Elder Joshua Degen's Mission Blog: E-mail dated 12/4/17

Kamusta kamo!!??

December. Grabe kadasig ang tion! (Basically translates to time flies)

Well it has been a good and somewhat challenging week.

It was once again great to hear from all of you! It sounds like you are all doing good and it also sounds like it was a good week for sports, Go utes, go jazz!!

So this week has been great, but had its challenges as well. So this week we have started our light the world campaign, I know there is a calendar for what service you can do each day, but we are doing it a little different. We are going to all the members houses and serving them in any way they need, gaining their trust, and asking for referrals. This has been a very effective method so far, we got some new investigators this past week, which is so awesome. The members of our branch are so awesome, they are always willing to help us and more importantly feed us. I would like to encourage you all to continue watching the videos and just light the world. Even if it is small, it doesn't matter, just make somebody else's day!

Also this week a challenge was that our investigators and even our members church attendance is very inconsistent, one week we have close to 100 at church and the next like 50, but we are working hard to help in any way we can. So because of this we had to move some baptismal dates around and we will have 2 baptisms on dec 17. Which is great. I am trusting in the Lord's timing and I know that they will be able to be baptized later on. I am so grateful for the 2 that we will baptize on dec 17, the Segovia sisters, Nigelle (9) Nicole(11). They are from a part member family. They are so awesome, even if they are just kids, they read the Book of Mormon and always come to chruch.

On Sunday it was fast and testimony meeting and one of our recent converts that we baptized in October, Sister Jeny Toledo got up and bore such a powerful testimony and it brought me so much joy to see how happy she is because she is a member of this chruch. Even though she does not have a lot, she is happy because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Ako man, I am happy despite the challenges and the trials, I am grateful to be a part of this great work.

I know you get a certain amount of money to live on each month. Does it seem to be enough? Yes, 8000 pesos is plenty.
Do you have electricity all the time or is it sporadic? We have electricity almost always, there is the occasional brown out (power outage), but usually its all good.
What is the biggest challenge some of your investigators face? Well it is obviously different for every person, but the biggest is cohabitation before marriage, we have a lot of those situations right now, but we know that if they have a true desire and faith, it can be worked out for them to be baptized.
What has the weather been like lately? Is it still raining a lot? It has actually not rained in a while. It has been "nice" weather for a couple weeks now. And by nice weather I mean hot and humid, but thats better than being soaking wet, oh wait either way I am soaking wet, haha just kidding, its not that bad.
How is the language? Getting any easier? So without me even realizing it, I can understand a lot more than i could before, I am close to understanding most of what people say. But as far as speaking and responding, I am trying my best, its still hard, but I realized that, lessons that go the best are the ones when I am not worried about my language being perfect and I just try my best and speak.
What event(s) strengthened your testimony last week. Well there was a lot, but I just pick one. So last week I talked about an investigator who was struggling with the word of wisdom and this week we taught her again, and she hasn't drank coffee since our lesson. wow. The power of prayer is so real.