Best. lesson. ever.

We love Elder Dapat's selfie stick!

 February 13, 2015

Hi Pamilya!

Thanks for sending me Peter's letter, Mom! I love that kid. I mean...elder.

Thank you so much for the package!! I loved getting it! Life has been better with extra work-out clothes, a mirror, and the hygiene carrier thing. Best package ever! And thanks for the almond rocas.

Which reminds me...Sister Lewis doesn't like chocolate. I keep forgetting. Which I hate, since I hate it when people forget what foods I don't like...

And thanks for sending me the notes from my setting apart! The one that stuck out to me the most while reading through them is "Study and ponder the scriptures. You will know in the very moment what you need to do" because that has already come true!

Okay, here's the story.

I realized on...last Wednesday, that I needed to do a better job at studying  the scriptures, especially during personal study. So I stepped up my game.

I'm the only one actually from the hood!! ;)

Then, Sister Lewis was wonderful and dedicated last P-day. We have study time after the temple on P-days until lunch time, which is when P-day actually starts. And we had been studying and preparing for our lesson in the evening. Well, lunch time came, and me being me, said: "Okay, let's go. It's lunch." She said we needed to finish for our lesson with our other investigator, Chris, for Saturday since we didn't have any study time on Saturday before our lesson with him. So we staying, bumping into our P-day, to plan that lesson too.

I am so thankful for Sister Lewis. That lesson with Christ was AMAZING!

The Spirit was so strong. We shared with Chris about prayer. Sister Lewis asked him if he felt like God heard his prayers. He said that he that he felt like God answered prayer...but then admitted that there are so many people in the world, and other planets, and that he didn't feel like he was important enough for God to answer his prayers.

I have been having a hard time understanding our investigators. But the gifts of tongues and interpretations of tongues is real. Because I understood him.

I gave him the best answer I felt like I could: God was powerful. He can listen to everyone in the world. He said, "Yeah. But I don't know if he wants to listen to me. Just a guy from IloIlo." So...I tried my answer, and that didn't work...  

Then Heavenly Father gave me His answer. I remembered a verse from my personal study from two days before: 2 Nephi 29:7. I used Sister Lewis's English scriptures to find it. Then I found the reference in the Ilonggo scriptures and asked him to read it, which he did. Then he asked if he could read it again, which he did to himself.

When he finished, he quietly slid the Libro Ni Mormon back to me (we were sitting on the floor, as is the custom of Philippinos. There were tears in his eyes. I told him that he was important to God, that God remembered him, that God heard his prayers.

Sister Lewis quietly asked him how he felt. He said he felt the love of God.

Sister Lewis asked him if he knew how to pray. He said: "medyo" (kinda). "Not like you pray." So she taught him how, then she demonstrated how to pray, and then he prayed. We asked him if he would pray to know if the Libro Ni Mormon was true. He said, "Yeah. I'll pray. But, to me, it is true."

Best. lesson. ever.

Granted, I have been going back to not understanding our investigators again, which makes it really difficult to answer their questions or...teach in general.

Then the next day, Sunday, was kinda rough on everyone. I was woken up at about 5:30 to a knock on the door. One of the sisters in our zone, Sister D was there to get Sister M (Sister V's cousin) and Sister Q to tell them that Sister V was in pain on the floor and crying.

It is hard to listen to someone who is in pain cry. It is different from just regular crying. Although, I am different from everyone else, and didn't see any sense in standing outside the door watching as the paramedics took care of her. So I prayed and got ready for the day. I think it came across that I don't care. But...if I was in pain and crying, I wouldn't want a crowd outside the door watching.

She was taken to the hospital, and "passed a [non-existent?] kidney stone" within a matter of hours. Which was a miracle. Same thing the next day. In pain. This time it was her hemorrhoid, which flares up every now and then...I don't know very much about hemorrhoids, but yeah. Pretty tough.  

I have been thinking about keeping the Sabbath day holy. I think it is really important. If I would change anything about my pre-mission life, I would study the scriptures more faithfully and keep the Sabbath day more holy than I kept it.It would be pretty hard to be a "Sunday Mormon" if you really kept the Sabbath day holy. It would be impossible to forget about God the rest of the week.

I sprained my thumb on Tuesday playing volleyball. It still hurts. I just played through the pain on Tuesday, but it kept getting worse and then I could hardly bend it the next day. So I ran instead of playing volleyball (which is what I have been doing just about every day). It felt really good to run. And then in the remaining time of gym, I went to the trainer, and they told me it was probably just a sprain and gave me ice, which helped the swelling go down a lot! It's been doing better since then, but it still hurts to use it.

Gotta go!

Love you!

Tessa

P.S. Devin Quiton emailed me. I emailed him right after I got my call and told him where I got called to. He just NOW emailed back, and signed at the end: "Your black friend, Elder Quiton" HAHAHA!

Dr. Howell emailed me back and said that I should work with the MTC front desk and make an appointment to go to his office and get my retainer fixed. We're going into the outside world!! Dang. It already is weird to see normal people. On the way back from the temple last week, we passed a girl on the phone, and she was saying things like, "But I just don't know if he's ready yet, you know? I just get that impression from him. Like...he doesn't call me...." I can't actually remember the conversation, but it went something like that. After the girl passed, Sister Lewis said: "...our old life...."

Me: "Seriously. I don't miss it."