April 8, 2013

Alright! This week was great! We had a late P-day last week so not much really happened. Anyways I got the opportunity to go on an Exchange this last week. It was a nice experience to see how other people do it! I don't always agree with my Trainer and it is nice to know other people do it differently! So that was fun. My District Leader who went on an exchange with me was way cool. He gave me a nice quote and I really liked what he said. He said," Like a bamboo tree, the longer limbs move and make way for the smaller ones to grow and become larger than the one. So like that I want you to grow and become better than I was." I really liked that. Sometimes I feel like my trainer holds me back, so it was nice to know that my district leader had a different plan. He let me lead the area and basically do everything. I wasn't sure if I could do it, but man I got through the day. Language was the hard part, but besides that he said I am speaking well and I am doing better than he thought I would. That made me feel really good about myself. Usually when someone gives me a compliment Elder Hibbert says," It's because he has such a great trainer" Not true about the language ... haha great guy though. Anyways I had a really good day that day. Besides that the week was really good. We have finished all the lessons with a lot of our investigators and we have just been sharing spiritual insights to uplift them spiritually. It was rewarding too see all our investigators who had a baptismal date except one show up to church. On April 20th if all three of our investigators don't relapse with the word of wisdom it is going to be such a joyous day and I am excited! So I have been way happy. Anyways though besides that we have been working as usual. Doing our best to help people repent and come to the waters of baptism. Anyways I have done a lot of looking back, reading my journals from the mtc especially. It is weird to see how much I have grown already. My handwriting especially proves that. But I have realized I thought I had improved so much but really now I look back and I knew nothing. I read a quote in the book Our Heritage I really liked and it said, "It was an Honor and Privilege to have to Opportunity to become acquainted with God." Man that really hit me hard as I am here on the Mission. That is how I feel right now and I hope I will feel when I leave here. It has been such a sacrifice and it is hot and I am tired. Sometimes I sit there and wonder, will I make it tomorrow? I always do haha. Anyways I am glad to be here on the Mish and it has been my honor and privilege to become acquainted with God. I know this Church is True and I know I God lives and loves us. I leave these things in the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

 Anyways on that note I like to end with some humor. It seems like I broke a chair last week... and I was telling everyone about that well before I got onto the computer I broke the chair here in the computer shop.... man ... my self esteem just SHOT!! haha anyways here is the picture!!  

Anyways also the picture with the writing says "Forbidden to Pee here" And also we went back to Wawa dam!! took some sweet pictures!

April 3, 2013

Well Happy Holy week!! If those of you who don't know what that is, that is when crazy die hard catholics whip themselves to repent of their sins. Also for the really legit die hards, they carry a cross around with them all day with a thorn crown. Than for the just plain crazies, they crucify themselves. Man it is crazy! If only they knew Christ atoned for their sins already so they don't have to do that. Anyways besides that the rest just have parades with candles and parade floats of Mother Mary and Jesus! Anyways This week has been going well. We have been working hard with our investigators this week. We have 3 who have had baptismal dates and they are scheduled for this coming April 20th!! I am super excited because that will be my first baptisms here in my first area!! It just makes me feel good that I am actually helping people change their lives and make progress. A big problem here in the Philippines, especially in the summer is laziness. People will believe the things you teach, they just don't want to change. It is hard for people to go to Church, we have heard so many excuses, but it can be done! Some people won't do stuff in the Summer saying it is too hot. Man I hate that excuse!! Anyways though Bro. Balosa the one who drank coffee the week before his baptism was scheduled... haha! ... has been doing good. He has quit and switched over to herbal tea which the President said was ok. Yeah so now we just visit him and lift him up spiritually! I can't wait to see him clothed in white and enter the waters of baptism! Man his conversion has been a great to watch. He really believes this is the True Church he tells us all the time. Anyways the other two are the Loyola Family. They have been eternal investigators, never really following through with their commitments and completing their baptism requirements. Well they have been to Church 3 times now and this next Sunday hopefully they make it! So I can't wait! It took them a year now, but with hard work from the past missionary and her fellow shipper  they both quit smoking and are now going to Church weekly. So I am excited to see them get baptized! They are actually really good with the lessons, they have been taught so much that they know it better than us it seems haha. Anyways their conversion story is awesome. It has been based upon Prayer! They used to have these punk for kids who I guess would abuse them and it was scary for them. The Missionaries came and taught them about Prayer. So They both prayed every night that their kids would become nice good people. I guess now they are way nice and I know for a fact that God answers prayers! From their experience, and from my own!! So it is cool that they progressed based on that one fact, God answers prayers, than the rest just followed. Anyways we have been working hard with Less actives this week too. Our mission has a strong emphasis on rescuing the Less Actives. So one of our Less Actives is Sister Daniela. It seems that since I have been here we have tried everything to get her to Church. Every time she just kind of ignored the fact that she wasn't going and was satisfied with her testimony. So I came to the conclusion she never had a goal so it was hard for her to aim for something and act if she had no Goal. So I asked Elder Hibbert if she was endowed yet. He said no.. So I then told him about making temples a goal. I know that I was inspired at this time because before we went and taught her about the temples, her visiting teachers had stopped by and shown here pictures of the temple and how beautiful it was inside. #1 I have never heard of or seen people doing home teaching or visiting teaching here... so that was strange to me when we stopped by to share the message about temples to her and she said, "My visiting teachers just stopped by the other day and showed me pictures" So than we shared to her about Saving Ordinances and how the temple allows us to obtain those saving ordinances and return to live with God. We finished our lesson and asked her to make that a goal and she said she really wanted to. So we gave her a blessing that her knees would allow her to make it to church, because that hid been the issue I guess for her. Since she is old it is hard for her to walk, but she walks some places so we know she can do it. But anyways after the blessing we asked her to pray. This was one of those sweet moments I had where I really felt the spirit surrounding us. She prayed so fervently and cried, she asked for forgiveness and repented for being so stubborn and not going to Church. This is one of those moments I will not forget in my mission either. But it was so cool. Anyways I just know this Church is true. I have felt the spirit confirming it in my heart. I have watched people change their lives. I know I have only been here for a short time, and maybe I don't know anything, but nobody can tell me what I am doing isn't right. I know this is true. I hope everyone in the world comes to feel the way I do. I know God loves us and Jesus is our Savior. I know the Book of Mormon is true. I hope I never forget that, and anyone who has ever known that and forgotten, I plead with them to not forget those things. 

Well anyways, after that spiritual note I would like to share the funny story of this week. We have been helping a Less Active come back to Church. Her name is Sister Figuerras. Anyways her story is long, but long story short, she is offended and doesn't want to go to Church because of it. Anyways though she is open to hearing the missionaries. So while I was at her house I sat on her Chair. I was trying to scoot over and make more room... than suddenly the leg of the chair like slipped or something, and now she has a broken chair and I was on the ground. She laughed and made fun of me the rest of the night! ... I am too big for the Philippines! haha I have broken a chair now, and given two Trikes (Public Motorcycle Transportation) flat tires!! Jeez time to lose weight!! 

Also my Investigators who we teach on a farm here and they literally have nothing but CORN!! and a home made little picnic area! Thanks a ton Callie!! oh and my housemates and me in a jungle! or just some plants that looked like a jungle in front of the temple haha!

March 24, 2013

So my week has been kind of a long one but good one as well. We had so many meetings and we had to travel to so many places, that we didn't have much time to work, but my companion and I still know how to  do good work, we had a good week. Anyways Bro. Balosa, my super golden investigator, got interviewed this week for baptism. He is pretty old, so we were nervous he didn't understand a lot of the stuff so we spent the whole week reviewing with him. Turns out he was pretty good with all that stuff. The only problem was that because we were so nervous about doctrine stuff we forgot to follow up on other things! He drank coffee like a week ago he said! Ha dangit... we had to move his date haha!! It is ok we were happy to hear from our district leader that he is way willing and knows his stuff. Just needs to fix that one minor detail. Man what a great guy though. Anyways the Loyola group we have been working with made it to sacrament again this week. We got all our investigators to church! Elder Hibbert my companion and I are pretty nervous for them. Nanay Ester and Bro. Rodolfo have been being taught and have been given different baptismal dates for a year now!! Also we have caught Bro. Teddy smoking twice now, so hopefully this is the time they are really done and ready to change. In all honesty though I have seen these people grow so much from when I first got here to right now. They used to all never pray and if we made them do it haha it was really short and quiet. Now they pray loud and proud and willingly when  we ask them. Also they read the Book of Mormon probably more that I do! Haha we find them reading all the time! Also I think this last time, they will make it to their baptismal date!! Anyways I am praying hard for them, because I want to see them progress now! Anyways this week we have been working hard. It is so hot!! and I am just soaked after everyday from sweat. When it is not hot it is raining here and I get soak from sweat and rain!! haha I am just always wet. We have had a lot of rain this week and it rains like no other here. Like it literally floods the streets in a matter of like 5 minutes! Its crazy!! Anyways nothing really crazy or cool happened this week. We just had a nice successful week!! Hopefully we can keep going on like this! I love this work, and I love what I am doing. It is super hard and I still don't understand a word most people are saying, but I am progressing. I have seen what I am doing change the lives of others and I know this Gospel is True! Well to end this email just wanted to mark for my blog records, my Dog Happy passed away this last week! Man feels weird being away from that!! Anyways time to work and forget about that!! haha

March 18, 2013

Well this week went really weird. I am not used to being punted for entire days, but I guess that is more normal than not. So it means my area is really good and I am really spoiled! Anyways, I finished my first transfer and I we lost our housemates, Elder Green and Elder Gainey! It made me and my trainer really sad!! But, it is ok because we got two new ones! Elder Bahian and Elder Dohrosan! Two Philipinos! They are way hard working, cool, and funny!! It was kind of weird at first when they showed up!! But I love them they are way sweet! Anyways this week like I said we just couldn't get our foot into the doors! People would punt us over and over again! So it was really frustrating. We haven't seen our investigator Jonlou in a while he disappeared. SO hopefully this next week we will see him! The Loyola couple and Bro Teddy are doing ok. We had a long talk with them this week and they really want to be baptized! We are helping them overcome their problems and they are progressing. We found them a guy who has a jeepne or like a bus thing. He takes anyone who comes to him to church!! So yeah I am excited!! They finally have a free way to come to church, and they made it this week!! Also Bro. Daniel Balosa has now attended church this week which makes it his 3rd time! So if he makes it next week he is going to be baptized on MARCH 30!! So we are so excited!! Anyways though that is the report of them! We have been looking for new investigator for a while and this week we had some successes now that I look back. First off, Bro. Balosa!! He is the man! 60 years old and he found us an investigator who is way open and ... almost seems like a golden!! We haven't taught him since, but that was a tender mercy from our week! Also we have been visiting a lot of old investigators and they have welcomed us back in and maybe we will find out soon why they were dropped, but I am excited to see if maybe we will be the ones to bring them into the fold! Also I had an interesting experience while looking in our area book. I found a name and I was like we should try her. We walked to another appointment and we taught and after we were walking back the way we came I saw a sign. Diamond street. It was sweet because we had a lot of addresses and for some reason I remembered that one. At that moment, sure we could say it was just coincidence, or I just have a good memory, but I remembered Diamond street. So I looked at my companion and I said, "dude we dont have any appointments right now lets try to contact that lady on diamond street" So my trainer pulled out the addresses just to double check if we had one on diamond street and sure enough. Diamond STREET! Man we knocked on the door and BAM!! SHE WAS THERE!!! We had a ward missionary with house so we could enter and teach her! She was way receptive, agreed with what we said about the first lesson! She was ready for us at that moment, and I can't sit here and think I wasn't guided to her house that day. I hope we get to teach her again, but I am not sure if we will because we tried again, and she was busy. SO hopefully next time. Anyways this week was hard, but I am working hard and making sure I am getting stuff done. We had a service project this week, it was fun. We moved dirt and it was super hard, but it was to build a flood guard for the people and so they will not be hit by the flood as hard! Anyways this Church is True! It changes lives! I know God lives, and loves us. I know Jesus is our Savior he loved us enough to atone for our sins, in order for us to return to live with God! I know the Book of Mormon is true! There is no way it is not! 

March 11, 2013

This week has been the usual we have been teaching our 5 investigators we have been focusing on! The ones I have been calling the Loyola group has been very disappointing for My companion and I. They were doing great! Making there way and preparing to be baptized this coming March 30! I was so happy for them but this Sunday, temptations and trials got the best of them. First off, The Loyola Couple they decided that they didn't have enough money, after we asked them on Saturday if they had some. They told us they did so we didn't ask any of the members to help them get to Church. They either lied or were to lazy to go to Church, so they just didn't show up. Also Bro. Teddy who is their friend decided he couldn't go because he didn't want to go by himself. It was just a disaster. The worst part of it was we went to visit them after Church, and we caught Bro. Teddy smoking!! It really just wrenches your heart. So we sat them down and we basically just had a long talk with them, basically they told us, we really messed up but, we know what we should have done. We left them with a spiritual thought to motivate them to keep trying. They know why it is important and they really want it. Really though, it is now up to them!! Anyways Bro. Teddy felt way guilty for smoking again. He said that was his first cigarette for 3 weeks. It kind of showed me that this is why we need to go to church, read our scriptures, and pray. It is harder to resist temptations when you don't do those things! Anyways we are progressing with our other 2 investigators. One of our investigators, Bro. Balosa, loves church so much and he has been going every sunday! He is hard to teach, because he doesn't understand a lot of things especially right after we teach it. So that is hard. But he is really progressing, he keeps all of his commitments which makes me way Happy. Also we have another Investigator, who is a son of a member. He just agrees with everything we say and keeps all his reading commitments. We ask him if he believes and he says yes!! Now all we have to do is get him to church. Besides that the search for new investigators is on! We tracted for the first time this week, because usually we have enough appointments, but for 2 hours we talked to 6 people, they all let us have a conversation with them. The hard part is everyone here is Catholic and not many people want to hear us,they just like it that we are foreigners and they like trying English on us haha! Anyways though it wasn't very successful but I am hoping we will find more people as we keep tracting those areas for new people. Anyways though I had an interesting experience this week with a Less Active families. The Philippines Quezon City Mission has a rescue effort for the lost sheeps, or meaning Less Actives. It is weird because we have one who got baptized and never came back. Not even confirmed! So we are trying to get this part member family together and strong!! We have left very strong messages and I feel like they have been super recpetive! I am hoping we will really progress with this family! But It is hard to see people, who have found the truth, and they can't endure to the end. I wish I knew a good way to help these people, but it seems like a problem in this mission that nobody really knows how to help them get back! I hope I will find my stride with the Less actives. Anyways this transfer has ended and I am half way done with training. One more transfer!! Well anyways this week has had it's ups and downs. I kind of don't know if something is spiritual or not. I just come out of lessons though feeling different some days and other days I am not. So maybe one day I will see the significance of things but right now I am just doing what I need to do. Working hard! I lovet this work, and I love this Church!! I know it is true, there is no way it is not! I have seen the people who don't even understand God and his love for us. They don't understand Jesus,and his role.  The Savior and Redeemer of this world, the man with no sins, who paid and suffered for ours so that we could be clean from them, through his example and direction created a perfect church, under the direction of God. I wish I could just show them that it makes sense! It really does. Anyways I hope I will be able to share that message and give people who are searching for these things what they want, the thing that everyone needs!

March 4, 2013

Alright so this week has been a little shorter, because of the P-day swapping! Anyways though it has been a really hot week. I think I have never been more sweaty in my life than here in the Philippines!! Like after I shower I have to sit in front of a fan to dry off and cool off! It just gets hot again though. Anyways though I guess it isn't even "HOT" yet because in April, that is when you will get so hot here that you can''t sleep at night! I am pretty afraid of dying here now haha just kidding! Anyways though It has been a good few days. Our investigators are progressing really well! We have 4 who have accepted to be baptized and we are just trying to get them to Church 4 times to meet that requirement. Haha we don't tell them that is a requirement though, we just tell them it has to be every Sunday and they have to commit to do that so they won't go less active. Anyways though it is hard because 3 of them who I talk about a lot are so poor! They seriously can't afford to pay for the bus. Also we aren't allowed to pay for them so now we just rely on prayer and faith. It is frustrating when they don't show up because you wanted them to SOO bad! Well anyways yesterday on Sunday .. ALL 3 of them showed up! It was like fireworks were going off!! We have worked with them for so long and now we are seeing the fruits of our labors! Everytime we teach them they just know that our message is true and they really want to be baptized. It is hard though, because they have a lot of obstacles to get over, but they are working for it and now at the end of this month we might see them reach their goal to be baptized! Anyways we also have another investigator, his name is Bro. Daniel Balosa! He is a sweet old man really!! When I first started teaching him, he just seemed like he was just an old guy who liked talking to us. Later one day I realized, he has been pretty much bearing his testimony to us after our lessons on how he knows this is the true Church, and how everything we say is true!! He is so Golden it is great to teach him!! His goal is also to be baptized on the 30! So as long as he can get to Church he is so ready!! I am just so excited to see someone get baptized!! It feels like it has been forever since I have been to a baptism! Anyways the work is really progressing here and it is awesome!! Anyways the people in that area are really poor and humble!! They accept the Gospel, in my opinion, because it gives them hope! It breaks me heart seeing how little these people have, and yet they are happy. Most of the poor people live near a river that could flood any day when there is rain, especially the rainy season. People here lose everything in floods and it is super hard to restart your life after you lose everything. We have a sister in our ward! She is one of the people who helped translate the Book of Mormon into Tagalog! Holy Moly!! She has nothing... it all washed away in a flood! She has one pair of clothing, and a bed. The ward helps her get food, but she is too old to work and her son has no job. It makes me wonder sometimes why someone so good is given so much trials! What she told me in my visit with her really hit me. She just said, life is hard and I am so sad. But I am humble and I know God loves me and will give me a way. Her faith is so strong! So I am grateful for that experience. Anyways this week has been way fun too. We have had a lot of Birthday parties here. Now in the Philippines, a birthday isn't just some party... It is like a big deal and people get offended if you don't drop by for birthdays if you are invited! Holy moly!! we ate so much food!! People just feed you on birthdays and a lot of people from all around come to celebrate! It is a fun time!! haha I love the Philippines!! Also a bad experience I had this week. We had this guy we taught and accepted our first lesson kind of like a golden investigator. This week we went to teach him and he was so different. He had a the spirit of contention about him and it was ... pretty bad. He kept asking us questions and when we tried to explain he said your Tagalog is very confusing and unclear! Also his questions only had one answer in his mind which was his answer, so no matter what we tried to explain to him, nope he said that is not clear the answer is THIS! and he would say his answer. I have never felt the spirit leave the area so fast, but he really just brought this bad feeling about. We probably won't see him for a while now haha! Anyways though fun fact for the readers. The Philippines is a place of trends. This season it is spinning tops! But the spinning tops here are ... like way legit!! It is like a sport here and who can do the most tricks with them! You wind these tops with a string and you do work!! it is cool to see! It is also super hard to get good at! I am practicing during my in between hours... i can barely even throw it! haha Well that is all for this week!!

February 25, 2013

Alright this week has been kind of the same. We have one area which we call Bonaba. That is our really poor neighborhood where people like barely have a roof over their heads. We teach a lot of new investigators there and it is great, they are really receptive. We have a group of investigators there named the Loyola group. One of them is named Bro. Teddy and he is like our Golden. I guess before I got here this guy hasn't been progressing much. So we just kept teaching him hoping he would make changes. Which finally he started doing! He really wants to be baptized now and he gave up drinking and has been abstaining now. So it is really good. So this week we taught this group the Law of Chasity. The other two are a couple and one is slowly stopping to smoke and th other is just waiting for her husband to stop smoking so they can be baptized together. Anyways the Law of Chasity went great. They clearly understood why it was a commandment and how it would live their lives. Now here in the Philippines, marriage is like considered a glorified title that you pay for. Also Divorce is illegal here so once you get married it is a long legal procedure and money consuming process to get a divorce. So people just don't get married they just live together and have families. Well Teddy used to be one of those people, until he got kicked out for fighting too much. So we told him he needed to try and get married because we aren't too sure if you can be baptized because you might be "separated" but you have kids together. So we are double checking on that, but he says he is sorry for being so contentious with his wife and he has been trying to fix it. She just won't talk to him. So hopefully he gets to be baptized as a single adult, but right now we are kind of stuck. It was funny though because he was asking 2 Young missionaries about how to handle talking to his wife and if we would go with him and try to talk it out with her.We kind of just became his Dr. Phil for his marriage. We told him we would hold off on us going and helping him and it would be better if he went and just talked to her. So that was a fun experience. Also in that are we have focused on the Book of Mormon with a lot of our investigators and Less active. It is working really well. In my 5 weeks I have been here, I haven't seen a family called the Devocal family at church for my stay here. We were asked to focus on helping them become active again so we have been visiting them. It has been a great blessing when we go over and read with them. Last Sunday we saw them all there. So obviously there is power in the Scriptures, especially the Book of Mormon. Hopefully they keep going, but we have never invited them to go to church, we just visit and try to get them doing the little things, so they will start doing the bigger things. Also we have another area I call the high ground. It is a little higher and richer than the other area. That area is seriously a hard days work. We set up appointments and get punted at their doors all day. Nobody will listen to us it is frustrating. We walked for 8 hours straight one day going from appointments that weren't home or didn't have time for us all of a sudden, to street contacting, back to the home that didn't want us and than back to street contacting. It is so tiring and I wish they would just listen to us. But, we have to do something and hopefully we will figure that out! Anyways though the Philippines always has it's surprises and every corner has it's new challenge. Funny things that happened to me this week go as follows. So in the Philippines people want Americans to take them to America or marry them so they can be rich i guess. Well We look really rich in the Philippines, and I found out this week that a lot of girls will say you're cute. Haha ... that never happened to me in AMERICA!! So obviously you want something else. I finally understood one of them saying that to my companion and I haha. So that was fun. Also another fun thing I have been doing with the kids was that I tell them my Brother is Psy.. that guy who sings Gangnam style! They all think it is super funny. Oh also I got to go to the temple this week. The Manila Temple is small, but It is super beautiful especially compared to it's surroundings! So that's it! Anyways I hope this next week goes well ...until then!