Wow! Thanks for the great letter! Congratulations to Rachel! I liked the commentary, I was on the edge of my seat here reading about the BEE. I'll tell ya', my spelling has gone out the window, but I'm enjoying tagalog spelling. This morning I read in the tagalog liahona about somebody's experience in 'hayskul'. Yes -- phonetics. By the way, I hope you can send that Ensign article you mentioned a month ago. Chris, thanks for making that fence -- I'm sweating just thinking about all that work. And really, sweating all the time. It's HOT. Summer is here and I have to laugh as I see the weeds in our front yard shrivelling up. It's beginning to look a lot like southern utah. I'm now the taste-tester again, and I've learned 3 new dishes, including a better paksiw, sinigang, and tinola. mmm. . . sarap.
Things have really been falling into place again this week. The sun is starting to come out from it's hiding place, and the tough times of the past few weeks have started to soften in my memory. Elder Maandig sent a short email to President saying only: 'dear president, I'm sorry, it was my fault, --Elder Maandig' That's all the news I've heard from him. Things are returning to normal and as I turn to Heavenly Father and learn from the past, he has comforted me and helped me from day to day. Thank you all so much for your unfailing support and love. I love you all.
In the area, our most progressing investigator came to church for the 4th time, an 18 year old named Ronnel Carig. He's amazing, especially when it comes to studying. He started keeping the Word of WIsdom before we even taught it, and he's become part of the ward. We've still got a lot to teach him, but we're feeling really good about him. I'm so sad about Brother Capistrano! He's such a good guy -- he's starting a new business on Wednesday, biking a 'fish-bowl'. It's a step up from dried fish, and he's got a great mind for business. But he let it get in the way of church yesterday as he was painting his new fish-bowl-er-sidecar. His brother-in-law comes home from his mission on April 1. We'll see what happens. Sister Galecia came to church yesterday, she is doing a lot better. Great news! I've been teaching piano lessons for about 6 weeks, once a week in our service time, and yesterday, my student played the piano in sacrament meeting! It was great to sit in the congregation and hear everybody say, 'hey, Darius knows how to play the piano?' He did a great job and once he gets 12 hymns down, we think we can get him a keyboard from a church program. I'm feeling pretty happy about that. Jason Alambra was baptized by Gerald Gonzales and confirmed. He's doing great.
Elder Ko had some great things for us. The thing that really stuck out to me was what he taught about working with the ward. He said: 'do you think you have the responsibility for missionary work in your units? You don't! The bishop has the responsibility and more importantly, the right to inspiration for the vision and plans for the ward mission. The missionaries are just his full-time resources to put that vision or plan into action.' He told us to think of ourselves as tools offering help, wanting to serve and work in the Mission Plan, and discouraged us from flipping things around. That was a great thing to hear, because it's just too much for us to handle when we start to take responsiblity for retention, reactivation, AND conversion. He reminded us that we are only there for 4 months, the bishop is there for years, and has a bigger view, as well as the inspiration. We just have to serve him and make plans happen. It really helped me realize my purpose in the ward. I'm so excited about what's going on over there, dad! Big things are sure to happen.
I love you all! Thanks so much again for all the news!
Love, Elder Loren Peck
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