I want to start this letter off by telling you all how much I want to cry. I can't believe that I am missing such blissful weather back home! The pictures you sent are incredible & I can't believe that the second I leave this happens. I hope you are all grateful that you have such nice weather & not such hot, humid weather like I am experiencing here!
I really enjoyed all of the pictures that everyone sent. From New York to Utah, they were all awesome! I loved the picture of Dax with his little hat on. Such a stud! I even enjoyed the picture of my car. I really miss it! I miss driving. How is it holding up?
Well, like times in the past, not much has happened this week. However, I will share with you a funny experience that happened a few days ago. But first, let me fill you in on our investigators. We have two families that we are really focusing on - The Andaya family & the Jamito family. The Andaya family consists of the husband & wife & their 4 children. We have been teaching them & they are great! However, they are not really progressing. As firm Catholics, they tell us my least favorite line of all time...We are the same.
It is so frustrating when people say that the Catholic church is the same as our church. The thing is, everyone says it! Almost everyone that we teach believes in our message. They all say that they believe the Book of Mormon is true, that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, but they can't wrap their mind around the significance of it all. They all say as long as you believe in the Bible, or anything good for that matter, & believe in Christ, that's all that is needed. While these are great thoughts & partially true, they too often fail to understand the necessity to follow the things that we are teaching them. In all honesty, it's exhausting. We really stress to them the apostasy & the restoration of the church. I always tell them, "If the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph was a true prophet. If he was a true Prophet, this is the true church of Jesus Christ." We always challenge them to read & pray about it, sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but nothing really changes in them. Many of them also say that they believe in it but will not be baptized because they have always been Catholic & they feel like they have to stay faithful to it. Many people express to us that they don't even believe much of what the Catholic church teaches, but that's what their parents believed, so they cannot change. It makes me so sad.
The Jamito family consists of the husband, his wife, & their 1 year old son. Get this...the wife's name is Alma & their son's name is Clark-Nephi! They are already Mormons! They are progressing better than the Andaya family. They came to church last week! I am still not extremely confident that they will be baptized, at least not while me & Elder Andus are here, but I am hoping that I am wrong! They have great potential but there are still things that may be keeping them from being baptized. I will keep you updated!
Now for the funny story of the week. Warning: This may or may not be appropriate for little kids, if they even understand.
Me & Elder were out proselyting & we walked out to this bay-bay (a small group of homes out on the edge of the ocean) & we started talking to people. Since we are two Americans & the town is so small, pretty much the entire town came & gathered around to talk to us. After a getting to know each other & joking around for a little while, about 4 little boys, probably 8 years old, came running up in t-shirts that were too big for them (the t-shirts came down to about their feet, I hope you can all picture this). They came running up to me & I asked them their names, how old they were, etc. As I spoke to them I noticed that they were all pulling the shirt away from their body so that the shirt would not make contact with their skin. I didn't think much of it & just continued. I asked them how school went & they told me that they didn't go. I asked them why & I couldn't understand their response. I asked them to repeat what they said, & again I had no idea what they were talking about. I looked at their mom & asked them what they said & she said one word, in English. "Penis!" I was shocked & still didn't quite understand. I again turned to the children & seeing them holding the big shirts away from their bodies, it all clicked! They had just been circumcised! I turned to my companion & explain what they said in English & we just laughed our heads off! I asked the kids how they felt & they responded, "sakit!" which just means that they were in pain, & understandably so. That's my funny story of the week. I hope I didn't offend anybody.
Now, let's talk about more important matters...Christmas! Here is what is going to happen. We have been told that we are allowed to Skype on Christmas (google hangout will be fine as well, as long as I can get it to work), so that is what we will do! Because of the time difference, they told us that we can either do it on the 25th or the 26th according to the time here in Cebu, since you are all a day behind. I'm not sure what you would rather do? I personally was thinking that it might be better to do it on the 26th my time? That way it would be about 8 pm over there on the 25th for all of you. That is just my thoughts, please let me know what you think of if the other time is better for you all. I would like to do google hangout so that I can see everybody, so if you could let me know (Starr) what I need to do to try & figure that out that would be great! You mentioned just sending an invite? Maybe that would work best.
Again, let me just say how painful it is to look at the ideal weather back home, knowing that I am confined to this year-round heat! Enjoy it for me! I will try to answer some questions that were asked. Casey, yes we teach recent converts & family home evenings. Especially since the retention rate is so low here, we really focus & teaching recent converts after their baptism. We start all of the lessons over & teach them everything again. After we finish that, we keep going back weekly for up to 1 year after their baptism. When this is done correctly, the chances of them staying active & entering the temple are much greater. We are also able to do family home evening once in a while. We could do it every week if we wanted, it just depends on our schedule. We had one the other night & it was great! I love them because they usually feed us a wonderful meal & then we start. We will give them a fun lesson & then we play games. They have some great games that they play & it's always enjoyable! I also really enjoyed reading about your missionary efforts with that Chinese girl in your class. She sounds great! Keep working hard with her & others & I'm sure great things will come from it. Even if you don't see the result, something that has happened to me for my entire first 6 months, you are still helping them & planting the seed for them to progress. We have talked about it before. I remember you writing me a few months ago telling me that it is just as important to plant the seed as it is to "harvest". This is certainly true.
That's about it for this week. Me & Elder Andus bought a football last week (the only one I have ever seen in the Philippines) so we invited all of the American missionaries to come & play a game at the chapel. There is also a basketball court there so the Filipinos can play basketball. We always invite them to play football, but they always say no & they act scared when we tell them to try & catch it or throw it. It's pretty funny. They just love their basketball, & there's nothing wrong with that.
I love you all & pray for you always. Until next week!
-Elder Staheli
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