Maligayang Pasko!! 🎄🎅🏻
I can officially testify that the second Christmas of the mission is a lot better than the first:) They had dance offs between all the different organizations which was pretty dope! It has been super fun though teaching lessons during Christmas time. Everyone gets happy talking about Christ during Christmas time so it has been really easy to teach😂 We don't have to plan very much which is always a blessing;)
It was fun to open my Christmas packages with Elder Castro:) Thanks for sending him one too! He loved it:) Seeing him get so excited about having a gift to open on Christmas was humbling once again. (The Philippines is good at humbling me) It made me just want to give him more, so I started handing him stuff from my package (socks, new ties, food, and a new Jazz shirt). I love Elder Castro to death. His conversion story is amazing. Basically he comes from a family with 10 siblings, he's the 6th oldest and has 5 older brothers and then 4 younger sisters. His Dad was a construction worker and couldn't always support all of them because he got a bad infection... So that pushed Elder Castro to start working at a young age. He worked construction as well which got him strong very fast because he was working with kids 6 years older than him. He ended up using this strength often times to let his anger out on other kids at school or the basketball court. He was often mad and discouraged because his father would beat him multiple times a week. The infection messed with his Dad's mind a little which caused him to snap randomly. Elder Castro said it didn't help either when Father was drunk. He felt he would never forgive his father for the things he had done.
But his story starts to turn around when his friends invited him to play basketball at the church. He had no idea what the church was, but Elder Castro loved basketball (He sometimes would bet with other kids and come out of the games with money for his family to buy food). He played bball at the church for a while but would have to wait for the kids to come out of a place called seminary. Haha he grew curious as the weeks went on what they were doing inside the church. His curiosity eventually caused him to walk inside halfway through one of the seminary lessons:)
The kids were surprised to see Elder Castro rolling in with his basketball jersey. He said they were all super welcoming and excited to see him. They talked about the scriptures and said a prayer. It was the first time he had been a part of something like that, and he was almost certain he would NEVER come back to this strange place called seminary😂
However he did enjoy schooling them all in basketball so he kept coming. Each time they would go in for Sem he had a weird feeling that he needed to join. Long story short, Elder Castro met with multiple sets of Missionaries and eventually got baptized in 2016.
He is still the only member in his family, but he has seen change in his life. He learned of Christ's atonement and has forgiven his father. He has learned from his past and testifies with power. I share this story with you because I hope each of you remember how lucky we are for the blessings we have. Growing up in the church, following church standards, and knowing that families are forever is something we don't think about until you see those that don't know about it.
As this 2019 comes to an end, I am pondering what I have learned. Wow. It's the only full year I will ever have in my life completely devoted to our savior. I have met hundreds of people and born testimony to just about every single one of them of the simple gospel truths we so often take for granted. I have seen many conversations happen right in front of me that are just like Elder Castros. I wish I were better at writing about specific investigators lives for you all to understand, but you almost just have to see it to believe it.
I love my mission. I love the people. I love my companions. I love the members and investigators in each of my areas. But most of all, I love our Savior. I'm grateful for his sacrifice. I'm grateful for his example and his teachings. I know that as we lose ourselves to the service of God, that is the only way to find ourselves. I feel like I found out a little more who Graden Reber is this year. I wouldn't change my missionary Christmas of socks and tootsie rolls for any other Christmas of vacations, headphones, soccer cleats, ski passes, clothes, games, phones... the list goes on and on. We are blessed.
God is Good😄
Merry Christmas!
-Elder Reber
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