Hey Jess

Hey Jess,

So I just realized that I don't really send you anything for the blog you have. Sorry, I will paste the stories from my other email of moms, to this one to you. For the blog, if you want.

This week has been good. I have had many growing opportunities. And wow, this mission is really stretching me! Ha I like it though and I am grateful for each and every one of the trials here cause I know as I trust in the lord, He will build me stronger in them, and in my life! For the future!

So there were a lot of things happened this week, I will first start with my favorite. So we were going to an appointment and it fell through, then we weren't sure where to look for people next, so I said, "lets flip a coin" to see who would take the lead and go find and talk to someone. I thought for sure it would land on my Kasama, Companion, it didn't. It landed on me and my own trick backfired on me big time. So I just started walking cause i didn't know where to go, we went into these group of houses kind of out of the way, where we have never been before, then I just stopped at one house and said in a loud voice to the people home, "Tao po" which means , hello, or are people here. and guess what happened!!!! Yep, no one was home, but the persons neighbor came out and said, "wala" no one, so we said thankyou then started to talk to her. I introduced my self then my companion introduced himself and took it from there cause I can't really do much after that. but i try. So after a while of talking to us, she let us in, we learned her name was sister Mary Sison, and she has 2 kids, I think, and one of her kids and his family is living together with her, then the others are in america, wow! ha so we started talking and she spoke to me in best english she could, it was more like Tag-lish, ha and she said that she wants to hear from us cause we are here for the lord, and she wants to here from our spirits and feel close to god. she really opened up to us and told us she is a widow and some other problems in her life. And I felt the spirit, and I hope she did too as we shared a short message about our purpose as missionaries and what our gospel is, and what it can do for us in our lives. I bore my testimony, and I tried my best to express my love for her through the words of my heart in the best tagalog that I could speak, and I just really wanted her to know that I want to help her, so that is what I said, and she seems so great and pure. She really has been prepared from the hands of god! I have a closeness with her, I don't know why, but I really like that she said she wanted to here from both of us, not just me, and because we are working on the lords behave, and not cause i am american and she wants to here me try to speak tagalog. She is the first person I have met who I feel wants to listen to the lords message, and not the words of a plain old american trying to speak English. I love that about her!

So that was my favorite thing this week, I pray and Hope she Keeps her desire to learn and feel the spirit through the message of the lord. The next craziest thing that happened was yesterday. I gave a talk in sacrement meeting. And I didn't know about it until Saturday night. so I only had a little time to prepare and I wanted to do it in tagolog! so I chose my favorite topic, cause the bishop said i could, it was FAITH. Cause I know how weak i am and that without faith I will not be able to do anything in my life the right way! So I gave my talk, about 15 minute talk in Mostly Tagalog. I shared one story in english. And I felt good about it.

So I got through that hard thing, then after church, a few members wanted to work with us, so my companion said ok, we will SPLIT! WHAT!!!! SPLIT, I had no IDea what he was thinking! HA I said, "wow, are you sure," my tatay, (daddy\trainer comp) looked at me and said, "don't worry you can do it". SO I trusted him and the lord and we did it. I took two members with me, to the one appointment we had planned. So I Navagated our way to the home through all the alleyways, and random streets, Ps there are no street numbers here, just random names. So luckily with the lord helping me remember, we found the house, I was just trying to make it look like I knew what I was doing so the members didn't know i was clueless. It worked pretty well. SO our appointment................ Fell through, the family was gone. So I said, alright, lets go find! It turned out really good actually, I got to talk to some people at some houses I have been wanting to go to and we found 2 less active / part member families! It was great! But wow, I am really getting stretched here on mission Ko, My mission. ha

Oh Jess, PS, Tell Jenn I got both of the Letters she sent me, but I got the second one faster than the first one. Ha tell her I am doing good too!

Love you ATE(sister) I hope your happy and loving life, like a Filipino!

Love your little bro, Elder Benjamin Larson