Week 59: Missionary Firesides and Training, Baptismal Goal Date, and Testimony of the Book of Mormon

Hey Everyone!

First super sorry that I wasn't able to email or chat with you last week. The last week of every month is super hectic for email. We are in the computer shop for 4 hours doing reports. And it was my first time doing it so I wasn't uber fast haha... But I am also sad to inform you (Mom, Dad, Mindy, and Mariah) that I will no longer be chatting every Monday. I guess it was not allowed. And I guess most of the mission was doing it, and our Mission Leader Council meeting last week, President Clark reminded us that it was not ok. So I was being disobedient in ignorance but now that I know that it is not in harmony with the Missionary Handbook. I will be following :( but this may mean an increase in recordings.

Also no recordings this week because I epicly failed haha. So this morning I was recording then after what felt like 15-20 minutes, I checked the time and realized the recorder was off. So I turned it on again and recorded; this time I checked after about 3-5 minutes of recording and the battery had died...So I was outside talking to myself for about 25 minutes... It was great LOL

But this week was another fantastic week.

Friday: We had the Tarlac side of the mission, (the half I am on) attend a missionary fireside where Bishop Causse of the Presiding Bishopric come and teach us. It was cool. He just walked around and talked with us instead of giving a talk. Also on Sunday was the Philippines wide broadcast. We listened to our Area President Ian S Arden who is a BOSS! and then 2 other general authorities and Elder Oaks. I love being able to listen to so many General Authorities. I am learning a lot from them and their example.

Friday evening /all of Saturday: MLC or Mission Leader Council. This was held at the mission home and it was awesome. Working with Pres. Clark and just discussing the mission and what direction we are going to take was amazing. He named that MLC a "Red Flag" Day where we will be either be making huge gains in our mission or stay the same. This is due to the new changes we are making in the mission. I'll probably talk about those in a recording to give you more details. It changes the way we proselyte and how we teach. Unfortunately, we will not be receiving iPads or iPhones... not yet at least... ;)

Sunday was a great Sabbath full of meetings. We were at the church from  10am-730pm. It was crazy. My companion and I presented the changes of our mission to the stake president and his councilors, the bishops and all their councilors. The majority seem very excited; there, of course, are a few who are skeptical, but the stake president is really backing us up and what is to implemented this week so we will see how it goes.

We had 45 minutes after church before our next meeting and we were blessed with a new investigator. A less active in our ward brought her friend to church, who also happens to be the cousin of our Ward mission leader. So we were able to teach her and she accepted a baptismal goal date of December 13! It was great.

Highlight of the week however was finally returning and teaching Steven and Abigail Ong! They were a golden family a while ago. So Steven is an RM and his wife is a non member. They have the 2 cutest Filipina girls ever!!! They are 3 and 1 years old. They are such a cool family. and the 3 year old speaks English! haha. Anyways Abigail is super receptive and understanding but has not been able to a accept a Baptismal Goal date. Well we assigned her 2 Nephi 31. She read it and said while she was reading she felt like she was with Joseph Smith watching him translate the Book of Mormon. She felt that there was no way he could write/translate this unless God helped him. She told us she now believed the Book of Mormon to be true. We continued teaching a lesson about the Plan of Salvation. When we got to the Atonement I felt prompted to invite her to be baptized. I extended the invitation and she just started smiling and said, "Yes, I'm ready." I'll pray if November 29 is the right day for me. It was so cool! and they came to church again yesterday. and the 2 weeks while they were in Manila, they went to church there too!!! It was awesome :)

Just love you all so much and I know that the Book of Mormon changes lives. Read it.
Have a superb week!
Elder Watkins