Well I am sure you are all anxious to hear to see if my week this week was as good as last week! Well I don't think that I can say it was better. But it just continued to this week! I was really excited for this week. It was my first week to kinda be my own missionary to find out and decide what kind of missionary I am going to be! I have learned a lot about my self this week and kinda what motivates me! I have really high expectations for my mission and really want to become a more effective missionary. But I have been given an amazing investigator to force me to learn how to teach all of the lessons clearly and simply so that he can really understand our message and so he can truly be converted! I think I talked about him last time. His name is Alfredo. He just wants to learn everything we have. And I am not really good at teaching all the lessons yet. All the commandments and stuff like that. But now I am forced to learn how. I spend all my time studying just for Alfredo. I study for the lesson that I am going to teach him next. So that when we teach him. He will be able to understand. It really works well. I have really been able to teach this man! I just love him so much. He has a pretty dang hard life and is just the happiest old man you have ever seen. His kids are all gone in Manila and his wife has been blind for 6 years. And yet he is still keeping a good attitude everyday. He must of decided a long time ago that he wasn't going to let hard times make him feel bad for himself and become angry! There is a lot that I learn from this mans simple life!
This week I learned that my area is about 6 times bigger than I thought. We took one day and went on a motor cycle for about 45 min on a crazy dirt road though rice fields to a place called Jalas. We have a sweet family there but it is almost impossible for them to take their whole family to church! That is really sad for me to see! We are going there on Friday again to do a service project even though it is way far away it is way worth it because they are so strong! I am excited for that! O ya you guys are so dang lucky to have already heard conference. I am so excited for Saturday and Sunday to listen to it! I am way excited. What a cool thing that is!
Well I will be honest this has been a challenging week. My comp is new as well so I am just trying to learn how to be a more productive missionary. There are things that I didn't do right and now I know not to do that again. I am learning from my mistakes. I am really just learning as I go. It is forcing me to become a good missionary really fast! I am so grateful for this situation. It is just so fun to go to the big city and kinda get lost and try to talk to the people to get to where we need to go! We are just having so much fun! I have a great companion. Even though he doesn't know the language very good we have a lot of fun together. Something that I really like is that we are really trying just to serve one another. We always just do little things for each other to show that we care. We only fight when we try to wash each others dishes. But the other one wants to wash them.
So again I am doing really good I am really loving everyday of my mission! This is such an awesome opportunity. I am so excited for all of the challenges and different situations that I am going to experience. This is the best thing that I could be doing right now in my life! I am so happy to be here in the Philippines! I love you all so much. Thank you all for your letters and support! I have the best family in the world!!!!
Love,
Elder Jackson Erik Craythorne
Called to Serve!!  |
| Service project with Elder Kei |
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| Looks like Elder Craythorne needs some nose plugs |
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| Best picture so far. Elder Craythorne riding on the back of the Ward mission leaders motorcycle. |
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| Elder Craythorne was excited to play a little tennis. Apparently this guy is an instructor and he learned a lot from playing him |
