Tanay Area- Philippines: Week 10

Merry Christmas!!! I hope everyone enjoys the cold and the music and being with their families sounds pretty great to me! Just kidding there's plenty of things here to keep me busy and in the ️Holiday spirit️: sickness, rat meat, and warm sun! Don't worry guys I'm fine I'm just joking.

Word of the week: ilong (nose)

All the people here are jealous of my nose. Apparently here in Asia, having a long sharp nose is really attractive. They call their noses flat and ugly so I have to reassure them it's not

ESPN Top 10 Highlights of the week:

10. We were fed this thing called siomai at a member's house. Some random guy with a cart just showed up and our friends bought some for us. I don't know how to describe it, it's like a dumpling with meat inside. It wasn't good, but they paid for it so obviously we had to eat it. I just drowned it in some spicy sauce. After I ate my comp told me it was RAT MEAT…  No way!! What am I putting in my body at this point? I don't even know how my body didn't immediately shut down at the news of that. Really gross.

9. Me and Bulilan have been sick the past couple days which is buns. He is more sick than me, he had a 101 fever and I think I'm just now coming down with it. Maybe my Christmas gift will be a 102 fever!  Jk I hope not, I'll take my vitamins and surely I'll be fine right?

8. We tried going up the mountain to see the windmills this last PDay but the trike's tire popped on the way up the mountain, not once, twice! bruh. It was taking forever to get fixed so we legit just walked all the way down the mountain and home. It took forever but I'm not about to wait 30 more minutes for a new tire and we weren't even half way. So our PDay wasn't the greatest. The driver was pretty chill surprisingly, I would've been upset if it was me.

7. After one of our Christmas parties we had a container of leftovers that the members kinda just forced on us. We didn't really want it, so we found the skinniest dog that we could and we fed it to him ...just helping out the local animals here. This dog was legit skin and bones, you could see his spine and ribs, so glad we got to dump our food onto his empty plate just doing our daily good in the world

6. We had another member feed us at her house, she cooked spaghetti and had this weird root crop paste thing. So it's like a sticky ball of root crop and then there was CHEESE on top. Bruh what is thattt and it's not even real cheese because there's no real cheese here. It was really gross. And she gave us 5! I was like no way I'm eating all this, so when she turned her back I put some back. She had to have noticed, no way she didn't, but I'm not sacrificing myself.

5. We were teaching a Lesson to a family and the dad came home with a giant bag. When he opened it up there was a GIANT monitor lizard inside. Still alive too, it was just tied up. Apparently he just caught it and they were planning on cooking and eating it. They told me I could try it cause they were bringing it to the Christmas party but they never did. I was actually looking forward to it, that'd be crazy to say I ate lizard.

4. We were spreading the Christmas cheer with little scriptures and notes on the back of cards that we put everywhere. We left one at the barber after our weekly haircuts (don't worry he got me right) and just on random doors around the hood. We put some on a few houses in a really sketchy looking area to hopefully bring some Joy to their shady house.

3. We had a Christmas zone conference this week which meant we traveled an hour to Antipolo to meet up with a lot of other missionaries. We had to wake up at 4AM, and I still haven't recovered. But we spent the whole day there just listening to our Mission President's council, our zone sang “Joy to the World”, and we had a hat making competition. We forgot about that until the night before so we made paper boat hats it was really embarrassing for us but hey at least we made something.

2. We played basketball for the second time ever here. It was super fun, they have just giant pavilion courts that are open to the public so me and Bulilan went and played some 1 on 1. I ended up winning 11-0 (calm lil W) but it was really fun, we had the whole court to ourselves, and I had the chance to break in my brand new bred 11s. We'll def play some more cause it was fire.

1.We had our ward Christmas party this week which was very interesting. Lots of games for the members, we missionaries sang “Noel” For everyone, and then we FEASTED. They absolutely loaded my plate up with everything. I passed on the blood soup though, maybe next time. But the funniest thing was it was BYOR (bring your own rice) kinda like BYOB back in America, just more wholesome. So we brought our rice in a little container and honestly the food was pretty good. Nothing too bad besides that root jelly with cheese again (it's called maha) It was fun but way too long.

Espiritual Na Isip:

I read in Alma chapter 37 this week and It's actually heat.

Alma here is talking about the Liahona to his son Helaman. The Liahona was a compass that God provided to earlier prophets in the wilderness to guide their path to the promised land He prepared for them.

40. And it did work for them according to their faith in God; therefore, if they had faith to believe that God could cause that those spindles should point the way they should go, behold, it was done; therefore they had this miracle, and also many other miracles wrought by the power of God, day by day

41: Nevertheless, because those miracles were worked by small means it did show unto them marvelous works

Because of their faithfulness in the small means, they were able to experience miracles DAY by DAY. And it all started with faith. Through the faithfulness in the small and simple things they had miracles in their path. 

This is true for us as well, as we focus on the small things that God has asked of us daily (prayer, scripture study, loving others, etc.) We can see miracles in our lives. We should do these things with intent and with faith in our Lord. 

45. For just as surely as this director did bring our fathers, by following its course, to the promised land, shall the words of Christ, if we follow their course, carry us beyond this vale of sorrow into a far better land of promise. 

The small things, the words of Christ, His teachings and His Gospel, will lead us to a far better “promised land”. Like the compass, the words of Christ can guide our lives if we let them. If we study them and act on them, we allow them to shape us and refine us and direct us in all our ways.

46: O my son, do not let us be slothful because of the easiness of the way

This line was my favorite

God asks so little of us compared to what we have been given. The path is straight and laid out before us. The small and simple things are easy to do, but easy to forget or brush off. Just because these Things don't require tons of effort on our part doesn't make them any Less important. 

Many times for me I've felt like I'm “going Through the motions” without Really getting much out of these things. Going to church but not listening intently, reading the scriptures but not applying or comprehending, praying but not communicating and pouring out my heart unto God. 

Let us find joy in doing the small and simple things to the very best of our ability. And as we do, we will be guided in all our doings and led to a far greater promised land, a seat with our Heavenly Father and His Son.

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I've loved My studies of the Book of Mormon. I know it's a true book And I'm so grateful for it. 

Elder Tyson Smith