I need to spend every second of it to God. The Christ-like attribute that I want the most is to be one with God's will. If we are one with God's will, we will never falter. I know that revelation is the key to live according to God's will. I hope to one day be one with God. One thing that I have been doing is putting in even more effort to increase my Tagalog skills. I want to be an exceptional missionary and I know that the language is a barrier that I need to still overcome.

Our companionship is also amazing. Elder Faulkner is helping me every single day. All we want to do is do what God wants. At times we get distracted, but we quickly get back on the course. I feel at times I drag Elder Faulkner a little bit down and am working hard to be a catalyst instead of an inhibitor. Our companionship unity is great and have never had any problems. The main reason though is probably because he keeps giving me some of his sour patch kids that he got in a package that was sent to him. Plus we just know how to have a good time. We walk through the streets greeting as many people as we can every day and it lightens my day. No matter where we are, we share the gospel.

The zone is inspiring me. Even with the seven baptisms that occurred in our zone on Saturday, our SMA increased by 17. I feel like as our zone gets closer and closer, we gain a greater desire to help each other find success. Us as zone leaders learn so much from other missionaries such as Elder Wright, Elder Moralita, Sister Sebellegue, and Sister Tesch. These missionaries are a great help for the zone. Earlier today we had a little activity going up to wawa dam. It was a refreshing activity and not only helped the zone unity but gave everyone a change to relax and enjoy the nature a little bit. However, at every zone activity SOMEthing has to go wrong. This time Elder Kauffman's bag was stolen.. which had his credit card, his money, his ID, and many other things... it was a bummer but on the bright side we still got to take some nice pictures! 

Everyone have a wonderful week!

Elder Cadayong