Great Mexican food in Laoag. No joke. (6/2/13)

Dear Family and Friends,

I don't even know where to start with this week. It was one of those packed and crazy yet completely awesome and mind blowing weeks. Those are the best kind of weeks by far. 

We had interviews with President Barrientos on Thursday which took the whole day for us office Elders. Interviews were combined with District Meeting, which was great. Our district is huge with ten missionaries. It's because we have the four office Elders, the assistants and four sisters. Elder B is our district leader and he had a great training about using questions to help others and serve. That only went till about 11, and then it was personal study and errands with Sister Barrientos time. We were ate the chapel until 8, and interviews started at 8. We then went to Ineq's BBQ which is really good and then finally got home around 9:30. It was a long day, but I have had longer. Much, much longer.

Stake Conference was this weekend and Elder Teh of the First Quorum of the Seventy was presiding. He is the President of the Philippines area. We got to here from him, Sister Teh and President and Sister Barrientos, though we had a power outage in the middle of Sister Barrientos's talk, so we missed about half of it. We were in the overflow in the Relief Society room. It was such an awesome conference and we will get to see Elder Teh again in two weeks when he comes for the mission tour. 

There was one part of stake conference that really made the entire day perfect. When I was in Bacarra I told you all a bit about F, one of our investigators who did a 180 turn our first lesson and loves the Book of Mormon. We could never get him to come to Church since he always had work.  Last week Elder L was here to get his trainee and I asked him about Bacarra and he told me that F had attended church. This Sunday though, he was there are stake conference. And I could see the difference in his face. The change was amazing. He had this new light about him and he looked so happy. Although he is pure Ilokano, so it is a bit hard to communicate, when I shook his hand before I could see in his eyes the change that is being wrought in him by the Savior. And he stopped me again after conference to shake my hand again. It was such a powerful experience for me and a testimony builder of how this gospel changes lives and how each of person we talk to about the gospel has the seed of faith planted. We may not be able to see the fruit of our efforts in this life, but for sure we will see them in the next and we will have joy. In D&C 18, we are promised that if we bring one soul unto Christ great shall be our joy, but if we bring more souls our joy will be even greater. And I testify that every person that we share the gospel with is some one that we will help bring unto Christ. I have seen it for my self and I want everyone to feel that joy.

I love you all and I hope that all is going well for you. Keep up the faith and works and always remember that the Lord is with us. He has walked our path and now is is helping us walk it if we will but reach out for his help. Mahal Kita! Mabuhay kayo lahat!

Elder RWood