Excited Investigators, Great Sunday, "Sacrifices", SERVICE&GRATITUDE Aug 31th

Hello Family!! Oh how I enjoy this time to read your emails and tell you about my week!! You have no idea:) What a truly wonderful week Sister Arcinas and I have had! We have seen so many miracles (small and big) and my heart has really been touched by some of these experiences.

I will start with Brother Eulysis! He is an 18 year old high school student. We were teaching one of our investigators that is one of his good friends. One good thing about bamboo houses that are completely open is that people that are interested can easily listen or join even if they were just walking by. That what happened to Eulysis. Sister Arcinas saw him listening in the doorway and invited him to join and listen. As he entered he's like "I'm interested! I will just sit and listen as well!". SWEET! haha So the lesson lead to us inviting Eulysis to follow the Savior's example in being baptized by someone holding priesthood authority and he confidently accepted without missing a beat. Sister Arcinas and I were aware of his excitement, confidence, kindness and genuine interest! So we planned to focus on him the next couple of days to help him commit to come to church. Which is exactly what happened! It was a very happy Sunday for Sister Arcinas and I :D We had many investigators at church and many of them it was their first time! Eulysis is so different that all of the other people that I've taught. He sat in the front row of all the classes, wanted to read every scripture out loud and answer every question to the class. I think if it would have been fast and testimony meeting that he would have gone to the pulpit! He is so pumped about learning about the restored gospel. What an experience teaching him about Joseph Smith. It's so powerful when our investigators draw the parallel between themselves and Joseph Smith: not knowing what church to join, having that strong desire to receive truth from God and direction in His life, seeking for answers from the soul. After the lesson he ask when the soonest that he can be baptized and testified to his elderly parents that this church is true... "he can just feel it.. it's so different than all the other churches... because it's the TRUE church." Wow. Powerful. That's the best way I can explain that right now. It's so amazing how people are so prepared to receive this restored gospel and they have this fire within them that just burns so strong when they hear the message of the restored gospel and feel of it's truthfulness through the power of the Holy Ghost.

We actually left an hour early for church and rode a tricycle to our investigators in order to walk with them to church. (Kind of backwards no?) But it was enjoyable- sweaty.. but at least it wasn't raining. These people really sacrifice to go to church and it helps me as a missionary to better understand the sacrifices that they are making even though I can never truly understand their real way of life... I really enjoyed walking with them to church. Sister Arcinas thought that I was joking when I asked her if we could do that but she was supportive and sacrificed with me :) (I am making this sound like a huge sacrifice when it's the normal and accepted for these people..) ... more about that after I finish telling you about sunday!

One of our other investigators that came to church is someone that we only taught 1 time. It's really shocking to a missionary after teaching someone one time to see them walk into the Gospel Principles class... you almost don't recognize them for a second because you're so taken back! Sister RubyAnn brought her younger sister and young neice and (2 of our now new investigators) and her young son who is not yet 8 to church. We taught her one time (her husband was the one that I mentioned I think last week that we talked to when we were filling up our water bottles next to his small store and he explained how he is interested about what he read from the pamphlet we gave him and asked if we would visit his family.) Well we visited them and it was great but it turns out that the grandma is devote Catholic (no surprise here) and doesn't approve having missionaries in her home. Sister RubyAnn and her husband had to tell us that we're not really allowed to come back to teach them. It was a let down but... she came to church!! We haven't been able to follow up yet- which means we are planning to go back to their house and are really praying that the grandma either isn't there and has a softened heart to allow us to teach and follow up with how their experience was a church!

Which reminds me, we had them announce by name the investigators at church (ours and the elders) and it was a filled sticky note of names! It really helped the members and leaders to realize and open their eyes to how many new faces and unshaken hands are next to them... and it hopefully helped our investigators feel special and welcome. :) Sister Arcinas' idea :)

So remember how I am constantly saying "my heart just breaks for these people and their way of living" well I soon as I start feeling like I'm used to it or it's not so shocking to hear their humbling stories because I see it and am a part of it all day every day... Heavenly Father humbles me even more. I have two short experiences to share about this from this week. Remember me mentioning that there is a blind member in the branch? Well as we taught him this week we sang to him and he expressed how grateful he was for our visit. He is sad that he's not able to come to church because he doesn't have plete (travel money). He went into explaining how he can't work because the river behind his house is too deep to fish out shells from the bottom because the rain raised the water too high. So he isn't able to sell clams in order to buy rice for himself. And his phone got stolen so he has no contact with his brother in Manila that sends him money when he really needs it. He cried as he explained how hungry he is and how he wants to ask for help from the branch but isn't able to go to church (it's dangerous for him to walk by himself because obviously he's blind). Well maybe it was the fact that he's blind and couldn't tell that I was crying but I just couldn't help it!!! Can we all just take a moment to "count our many blessings" and think twice before we complain about small things- Brother Mario is such a humble and strong member of the church and I know that the Lord will provide for him. If only it were allowed for me to just hand him some money. I explain this experience for you all to realize how blessed we are. Please don't forget that. The other story is connected because we went from this appointment to our next appointment- Lilibeth (one of my recent converts) and her family who are literally millionaries here in the Philippines. They were having a party so we weren't able to enter or teach but they handed us a BUNCH of food and we scheduled a time to go back. We were hungry and excited to eat the yummy food and decided to go to one of our other recent converts to eat0 planning to share with them. We went to Erlinda (who has 7 younger siblings) it was about 7:30 pm and her little siblings were crying because they were hungry and had not yet eaten. We set up the table to dish out the food that we brought and the two plates sitting in front of Sister Arcinas and I (because we were the ones portioning the food) ended up with no food on it. I wasn't hungry any more!! The food was like a Christmas feast to them and we enjoyed seeing how much they enjoyed the food. I was grateful for this experience and the way that I am learning gratitude, humility and charity. Heavenly Father loves ALL of His children so much. This doesn't mean that we are free from trial and hardships. He tests our faith he knows our limits. No matter what our trials and afflictions are- we can't give up on our confidence that He will provide for us and has an eternal plan for us to ultimately return back to live with Him again. Let's always keep in mind that our neighbors and everyone surrounding us has their own battles that they are fighting- let us serve other and help lighten their burdens in any way that we can!! The Lord will help us in our efforts. I love this gospel and know that it is the best medicine for any wound that this sometimes challenging life gives us. But our goal is eternal and his promises are eternal.

Ps. I'll save my rat story for my journal and share with you some other time. Maybe when I get home.

I TRULY LOVE THIS WORK AND LOVE THIS GOSPEL AND LOVE LOVE LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!

Keep the faith!!

All my love,

Sister Judd