About Me

My photo
Somehow, two years have passed. And Dallin will be flying back to the states on March 26th. It has been quite the adventure! I will encourage him to add his own summary when he gets back...(Living the good life in the Philippines, Quezon City North Mission. Entered the MTC in Provo on April 4, 2012. Flew to the Philippines on Sunday, May 13, 2012. What a great adventure! And what an honor to serve the good people of the Pines!)

Sunday, October 7, 2012

9/24/12 Alas, Earwax

I like to think that I keep my ears pretty darn clean. Especially as a representative of the Lord, it's important to keep your appearance looking sharp. But this last Sunday, the child of the day sitting on the bench with us (I found out his name is Jerom after he wrote it over and over again all over my planner) dug his finger deep into my ear. After nearly pulling out my eardrum, he pulled forth his finger and alas, the smallest crumb was visible. I now know that I can dig deeper and be a cleaner missionary! We always have ways to improve. Sometimes we find out in ways we don't expect. Delicious. 

So first, I'll get on with the interesting stories from the week. Probably mostly just the fun stuff. So, back on some day, I had exchanges with Elder Broadhead again. We worked in my area this time. So we went to one family that we go to a lot. They were gold. It's a mom and son, and the grandma lives with them. The son is kind of a demon. All the time. He is wild and loves to hang on me. Every time I leave that lesson, I look like I've been mugged. My hair is a mess, my shirt is pulled out, wrinkled and has footprints on it. And my pants are always dirty. This last time, he even ripped the little part on the back of the tie that holds the extra. And he's loud. Anywho. Demon. But as usual, the parents do nothing here. So he carries on, regardless of what I say with my limited Tagalog. But this last time, oh how the tides changed!! The Lolo started going nuts on this kid!! It was really awkward. For all y'all becoming parents out there, save the major discipline for after people leave. She started smacking him all over the place! It was awkward! Elder Broadhead and I didn't know what to do. I said, "Elder, this is weird. What do we do?" He said, "I don't know! Oh man, you aren't going to believe it, Nanay just pulled out the cheese grater!!" No joke, I turn around, the lady is going nuts with the thing on the kid's face! She was smacking him all over the place! It was bad. But she stopped. But momma had stepped out for a sec. When she got back, he did something else, and she grabs a big old metal spoon! And it all starts over!! She was smacking the kid all over the place!! We didn't know what to do!! It finally ends and he eventually stops crying. It was all awkwardly silent forever. But then the lesson carries on. And he was quiet and good from that moment on. So I don't know if this is a blessing or what. It was terrible at the moment, but man, looking back, all I can say is Karma. I hope that doesn't make me a terrible missionary. But the kid had it coming. It was all well deserved. Just built up over the last few weeks. Anywho. Crazy day. Moving on!!

Same day, Elder Broadhead and I run up into a Born Again pastor. At first, the guy is seeming to have a fun speaking Tagalog with a couple Americans. But then he gets a little challenging about our beliefs. Elder Broadhead here, has a wonderful talent for memorizing scriptures and has done a lot of hard work to build up a proper library in his head. So he had a lot of scriptures to politely back up our beliefs. Then the guy turned to the book of mormon. He didn't know what it was at all. So we gave him the low down on that. The guy agreed to read it and ask Heavenly Father if it is true. He said he respects us for what we are doing. Preaching the gospel. We parted as friends. It was way sweet!! 

That night, we got back together with our comps. It turns out, even though he's been here, Elder Broadhead's companion, Elder Hathcock, has never had balut. So it was a first time for both of them. It was my second time. We all got up together and had some balut. It was not bad at all. It was much more enjoyable than the first time. We bought one extra so we could dissect it. After we ate of course. Dude, I'm glad we did. You just don't want to know all of what's going on in there. It was disgusting!! I took some sweet pics. I'll see how many I can send your way. But the great secret of Balut is that it tastes like a funky hard boiled egg! It just.....isn't. Ha, no, it's definitely not. 

The next day, we had a service project as a district. It was for the same people as a few weeks ago, with the nasty cloth stuff. We were going to be doing flooring, daw. Turns out when we got there, they weren't ready. So we got roped back into the yucky cloth stuff!!! It was a trap!! Not as bad this week though. We took all the bags we filled last time and moved them out. They were still all wet and muddy and stinky and gross. And HEAVY!!! Surprise; wet bags of cloth can do a number on an old man. But we have a ballin' district. So it was still a good time!! And, as a fun thought, we found another huge spider!! Pretty much the same as that big nasty one I sent a while back. We were taking a good look at it and one of the sisters stepped through the doorway without looking and stepped right on it. Shame. Poor little guy. 

Later on in the week, we had a service project as a zone. Also the same as way back when. They gave us some itak's and let us go at the weeds. It was still the best thing in the world! Elder Broadhead and I were pretty much clearing a safari. I was living back in the good old days of when I was 5. There were bad guys all over the place and I was slaying them. Ah, the fun you can have with a good imagination. Good times. But this time, the weeds fought back. There were these sneaky ones with miny thorns on them. We didn't even notice for the first hour. But later on, we started noticing they were all up in our skin and starting to burn. Man! My arm scratches made me look like a depressed cutter!! It was madness!! But it was still a way good time!!

It was a wonderful week!! We had some good lessons and FHE's. We had a referral that has turned into a new investigator! It's a part member family. The mom and two kids are members but the dad isn't. He is very accepting though. But he has a job all up in the way of sunday. But we are excited to see where this can go!! It'll be great! We've had some fun trying our luck at street contacting. The gospel is the best thing in the world. It's amazing to watch the gospel bless the lives of those that are willing to let it happen. We get into a routine in our lives. I have my own. I know first hand about how hard it can be to make changes to the way we live. Even if it's just something small. Sometimes we just aren't comfortable with changes. It can be as small as the music we listen to. Or the fact that our favorite type of noodle soup has tea extract. Or the fact that we aren't used to reading the Book of Mormon every day. Or maybe we aren't used to attending church every day. But these really are just small things. And when we are willing to change ourselves, to align ourselves with the will of our Father in Heaven, we truly are blessed. Ha, oh if we could only see the enormous blessings we receive for giving up the small things!! It is possible. It is do-able. We just have to remember what is truly important. Anywho. That's my rant of the week. Make the small and simple changes!! 

Anywho, my time is coming to a close here. I gotta be bouncing. Lots of work to do tonight!!! Thanks for all the support!! Have a wonderful week!!

Much love, 

Elder Christensen

 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment