Week 3 Cogeo

Hi Family,

This week has flown by. Not only this week but the past 7 months being in the mission field! I'm looking at the calendar and it's almost April!

It was a pretty normal week here in Cogeo.  Just the continuous grind of missionary work. 

On Thursday I had an exchange with the DL's anak- elder Esurim. He's still in his 12 weeks program and so I had the opportunity to lead in his area (bagong nayon). It was an awesome exchange. We taught many powerful lessons that went so well. It's the best feeling leaving a lesson and feeling so spiritually in tune, knowing that I did all I could in the lesson to help the investigator. Here's a cool story: we taught these 2 guys that are less active. As soon as we started talking and getting to know each other it seemed like we knew each other before.  It was weird, I've never connected with anyone like I did with these 2 brothers so far in my mission. I really felt like they were my brothers, and I was talking to them like my best friends- truly concerned for them and wanting to help them. I learned a lot from this exchange.  I'm really excited to hopefully train one day. It's a lot of fun working with younger missionaries. 

This week I studied Humility. The past couple weeks I've really noticed that my Tagalog is improving, and also my teaching skills.  Because of this, pride has snuck up on me a little bit.  As I was reading in the BoM I was quickly humbled when I read Mosiah 2: 23-25 when King Benjamin tells the people not to boast- we are always indebted to God and are as of the dust. 

Elder Barrientos and I have gotten a little bit discouraged with our situation right now. We have zero progressing investigators, and it seems like everything negative that could happen to our investigators is happening. One of our special 2 left for good, back to his province. And our other investigators simple are just not progressing. We've been working our tails off trying to find new investigators and to help our area. We've introduced the family mission plan to the members to try and get them involved and to receive referrals. It's even harder when we have zero members that are willing to work with us. I don't know what else to do. We're trying our absolute best to be exactly obedient, but our area is still struggling really bad right now. I know this is part of Heavenly Father's plan for us but it's really frustrating. I haven't had the opportunity to baptize someone in over 4 months or see the progression of an investigator. 

All I ask for you family is to pray for my area. I know we'll be blessed as long as we continue to work hard and do what we can. I'm just patiently waiting for these blessings to come haha. A highlight of this week was that 2 less active families that we taught came to church! I was so happy to see them walk into the chapel doors and feel of the spirit in the house of lord. 

I know that Joseph Smith is a true prophet of God and that the church of Jesus Christ was restored through him! 

Sige po, until next week family, ingat palagi!

Love,

Elder Johnson