I make 1,000 mistakes a day

Kumsuts po lahat!!!

This week was sobreng masaya!! (so happy)

I love seeing the change that the gospel brings to people's lives. One person who we are teaching was always very timid in all of our visits and hardly ever smiled or spoke unless we asked him a question. In our last visit, we taught about the blessing of repentance. 2 days ago, we asked him about him reading in the Book of Mormon, and he excitedly recounted all he had read in 1 Nephi. He especially loved Lehi's dream of the tree of life. He was smiling the whole lesson and was literally on the edge of his seat as he spoke. In Jacob 2 verse 8 it says that the pleasing word of God "healeth the wounded soul." This is what I saw in him. I am in awe of the power of the word of God, specifically the Book of Mormon, in changing his very countenance. It is such a huge testament to me of the healing power that the scriptures have. 

You have to make 100,000 mistakes in a language before you become proficient. (I have no idea where I got this statistic, but it was probably from a super duper reliable source, so we are just going to consider it as fact). That means I have to make 1,000 mistakes a day If I want to be proficient in Tagalog in 100 days. Which I do. As a self-critical perfectionist, it took a lot for me to decide to be okay with being terrible in a language. One particular morning, I decided I wasn't going to be afraid of making mistakes in the language and just talk to everyone I could. God blessed me with 3 different instances in one morning which we picked up with riding a tricycle (that never happens). I had a conversation with each one. The first two could speak English if they saw I was struggling to understand them and those two contacts ended in me giving them a picture of Jesus and a testimony. The 3rd person I talked to spoke only Tagalog, and by the grace of God, by the end of our ride she had agreed to have missionaries come by and to read the restoration pamphlet, and she gave me her number. We visited her on Saturday and when we left Sister Geralde, and I were amazed at how receptive and prepared she was for this Gospel. I am so grateful for this experience because it showed me how little the missionary actually does in this work of the Lord. God put someone who was prepared in the sidecar with me that morning, and because I gained His trust by opening my mouth the first 2 times, He knew He could trust me to do it a third. Fundamentally that is our only charge; to open our mouth at all times and speak the truth. God loves and respects all His children equally, but He trusts some of them more than others if they are quick to obey and diligent in following His will. I am so glad I opened my mouth. I strive every day to gain the trust of my Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and live worthy of their guidance.

I didn't take any pictures this week besides this one of a sidecar which I thought was going to fall apart while I was riding it.

Sige po. Ingat!!

-Sister Gray