A Missionary's Work: My First FHE

 10/3/2016

So my last preparation day (P-day), we had family home evening, which is family time complete with game, dessert/food, a spiritual lesson and songs. So the Portugal family invited us over. We ate only authentic Philippines food, they made sure I knew that. We had a blast, this family is so nice and loving and always shares their food with us. My favorite things here besides the work and people is the food. Some of the weirdest things you could ever eat, but also some of the best! My favorite is the fresh bread here with weird ingredients but mmmm. Also this meat dish with garlic, liver, steak of some sort, and onion and of course on top of the rice.

My favorite moment this week was having my first baptism. Her name is Lheeia and she's ten, but probably one of the most spiritually filled people I have met (kids anyway). We also had exchanges this week with zone leaders. So exchanges are when you separate from your companion and teach with another companion, which is a cool change. The zone leaders are over all of the districts, which are areas, and district leaders are over each individual one which holds about 6 missionaries including them.
Mom Note: Missionaries are always in pairs (companions), they report to district leaders, which for Morgan's area consists of about 6 missionaries. The district leaders report to zone leaders, which are over multiple districts. The zone leaders report to the Mission President's assistants - who report directly to the Mission President.

So I taught with Elder Hymus who has had a crazy mission. He started in California, waiting for his visa to India, then in India, his visa expired after a year so now he's here in the Philippines and goes home this month. Super cool guy, I learned a lot from him.

Today we also played basketball. My ankle is much better from last week when I rolled it playing basketball.

So my message this week: Three things have really stuck out to me this week. One, listening is sobrung mahalaga (very important), self conversion and unity. When you talk to someone, you listen then respond, right? So what's the difference in teaching? We should teach to someone's needs, so listen. But not only that, we need to listen to the spirit and it's hard to do either of these when you don't listen and you are preparing something to say. That's hard especially if you are learning a new language, but that is where faith comes in.

Next: self conversion. Self conversion is truly knowing for yourself that something is true and you know from learning, seeking/searching, and working continually. We need to want something then go for it and when we feel those moments you think maybe I don't really want this or maybe you say to yourself, it's okay if I don't do it this time, then You need to remember why you started, what was the purpose? What have you learned and has it been worth it? This can be applied to anything like the Finish Strong principle. So keep these steps in mind and do them always: Seek/search, learn and work.

Lastly, unity. In our ward here, there is little unity so people don't have self-conversion because they don't feel welcomed or befriended. Nobody should feel like that. So my goal for you guys is to befriend new people and make sure that those you are around are there because they want to be, because they have a friend.

Oh! Almost forgot culture time!
So all the dogs here want to bark at you, and if they're tied up, they want to kill you.
If you have 6 people, you'll figure out how to all get on a trike. We fit 4 missionaries (one being Samoan), a driver, and 2 Filipinos today, but I've seen 10 Filipinos fitting on one before.

Love you guys and see ya next week!
Elder Peterson

Mom Note: Morgan doesn't see the blog so if you would like to send him an email (he loves it!), you can email him directly at: rodney.peterson@myldsmail.net. He gets his email every Monday (they are 12 hours ahead of EST)