Elder Austin Russell Cook Philippines, Legazpi Mission 8-2016 thru 8-2018: Missionary work is like a huge orchestra, and you, as a missionary in the Philippines, have to be the conductor

I am learning a ton in this area! I think the thing that I am learning most is how to really coordinate with the members. Missionary work is like a huge orchestra, and you as a missionary in the Philippines have to be the conductor (I think that's what it's called). Everything must be orchestrated exactly in order for someone to feel true conversion, and it is not an easy thing to do!

But this last week was mostly focused on Lannie and getting her prepped for baptism and such. The baptism was great though! And her younger brother, Francis, is right behind her on May 19. He's already on like Alma 20 and is very ready for baptism this far. He loves reading and I don't think a day goes by that he doesn't read. He also keeps a notebook full of notes and questions that he has while he reads, so he learns a lot!

I remember that after Lannie's baptism, I told Elder Peterson that I wish the veil could be removed from our eyes during baptisms so we could see the angels in the room and the pillar of fire that lights in the hearts of the investigators when they get baptized. Well, the next day, after Lannie got confirmed and received the Holy Ghost, she came up to us afterwords and said, "No wonder you told me that it's the baptism of fire! It was so hot up there while I was being confirmed. I almost wanted them to hurry up and say 'amen' so the fire could stop." I told Elder Peterson afterwords that if the veil were removed from our eyes, we would have seen the pillar of fire in the room. The church is true ladies and gentlemen!

So this next week we've got a lot of work to do with our next set of investigators we are working on, the Magdaong family. There's four of them that are completely ready for baptism, but brother and sister Magdaong aren't married yet, so that's kind our hurdle here. We are really chasing down a lot of paper work to get them married, but it'll happen! That's it for now,