Monday, May 8, 2017

When the infection is too strong

This week my companion, Elder Rasmussen, got an infection in his face, it is pretty nasty. It is very VERY painful for him to speak. So not a whole lot of work got done this last week. That is okay though, sometimes things like that happen. I feel bad for him because he has been in a lot of pain and there hasn’t been much I can do. He got antibiotics for it the other day so it is hopefully going to be a lot better soon. Right now it is hurting him a lot.

This week we have been getting ready for Mother's day calls. If you did not know, there are two times a year that missionaries are allowed to contact their families with video chat: Mother's day and Christmas. This involves finding a place that has webcams and trying to figure them out. We get around 40 minutes of time to talk to our families. This might seem like a very short amount of time, that is because it is. Anyways, we have been trying to find a place that will allow us to video call and it has been a bit of a struggle. Hopefully the internet will be decent.
     
Anyways, like I said there wasn’t a ton of work this week ‘cause we have been confined to the house a decent amount of the time. We did try to visit some names that were given to us by ward members. Normally when a ward member gives you a person to teach – it is a great opportunity because the friend that that person already has in the church can help them out in their journey for understanding. This is a better way to find people than walking down a really hot street talking to random people. (No matter how much I enjoy that.)
         
As missionaries in this church, our job is to explain to people our beliefs and help them to come closer to Jesus Christ. We do this by inviting them to find out the truth for themselves. In the end, everyone that we talk to and teach every day has their agency to do whatever they want; when we invite them to pray, read the scriptures, go to church, and other commitments such as those – they have the agency to accept and find truth or not to. More often than not, they do not take us up on our invitation. The joy of teaching is in the inviting people to change their lives; it is in telling them where they can find the truth, and showing them the way to follow. That being said, we are also here to identify concerns that people have and help them understand the importance of coming to Christ. In this church we believe that based on what we do here on earth we receive blessings, and we are here to show and explain those blessings so that people can receive them if they so desire.
     
It is hard to see what people could be, after having what they could feel, and what blessings they could have – then see them not accept it. The promise of truth and understanding is a sure promise. God does not give to some people that ask and not others. He loves us all equally, and based on our desire to know and ask, He gives us what we need to understand His plan for us.
       
Culture: Load. Oftentimes you don’t have a phone plan like most people in America do. You buy what is called load and you buy promos. You have someone at a tindahan (one of those small stores) put load on your phone. For this you give them money and they put most of that money (there is a small charge) on your phone as “load”. Then you usually use that load to buy a promo – which might be unlimited call and text for 7 days. It varies a lot based on what promo you have and how much load you have. Most people run out of load a few days before the month ends. If you want to get a hold of someone at the end of the month, they probably can’t text or call you back.
     
Tagalesson: Last week I mentioned "ang" and "ng" – the are two words you need to understand to get this language. You can say anything in Tagalog by conjugating a word a different way. It is all about "Focus". This is basically how it works: the word that has "Ang" before it is the focus of the sentence (if it is a proper name you use "si" instead of Ang) so you can say the same sentence but it can be focused on a different thing 
Example:
THE CHILD read the book
Nagbasa ANG BATA ng aklat
The child read THE BOOK
Binasa ng bata ANG AKLAT

Note the root of the word is “basa” in both situations, and how the translation stays the same. In the second sentence, you are focusing on the book that was read more so than the child. This works in many different ways, but based on what you want to emphasize you need to put the "ang" in the correct place and you also need to conjugate the verb correctly.
There will probably be about a million lessons on focus, be warned
I love you all; keep on keeping on.
There will probs be pictures on Elder Rasmussen's Infection so be warned as well.
That puppy is sad.


Our roommates had a baptism




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