This letter came to Mike but had the information for the week.

 

Paula

i cant even think straite im so happy right now. I remember when the lord spoke to Nephi in Helaman 10 4-5, and i cant even say how blessed i feel. the work in roxas is starting to bloom we found a new family tracting that has family that are active members and they are very interested, we have another family that came to church finally! we have a sister thats a referral of a member thats going to be baptised sometime soon, and others that have growing testimonies. less actives that are no longer less active and leaders that are growing in faithfullness after months of praying and working with them, i can even say how blessed i feel dad and hearing about taylor just about sets me over the edge, like ammon in alma     .

for fasting... ill tell you one experience we had in dupax sur,

elder pingol and i had been working hard visiting the Deguzman family. they have been inactive for many years and many times that we went they had either hid from us, or wouldnt open the door, or just canceled the appointment. we kept going back and going back and finally after a very powerful lesson they said they want to go to church but they dont have any money to pay for transportation. so we told them we will be there in the morning to walk with them. they did come to church and had a great experience because of their sacrifice to get there by walking the 45 minutes to the chapel (this was a mother and 4 daughters from age 9 to 25) but then a few days later we had come to our scheduled appointment and to our dismay they wouldnt open the door. we had no idea what was going on and so the next few days we stopped by again and we couldnt catch them outside their house and they wouldnt answer. but then on saturday evening we finally caught sister in front of her house and we had a talk with her, the grandparents of the children had talked to them whhile sister was gone and told them they arent allowed to go to the mormon church they are catholic and they cant change that. (background the parents are members but the children are only child of record when the mother and father went inactive they went back to being catholic) so when sister came home the girls told them they dont want to be mormon anymore and they cant be visited by the missionaries anymore. (at the request of the grandparents) they had had family problems related to the greandparents before but this set sister deguzman over the edge and she just basically gave up (she had already struggled for 2 months with us to try to start changing their family life around and go back to church so this set back just crushed her will  power) so she told us we love you and are greatful for what youve done but please dont come by anymore.

elder pingol and i were pretty devistated by that because of the last weeks succes that turned into the complete opposite... but we decided to start a special fast just for that family that they wont give up and they will find a way to work things out with the grandparents. this all happened on a saturday afternoon.

the following day we came to church, we were a little sad because we didnt expect anyone to be there and the church looked empty, but when we went inside i about had a heart attack. there they were the first family in the church, sitting quietly waiting for the rest of the branch to arrive.

we asked them what happened??? and to make a kind of long story short nanay said "when i woke up this morning, there was some kind of force pushing me to get showered get dressed and get to church." she said they had no plan to go but that morning for some reason they all just felt something calling them or in thir own words "parang pinipilit yung mga paa kong maglakad" (something was forcing my feet to walk)

after that sunday things went well and i learned that fasting is very powerfull, especially when you are fasting for the benefit and wellfare of something or someone other than yourself.

theres my story hope that will work! love you elder landeen