Elder Booth's 1st Silay Baptism!

A few weeks ago, Elder Booth was transferred to Silay, was made Senior companion, and received a new companion, Elder Sanchez, who has only been out for about a month. Wow! One of the great benefits of this transfer was that Patrick, the boy who is getting baptized, was ready to go into the waters of baptism! What a great experience to start out with in this new area!

This is a picture of Elder Sanchez with Patrick and his mother, Dina.
She actually has a date for her own baptism.


Here are a few pictures of Elder Booth, Elder Sanchez, Dina and Patrick.
As Elder Booth noticed, they look kind of serious. The Elders don't, though!

This last picture has Rodger in the picture too. In Elder Booth's

words, "He is a stud that will always help us with splits."

This is a letter from Elder Booth on P-Day, right after the baptism. He is adjusting to being the Senior Companion and to harvesting some baptisms from the previous elders...


Subject: Padayon Long Ko
Date: June 21, 2009 9:24:42 PM PDT

Well, I am still alive. Things are actually going really well. I am finally starting to get used to the new area. It just takes a while to get my bearings sometimes. I get kind of lost, but I guess that is probably going to happen to me every single time I transfer. Ryan was right when he said the Lord likes to kick us out of our comfort zone. It's good though. This is becoming pretty comfortable to me. Now the time will probably start to fly by once more.

The people in these wards are amazing. There are just a lot more people I need to get to know here. I think the hardest thing for me is the names. I was just getting all of them down in my last area and I was there for six months. Here I have two wards to cover and a lot of people to remember. I was never really good at the whole name thing. I have actually reverted to writing most of them down. I guess you just have to do what it takes.

The ward missionaries here are great as well. We have somebody working with us every day. That is still hard for me to get used to. When I came here I didn't really think the ward missionaries ever went with the missionaries. All the Filipino missionaries ask me if I went with the missionaries a lot before I left. I kind of feel bad when I say that I went with them twice and whined about it both times. I guess this is a good chance for me to change a little bit. I am excited to get back and be a little more active in the work at home. I just hope this enthusiasm will last longer than the normal five months.

Well I guess the biggest news that I think mentioned a while ago is that we are getting a new Mission President in about a week. We are having our last Zone Conference with him this week. It actually makes me a little nervous. I like the one we have now. I'm sure I will love the next one as well, though. Pres Tobias is from somewhere in Manilla. I don't remember exactly where. I am a little curious about all of the changes that will be taking place. I learned that the current and the next President don't really even talk to each other. I guess they only get an hour together for the leaving President to show the new President around the mission office. Man, I thought it was hard to white wash an area. I can't even imagine doing it to an entire mission. I don't know how they are supposed to make the next moves. They don't really know any of the missionaries. I guess it's so they really have to follow the spirit.

The area is doing really good, though. We actually had a baptism on Saturday. So that is fun to be able to be a part of, even though I just got here. I guess I was the lucky one that got to harvest. He is an awesome kid, though. I have had a lot of fun getting to know him these last few weeks. I think that I mentioned him last week. He is my favorite, though. I have a lot of fun trying to do tricks and stuff for him that I have learned here from other missionaries. The kids really like them as long as they don't figure out how you do it. You just can't do them too many times or one of them will get it. Then it takes the fun out of everything.

We have had a lot of great spiritual experiences as well. One of our new investigators, who is named Lisa, is awesome. When I met her it was only the second visit so I was really lucky. So I taught her the entire first lesson and gave her a Book of Mormon. That was great. It's the next visit that was so cool. When I asked her how her reading was she got really excited and said it was great. The words here are great. Then when I asked about how she felt when she read she began to cry. She said that she has a hard life, but when she reads that book, all of her problems seem to fade away. To see that kind of effect on someone had to be the best feeling in the world. They really don't lie when they say this is the happiest work.

Then the next amazing experience was a investigator named Mary. I don't remember if I talked about her. She has been a investigator for a really long time. Elder Wade, my comp in the MTC actually started the teaching. Yesterday we actually watched the movie "The Restoration". After the movie she just said, "Thank you. I now know the story of Joseph Smith and know he really is a true prophet". All I could do was smile at her. It was hard to find the right words through the smiles. This is a great area and I am already starting to truly love the people. I am excited to continue the work here.

I don't really have any funny stories for all of you. I will try and do better next week. I don't think I have had a really good one for a while. I used to write them down. Maybe I will have to do that again. I love you all. Thanks for all you do for me.

Elder Booth