Elder Crocker: Best and Hardest Week of My Mission

This was perhaps both the best week and hardest week of Elder Crocker’s mission thus far.

It was the best in the sense of the work, in that we did some of what I felt was the most valuable work we’ve done in our area for a long while.  I almost feel like our Key Indicators don’t reflect it, since we found at least a half-dozen solid-looking potential investigators who we just didn’t have a chance to teach a full lesson to fulfill the “new investigator” requirements.  We have people to teach again, many of whom we are extremely certain will progress.

Elder Crocker’s companion, Elder Antonio, goes home in two weeks (click to enlarge)

An interesting thought, I have been in the Philippines for two months now exactly today.  Time flies.  I only have two more weeks with Elder Antonio then I’ll have a new companion.  Also, another thing to mention…with the ward I’m serving in splitting soon, we’re getting a bunch of new missionaries and, as such, I need to find a new apartment for myself.  The new missionaries will move into my current apartment.  I’ll be moving in two weeks.  My area will be the same, but I’ll have a new residence.

This week my zone had the opportunity to work with missionaries from the Philippines MTC.  We split companionships.  It was interesting for me to be put into the role of a senior companion for a day.  I feel like I was able to slip into the role pretty easily.  I always prefer to be put in a position where I can counsel others and share with them wisdom that I’ve had shared with me.

The Lord has certainly compensated for any of my language weaknesses.  I had a particularly exciting experience in which I was able to speak somewhat flawless Tagalog for a good half hour.  We jumped into a taxi at the end of the two hours that I had with Elder Ferrard, the MTC missionary that was given to be my companion for a day (I’ll never see him again. He’s assigned to another mission.).  The taxi driver (who had pretty good English) started talking to me immediately, making jokes, and eventually leading the conversation to why I was here.  I explained that I was a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  He asked me how long I had been in the Philippines.  I said, “Only two months” (this is all in Tagalog at this point).  He was surprised, because of my language skills versus time spent actually speaking it.  The way he explained it, he had been seeing American LDS missionaries all over the place, and they must be supported by God, because they can speak the language in such a short amount of time.  In the end, the driver indicated that he wanted to learn more.  He doesn’t live in my area though, so perhaps some other missionaries will have a chance to teach him.

However, I did say that this week was perhaps the hardest of my mission.  I feel like I was able to make a lot of progress, and it seems to me that Satan was very aware of that.  I feel like I had a hard time focusing this week.  The adversary was having a field day throwing thoughts into my head that just didn’t have anything to do with missionary work.  It seemed like I had a lack of the Spirit for a couple of those days just because of how unfocused I felt, even if our results and finds seem to indicate that Elder Antonio and I are doing well.  I feel better now, but earlier last week just seemed hard, even while being the best week yet.

Very Happy New Convert (click to enlarge)

The Manda 3rd Ward Sister Missionaries had a baptism this week.  It was a fun baptismal service.  The Sister Missionaries performed a special musical number by singing “When I Am Baptized” while Sister Tuia (who is from American Samoa) played my Ukulele.  It was nice.

This week, Elder Antonio and I will have the chance to baptize Sister Agnes and her nine year-old daughter, Sister Bea.  They’re an interesting story to me.  Sister Agnes is the very first investigator that I met when I came to the Philippines.  In that very first time that I met her, apparently something I said in my broken Tagalog, or rather, something the Spirit said to her, convinced her that she needed to be baptized.  Elder Antonio later explained to me that he was about to drop her as an investigator because she had stopped progressing.  Now, she’ll be baptized on Saturday.

It’s a testimony to me that the Spirit is a far more effective teacher than I can ever hope to be.

Until next week,

Elder Crocker

Elder David Neal Crocker