Drumsticks and Service Projects

Hello Family!

Well it sounds like you have had quite the busy month! EFY and camps and the beach and Oregon!  Well I definitely can say my month has not been quite as exciting. My week was good but very busy!  My comp had more meetings for going home and has been struggling to find time to get everything ready to leave tomorrow.  I am going to be with my Zone Leaders tomorrow for the day which should be fun! I get a new companion on Wednesday and as always I am excited and I am also excited for my companion Elder Tabudlong.  He has endured these 2 years and is now returning home with honor.  That is the greatest honor and joy he will ever experience in this lifetime.  

This week was also a reminder to me just how fast these 2 years go by.  I really need to make sure I am fulfilling my duty as a missionary and inviting all to come unto Christ.  So this week on Tuesday at around 4 my companion went to Cauayan and I was with an Elder named Elder Estuaria and man was he a fun Elder.  He was so funny and he loved food as much as me. I worked with him on Tuesday and Wednesday.  Working went by extra fast those days because he just kept me laughing!  Also he brought me to the best fried chicken street shop ever.  I kid you not I bought 7 drumsticks and ate all of them with a heaping plate of rice all in one sitting.  I felt so great after that.  Along with that I had a liter of coca cola. 

As we arrived at church this Sunday, my companion got a surprise opportunity to bear his testimony for the last time as a missionary.  It was awesome to see how far he came in 2 years.  How fluent he was in Tagalog, how he could easily recount scripture passages, and apply them to every member in the church.  It always amazes me how much spiritual power we can have as missionaries.  

Well I continue to try and find progressing investigators here in my area as well as invite all to come unto Christ.  We had another 2 service projects this week (holy cow I have never done this many projects in a single cycle.  I think I have done more than one every single week!!!) The first project was not well planned, but I did what I could.  We easily cleared brush, I lifted by myself entire planks of wood, and because I was so tall I got the opportunity to scrub the woman ceiling all through out her house.  I made Elder Ishibashi useful by having him rinse out my rags hahaha.  He is a great person to have around for service projects.  Then on Saturday we returned to our members house to finish shoveling rocks and dirt.  For 5 hours I hauled dirt from the humongous giant pile of rocks and dirt to behind the members house.  By the end, I thought I had a six pack on my back!  Right now, I feel like I could need a cane!  

This week also as I was reading in the Bible I started to read about prophesies of things that would come to pass in our time.  Its sometimes scary to see just how deceitful Satan is.  He really is a very sophisticated being.  We need to be ever watchful and beware of his masters of deceit.  They know how to change the truth so slightly that if we aren't careful, we may be fooled into his trap.  In the end he desires to destroy our eternal soul.  That why I have come to know just how important constant prayer, not daily prayer, constant, reading the scriptures and attending church is.  It literally is the shield that allows us to be aware of such forms of trickery and lies.  May we ever be watchful of Satan and his many followers.  I know that this is the true church.  I know that the work I do here and now can have a big influence on future generations and I am so happy to be a missionary!!!  

Love you all,

Elder Warren