Family Home Evening... I lost.
Hello Everybody!
Well, lots happened this week here in Santa Ana. Like usual, a huge rain storm came through, but it didn't cool down the weather at all. Just made it humid as ever. The work is hard when you are soaked in sweat, and just can't dry off.
I'll start with what happened on Sunday. We were hoping to have a large Sacrament Meeting attendance today, but because of 2 things, that didn't end up happening. The first thing was: It rained sooo hard in the morning. Most people travel on motorcycles to church and don't want to get wet, so they just didn't come. (Terrible excuse, I know.) The second reason was a little different. So on Saturday here in Santa Ana, the hospital had what was called "Operation Tuli". It is a day where all kids can go to the hospital and get circumcised for free! Yes, people usually don't get circumcised here when they are a few days old. They wait until they are about 10 years old, and then do it. So, a lot of people didn't come to church because they were watching over their kids at home who had gotten tulied. haha. It was funny on Saturday evening seeing a lot of 10-12 year old boys walking around in skirts.
It was an eventful Sunday, however. One of the speakers didn't show up again, so I was able to give yet another talk haha. The shocking thing that happened was before Sacrament Meeting, one of the older ladies started to feel weak, and suddenly had a stroke. We rushed her to the hospital though, and now she is doing better. The good news about our Sacrament Meeting is that we had 10 investigators come to church. Five of them were the Gonzales family. They are progressing really well, and one of their kids is really active in Young Women already. Also, Lea came to church. She will be baptized on Friday!
The sad news about this week is that Franklin, the man who we went and visited in the hospital, passed away. He was suffering from kidney failure and cancer, and said he couldn't take it any longer. We held a nice funeral service for him on Saturday afternoon. The other 3 elders and I brought a guitar with us and put together a nice little musical presentation for them. I was the concluding speaker, and actually hadn't fully planned what was to be said when I got up there. But when I started speaking, I felt the strong guidance of the Spirit. The Spirit was strong as I taught about the Resurrection and about how the words "Kamatayan" (death) and "Kaligayahan" (happiness) go together. It ended up being a really great service. Then after the service, everybody went back to playing cards and eating food under their tents. (Filipino tradition)
I wanna share a quick experience. So when I was back in Laoag, and was still companions with Elder Basa (last fall), I felt the strong prompting to begin learning Ilokano. Not just learn the little basic stuff, but actually learn how to speak it smoothly. I wasn't sure why, and hesitated at first because you can get by fine here just by speaking Tagalog. But I decided to try my best at it. And I am sure glad I did. We were out finding the other day and saw an old tatay, kind of hiding from us. We approached him, and at first approach I started speaking Ilokano to him. He was shocked, and wasn't afraid of us anymore. He started laughing and said he thought he would have to speak Tagalog with us, so he hesitated to talk to us. We were able to get to know him and his family and turns out he is really interested in the message of the Gospel. We have been able to teach him a few times now, and he is great. Every time we teach him, he just laughs and says "I can't believe you can speak Ilokano." I'm so glad I followed that prompting about 6 months ago to learn the mother tongue of these people.
Love you all, have a nice week!
-Elder Jenkins
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