I love this opportunity that I have to be serving in some of the most humble circumstances. I'll be sad when it all ends

Last week on Monday, after we finished emailing, we cooked a TON of lumpia shang hai (if you don't know what it is, just google it cause it's delicious). In the end, we had about 100 of them made for just the two of us, so that's pretty much been our life for the past week.

On Tuesday we went tracting a lot to hopefully find new investigators, but it didn't work at all. In other areas of the mission, I swear, tracting is GOLDEN and it works so well, but in our area, almost everyone knows the missionaries and EVERYONE talks trash about us. We are literally the nicest guys out here, like, how could you NOT love us right? But they all hate us, and when we go tracting, people shut doors in our faces, yell at us to leave, or just flat out ignore us when we talk to them, as if no one is even speaking. That's why we are REALLY trying to focus on getting referrals from the members here, but the members aren't really used to giving referrals or sharing the gospel with their friends, so we are teaching them slowly but surely!

Wednesday was the day that my Christmas package from home FINALLY arrived! Only about a month late, but hey, at least it arrived right? I would just like to make a shout out to my mother and her great packing skills because that box was SUPER heavy. Also shout out to the LeFevre family for giving me some much wanted Children's Songbooks :)

On Thursday we taught the Ramos family, and they shared with us something that really made us feel special. They were apparently taught by the missionaries for a while before we showed up to their door, but Nanay said that even though those missionaries tried their best to help the Ramos family change, nothing worked; Tatay still drank nearly every day, and none of them wanted to affiliate with the church. But Nanay told us that the first time we sat down in their house, they felt like we were their children, so they listened to everything that we told them, and since then, Tatay hasn't drank even once and they have gone to church every week. Even though 99.9% of the people don't listen to us, we work to find those that WILL, and it makes it all worth it.

Friday was pretty uneventful, but we walked into the house of the Ramos family without them knowing because we were going to surprise them, but then we found them all sitting in a circle saying a family prayer to bless their food. When Nanay saw us afterwords, we asked her if they do that at every meal, and she said, "Of course! that's what you taught us to do!" I love that family so much. They might not be the most educated people, but their hearts are so pure.

Saturday, while we were tracting, we knocked on one house and there was a lady who instantly started yelling at us and said, "Go away! We already have a religion, we don't want missionaries!" But we just said, "WAIT! We just wanna get to meet you, we aren't going to make you change religions!" She just stared for like 4 seconds and then said, "okay come in." Her name is Leonisa Pepito, and turns out she is actually a member of the church! Well, she used to be, but after some members said some horrible things to her, she left the church and now her whole family is part of a different religion. She has forgotten all of the beliefs of the LDS church, but she was very nice to us and told us that we could come back. I just think it's so sad that people can stray themselves so far away from the truth... It's going to be interesting to see what happens with her and her family in the next couple of months before I leave. I Hope they will accept us...

Other than that, nothing else is happening! Just finding and working and doing what we can while the day lasts. I love this opportunity that I have to be serving in some of the most humble circumstances. I'll be sad when it all ends, but I'm doing what I can while I can still do it. The church is true and I love you all! Till next week :)

P.S. I got some dope pictures, but I left my camera at home. Also I took a ton of videos but they are too large to send over email :(