Email May 24, 2009

Today as I welcomed Sister Garcia to our companion study and announced that it was the first day of transfer, Monday the 25th of May I thought..."...that sounds like a holiday."

We had an enjoyable week as a three-some and enjoyed attending transfer meeting without the pressure of being transferred, getting to see our other friends and hear president's talk...then within the last two days three of our current investigators agreed to baptismal dates, we discussed how blessed we have been and we know it has to do with us trying to do our best and to be obedient.

We are also very excited and know the service of another missionary is helping with one. He is on a mission here in another mission in the Philippines and his mother has been being taught for years. We taught her the plan of salvation and I talked about that day that we will stand beside our Heavenly Father and about the time we will enter his Kingdom with our friends and family, and talked about her son on his mission and how that is exactly what he wants and he also imagines her there. She told us she would decide after she finishes reading the entire Book of Mormon. Then we finished teaching her and I asked her how she felt about our lesson and all she said was "Sister Landrum, I will get baptized before you go home, let's set a date and you can write to my son and tell him." We are very excited to write to her son and tell him. We can sense a missionaries just how much that will mean to him.

I met a very interesting family one of the days I worked with a member and Sister Garcia and Pairat worked together. We didn't have anymore scheduled appointments and it wasn't time to meet up with them yet so I started talking to people outside and met this woman with four little boys standing with her. As I talked to her, her husband came outside and from their door motioned toward the pamphlet I had, he wanted one. I re-focused my attention to him and asked if we could share a message. They invited us up to their porch and we discovered their neighbor is an old man and woman. The man baptized a couple years ago but since we've been here he has been ill and has not come to church. His wife agreed to listen to us also and we continued in teaching their neighbor. I started by teaching about the Godhead and knew from the start that he is a bible scholar because he had many questions and personal ideas. He is not however affiliated with any religion. His questions lead us into parts of lesson two and I was not sure where it was all going to go because I was having a hard time directing it towards one topic for our first lesson but felt like just continuing on how we were until he got to his big thing. He believes that any religion that is the true church of Christ should be actively concerned for the temporal welfare... and he brought up Malachi and Tithing so I opened immediately to third Nephi 24 and started testifying about tithes and offerings while his old man neighbor started telling them "they have a supply!" It was kind of funny... he listened now without question unlike before and I taught him about the church welfare program, tithing and offerings and then testified that we have living prophets who direct this work and closed by giving him all three of our pamphlets to read. He read them all before the next day and we taught all of lesson one and gave him a Book of Mormon. The interesting part is what he said to this neighbor of his, not directly to us... on the first visit he said "all they have taught me is almost exactly like "The continuation church of Christ" and I got from that a part of an idea about what he is up to which was confirmed at our second visit when a paper with a drawing of a church logo fell out of his bible and so he showed us. He has been creating his own Church because he doesn't find any others to have all the truths he believes in from his research.

So, they weren't there the next time we returned and I don't know where it will go but it was quite the experience and I felt so strongly the truthfulness and fullness of our Church, of the Gospel of Jesus Christ here and of what I teach. All that anyone is searching for is here and all the answers if you will only search them out. I don't know all the answers myself, I still have questions, but I have a firm testimony of the most important things and I know that as each of us continues to seek learning "even by study and also by faith" we will come to know all the mysteries of God and be prepared to receive his fullness.

Well, I hope Savanna made it to Utah alive and that Mom's leg is healing. Olivia and I will have to race when I get home... I bet I'm SUPER slow now :) we'll see. Give me a couple weeks I'll get into my real exercise program again -- all of my arm muscle is gone I think, haha.

Congrats on the graduations, birthdays coming up and SUMMER BREAK. They are about to start school again so it's funny that you're just ending. I'm sure the next few months will go very fast for you since it's break -- have fun.

LOVE,

Sister Landrum