Journal 2: I am called to do God's Work 

 "A man filled with the love of God, is not content with blessing his family alone, but ranges through the whole world, anxious to bless the whole human race"

- Joseph Smith

I remember doing this same journal back when I was in my sophomore year in college.  We were challenged to figure out our role as a lasallian and see the face of God through other people.  I attempted to talk to street children on the streets, asked them how they are, where do they study, how does their families earn for a living.  It was quite amazing for a 17 year old doing these things, it gave me a larger perspective of how the real world was and how harsh it is to live in a poverty stricken community located in the third world.  I remember talking to a crying little boy back then, I remember I bought him food and slippers because I noticed he lost the other pair.

I am not born with a silver spoon in my mouth, I came from a humble family.  My mom is a teacher, dad is a bank officer.  We do not have our own business and we live in a small house, we only have one car but my parents did their best to raise us with good values ​​and send us to good schools.  They have always been supportive on everything we do, every decision makes my brother and me.  We were raised for carrying the Savior and faith in the father.

As a growing teenager, I had a lot of questions back then.  Like why am I not not as rich and spoiled like my classmates?  Why do I not have the same privileges?  My only way of defense for this and to uplift my ego is to achieve very well in school, to see my name listed on the exam and semester's topnotchers, to have my classmates fight to be part of my team whenever we have group work and I have friends to stay the whole day with the library or at the University's chapel for mass every afternoon.  I remember staying too much reading that I almost got locked up three times in the library, and the librarian waking me up on the safe corner I always go to.

I thought life was that easy back then, that all I needed to do was to study and prove myself.  I always murmur when whenever something bad happens and difficult until one afternoon, I was rushing because I was late.  Vehicles are not moving because of the traffic and I saw "ate leah" she was a traffic enforcer in front of De La Salle University - Dasmarinas' main gate.  I saw her huge smile and it wiped all my burdens away, like everything stops and I forget about being late for school paper deadlines.  Every morning since that day, I was looking forward to see her and I would always smile back.

Until one day, I heard the news that she's in a critical condition. While doing her work a car hit her, loads of students felt the same way as I do. So we organized a donation system to help her and her family cope with the medical expenses. When she got out of the hospital and fully recovered, I saw her again in front of our main gate smiling. My heart was so happy seeing her.

Another story I wrote on my previous journal is about "ish", my classmate's sister. She is very pretty, used to model for commercials and clothing lines, half japanese, born from a well-off family, and has a good looking boyfriend. She basically has everything any teenage girl wishes to have. Then she committed suicide, this is also the case of my closest cousin "Jack". Memories came flashing back and I realized why she told me "I will not grow old yan". I saw how the two families lost their daughters for morned. People were anguish, its full of sorrow and I felt bad for all the wasted time. I was crying myself asking my cousin why she did not tell me and why she did it, I just did not saw it coming.

Those stories of people I met from the streets, ate leah, ish, and Jack took me to the reflecting stage of my life as to what is my reason for being. Why I was born in a certain family, community, and a place. I searched for answers. Read a lot of books, went to a lot of churches and asked La Sallian brothers and professors about this. Until Arian brother sent me a scripture passage and a message one day. La Salle has always been their for me and I really grew in this university.

I remember one night praying steadfastly for an answer, and in the morning. Missionaries were knocking on our door ... I took a while for me and I got converted, my example encouraged my family to convert and now we are happy being missionaries of serving the church and exercising our faith.

Circumstances also happened in the last few years and now, I know I am exactly where I'm called to be. Day will come that I will fulfill this purpose and I will help many people.

"To love one another is to see the face of God"

I am exactly where I'm called to be ...