And then there was one
Just Elder Banister from now on, no more Elder Banister 1 and 2 nonsense. My brother came home a week and a half ago and dang, watch out singles ward, there's another RM in town. Boutta break some hearts with that smile and cut some diamonds with that chin line. It's true that everything you give to the Lord He returns in tenfold. I'm amazed and inspired by my brother's example and can see that promise come true.
Last Monday we were able to visit Sister Ballener as a district in the hospital. She is super awesome, and she was happy to see us. She's not in any pain any more and started her treatment, so that should help. Thank you all for including her and her family in your prayers.
We had some service this past week, which was fun. Just mixing cement and chopping bamboo. We made a path for a sister in the ward to her house because when it rains it's super slippery and she's having another baby soon. Hopefully it's still there, because after we laid it, the rain came again.
But things are really cooking in the Philippines, and I got the pictures to prove it. Yesterday we had two of the families we're teaching attend church, which was a huge sign of their progress. The Canarias family and the Guanlao family. They're POWER and I can't wait until they can receive even more blessings through covenants with our Heavenly Father.
I had an opportunity to go on exchanges last week also, and had a great time finding. We were talking to a lot of people, trying to get into some houses so we could teach, and not really having any luck. We come up on this one house and Elder Ivins says to me before "alright Elder Banister, get us into this house or I'm leaving you" so I was like "BET" . I knock on the gate and yell "Tao po" and a man answers back asking who it was and I'm like "Mga Misyonero po" then like ten seconds later the gate opens! He invites us in! We go in, he's just so happy to see us, it was so cool. He leads us through the door, we're just making small talk, and we go down the hall, make a turn into the living room, and see his Bible and notes already out! Wow, talk about prepared for the missionaries! Definitely not to listen though, but to try and convert us. We then proceeded to hear his long build up of how he used to be a Catholic, but "they only use a few scriptures for their doctrine, you have to read the whole thing to really understand it and get the truth". Then the next two hours were filled with why the Jehovah's Witnesses were right based off of 5 different scriptures. See the Irony? Anyways, long story short, I learned a valuable lesson; The spirit is the one that does the teaching. The whole time he gave his speech, he seemed to be a really intelligent man, and if you don't know what the spirit feels like, I can see how it would be easy to be deceived. But the whole time he ranted on, I didn't feel the spirit testify to me once of his message (obviously). I know it doesn't matter how well written you are or good at the language, the spirit is the one that will testify of the truth. And I know the things I teach as a missionary and representative of Jesus Christ are true, because every time I testify to others I feel the spirit, and I know others have felt it also.
Anyways, hopefully everyone is doing good, and I hope everyone who has covenants with the Lord keeps them, and if you're not, REPENT.
And for everyone that opened this and didn't read it, here's some pictures
