Letter #78 (30th Jan, 2013)

Hey all,

We are all doing good here in the city and in central zone. This week has had some interesting experiences. We started out getting punted a lot in the work, but we learned a lot of patience and perseverance... then we had some fun looking for more people on the ward list of 646 members. We found this one guy while we were searching for less-active members, that we thought was a member and started visiting with him only to find out from members that he was never baptized and is still an investigator. Yay! Investigator! He seems to still be really interested in the message and we are trying to visit with him more to teach the Restoration again. Then we had a really weird experience on Monday with trying to visit with this brother. We went to his house because we had scheduled to come back but it turned out that he wasn't there but had taken his son to the hospital. So we sound out which hospital and decided to go there and visit. We even felt strongly that we should go there. So when we get to the hospital and start looking for where his son is admitted, it turns out they aren't even there! We went from on ward to another in the hospital being led around by the nurses trying to find this man and his son, but they just weren't there. We were so confused about why we were there and why we had felt so strongly to go, but as we were walking back to catch a jeepney home we both acknowledged how we both felt a sense of peace. We have no idea why we were prompted to go when they weren't even there but maybe it was to keep us from something else. Also that night while we were waiting for a jeepney to catch home, this one lady who looked like she was homeless walked up to us, reached into her cooler bag and pulled out a perfectly ripe banana and handed it to Elder Harris, saying (in perfect English mind you) "One for you". Then after walking away about 20 feet or so, she turned around, came back and gave one to me also saying "And one for you too" (or something very similar which i cant quite recall). It was a very strange experience and we both just looked at each other and the bananas we had both received. That night before I ate that banana I prayed for that lady that she would always be fed by the hand of the Lord for her act of kindness to us that evening. The strangest thing though, was that she didn't give a banana to anyone else that was sitting next to us or near us, but just passed them all by. It was an interesting day that one.

Then while we were having sacrament meeting there was some jeepney driver who tried to pick a fight with a member who was coming in during the opening prayer. The member had told the jeepney driver off for stopping in the middle of an intersection to let off passengers (which is bawal jud), and the jeepney driver was so boang he followed the member down to the chapel, go out of the jeepney (leaving all his passengers sitting inside) and started to yell and scream at this member and try to fight him. I don't know what was on this jeepney drivers mind, cause he was this scrawny little dude and the member was a big fella, with long hair in a ponytail, who rides a motorbike. I wouldn't even dare to pick a fight with this member... especially if i was that jeepney driver. So that was a strange day as well.

Elder Harris and I are having some great success with the members as well. We are getting the young men working with us as well and have found so many less actives from the ward list... at the moment we know about 290 members on the list. We still have quite a bit of work to go but we are excited with the progress we have made. We have met about 10 new individuals this past week and have return appointments with some as well. We are really focusing on the rescue mission at the moment and involving the members in the work so that they can begin to work on the area goal of rescue the one. We have been teaching the active members at church about reading the scriptures everyday, and about how to become effective fellowshippers and we have begun to see some improvement in the efforts of the ward.

Elder Harris and I have worked so hard this past week to get everything happening in the ward and the zone, encouraging meetings to happen and explaining more to our ward mission leader about his role and responsibilities. We had the greatest weekly planning ever and went for almost 4 hours planning everything for out work, working with members, meetings, the needs of our less-actives, how to get more investigators in our teaching pool, and so much other stuff. It was an amazing experience. Elder Harris and I have also had some fun trying to find a house for the Basak missionaries and had some great success with that on Monday also, right after district meeting. We have definitely seen the efforts of the Basak ward to prepare for the missionaries and feel that they are very much ready for missionaries to be put in the area there. San Nicholas ward has also begun to progress with the ward mission leader in the ward coming up to us and talking to us and asking us about what he needs to do to prepare for missionaries to be put in their ward. It came as a surprise as we had heard from the bishop that the ward mission leader had not been going to the ward but then he comes up to us on Sunday and asked what he needs to do to fulfill his part. So it will be good to see what begins to happen these next coming week in terms of the preparation of San Nicholas ward in getting ready for missionaries in their ward.

The city is definitely a different experience, but the biggest shock for me was going from the bukid where you talk about "the acacia tree", and the "big rock", to the city where its all streets and route 12L and 6B and 10G... it just took some getting used to and having to switch my mind back over to street names and things like that. So the "city" i am in right now is probably the same level of "cityness" as Blacktown... down the road we have our "Westfield" and similar traffic to Richmond road, except Pinoy style (more samok). Then if we need anything, we can get it. It makes it so much easier than living in the bukid, with everything so close and available. I can definitely see the benefits to both ends of the scale. But other than all that crazy stuff nothing much has gone on this week... jejeje... just the typical missionary work.

Miss you all,

Love you tons,

Elder Taylor Addison Cox