Hey Mum and Whanau,
Another good week here in the Philippines. Thank you for all your emails and pictures, they are so awesome and it was great to receive all of your words of encouragement because they really are a big help for me. Mum, you guys look awesome in your pictures, but please don't go pushing dad off any high towers anytime soon! Hehe! We've had a good, constructive week in our area and we were blessed to listen to Elder Ardern this week at a Missionary Devotional and it was so awesome.
I loved listening to the New Zealand accents when Elder Ardern and is wife spoke to us at the Devotional. They came into the Chapel, sat up front and skimmed over the missionaries and he saw me and leaned over to his wife to probably say, "There's Elder Chadderton!" Hehe! Cool aye. It's funny because I think he thought I was the only Kiwi he knew because when he was speaking he singled me out about questions about home and the differences in our accent. He started speaking and said, "There are only three people here today that, "DONT" have accents. Me, my wife and Elder Chadderton!" Crack up, but to make me feel even more special, when he left he came over to where I was sitting and shook my hand. Just me! Out of all the missionaries in the chapel he only shook my hand. I felt so SPECIAL! Hehe. His messages were great as he talked about how to better fulfill your calling as missionaries and in a way what our calling entails. Sister Ardern shared four ways to be a better learner. Great talk too!
So, our focus for the past week was to find more less active members and possibly old investigators that may have been overlooked. This was to help boost our teaching pool because of past baptisms. Our hard work payed off because we were really blessed while working in this one area called Batac. On our list or planner that we carry, we've written down that there are a lot of members in this area so we go by the names on the list and pray that we can find these families. We are walking around our area and turn down this one street. My companion, Elder Merrill thought that he knew where one of the investigators lived but we must have either past the house or missed it because we couldnt find it. Anyway, we walked back out to the main road and this guy is just chilling on his trike and calls us over. We talk to him for a bit and find out that his family are all members except him. He said that he was taught by the missionaries some time ago but he wasn't able to get baptized because the missionaries were transferred and no one visited him after that so in the end he lost interest and was never baptized. We talked to him some more and asked him if he was interested to have us share the lessons with him. He said that it would be fine. Cool! We then showed him our list and asked him if he knew some of the names that were written there and if he knew where they lived. He pointed out a house close by that was the house of another less active family. Cool blessings!
We went and visited the less active family and talked and shared a lesson with them and then asked if they knew any members close by and they too pointed out another family's home that we didn't know about. The next day we continued our search and by night time we were just about to head home and we stopped by a Tindahan and asked the owner if she knew where a particular family lived that was also on our list. She pointed out the home and so we pushed our luck and asked if she knew one of the other names and she knew them as well. It was really amazing because we were able to visit and share a lesson with those families too. So cool! It reminds me of the scripture and song, "Be thou humble and the Lord, thy God, will lead you by the hand and give thee answers to thy prayers." That's what he did for us. He's the man!
Tomorrow we have Zone interviews and I also need to get my Temple recommend renewed as it expires tomorrow. Perfect timing or what? I'm going to go on exchanges with the Zone leaders on Thursday in Teresa - one of my last areas. Then on Saturday two of our investigators will be interviewed for baptism. Awesome! Then, "MOTHERS DAY" the following Sunday! We figured about 2:00 p.m. my time should be the best time to Skype home. Oh and next Monday for our Zone activity we are going to the water falls again. All goods!
Busy week ahead and another week to fly by. Next week it'll just be over two weeks na lang but as for now I am doing everything I can to help our investigators get ready for baptism. My theory is, "Magtiis hanggang wakas o magsaya hanggang wakas." Time is to short to screw things up now!
I love you all so much and I can't wait to see all your beautiful faces when I Skype home on Mother's Day - one last Skype session before the mission ends and before I come home.
Elder Chadderton
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