Elder Dallin Espiritu: First Baptism

So a lot went down this week. At the beginning of the week I finally got to watch the afternoon session of General Conference. I was grateful to finally watch it.

I loved Elder Bednar's talk. Especially when he talked about "the cheetah's and the topis" It was a really cool talk. One part that I liked a lot was when he said "Focusing our lives in and on the Savior and His gospel enables us to overcome the tendency of the natural man to be spiritually snoozy and lazy. As we are blessed with eyes to see and ears to hear, the Holy Ghost can increase our capacity to look and listen when we may not typically think we need to look or listen or when we may not think anything can be seen or heard.

“Watch, therefore, that ye may be ready.” That was really cool I liked that a lot.

We had zone conference this week too. That was awesome I got to see and meet a ton of new missionaries and I learned a lot.

This week Elder Hedman and I found a lot of new people. We found a couple of new families. It was a really good week of work. I'm grateful for the work and to be able to serve a mission.

One of the highlights this week was my first baptism. That was such an awesome experience. I baptized Rey Payot. He's about 40 years old. He's living with some members so that's how he found out about the gospel.

We met him the first week we were here in Paranaque and two months later we finally got the opportunity to baptize him. I"m grateful for that experience.

That's about it for this week. Hope everyone has a good week. Mahal ko Kayo!!

-Elder Espiritu

From Elder Espiritu’s Mom while speaking to him on Google Hangout:

On Tuesday while at his second Zone conference he felt a lot more like the “experienced” missionary since the new missionaries are now the “newbies.”

They have a few in their teaching pool. They have a family referral who actually came to church but was too embarrassed and shy to go into the church meetinghouse. They are planning to visit them tonight (it’s Monday morning there in the Philippines).

They are currently teaching an “old couple” (“Like Mom and Dad’s age” Per Elder Espiritu! Haha) and are also teaching their neighbors.

Their companionship is moving to a new apartment closer to their area. It takes 4-5 trike rides (motorcycle drawn carriage) to get to their area (about an hour’s drive) from their current apartment.

Their new apartment is actually close to the chapel and is more conveniently located. He said they spend about 150 pesos/person/day in transportation. That’s a lot considering each ride is only about 9 pesos. In US $$ that’s only $2.88/day/person. Conversion rate is 52 pesos to $1.

He talked about how everything is inexpensive but members are so nice that they feed them dinner almost every night. He spends 20 pesos per hour to use the Internet cafe to email and google hangout with us.

He also mentioned that the members are so friendly that it’s so easy for them to bring new people they are teaching because they rally around them.

He also said people call him and his companion “pogi” (handsome) all the time! 😂

His Tagalog is going really well! He understands more than he can speak. People still sometimes laugh that he speaks with an accent but he laughs with them and has a great attitude about it.

He really appreciates all the people who email him. He does answer everyone of them! Please keep them coming.