Hello Family!
Well I have alot to tell you all today... this will be quite the letter. I think I will start with the business. We had another great week of work. We had another big turn out for Sacrament meeting with 6 investigators in attendance. Another awesome part of church was the attendance in general. When I first got here the chapel was never full and this last Sunday it was PACKED. I'm talking getting close to uncomfortably packed. We had 130 people in attendance! When I first got here it was a really good week to get 90 people at sacrament people. So we were REALLY pleased with how well our members our responding to the new area goals to help our inactive Brothers and Sisters come back to the church. These past two weeks have been real testimony builders for me of what can happen when members get more involved in the work... the work bears fruit easier and faster. Elder Faran and I have been super busy working with our part member families this past week. We have three pretty steady families we are working with and the all seem to want to be baptized. Two of those three have been taught for a couple weeks now and have baptismal dates while the other one is new this week... but they came to church! So that was really good to see them progress even though they are brand new. Elder Faran and I had another week of picking out some goals and working our butts off to achieve them. He is another really goal oriented person and it makes achieving the goals much easier when your companion is on board and willing to make sacrifices as well in order to achieve the set goals. I really have enjoyed working with him and I feel like we have already been able to help lots of people come closer to Jesus Christ.
I had a cool experience at church this last weekend. Our recent convert got up and bore his testimony in the meeting yesterday. The first thing he said was "Bali, ginapilit ako ni Auntie ko subong." Which means his Aunt forced him to bear his testimony... haha. Anyways, I am super impressed with this little 11 year old kid. His name is Jerick Gaje and he bore a wonderful testimony about how thankful he was to his Aunt (He lives with his Aunt with his siblings) for bringing him to church and helping him become a member of the church. The Gajes are an awesome little family here in Molo... I love visiting them. They are loud and fun and love to feed the missionaries. They remind me a bit of home... except they are all still little kids (the oldest is 12). There is this one little girl named "Tsing-tsing" who is HILARIOUS. I think she thinks that is she doesn't yell and hold out her vowels really long she won't be understood or something. She's also got quite the attitude and always has something funny to say. I could try to explain what she says but I just don't think I can communicate it well over the internet with the language differences and such. The language by the way is still really good. I love being in the city just because it is easy to talk to them. Their Ilongo is so understandable for me and I am never lost anymore. This is another thing I don't think I can completely communicate over the internet... the language situation in the Philippines. It is ridiculous and you don't even know how thankful I am to be in a place where I can understand everything. It is such a blessing.
So here is something that joggled me a bit this week. They are going to start teaching Ilongo at the MTC now... so that the poor missionaries in Iloilo and Bacolod missions don't study a language they won't speak in their missions (Genius, no?). Anyways, that also means they will want the two missions to be on the same transfer schedule (which they aren't) and Iloilo mission is the mission that is going to have to adjust their schedule. This will happen in May 2012... which means that I will not be able to come home on September 19 like I'm supposed to. I now, probably, have the decision between going home on August 30 or on October 10. So ya... I have been thinking alot lately if I want to just go home the last day of August or extend until October. I will probably have to make a decision this month or the beginning of next month so that they can work everything out in SLC. I really would like to come home and jump right into school but I'm not sure if August 30 is still too late for that. I would, of course, like to see Graham before he leaves on his mission but I'm also not sure is Aug 30 would be too late anyway for that as well. The more I have thought about it the more I really want to be back at UGA and go to school so if there is anyway possible for that to happen I would come home and do that. So I will just ask you all to look into that a bit for me so that I can weigh my options. I also want to hear opinions and other factors maybe that I haven't thought of yet so that I can make the best decision. But dang... if I were to go home Aug 30 that would mean that my 6 months to go point would be the end of this month. So that scares me a bit. So let me know what you all think and gimme some advice because I freaked out a bit when I found this out. I had it so set in my mind that I was coming home Sept 19 and now it is weird and scary to pick between August and October. Thanks!
Well that is all I have to report this week. Elder Faran and I have some really tough goals that we are focusing on this week and we are gonna have to work even harder than we have been to achieve them. It will be a good challenge. Anyways, remember I love you all and think about you all often. Be safe and let me know how everyone is doing! Write me a letter if you have extra time... I'm getting desperate!
Love,
Elder Lowry
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