Week 63: Care for the Soul

Hello everyone!!

It's been a really great week for me! I'm loving it here in Batac with Elder Griffiths! We're having a great time and getting along super well. I think sometimes we are so in sync it's pretty funny, haha. He's super obedient and very self driven to work hard and to be a consecrated missionary, so we're getting along very well.

We had a lot of fun things happen this week. I'll show some pics :)

7/15/2019

This is the delicious place close to our house. I love it. It looks and tastes like something that could be in America. The best part is the bottomless cucumber lemonade :)

7/16/2019

This is a family that we recently found, and they're pretty interested in our message of the restored gospel! We taught a lot of new people this week and this is one of the families we're excited to go back to and see what happens!

7/18/2019

We started talking to this nice lady in a truck as we were crossing the street and she bought all three of us empanadas as she drove away. Very nice :-)

We had a topical storm that came through for a couple days and it just poured rain. We went out to work that morning with our umbrellas, got drenched (because the rain mixed with wind goes ALL directions) and BOTH of the umbrellas broke hahah. So, we go and buy matching rainsuits. hah. We still worked all day, dry!! It was a lot of fun.

This is Elder Cabasal on his LAST DAY of the mission. I wrote in my journal when he went home that I was feeling a little jealous but also not. It's a weird feeling of being content and happy here but also missing home and family and friends. Just a reminder to me that there's a time and a place for everything and I really want to give my all to the work for these last 9 months!

7/20/2019

*appreciating nature pictures*

This is a family that we went and visited and had dinner at their house. They live very, very far away. They were so happy they almost cried when we showed up to their house. It had been over a year since the missionaries had visited and shared in their home. Even though they're really far, they still go to church every week and are super strong in the church. Sister is in the Relief Society presidency and coincidentally I had already met her in Laoag! Haha. That's a story. If you remember I had a pretty bad leg infection and got sent to the hospital in Laoag and she is one of the people I met there whe helped me find where I was supposed to go! She was super friendly before and I totally remembered her. AND she remembered me! Especially when I reminded her about how hard it was for me to walk hahaha. She laughed pretty hard and said that I looked like I was in so much pain. Good memories.

They also happened to have a picture of GLACIER! Which is where my family just got back from! (I'm pretty sure this is a picture of glacier ntl park but it could just be a mountain idk)

7/21/2019

*more nature*

This is me trying fried frog legs for the first time. I know my face looks like I didn't really like it but I think thats just how the camera got it because I actually thought it was pretty good!

It's been a great week! I'm loving my mission and I'm loving the things I'm learning. Something that I'm really focusing on in my studies is self-mastery, conquering the natural man and becoming more through the atonement of Christ. This scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants really stood out to me:

"Therefore care not for the body, neither the life of the body, but care for the soul, and for the life of the soul, and seek the face of the Lord always, that in patience ye may possess your souls, and ye shall have eternal life."

I think we sometimes have two appetites, the body and the soul. Sometimes, at least for me, the two can get out of balance. The body can be demanding and the soul can be lacking. We need to remember to take time for the soul, to feed it and take care of it.

Food for thought. Feed the soul. Ponder. Pray. Serve.

I love you all! Thank you for all the prayers, thoughts, and comfort you give to me. Life is so, so good.

Ingat kayo lagi. Mahal ko po kayo.

Elder Childers

:)