Anyways now that
that seemingly unrelated thought is over with, I will get into how my week was.
I feel like I am learning faster now and I am getting a good grasp on how to
teach in Tagalog. It can be very frustrating when I have something I want to
say and I can't explain it adequately. Then I must start over with my thoughts
completely. It really, truly, makes you think about what you want to say – long
before it comes out of your mouth. That being said, I have also been working on
listening. Not just understanding what people are saying, but seeing their
needs through their tone and their eyes. It is impossible to teach someone to
their needs if you don’t know what their needs are.
One thing that I
would like to say is that the people
here love Jesus. I think that missionary work in other countries tends to
follow along the lines of telling people about the restoration of the gospel as
fast as possible and bearing witness it is true. Whereas here, if you do not
spend 15-20 minutes talking about Jesus Christ and what he has done for us –
then the people might question what our message truly is about. It makes it
easier to teach about the reason why we do anything, why missionaries exist: to
invite others to follow Christ, to testify of Christ, to give witness of His
life, and His true church and gospel. I really do love teaching the first half
of the first lesson now. If you are unfamiliar, the first lesson is about the
restoration of God's true church (the same church that Jesus Christ established
when he was on the earth). The first half of the lesson, we are supposed to
talk about prophets, Jesus Christ's life, and why it was important. We get to
share doctrines from Jesus that some people don’t understand. The second half
of the lesson is about the restoration of that same church through a modern day
prophet.
I realize the
importance of Christ's life more every time I teach that lesson; every time I
help people understand what Christ did for them and what he wants us to do
because of it. Christ spent his whole life inviting people to follow Him and
keep God's commandments; and it is my job to do the same thing.
We had a small
cleansing of our teaching pool. We are shifting focus away from those that are
unwilling to keep commitments and pray to know the truth of what we teach; and
we focused a lot on finding and teaching new investigators. We were truly
blessed as we found many people that we were able to teach and have started to
keep commitments. One in specific is Brother Kamarlon. He was unable to come to
church this week because he couldn’t get work off, but he told us when we
checked up on him yesterday that he wanted to serve a mission. He said he has a
strong desire to know the truth and share it with others.
I would like to share
a spiritual thought out of the book of Enos in the Book of Mormon. After Enos
prays all day for a remission of sins, he receives the answer from God that
because of his faithfulness he is forgiven. He gains a testimony of the truth. Then
in verse 9 he says: "And it came to pass that when I had heard these wordsI began to feel a desire for the welfare of my brethren, the Nephites;wherefore, I did pour out my whole soul unto God for them." If you have
truly received a witness how are you sharing it? If you have yet to receive a
witness what are you waiting for?
Tagalesson:
This language is
very much one of intent. People understand you based on how you say things and
quite a bit less on what you say. The lesson I am going to teach is on the word
"Lang". It means “only”, or “just”. It is used much how we use the
word “just” in English. It is a word that you tack on the end of another word
(almost always an English word) and it means about what you would expect it to
mean. The only difference is that the way this is used it mostly based on tone
and a lot less on the word itself. For example, 90% of the time if I ask how
someone is they say "okay-Lang" meaning "just okay" but
this varies depending on how you say it. Think of when you ask how someone is
in America, and they reply "Good" but if they say that with a frown
and a sigh it probably isn't. “Okay-lang” doesn't really mean "I am just
okay" it means whatever the person wants based on how they say it.
I don't know if I
have a lot to say, other than the weeks are moving by really quickly. I am
almost half way done with training and by then I will hopefully be able to
teach with confidence. Right now I am focusing a lot on how I say things and
the inflection I put behind my words. The two things that go through my mind
are. "The people don't care how much you know until they know how much you
care" and "It doesn't matter what you say it matters what the people
feel."
The message I share
is true and I need to share it in a manner that bespeaks that truth. If you
have but a desire to believe, find a copy of the Book of Mormon and go to Alma32 and read the chapter. If you are reading in English it starts on page 288,
you are halfway there.
Keep on keeping on
people I didn't take too many pictures but I will give you what I got. Some of
these will be roommates and one of them should be a house we got to visit that
we had to travel on a small bamboo bridge to get to.
I wish you all a
good next week. If you are having a hard time, focus on improvement. I have
learned that improvement can be pretty easy if you feel like you are at the
lowest in life. Start with your smallest flaw and work on it then move to
something bigger. Baby steps will get us to wherever we want to go as long as
we are constantly taking them.
I love you all.
Elder Faulkner
No comments:
Post a Comment