March 2, 2014 Cobra

March 2

Kamusta Everybody,

 This past week has flown by! Time always seems to go fast when you are having a good time. 

 To start off the week I went on Exchanges with our zone leader Elder Manalili. He goes home this next week so it was great to be able to see his teaching skills and get some ideas on how I can improve. However, I was also really embarrassed due to one of the lessons we had about the Word of Wisdom. Usually members are great about bearing testimony of commandments but in this case we weren't on the same page. At the end of the lesson I asked a brother what blessings he had seen in his life from living the Word of Wisdom and he said, quote "Well, I used to drink, and smoke and have coffee twice a day and I was really thin and strong. Then I quit all of that, and now I have this (shaking his well developed belly). So I guess that’s about it, Amen".  I was a little bit shocked and didn't know how to even respond to that. Elder Manalili jumped in and thanked him for the lesson and then we bore our testimony's and left.  And then right after, the ward taught the brother about how to bear his testimony and recognizing blessings...

  The next day we went to San Pablo for the training check up for my companion. One of the sisters said that she really enjoys reading the articles in the Liahona about marriage and how she applies it to relationships with her companion. I thought that was an interesting idea and have come to realize that the strength of any relationship comes from trust and being open. If you are mad and don’t say anything that is just breeds contention. 

  In our area, we are finally starting to see progress. We have been seeing a lot of the less actives come to church and we are starting to get too big for our meetinghouse.  If more than 20 attend we are pretty tightly packed. Hopefully we will be able to rent a bigger place to meet soon. 

 Our baptism on Saturday also went well. It started a bit late but the ordinance itself was good. It has been amazing on my mission to see how the Gospel changes people. A person must do many hard things to get baptized but they are always happier when they repent. 

 I hope everyone has a great week!

  Elder Merrill

"Nothing is certain in life but change”

Picture:  A cobra we killed outside of our meetinghouse