Morgan Peterson's Philippines Mission: A Missionary's Work: The Baguio (Storm)

10/17/2016

This week was an adventure. It started out on Monday, we went across our mission on many trikes and jeepneys to reach the church building that could give the CLS test (an English test to certify that you know that language) to my companion, and he passed! This is huge in the Philippines dahil (because) you can have a better paying job. While we were there, we got to serve by helping set up for sister missionary conference and eat some of the leftovers.

Next cool event, I got to use my ASL signing skills to talk to a deaf guy, it was so cool! Tapos I played chess with Brother Guinto and was absolutely destroyed twice within 15 minutes.

My favorite event was our service to our ward mission leader, we cleaned his house. His house is really a pieced together shack and we went through stuff they wanted or was garbage and swept the dirt floor and moved stuff. While going through some clothes, we found a friend, a baby, but huge spider, bigger than your palm. Service is awesome though, you feel so good after, no matter how tiring it is.

Then we prepared for the bagiuo (storm), my first typhoon! It was ok. We were safe and didn't receive damage from the high winds and had no baha (floods) though there is supposed to be another storm tomorrow.

Also, the best bread is made here and so unique. We go to the bakery and get fresh bread all the time, and only 5 pesos (right now 48 pesos is 1 American dollar). Because of the bagiuo we had visitors. The missionaries in the Bayler ara were evacuated here and I got to go on splits with an Elder whose 1st area was here too! Elder Cowley, a very cool Elder. We were in lock down until 1pm Sunday, so we missed church. Today we played basketball with Talevera area. I got to play with Elder Elms, my companion in the Provo MTC. It has truly been a blessing to have him in my zone because he is in the same boat as me and it's nice to see how each other are doing. Plus, after, we ate at Inasal, unlimited rice with chicken and I got flan this time.

So for culture this week: Gambling is huge here. They bet on small and big spider fights, cock fights, horse fights, dog fights, (any kind of fight), basketball, guessing a number our of one hundred, and so on.

Anyway, to the spiritual thought. Think of this question: How can we show love to Christ? He loved us so much that he teaches us, blesses us , and even died for us. So a scripture comes to mind, in Mosiah... I'll paraphrase, when you are in the service of your fellow man, you are only in the service of your God. One way to show your love for Christ and our Heavenly Father is to serve his people. When we serve there are two people blessed, the ones you have served ad yourself. Christ served his apostles and his people and served us by dying for us so we can live with him again. The least we can do is continue serving his people, even with little things. Service is awesome, I challenge you all to do your best to serve someone - whether it's smiling, opening a door, picking up some fallen objects, do something.