This week I learned so much. So up until this past week I have felt like I have been working hard, being obedient, and over all an okay missionary. On Monday I couldn't stop thinking about why I have only had one baptism in the eight months I've been here. So I asked my comp what I maybe was doing wrong. He told me nothing. But for some reason I couldn't stop thinking about it. For me up until this point baptisms didn't really matter to me. All that mattered is that everyday I do my best to help someone in one way or another. But for some reason it started to bother me super bad. So on Monday night Elder Francisco sat down at our desks to plan for our week. We started setting our goals. Usually our goals stay pretty much the same. But Elder Francisco started throwing out huge numbers for goals. I told him that goals need to be achievable. He then told me yes but they also need to stretch you. So I said alright and just for the heck of it we wrote down numbers that were way bigger then I've ever had my whole mission. Then after we finished planning he said he wanted to pray. As he was praying he asked for help and guidance on how to achieve these goals. Then we went to bed, but the whole baptism thing kept bothering me. Then everyday when we woke up this past week Elder Francisco said lets go achieve these goals. Thursday came around and both us us were just ridiculously tired at the end of the day. We started going through our work for the week and noticed that if we worked crazy hard for the rest of the week we can meet our goals. So that's what we did. Sunday rolled around and we closed our week. We finished our numbers and noticed we exceeded all of our goals and doubled a few of them. We talked about the people that we met this past week. We noticed that all the lessons we taught and Book of Mormons we gave out, and people we talked to mattered and that there is nothing more important that we could do for those people. I noticed that I hadn't been putting forth my very best work. That was why I was being bothered. As an answer to our prayers and to our work we will be having a baptism on July 25th. We are super pumped. So we will continue to raise our goals every week and do everything we can to reach them so in turn we will be able to help as many people as we can.
Also this week I had a kind of cool experience with prayer. On Sunday we went to go give the sacrament to and Elderly woman. But the house next to her had super loud music going that was really profane. Right before I was about to bless the sacrament I said a little quick prayer for the music to turn off so we could feel the spirit. Right after I said amen the music turned off. We then gave here the sacrament and shared a message to her. Right as we were leaving the music came back on. I know Heavenly Father listens to our prayers even as simple as they may be. All in all this week was great.
Hope you guys all had great weeks as well. Love and miss you guys. :)
--
Elder Jake Frandsen
Philippines Iloilo Mission
