This week was really great. We basically have been giving out and teaching about the book we wrote in Zone Conferences to the mission. The stake leaders really love it and so do all the missionaries. Zone conferences are so tiring haha. But I am so happy we were still able to go out on exchanges this week. We went to Pasig, Taguig, and Angono. Had the best time on all of these exchanges. I love the people so much and the more I get to talk to new people in a day the better my day is. With all the Elders we worked with we had great success and many new people to teach and I just feel more and more the love the Savior has for his people.
For some weird reason when being on a mission here I feel our minds have a mechanism in them that separates us from crying or feeling overwhelmed by the poverty around us. What I mean by this is when you walk through places and see poverty, mentally it's like hard to accept that people live like that, we seem to be able to handle that this is their life and you don't feel this aching and yearning for them. I don't know how to explain it other than you just get used to seeing families living on cardboard and children begging and just seeing so much of this rough situations that it doesn't phase you so much. But, the other day on exchanges I saw this really little pre-mature baby just lying on a pillow without a crib or anything. I had never seen a baby so small, I was amazed it could be alive. As I looked at the mothers face and at her child I had to turn to the side and shed some tears before turing around and facing them again. I loved them and felt compassion, which came over me like a wave. I am beginning to have these moments more and more, which is weird because I should be more and more used to seeing things like that. But all I can say is that I feel that I am beginning to feel the way Christ feels for others. As in 3 Nephi 17 " 6. And he said unto them: Behold, my bowels are filled with compassion towards you.21 And when he had said these words, he wept, and the multitude bare record of it, and he took their little children, one by one, and blessed them, and prayed unto the Father for them. 22. And when he had done this he wept again;"
Another things that happened that was so amazing is when I went on exchanges in Angono there were some ward members who went with us and one of them was jovie, a member that I had baptized about 8 or 9 months ago. It filled my heart with joy to see her testify of the Book of Mormon with such power, it pierced everyone's heart who heard her. I was so amazed that only 9 months before she was in the investigator's place and I was the one testifying of the Book of Mormon. She is going on a mission and is working right now so she can serve. It is hard to describe the joy which filled my heart and to hold back the tears in hearing such a powerful testimony from someone who was so recently being taught by you:) I remember when we first taught her what the Book of Mormon was... wow people can progress so much in such little time if they have faith in Jesus Christ.
I have been studying about the atonement in Preach My Gospel and I just love so much how it says that the atonement of Jesus Christ made it possible for us to overcome the effects of the fall. We can overcome all the effects of the Fall,wow is not that the greatest news ever. All sorrow and sin, even death, all of our little weaknesses can be overcome through the atonement. All of it:) I testify in the name of Jesus Christ amen.
Love, Elder Blackham
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