It's nice and warm here

Well, it's nice and warm here in Roxas, Isabela. We are just a couple of hours from, what they say is, the hottest place in Asia!... :P Or one of the hottest cities. I forget what they say. Either way - it's hot. But the apartment here is pretty cool, and it actually gets pretty chilly at night with the fans goin, so that's good. Cold is good. Hot is bad. ;)

We have been trying to really focus this past week on the Less-Actives in our branch.. but every single one we tried visiting this past week turned us down.  It was kind of frustrating at first, but I remembered what is says in Preach My Gospel, about how no effort is wasted.  So we kept going, and even if we got "punted," we still went to all of our planned appointments. At the end of the day, even though we didn't get to teach anyone, it felt like we did some good, and at least they recognized our desire to go and help them and teach them.

  

After this experience, I was reading in Moroni 7, and I came upon the verses about Charity, and they had never hit me so hard. Seriously, without Charity, missionary work wouldn't be effective. We would be nothing, as the scripture says. If we didn't have charity, we wouldn't have kept going and trying to visit the less active members.  Charity is so essential to everything we do in life, and when we have Charity, it will lead to us obtaining more Christ-like Attributes. Like patience. When we have that pure love towards everyone, our patience will become stronger... because we love them. :) 

We also had our MLC this week, and we learned a great lesson from Sister Rahlf about "footprint statements." Are we leaving behind footprints that lead down the right path or the wrong path? She shared the example of nephi, and how he left great footprint statements that we still follow to this day. 1 Nephi 3:7, for example. Then President Rahlf shared about "To DO and To BE." "In order to be," he said, "We must do." We can't just do something, because there is no effect.  And it is difficult to BE if we aren't doing what we are trying to Be.  Some deep stuff. I was inspired. When we are doing and being, we will naturally leave behind good footprint statements. I love that!  

So... other than that, we have had quite a few dogs try and "eat" us... I am becoming more scared of dogs then spiders at this point... haha. At least here in the peeens. Dogs aren't the same here... and now I am starting to understand why they eat them... though I will never eat dog. Never. Ever. 

Well, I hope you all have a great week, full of happiness and with Charity towards all. And I just want to give a quick shout out to Matt Walstad - he ran his first ever marathon last week, and he dominated! :D WOO!!! Way to be! That is a great example of perseverance and hard work :) gotta love it. 

"I've got a theory that if you give 100 percent all of the time, somehow things will work out in the end." - Larry Bird

Stay True!

Elder Walstad