August 17, 2015 - It's My Birthday - Week 42

Alright so this week was AMAZING!! So here in the Iloilo Mission there is a lot of focus on numbers. Making sure you work a certain amount of hours everyday, teach a certain amount of lessons, have a baptism every week, and so on and so forth. This week everything clicked for me. I don't have anything against President and what we is trying to do but I am not out here to get a certain amount of something every week. I am out here for one reason and that is to teach and serve and bring as many people as I possible can closer to our savior Jesus Christ. That doesn't mean i'm going to stop setting goals and stop doing my best to reach them. But what it does mean is my goals are going to be focused 100% on sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father! Here in Bugasong we have close to 200 members. But for one reason or an other 150 of them are either less active or in active. Right now in this mission the less active work takes a back seat. There isn't any focus on less actives. If all of the members in Bugasong were active we could build a chapel in Bugasong. 

This week Brother Waggoner (my teacher from the MTC) came here and worked with me on Saturday. This was his area 3 years ago when he was a missionary. So we went around and did some less active work. He taught me so much as we were working. One of the things that I learned is how powerful testimonies are. As missionaries, we bear our testimony over and over all day everyday. Missionaries have been bearing their testimonies to less actives for a super long time. Don't get me wrong that is great and awesome and everything, but we are also here to help others strengthen their testimonies. So how do we do that? One of the ways I learned is through asking inspired questions. As we ask questions to those people we teach and as they answer, they are bearing their testimony to us. We all know that as we bear our testimony we feel the spirit. So its just a matter of helping them remember the feeling of the spirit and the things they already know.

Right now Bugasong Branch is like a bucket with a crack in the bottom. As we are trying to fill the bucket by baptizing people. For some reason or another they don't stay active or the water keeps leaking out. So right now Elder Francisco and I are trying to fix the crack at the bottom so that the bucket will stay filled.

Yesterday at church Bugasong Branch had the highest church attendance its had in over a year. We had 80 people at church. That is still less than half so there is so much more work that needs to be done.

This week we had a family home evening every single night with less actives and investigators. I had an awesome birthday as well. Thank you everyone for your love and support! Love and miss you all!  

-- 

Elder Jake Frandsen

Philippines Iloilo Mission