hello!

Hello everybody! Sounds like things have been really wet for you, but good too. We are starting to get into the rainy season here. Sometimes it will just start raining out of nowhere. You can't leave the house without your umbrella or you'll get soaked. That is cool that the missionaries spoke there. It is wierd thinking how growing up there in the valley we hardly ever saw any missionaries, and rarely did they attend church in the ward. And here there isn't a branch or ward that doesn't have at least one set of missionaries. Just a different lifestyle. People always talk about always working with missionaries and being around them, and that never happened for us. Here they deffinetly use us in the branch. Yesterday I taught the 5th Sunday lesson with the Relief Society and Priesthood. That is a new thing that they have started here in the Philippines area, that the missionaries give the lesson every 5th Sunday. And to add to it, yesterday was Branch Conference so lots of people were there. But it was good. I kinda like teaching like that in a classroom. It just feels good. And we do get practice teaching in Gospel Essentials when the teacher isn't there hehe.
We also sang yesterday at Branch Conference with the youth and SA's. We sang a song called "Today." It is a really cool song. It was about preparing today for the 2nd Coming of Jesus Christ, because we never know when it is. It could be tomorrow. Funny story for you about that. About 2 weeks ago a preacher on a radio station in the Philippines said that the 2nd Coming was going to happen in a week. Some people were like, man, i better get ready. But then when it didn't happen, he told the people that it would be in October hehe. No matter when we guess it is, we just never know.

Our work here is slowly progressing little by little. It was exciting because 3 of our most progressing investigators came to church yesterday. The one, Bro. Allan, has his baptism interview this week, and next week is his baptism! So that is pretty exciting. After almost 6 months here finally getting to see somebody enter the waters of baptism. The other 2 that came to church, Jackie & Juvy Domingo, have a baptism date for June 25. So if things keep going well and they keep progressing, we will get to see that too. But we still have a little to do to get them ready. They still aren't sure about the whole going to church every Sunday hehe.

So slowly the work is progressing. Here is a story of our work yesterday. After church, we were having a hard time catching people at their house. They kept texting us telling us they had things going on and to just come next time. So that was a little discouraging. Then we went to one of our appointments, Sis. Lisa. Her husband is a member, but is less-active. We've taught her a few times, but for about a month now we haven't been able to teach her. So we weren't sure what was going to happen last night. But we got there, and they let us in. We kind of reviewed about the Restoration and about prophets. It was going good, and the lesson was really good. Then as we were teaching about prophets, we found us talking a little about baptism and why we need to be baptized. We hadn't been planning on that at all, to bring up baptism. Then i found a commitment to baptism coming out of my mouth. After i asked her if she would be baptized, she and her daughter both said yes (it was the first time the daughter has joined our lessons). I was completely surprised by their answer of yes. So then we were scrambling for a date to give them hehe. After they committed to baptism, something seemed different. They seemed a little more determined to learn. Brother seemed more determined to come back to church. It just felt different. It was our one good lesson yesterday. It was crazy how the Holy Ghost just put it in our mouths the baptismal commitment. That was the farthest thing from our mind when we went to their house. It is just like the promise in the Doctrine & Covenants, that if we just "open our mouth, it shall be filled." This is true for all members, not just missionaries. The Lord will fill your mouth with what to say to invite a friend to church or to an activity. He will help you to invite a less-active member back to church. He will help you to guide and lead your children, and bring them back to Christ. He loves you, and He loves them. This last week i was reading about the story of the Prodigal Son. No matter if somebody is going away or gone away, they will come back. Just do what we can; love them, encourage them in right ways, and welcome them with loving and understanding arms when they come back. I know this is true. Let us continue in such a great cause. I love all of you so much, and God be with you till we meet again.

Elder Brough