So our week was uber busy. hindi nga kami nagturo sa investigators namin kasi kailangan namin pumunta sa ibang area. (we didn't even teach our investigators because we had to go to every other area). but anyways... sundays\ came along and my companion and I already knew what was going to happen... none of our investigators go to church, life is gonna suck, and we'll be a bit disappointed but that didn't happen!
We came and were surprised to see 6 of our investigators went to church. Sweet! and then it happened...
one of our investigators started shivering very quickly. Now it was roughly 90 degrees fahrenheit/38 degrees celcius. that shouldn't happen. Then it got weirder. this 14 year old girl had a seizure. or I thought it was a seizure at first. but then it got weirder. we took her out into another room to try to help her out. then she stood up and then we felt it. The spirit of the Lord left the room. our hearts sank to the ground and we knew something here is very wrong. I didn't know what to do and in my mind all I thought was,
"I'm a 20 year old missionary in the Philippines... do we do exorcisms? is that a thing? that's not a thing... right? this isn't a thing right?"
I texted our zone leaders and separated her family from her and soon it was just us 4 missionaries and her in the room. She tried attacking us but we stood our ground. She sat down again and stopped screaming then we heard it. This young woman does not speak any english but in a deep low voice we heard it and she asked us one question.
"Are you worthy?"
That question burned in my mind, but all of us went closer and my companion began to say our purpose. That we are missionaries called of God to invite all of come unto Christ... and we proceeded to give her a blessing for the sick and afflicted and it went away.
She's alright now. Church was cool. and ummm we learned a lot of things but the lesson that the four of us took away from this experience is that we have to be worthy to be here. Sometimes whenever we say we're Mormon, people concentrate on what we don't do rather than the things we believe in like,
"you guys don't drink or smoke? what?"
But we believe these things are important because that is what Heavenly Father commanded us to do. And we know that by following the commandments we can be clean and be worthy to do all things He asks of us. As we have a lot of rules to live by and sometimes it's annoying or we don't understand why we should, but if we exercise our faith. If we choose to align our choice with His will, I know that we will never be led astray that we will always be in a place better than we expect. That if we choose to fast and pray and read the scriptures and do all those simple small things, we will"know the truthfulness of all things" (Moroni 10:3-5). That we will be alright. And that even as a weird 20 yr old kid, you'll know how to do everything you need to do to be happy.
I guess that's the hard thing about our church is that it asks us to change. But if you trust God, and His will and plan for you, Everything is going to be alright.
-Elder Villanueva
Urdaneta Philippines Mission
Quezon City North Philippines Mission
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