Elder Gagnon and Elder Duero at the service project
Primary kid handing out flyers at the service project
Hello Po!
I'm in an internet Cafe right now in tears. I usually read President Stucki's emails first then I read your guys' last. But before I read your guys' email I just want to share what President Stucki sent.
Dear Elder Gagnon,
I am pleased to hear how things are doing. Yes, you and Elder Duero are staying together. I am pleased to hear about the less-active members you are working with and teaching. That is exciting about your new investigators as well.
You will be pleased to know that I received approval from the First Presidency for Carlito to be baptized. Another reason to rejoice.
I commend you for going to the rescue of your brothers and sisters. The Area Presidency has encouraged us to stay the course and continue this great rescue effort to help less active members come back. While we do that, I encourage you to continue using your spiritual eyes and ears to find investigators to teach among the less active members of the church. I promise you that the Lord will help you find many investigators to teach among the members and help you complete families so they can eventually go to the temple.
Keep up the great work. We have reasons to smile and be happy. This truly is the Lord's work. As you stay focused on your purpose, you will accomplish what the Lord has called you do. You are in our thoughts and prayers. I sure hope you have a wonderful spiritual week!
Mahal ko po kayo,
President Stucki
So Carlito will be getting baptized soon! I am soooooo excited for him! It was such a big blessing to teach him and I can't even describe how I feel that he is getting baptized. :) Anyways, I am now going to read the rest of the reports and emails. :)
This week has been super great! Never received so many texts asking about who is going where and who their new companion is going to be. Haha. Everyone is super excited about transfer day this Wednesday. I know what's happening. Hehe. Only Elder Koochin and Sister Terano are leaving, the 2 part time missionaries are going home and they will be replaced with 2 new missionaries fresh from the MTC. And yes, Duero and I are staying for round 2!
Last week we had to teach for the last week in March and discuss our successes and everything for the month of March. We had a good month. We had 8 baptisms for the whole zone which is the best in 4 months. Elder Duero and I also really prayed on what we should teach to the zone and what we wanted them to learn and apply in the work. We finally decided to teach about the doctrine of Christ which will be the focus of the mission for the next three months and we also tied that in with getting investigators and less active members to church seeing as that is the mission goal. The mission plans on returning 3500 less active members to church. So we tied the doctine of Christ to bringing people to church. Then this week for the first week in April we had more investigators at church and we had 6 come back to activity (4 were in our area). Elder Malits area even had 19 less actives at church! So if the keep going they will have 19 less actives returned to church. We also had 5 baptisms in the zone, so it was quite a good start to the month. :)
We were super happy! Nanay Morales and her kids came bringing 3 of them back to activity in the church and also tatay and their 3 other kids came for the first time! We have been working with the Morales family since we got here and that was the first time all of them came to church! Also we had Alex Garcia who was inactive for 2 years come back to activity and we are going to start teaching his brother this week.
Last week we also met Sister Sheryl who was a referral from the APs. We actually taught her with the APs last Tuesday and that was sort of like them passing her to us. She found the church and came 2 Sundays ago but to the APs Chapel. She was taught once by the APs then by us and the APs. She is really nice and really prepared. I don't think I have ever met someone more prepared in my whole mission. She understands everything and then acts upon it. She has been to church 2ce and she has a baptismal date for the 28th of this month. Oh and last time we taught her she gave us a cake because she appreciates us teaching her! She is really nice.
We also have been teaching Kennedy who also has a baptismal date but needs to be moved because he didn't come to church last week... He will be baptized in May though. :) We also got to teach Tatay and Chris Suarez who are also doing really well but couldn't come to church because they went away last Wednesday but will be back tomorrow. They are awesome though.
Last Saturday we had a service project. We cleaned the streets around the church and spoke to everyone and invited everyone to our Ward activity on Friday. We are going to have a big screen projector placed outside and watch movies about Christ. It should be a really great experience. Also during the service project. We met a family, spoke to them and invited them to church. It was really great to see the ward really involved. The next day 4 of them attended church and we havent even taught them yet. We plan to teach them tomorrow. They are super nice though! They live in a huge compound really close to the church and a few people seem interested in listening to our message.
I love Makati so much. It's so great to be a missionary. I love it EVERYDAY! Haha. Thank you for the package you guys sent. I should be getting it soon. Also thank you so much for all your prayers. I have to go now because time is up. Oh yea. and the word I sent last week, "kahanga-hanga" means something like wonderful or something like that. It's really deep though and people are surprised when I use it. People are starting to say that I sound like a Filipino when I speak Tagalog. I don't feel like I do and I still have this pangit white guy accent. Anyways. I hope you all have a great week! I love you all so much! Mom, good luck with your new calling! I hope and pray that you will do great. I know you will!
Love you guys!
Elder Chris Gagnon
P.S: HAPPY EASTER! :D
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