Elder Dallin Espiritu: Week Three in My First Area

This week it rained quite a bit, which was fun. I have an umbrella. I just never use it so Elder Hedman and I always get soaked when we are walking everywhere. Filipinos always have umbrellas and don't like getting wet so when we don't have umbrellas they just stare at us and look at us so weird. But we got to teach a ton of people this week.

We met a family of all girls and we've been teaching them quite a bit. It's going to be fun teaching them. They really seem to want to know about our church. Everyone here loves their family. I love teaching families here because they all want to learn together. We found quite a few more people and we're excited about that!

There's one new gentleman we are teaching who is very different. He's from Ghana and is a pastor for a Catholic church. He lives with 6 other pastors who are from Kenya. We met him by going to a less active member's house who wasn't there but he was home outside on his porch. It was nice because he only could speak English so for once I started to talk to him hahaha. It was awesome. I shared a scripture and so did Elder Hedman. We're going back to teach him more. He also said he wanted a copy of the Book of Mormon so we got one for him.

I really like the people here. They are all so kind. There's so many people in the streets and in the neighborhoods we go to. We usually teach our lessons in places called squatter areas. There's a lot of people in those areas and it's really fun talking to them.

Our ward is so awesome. All the members are so nice and they love feeding us. We definitely get a lot of dinner and lunch appointments haha. This week in church the Bishop asked all the new missionaries to the ward to bear their testimonies. So Elder Hedman, Sister Quebec, and I shared ours. All the members told me after they thought I was going to sound Filipino but no I definitely sounded American ;) I was grateful for that opportunity to share my testimony in Tagalog/ English. I was so nervous but it was an amazing experience!

This week I've been studying about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I'm grateful for this principle in the gospel. I've learned so much about it.

I read a talk talking about the Atonement (I can't remember who it was). He talked about how people think they aren't worthy to repent. And they are too far away from Heavenly Father and say "what's the point in trying"?

I've come to learn that if we have a spark of faith we will have hope, and then we can become better and become like our Savior Jesus Christ.

There was one scripture that I really liked about this topic. It's Mosiah 27:25 "And the Lord said unto me marvel not that all mankind yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters."

As we continue to repent every day we "must be born again" and have a change of heart. I love this scripture and the teachings of it.

Miss you all and hope everyone's okay!

Elder Espiritu