We had a baptism this week! Her name is, Love Me Lariosa, or better known by her nickname, LubLub. Yes, I can now officially say that I have met someone named "Love Me". I'm not sure what the story behind that name is, but I'm sure it's probably an interesting one. Her siblings were all baptized a few years ago when the Sisters were assigned in the area, but have all since gone inactive, unfortunately. Even despite this challenge, we have been able to get Lub and her sister to start attending church again. We are hoping to eventually help the whole family come back! She has family that has been very active in the church throughout the years and so we had her Uncle baptize her so it would be more personal for her. It was a cool experience. Great baptismal service.
My companion and I noticed the other day how often the General Authorities "invite the presence of Holy Spirit" before they speak. Without fault, Elder Bednar does this EVERY time that he speaks. Elder Domantay points it out now, "Ah, there it is again!" I was pondering that a little while ago. Why is it that they say that every single time? Obviously, if they aren't speaking by the Spirit, that's not the way they should be speaking. But, why do they have to SAY it every time. I realized earlier that we really should be personally inviting the Holy Ghost into everything that we do. So many times, especially with myself, we think that the Spirit couldn't help us with our daily tasks or our worldly pursuits. That's wrong. ESPECIALLY if our task requires interaction with our fellow men, the Spirit can help us. For example; there have been so many times that I have been anticipating, or perhaps, rather, DREADING a conversation with someone in which there is an issue that needs resolving. Had I invited the Spirit to those conversations, perhaps some of those conversations would have been a little different. We can invite the Spirit to "consecrate our performance" on nearly anything that has a worthy goal attached to it. Obviously he's not gonna consecrate our performance of getting 100 likes on our Instagram post or anything like that - but in the decisions that are important, in the decisions that influence the lives of others - he will for sure help us IF WE INVITE HIM. Whether it's buying a house, help on a test, traveling to the store safely, or studying the scriptures - we just have to invite him.
We didn't have too many interesting experiences this week. The single one that I can remember, however, was HILARIOUS. After leaving Love Me's house, being our last appointment that night, we started heading home. On our way home, this man was out sweeping the ground with his broom and dustpan, which the dustpan actually has like a stick thing coming out of the top so you don't have to lean down and pick it up like you normally do with dustpans. That's a real nice feature. But for some reason, the contents of the dustpan were on fire, so he was literally walking around carrying fire in a dustpan and sweeping stuff into it. As we approached him, he stopped sweeping, darted his eyes over at us and read our name tags. He shook my companion's hand, "Elderrrrrrrr DOMANTAY! Elder Domantay." He then read my nametag, yelling, "Elderrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" -- I kid you not, he did that for thirty seconds! So here I have this guy looking me straight in the eyes, holding my hand, yelling "ELDERRRRRRR" for a horribly uncomfortable length of time, while, in his other hand, holding a flaming dustpan of sticks, leaves, and plastic wrappers. It took all my human willpower to keep from laughing right then and there. As we left, when the coast was clear, my companion and I BUSTED up hahaha. What a wonderful experience. I will be sure to show you in person how great it was when I get home. Just remind me.
That's all for this week! Hope everyone has a good week!
Elder Welton
Mom question: How do you feel about the language now?
About the language- I really just don't give myself enough credit I think. I can carry on a somewhat normal conversation, but I tend to use a lot of english words if I don't know what the Ilonggo word is. That's one thing that really saves me in this language. So many people know english that I can get away with using English words a lot. Usually, that's what people understand most anyway. I'm really just expecting too much from myself in expecting to be fluent. My progress so far is good, though. It's nice having Filipino companions to help out. He and I are still always asking each
other questions the entire lesson. We both use a lot of English words in gospel topics because we don't know the ilonggo words. We are shooting back and forth most of the lesson saying, "hey what's that word in Ilonggo? I only know the english word." It's pretty funny. That's all.
I'm not sure where my companion and I are looking in the photo... That was the best one, though.
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