Tabaco Conference

Today has been an adventure. Not because we did anything spectacular but because we drove home on the national highway. Wow! Passing busses on the national highway is always an adventure. I told June that these Filipino buses are like giant cockroaches. They are huge, ugly and only come out at night. I have no idea how they can drive on these roads at speeds exceeding of 90 to 100 Km/hour and not kill some pedestrian on the side of the road. It is amazing to me really.

We traveled down to Tabaco this morning for the purpose of attending the Tabaco District Conference. (More rain) The Area Authority Seventy was Elder Sinamban from Davao. What an incredible spirit the man projected. In the evening adult meeting he focused his remarks toward three widows.

1. The Widow at Zarapath who, with faith, gave her last meal and oil to the Prophet Elijah.
2. The Widows mite who, with faith, cast her all into the treasury.
3. The Widow Mary Fielding Smith, wife of Hyrum Smith, who with faith paid her very best potatoes as tithing even when the clerk of the Bishop’s storehouse told her that she shouldn’t pay her tithing since she needed those potatoes just as much as anybody else.

She replied that she needed to give the Lord his tenth so she could receive the blessings.
He talked about paying tithing with faith in our hearts. When situations arise and we use our tithing money for something else then we drive faith out of our hearts and doubt and fear replace it. The more we drive out faith and allow doubt and fear to remain in our hearts the more we lose the light and slip into darkness.

Elder Sinamban asked us to come home and pray as a family about paying our tithes and offerings and having the Spirit of the Lord bear witness of the doctrine that we heard tonight. He also asked us not to turn our TVs on as we would lose the spirit and only remember 10 percent of what we had learned.