Nakaraos Naman!

So with what we mentioned last week about baptism goals and about our area, we are seeing a lot of success in our zone. This week we had 9 baptisms. One of the 10 that were scheduled got pushed to next week, but as it stands that is very good for us in general. One thing that we are trying for is a consistent 2 baptisms per companionship, per month. This means that in the zone of 9 companionships – we should be hitting 18 baptisms each month. Ever since I got to Fairview, we have been climbing steadily: May: 7, June: 9, July: 13, August: 19 (with what we have scheduled for this coming week). We are helping a lot of people make big changes in their lives and enter into covenants made with God. It is amazing to see the results of the missionary work in the lives of people around me – it just kind of lifts everyone up: the missionaries and those that they teach.

This week we tried something new with some of the people that we teach. We went to their house in the morning for about 7 minutes. We gave them a specific reading assignment in the Book of Mormon, along with a few questions to answer. The reading was only about 3 verses long and could easily be done in 20 minutes in total. We then told them we would come back later that day; but instead of teaching like normal, we would just ask about how the reading was. We did that with 3 people who had not yet read the Book of Mormon. 2 of them did the assignment and the other said she read it but did not answer the questions. It was interesting to see that when we gave them a specific time we would be back, they were much more willing to complete the reading. It is like if we all knew the exact day Jesus was coming back, we would all at least go to church the Sunday before that... right?

Elder Cadayong and I are doing great. We both want to do hard work and get success. He reminds me that I am going home quite often, but that is okay cause it mostly just slides off my back like water. It is a very interesting time in my mission. I feel like my time to make a difference is waning, but I feel like one of the biggest things I can do is work with other missionaries to get them to improve and to teach them what they need to know before I go. I think helping the other missionaries will be very helpful in the salvation of others because we really push the work along for the future "generations".

Anyways, I got distracted again and didn’t write a lot. Either way, we are just doing our best over here – trying to make sure all the new trainees in our zone can figure out how to be good missionaries.

Keep on keeping on. Here are some pictures from some stuff that we did over the last two weeks. We ran out of electricity and lit a candle. And one of our investigators had a baby.

Love you all

Elder Faulkner