This week can follow-up a bit with what I said last week in which Satan is keeping a close tab on us. Ever since I became a Zone Leader the temptations have been much worse. With my new American companion, we get a lot of attention walking down the streets. Every single day for the past 2-3 weeks (and especially this past one) we get made fun of, looked at differently, treated far too differently; it is a bit of a struggle. The biyawyaw (kind of like mocking/ persecution) has been really bad this past week. Tons of people call us out and make fun of us (they think we don’t understand but we do). This always gives us a great conversation starter btw. We have upset a few other religions in our area. No bashers have come up to us but they are going after our investigators when we aren't there. All of this leads to a more bitter war with Satan. We are more bold when sharing the message, and our calling to teach repentance is taking on whole new levels as we have to be more bold. The missionaries are same old same old. Love the sisters, desire more from the Elders. Through it all I still say that I love this work! We have had a lot happen this past week and a lot we are looking forward to!
So it has been pouring cats and dogs here for the past 5 days or so. So much that my zone has flooded really badly on some of the days. We even got a call from the Sisters saying that their house has flooded and outside is flooded up to their necks! (They are short so probably up to my pecks;)). They are staying with the STLs until the bagio (storm) moves on. We taught a lesson and at the end when we walked out we were trapped! We had to wade through a pool top get to the road. My ankles we submerged in the water - haha! YUCK! The rain water here is not clean because of all the animal/human waist and litter on the ground. Some missionaries couldn't leave their house until the water receded!
This past week was the HUGE Cebu Sinulog Festival (Google it). It is a Catholic feast and celebration of Senior Santo Nino (black baby Jesus). Huge speakers are set up with crazy loud music, alcohol everywhere, tons of slaughtered animals for rotisserie and such... yeah it is fun! Nobody was home! At the city center they had huge presentations going on with dances and such. It was so big that the government shut down ALL cell phone communications for Saturday and Sunday because of bomb threats. Apparently it was a success, we didn't get to go but we didn’t hear about anything bad happening!
We had a fun night last night. One of the sisters, Sister Pito (pito means 7), had her B-day so we went to the stake 2nd counselor’s home for a dinner. We ate a ton of food, and had a nice cake.
(The picture is of the B-day party for Sister 7. She is on the left with the white shirt. Her comp, sister Mateo is on the right and she is my Filipino batch mate. She goes home in 3 weeks.)
Took selfies with bayuts (bayut means gay!)
(This girl on my left is really cute! OH WAIT! ITS A BOY!!!!!)
Our work here is going great. Even though we have been fighting Satan this whole past week we have had great success with our gators. We had a new gator come to church this past week. That is 5 new people we have had at church in the past 3 Sundays! So that is really good. We just need more prayers for them so that their problems can go away and they can progress without issue. We are loading up the escalator leading to baptism, even so much that we struggle to find time for all that we are finding and to even find more! All is good here:).
I hope that all is well for you back at home! Keep going strong!
-Elder Morris
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