All good Food Plus Holes in Eardrums (May 14, 2017)

All Good Food Plus Holes in Eardrums

Hello family.
This is an email.
I was told to write that I like vegetables here in the Philippines.
I also had cravings for balut the other night, so I got one, but it was very, very old balut, and that duck was on the verge of hatching, so it was something of an experience to crunch through it's little bones, and feel it's little feathers on my tongue. I haven't ever had one that old before. I guess you just get lucky...

I am in a new area. It is Bonifacio 1st ward. It is technically still Makati city, but it is in the area around Bonifacio Global City, or Fort Bonifacio. I am in the barangays Comembo, and East Rembo.

If I ever talked about the Tubig family, whose house burned down, they moved here, so that's kind of cool. I just followed them from my last area to here. 
Vegetables here are really tasty. Either that, or my appetite changed. 
I really like some of the local vegetables though. By the Filipino names they are: Ampalaya, upo, kangkong, laing, and puso ng saging. Those are just the ones I'm a big fan of. If I tried to make an English translation for that it would be: Bittermelon, bottle gourd, swamp cabbage, taro leaves, and banana heart.
And then of course, the fish is good. Especially tilapia, fried or grilled. Super good. But bangus is nice as well when grilled. Here they cook fish with the head on and everything, and I find the tail and fins to be the tastiest, because they are crunchy and salty, like chips. But the part of the head that I'm assuming had the brain also has a unique and somewhat pleasant taste. I don't know if that is healthy though. Then there is the soft part near the bottom which is really tasty, and you can get some good meat in the cheeks. The only problem is your hands are all sticky afterwards, because to try to eat it with a fork and spoon would be very difficult. So congratulations. We have the food section of the emails of Elder Streeter.

Not terribly spiritual, but that's all right.

Oh, and my companion: Elder Harmer.
Tennis player, really good. American, from Utah, near Syracuse Daw. I would say he's white, but ever since he came to the Philippines, he's been nothing but red. 
And he's been torn apart by the Philippines. All sorts of problems. Recently, they solved his ear problem, where there was fluid inside that wasn't draining, and so they poked holes in his eardrums, sucked it all out, and put tubes into his eardrums, so if anything else comes, it'll drain out. The weird thing is his brain had been compensating before for the fluid, so high pitched noises were harder to hear, and so his brain turned up sensitivity to those noises. Now that he is free to hear, all those high-pitched noises are extremely loud to him, and extremely piercing, and will overpower lower sounds even if the lower sounds are really louder than the higher. 

So anyways, we didn't work at all last week, because I had a two-day fever, and right afterwards was the series of hospital visits and staying at the hospital for his ear thing, until our whole week was used up... so I'm excited for this week. 
That's all folks....

Buhbye!

Ingat kayo lagi!

From,

Elder Streeter

Earthquakes and Terrorism (June 6, 2017)

Earthquakes and Terrorism

Okay, so we went to the temple.
That explains why this is a day late.
It was good.
No, it was great.
No, it was excellent.
No, it was amazing.
No, it was...
Yup, that's the one. You just can't express it...

Thanks so much for the family pictures and stories. They are all great!
I'll get what I can, but my day is kind of whacked because of the temple trip. It takes a lot of time out of the day...

Anyways...
Life is good...
There is not much to say. It's the same thing every day every week.
Which isn't a bad thing! Miracles are still miracles, no matter how many times they happen. 

A member referred an entire family to us, and they are all the definition of shy... but also really nice! They seem like they are really potentially interested in our message. We're going to show them the restoration video this Saturday, and see how they enjoy it. We'll see what happens.

As far as the rest of life goes:
Kids run around naked.
Some make fun of you, others call you pogi.
The girls giggle when they see my companion.
The guys say, "What's up," and, "Hey, nigga!" when they see us... I don't really think they understand the second one. They just think it's what cool people say. We don't say it back.
We usually respond with a couple of sentences in Tagalog and it knocks them off their feet. 
Either that, or they start running away...

Speaking of which, one of our investigators, who struggles hard with the word of wisdom, totally walked away from us the other night, without saying anything. We called after him, seeing as how we were hoping to share with him, but he didn't turn around or anything. He seemed really upset. It wasn't so great... we'll see how he's doing, but he might not want our lessons anymore. 

There have been some earthquakes too, recently. We didn't feel them, but some of the other elders did. Nothing has been on top of us, but it still seems somewhat worrisome. We'll see what happens. I'm not too worried. 
Also, it seems that Palawan is getting tighter on what missionaries can be sent there. The upper half of the island still has foreigners, but the lower half is starting to be only Filipinos. I believe there have been some dangers of terrorism, and white people are easy targets here in the Philippines. That being said, I'm nowhere near Palawan, so I should be fine. 

That's all I've got right now... maybe specific questions would help. I don't know. The reason it's so hard to come up with stuff to write is because it's all just normal life to me now... unless something crazy happens, but even some crazy things come and go and I just forget about them because they aren't so ridiculous anymore.

I love seeing butterflies though. Every time I do it lifts my mood, even when sweat is literally dripping off my head from how hot it is...

We're coming close to rainy season now (hopefully...) and it might cool down.

From, 

Elder Streeter

How many knocks does it take? (April 30, 2017)

How many knocks does it take?

So how is everybody?
I can't hear you! I said: 
How is everybody?
I still can't hear you!
(Why can't I hear you?)
Oh, right, I'm on the other side of the planet.
You would have to shout pretty loud for me to hear you. Either that, or somehow get on Philippines t.v.

That was my feeble attempt at a joke.

Yes this is transfer week,
No I have no idea what's going to happen...
Yes I could transfer, I could get a new companion, and I could just be here. 
And I won't know until tomorrow... sooo....

My opinion however, is that the likelihood of me getting a new companion while staying in this area is low. The likelihood that I transfer is high, and the likelihood that I stay is only slightly lower than the likelihood that I transfer.
And all of that doesn't matter because I'm always in the same place:
Right where my Heavenly Father wants me.

I hope everyone is doing all right though. I really do want the best for everyone.
Our area is looking like usual. I've learned something about Makati, at least for me. I'm not a terribly smart missionary. I can't look at a situation or area, see the previous baptisms, find the strengths of the area, look at previously effective methods of finding the people who want to be taught, come up with a plan that wins the trust of the members and changes the whole mode of work in the area and suddenly have a teaching pool absolutely filled with people ready and working towards baptism. It just isn't my strength. It would be cool if it was, but I don't think I'm cut out for it. 

On the contrary, I just do what I know, and what I know is to knock. If I tried all that other stuff I would probably collapse under the stress of just thinking about it. So instead I just pray, and hope, and keep knocking, facing door after door of rejection, although in the kind Filipino way more often than not.
And this is what I've learned:

God will bless me with willing people as long as I keep knocking on those doors. 
When I have knocked on 300 doors, someone will be found who is willing to listen;
When I have knocked on 800, someone will come to church;
When I've gotten 1500, someone will enter the waters of baptism;
And the miracle of it is that the person who does so will live behind not one of those 1500 doors. It will come when suddenly a family member of a member moves to the city from the province, or a friend of a member actually joins him at an activity, or somebody living at a member's house begins listening to the lessons even when not invited. 

And none of those were in those 1500 houses or apartments that we knocked on. 

Wow!

The atheist I talked about last time, I went back to him while on exchanges. There wasn't much change in the result. He continues to hold to his beliefs, and is not really willing to change. But this time I felt a lot better. 
I feel that I made a much better effort to understand. I actually did very little sharing, but I did a whole lot of listening. 

I asked a question to him several times: Would you like to know whether or not there is a God? 
I wasn't telling him there was, or that there wasn't, though I of myself know there is. I simply needed to know if he wanted to make an honest effort to find out. And the third time I asked the question (he was beating around the bush) he simply said: I don't really want to talk about it anymore. 
And I told him: Sige!
And he said: But if you want to come over sometime and watch Star Wars or something together, we could do that.
And I said: Well...probably some other time. 
Because of course, it's against our rules as missionaries...
But it made me feel that he felt my efforts to reach out. To be a friend.

That's all for now...

‘Til next week.

Elder Streeter

Knock! Knock! Who's there? (April 23, 2017)

Knock! Knock! Who's there?

Hello again, everybody! 
Another week gone by; pretty uneventful.

We knocked on doors.
We got rejected.
We knocked on more doors.
We got rejected worse.
We talked to some people on the street.
They were nice, but they lived in a different city...
We knocked on some more doors.
They weren't so nice.
And then we got home, and I read a comic that I thought was hilarious. It showed two missionaries, they were standing in a doorway. One of them was already through, the other was behind him. The one behind said:
"Hey, at least we got into a door today!"
The one in front, with a weary look said:
"The missionary apartment doesn't count, elder."
Heheheh....
And then I cry because it's true...
Just kidding, I didn't cry. I only cry when I go to the temple.
Oh wait, that means I did cry this week. 

Anyways, there's not much to say. I'm just trying to solve a mystery, because I need to know who the culprit is. 
Considering how wet I am when I get home every night, and yet the fact that there are no clouds in the sky, it seems to me that someone is holding a gigantic magnifying glass over the Philippines. I just need to figure out who...
IT IS HOT! So hot. And the fact that nobody is really interested in letting us into their home means we're in it all day. 
But there's no such thing as TOO hot when it comes to the work of the Lord...
But I'm still praying that there will be an extra breeze when we go out to work later...

This week we found out, unexpectedly, that one of our investigators is an atheist. What's more, he did a book review of the Book of Mormon. He handed it to us when we came to him.
I read it.
He gave it 2 stars and a 4/10.
I handed the book back and told him that I knew that he needed to read it. He looked confused, and said: "Again?"
I looked at him and said: "No. For the first time. You haven't read this book."
And he sheepishly admitted that he had only skimmed it and read a couple of passages. 
Then he launched into a series of questions to try to prove that what religion teaches cannot be true. Remember that at this point we didn't know his religion.
He asked, "Why would a loving God make a hell to throw his children into?"
He stated, "I read the Bible twice. The second time I read it, I noticed there were a lot of mistakes."
He asked about baptism, and why a baby who was not baptized would be any different from a baby that was baptized, because they both acted the same way. He also stated that it wasn't fair for children to pay for the sins of their parents.

We told him that he was right, those things didn't make sense. We thought that our message would really help, and would make it clear why those beliefs were held, but also show that those concerns can be answered through the Book of Mormon, and the teachings of prophets in our day and time. 
We let him know that as for ourselves, we didn't believe there was a fiery inferno where the souls of wicked men burn for all eternity, because of the very reason that he gave. We did, however, believe that the anguish of the guilt of a wicked man would be like a fire within him. God would not be the cause of his suffering, but his guilt while being in the presence of someone who loved him so much would.

But he seemed to take what we said and simply file it into a repository. "Oh," he said, "okay, so you're like Jehovah's witnesses. Don't believe in a hell."

I was confused. Was he really asking the questions? What was going on?
I tried to explain why many mistakes can be found in the Bible. I started by testifying that I knew the Bible was true, and then explained especially that the New Testament was of importance. I noted how Jesus Christ came, taught, established a church, and was rejected of men. He agreed. I spoke about how, after he was resurrected, he ascended into heaven, leaving his apostles to guide his church and keep the doctrine pure. I was going to lead into how there were false ideas and doctrines, dissensions and philosophies, and doctrinal questions which crept into the church, and we can see in the epistles of the apostles that that was happening, but he stopped me when I mentioned the resurrection. 

He let us know he didn't believe in a resurrection.
My companion shared a scripture that talked about the resurrection.
He responded by telling us he believed that somebody said and wrote that scripture, but that they didn't speak the truth.

To make a long story short, he's gone almost to the point of atheism. He can't bring himself to say there is no God, but he doesn't believe in any God we believe in. He was simply trying to make us doubt...

We testified, and left.

It made me sad that I couldn't do more to help.

Oh well.

From,

Elder Streeter