Week 33: Happy New Year!! and Miracles (121 Cockroaches)

Hey yall :)
Malipayong bago nga tuig!!! Happy New Year!!
This past week was filled with miracles! 
We have ben talking to as many people as we can. We recently gained 13 new investigators (people who we teach) which is kind of normal here in the Philippines. But what is a miracle is that we extended 3 baptismal dates and 2 accepted and the other is thinking about it )we asked her to pray). 
one of them we met as she was standing on the side of the road and we came back and she understood everything so well and said this is all true. And we testified that yes, it is all true and that she could read the evidence that it is all true (the Book of Mormon) and pray to God to know if it was true in her heart. She is 21 and she is the sweetest soul, we are already friends. Another investigator felt the Spirit testify to her so strong as my companion testified that God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith and later Joseph Smith was called a prophet and received the Priesthood and the fullness of the gospel was restored to the earth. She behan to cry and cried a little more as she felt the joy and the Spirit witness to her of it's truth. The most powerful point to me is the feeling of when we kneel at the end of the prayer and they pray to Our Heavenly Father expressing thanks for sending us missionaries to them. I love this gospel and it is truly such a blessing to be a part of it. Another investigator was taught by elders in the past and told us when we met her that she wanted to be taught because she felt God's love when the elders prayed. We taught her and she is amazing. She was a missionary for Jehovah's witness and left when she noticed doctrines were unclear and wanted the truth and she was the most excited I've seen to receive the Book of Mormon to read. 
Another lesson was interesting as the Lord guided me by the Spirit as I explained to a friend who joined a lesson for one of our investigators. he is a very knowledgeable religious 27 year old and to see him have so many rejections and then become silent as we testified that we do not have all the answers, but we do know that God will answer him directly if he reads the Book of mormon with a sincere heart to know its truth and then prays to God with real intent to act on the answer by being baptized by the authority, the Priesthood of God, he will receive an answer that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and is true. 

I am amazed at the love i feel for the people here and the love God has for all of us that He has restored His gospel on this earth. 

I love being a missionary and I am excited for this new year. It is weird to be in the year that I will be going home as I return in November 2018, but I have so much more work to do before I return. 
People here in the Philippines LOVE fireworks and loud music so thats what they did to celebrate and we had a curfew of 5pm the past 2 nights haha :) But work will continue as normal this week. 

take care!!!
and 121 cockroaches now....

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