Hey Mum and Whanau,
Another great and successful week in the mission field and it was nice to listen to the General Conference talks this week. Thanks for all the emails and pictures. You all look so great and hugs all round when I get home.
So, I've been transferred and I am happy. I am in a place called Tanay, Rizal and my new companion is Elder Merrill from Bountiful, Utah. He's 19 years of age and a really nice guy and he kinda reminds me of Napoleon Dynamite. Hehe! He's doing great in the mission and I'm his follow up trainer because he's only been in the area for one transfer and he's still struggling with the language which means I've been assigned to lead the area. Our investigator pool is healthy and we have some great people to teach. We have two baptisms next week which is awesome and then we have one scheduled for May 4th and another for May 11th. That is so awesome. Our area is huge but the place we work in is tiny because we are trying to focus on teaching the investigators that are close to the Chapel. Tanay is a little further down from one area I used to serve in called Teresa so it is considered province. It's a very nice little town and reminds me a little of Kihikihi. It's cool and the only problem is that there is no MacDonald's! (jokes).
Well, with my birthday being tomorrow and everything and being in a new area I figured I'm just going to shout the Elders to dinner and then buy a cake and munch it back. That will definitely be one of the highlights for this week along with our two baptisms.
Story, "We have an investigator named Randell and he is 23 years of age and looks like he could be my little brother. Hehe! We gave him a reading assignment in the Book of Mormon last Wednesday - 3rd Nephi chapter 11 focusing on baptism. We visited him again on Friday expecting him to have read the chapter we'd assigned him and so we ask him if he has read it and he had not only read chapter 11 but he carried on and read chapters 12, 13 and 14 too. I was shocked but he said he really enjoyed it. We then invited him to share what he liked from the chapters he read and if he had any questions. He asked us so many questions and shared a ton of scriptures. I caught a glimpse of his scriptures and he had highlighted so many of the verses. I believe he really liked those chapters because he talked about the commandments and how important the law of chastity is and he talked about prayer and how we need to pray from the heart and not use repetitive prayers and heaps of other things. It was amazing to see how a person can receive personal revelation for themselves and build their testimony when they read the Book of Mormon."
Another cool experience happened yesterday when we went and visited an investigator named Michelle. She has a baptism date set for May 11th. So, before we start the lesson we follow up on how she liked General Conference. She said she liked what she understood and then asked us about tithing and what it is. We briefly explained it to her and then gave her a pamphlet. We continued with the planned lesson about the Plan of Salvation and the atonement. I taught about our life on earth and my companion shared the atonement of Jesus Christ. It was a great lesson and towards the end of the lesson I asked her if there was anything we could help her with. She started thanking us for teaching her, for being patient with her and for helping her to change her life and then she started to cry and told us how her family is improving a lot and that she feels peace in her heart and comfort when trials come. When she was crying one of the other members present, looked at her and said perfectly, "Look, look at her, she's feeling the spirit!" and then she started crying too. It was amazing to see how we as missionaries are just instruments in teaching the gospel and we don't do the teaching we just set up the environment for the spirit to come in and let him do the teaching.
Five weeks left in the field and I'm counting on one hand now. I'm going to miss it Mum! I love you all heaps and hope you had a good week listening to the prophets voice. I've had an awesome week and I hope this new week will be just as good. Mahal ko kayo.
Elder Chadderton
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