Dirty Water

Hi.

So this was a good week! Crazy week, but good week!

We managed to pull off a wedding and baptism this week, so that was pretty great! The process was intense. So the first four days of this week, we had to travel to the office to get this paper work started. We were going back and forth from there, getting birth certificates, filling out forms, and getting things "notarized", which I think is a strange practice anyway. But by the end of the week, we had completed the preparation for the wedding in just a week, which normally takes a few weeks! Normally you have to attend classes and all sorts of things, but we were able to take advantage of a part of the law that has exemptions from that sort of stuff. Great legal advice from one of the Stake Presidents in Bacolod.

The wedding itself was rather simple. It was just a few of us Elders and a few members who joined as well. It really put a lot of the focus on what promises were being made to each other. I really liked that part. I also got to video the wedding, which was awesome. I'm still making wedding videos half way around the world! :)

It was a great opportunity to baptize Sister G after her wedding. It was even greater to hear her testimony about how peaceful she felt after she came out of the water, knowing that her sins were gone. Cool experience. Great sister.

I have a parable for everyone this week. I know everybody just loves those. Especially because I seem to send one every week. Actually, I'm not even sure that you call those parables..? You know, where you like relate life stuff to gospel stuff..? I'm not sure what qualifies as a parable, but I think that's correct. Anyway, here's what happened the morning of the wedding and baptism:

We noticed last baptism that the water was super murky after we filled it up. Unfortunately, we didn't notice until it was already full and the baptism was about to start. We performed the baptism anyway, even with the dirty water. But this week we decided to go and clean the font beforehand. It was super dirty and we spent about 2-3 hours just scrubbing away and rinsing it down. We were pretty proud of our work after we were done. Unfortunately, by the time we were done filling the font, it was STILL murky. Even though we had spent so much time cleaning it, it was still murky. The reason for this was because it was actually the water source that was dirty, not just the font.

Do you see where I'm taking this analogy? OH! That's what it is! ANALOGY. Maybe that still qualifies as a parable..? Oh well. But do you see where I'm going with this?

This is just like repentance. There is one crucial step that we often forget in repentance. After we have repented for our sins, after we have confessed them to God or to our Bishop or whatever we need to do to make it right -- we need to change. After we have "cleaned our font," we need to fill it with clean water; we need to fill it with good things. Obviously if the things we are doing, our 'water source", is dirty, repentance is useless. We will spend so much time scrubbing and scraping and cleaning up the mess we made, only to have it get dirty again. That's no fun. Whether it's the people with whom we associate, the entertainment we view, or even an addiction, we won't be able to avoid it if we don't fill it with something better. Like reading the scriptures, praying, and going to church. Primary answers.

SUPER funny experience really quick:

A few weeks ago we were on exchanges and we OYM'ed this one sister with a baby. Babies are OYM magnets. We started talking about her baby, "Oh he's so cute. How old is he? What's his name?" To the latter, her response was something like "Hoog." So my companion and I were a little confused. Elder Cancel then asked the question, "Where did he get his name, Sister?" I couldn't understand everything she said because it was quiet, but I understood the word "movie" and "Jackman". I about lost it when I realized where she got the name. Turns out she named the baby after Hugh Jackman from X-Men, but I guess she wasn't sure how to pronounce the name correctly. I then informed her nicely that his name is actually pronounced like "Heew". She then looked at her baby and said, "Ohhhhh! So you're name is actually Hugh..." So in just a few short minutes I managed to meet this sister, talk to her, get to know a little bit about her religious background, and then rename her child.

That's all for this week! I included a picture of the wedding.Enjoy!

Elder Welton