Finding who is most important in your life

Sometimes we are put in situations where we reevaluate our priorities. You start asking yourself what is most important in your life or who most important in your life. Missionary work does that to you. As you lose yourself in the work, most of your problems start going away and you start worrying about those around you (see Mosiah 28:3). Life starts to change and you find yourself trying to help those around you tirelessly (see Alma 48:10-17). Now I am not saying that I am there yet, but I have really started to see a different reason for my work here.

     

I really like the work right now. The language is much more comfortable. I have embraced the Filipino understanding, as opposed to the way Americans understand things. Which is a very important thing that needs to happen to understand the culture.

       

Elder Eccles, my new companion, and I have been working together to get good things done. He is struggling with the language, as is understandable only being in the field for 7 weeks. I get to be a translator most of the time. It is very fun to see where I was in the beginning (where he is now), compared to where I am now. We have been focusing on learning missionary skills and what is most important. We get along really solidly pretty much all of the time. We have been working closely with the ward and seeing what we can do to serve them. We are extremely busy in our area right now. I like the feeling that there is always something to do – but, honestly, we can get a little stressed with all the things that we need to do.

      

This week we found a new family to teach. There are 8 of them all together, and they are really fun. I will probably update you on their situation in the next few weeks as we try to help their family. I have found that when you focus on family first and resolving concerns, people start to trust and love you. They want to be closer together and they want to see what else you can do for them.

       

We have had serious progress with the Mendoza family. Their father said he wants to have a good time at church and be baptized. Their family is one of my favorites here.

     

Culture: "Nagkakamay". A lot of Filipinos eat with their hands. This is especially true when they eat fish. It really is easier to eat that way! If a foreigner eats with their hands, people think that person is really trying hard to embrace Filipino culture.

     

Tagalesson: "Sa". Sa means in, of, from, around, on, at, into, onto. Basically anything that we use to describe location. It is an interesting word because it can mean so much. Also the word "the" doesn’t really exist in this language – which means "sa" can translate to not only "in" but also "in the" it confuses a lot of people when they don’t really understand that "sa" can translate to so many different words and sometimes it can translate to something that is multiple words in English. Anyways there is a lot of power in the word "Sa".

I will try to get a picture of me and Elder Eccles before next week.

Keep on keeping on people, do your best and worry more about others than yourself.

Love,

Elder Faulkner