No Marlboro's Please!

Kamusta Everybody!

 This past week has been really good! We were able to teach a lot of lessons and  things are working really well with the ward. We even found out in district meeting last Wednesday that we actually have had the highest number of lessons in the mission for the past two weeks! We have lots of investigators who are doing really well. They read the Book of Mormon and a few even attended stake conference this past Sunday. The only trouble is that many of them need to be married before we can baptize them. In the Philippines it is really tough for people to be able to get married because they don't have their birth certificate. 

 My companion told me this past week that I have apparently been talking in my sleep pretty much every night since I’ve been out here. Recently though, I’ve been talking in Tagalog. I must be dreaming that I am teaching because my companion said that I have been bearing my testimony and then I have been  asking if anyone has any questions.  

 So I guess, my Tagalog must be getting better if I can speak it while I am asleep, but there is still room to improve. For example, this past week we were eating with our district after a meeting and so we went to the closest restaurant to the chapel and because some of us are American they decided to rack up the price. So it was really expensive and I wasn't in the mood to spend a lot of money for not very good food so I just bought a few hard boiled eggs. The problem is that I don't know what the Tagalog word is for hard boiled so when I went up to pay, the lady asked what I had and I said “three hard boiled eggs”. but in her mind she thought I had said "three Marlboro" (I suppose hard boiled and Marlboro sounds the same).  Long story short, as the rest of the missionaries walked up to the counter the lady was trying to hand me three cigarettes. I quickly clarified that cigarettes were not what I wanted and that I had said three eggs. I was super embarrassed and it took me a bit to explain to everyone how my order had gotten lost in translation. 

 We had zone interviews yesterday and a really great workshop about how to use the Book of Mormon better.  One thing that really stood out to me was that every goal that we have as missionaries during a lesson can be accomplished using the Book of Mormon. It is the most correct book in the world and if we read it’s pages, we will always learn from it. God knew what the world would be like today so he had his prophets 2000 years ago write a book of scripture that would be perfect to help us now. 

 I hope everyone has a great week and is doing really well. I heard a great quote this week that I really liked, "education means developing the mind, not stuffing the memory"

  Mahal Kita

    Elder Hayden Merrill