June 17, 2019
First of all Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there. You have a bigger influence on us (kids) than you know, speaking from experience.
It was an eventful week! I'll try to give you the highlight reel so this isn't excessively long!
So first of all, my companion caught me off guard and made me question my Tagalog... We were walking, when out of the blue, he hit me with this question, "Puwede bang lumipad ang mga lobo?" which translates to, "Can wolves fly?" After confirming that I understood him correctly, I laughingly said, "No". He was genuinely so surprised that they couldn't fly. I asked him why he thought that they could, and he told me that he had seen a movie called "Rampage", and in it, there was a flying wolf... That gave me a pretty good laugh.
On Friday, we had exchanges. We were in a different area, teaching these two super sweet old ladies, when all of the sudden this big Filipino comes out of nowhere and speaks English to me, asking, "Do you speak Tagalog?" I replied, "Yes", in Tagalog, and then answered all of his subsequent questions in Tagalog to prove my point. However, I noticed that he was speaking to me in English and he had no Filipino accent, so immediately, I realized that he must've lived in America for a long time. He abruptly told me that he'd be right back, and after buying a couple cigarette sticks, he returned and proceeded to interrupt me in the middle of the lesson, while everyone paused, looking back and forth at us, not understanding, as we spoke in English. He proceeded to explain to me that when he was eight, he moved from the Philippines to San Jose, CA. Then pointing to his tattoo of the word "bloods", he told me he had joined this gang there! He said he had done some crazy crazy things in his time as a member of the bloods gang (without going into any details). Apparently, he got deported in 2014 and left his wife and two kids there in San Jose... I felt like I had better get back to the lesson, but before I told him that, I asked his name. To which he replied (pointing to the tattoo of it on his neck), "Emmanuel, but you can call me EJ because we're friends!"...So I guess I'm friends with a former member of the bloods gang. After EJ went his own way, we finished the lesson with the nanay, and then asked her to give the closing prayer, which she gladly agreed to...But then she gave it silently, as we bowed our heads for three minutes, until she finally said, "Amen" haha!
On a spiritual note... we had seven RMs work with us yesterday, so we did splits. Both of us had some amazing lessons! We each found new people that were either referrals or part members, and in both instances, they said they wanted to be baptized as soon as possible! One of the RMs that was with me, jokingly said, "We're available tomorrow if you are!" This area is starting to blow up, and we anticipate seeing a lot of baptisms in July and August! Also, on the splits, we taught a less active family that had once been incredible, strong, and faithful members in the past, but for whatever reason, they stopped attending church. We had maybe one of the most powerful lessons I've had on the Atonement of Jesus Christ, with this family. We each testified of Christ's atonement and it's ability to change lives, no matter how far off the covenant path we may seem. The branch member's testimonies were so powerful and the Spirit seemed to be overflowing from the family's home. After all the powerful testimonies, I turned to the family and said, "We love you. We need you. But more importantly, Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love you and need you on their team. Will you come back to the Church of Jesus Christ and join the winning team?" With tears in his eyes, and a big nod of approval, the father said, "Yes" on behalf of his whole family. I may have also gotten a little teary in that lesson...
Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love and need all of you on their team!
-Elder Wolferts
Some pics of our hike, earlier this morning.
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