This week was not quite as wild

Well... I will give you the update first from our whole experience last week with the wild cow. We are now famous in this whole area of the Philippines. The whole experience made the radio and some of the other missionaries in our zone heard it. Now if we walk into town and tell anyone that we are from 'Banacao,' they know that we are the ones who "saved the guy from the crazy buffalo." And we also saw the guy at his house. He has 5 broken ribs and a lot of stitches, but he is doing better. Hopefully we will be able to teach him and his family this week.

This week we had a baptism. It was awesome!!! Dante Bantag was baptized with 5 other people from our branch. It was incredible. It was extra special because President Oldroyd and his wife were able to attend. It is the first baptism that they have been able to attend since arriving here 2 months ago because of their crazy schedule. The baptism was seriously incredible. The baptismal font is a little tiny font dug into the ground out in the church yard. Lots of prayers this week kept the rain away on Saturday for the baptism. (That was the one day that it didn't rain in the last 10 days). 

Then on Saturday and Sunday, we had district conference. It was awesome. President Oldroyd his wife both spoke. He gave an awesome talk from lessons that we learn from the Saviors first words to the people in America in 3 Nephi 11. He talked about how Christ was about to ascend again and then he "had compassion on them." He stayed and he ministered to all the people one by one. He then tied that to the way we need to be motivated to minister. Then Sister Oldroyd talked about how we need to use and apply the teachings from the Come Follow Me manual. 

It was awesome even though most of the members understood very little from both of those talks. They all told us that they understood just enough to recognize what the topic was and they could tell from the spirit how important the words truly were. It was an awesome meeting. 

Now, just a quick update on our area because my area is awesome!! There is a river that we need to cross to get to our area. There was a little bridge that used to work to just ride a trikes across the river. But, because of the CRAZY rain, the river is like 10 times the size now. And the little bridge turned into a raft. They started loading up trikes, motorcycles, and people and then people in the water would push the raft across the river. It is a crazy experience and I seriously love it. The work in our area is rolling and we are doing all that we can to help people. The church is true and it moves forward because we are led by a living prophet. The gospel blesses lives and it is the reason that we can all have hope in the world that progressively gets more wicked. Thank you all!! Thank you for the thoughts, prayers, and emails. 

Love, Elder Thomas