Try... Try... and Try again

Finding Lost Sheep

this week was good we went out to our new area  by the sea. it is soo

pretty. it has a small fishing town wich is very poor. all the houses

are concrete and built right next to each other. we went finding and

we got lost so many times. it is the coolest town! it is just like a

maze! it is built on a hill so it has a ton of uneven stairs,

alleyways and small bridges! it is so fun to go exploring. the houses

are literally 2 feet from each other. there are also a ton of people.

it is an adventure. i will try to get a picture of the town and send

it to you next time. church was good we had 5 investigators come. we

didn't know all of them because we are still really new to our area!

haha but it was a good chance to meet them. one of the investigators

was brought by a less active family in our area so double bonus! haha.

my companion is good he is really good in lessons investigators

instantly feel comfortable around him. that is something i have a hard

time doing( building a relationship of trust). he also spoke tagalog

before because both his parents are philippinos.

Food and Olympics

we make: curry, adobo, fried chicken, spicy beef, mashed potatoes, and rice usually.

sometimes we cook together sometimes only one of us cooks. sometimes

the elders in the apartment will cook lunch for all of us then we will

cook dinner or vice versa. I haven't seen anyone watching the olympics

yet but i heard they started. it is in russia right? how is america

doing? do you watch it often?

A Perseverant Basketball Player and Missionary

We play basketball alot here in the mornings. i feel a little bit like

joe sometimes, because we play with our fellowshipers or ward members.

they are all super good! Basketball is definetly the favorite sport

here. whenever we play i always have a hard time dribbling and keeping

it away from them. they are so fast! haha it is a lot of fun though i

am definetly getting better at it. tell joe to keep practicing! make

sure that if he ever has a chance to shoot or dribble the ball he does

and doesn't pass it. the more he does the better he will get. that is

something i have learned. we do not get better by giving up our

opportunities to try. When we first started playing I airballed almost

every shot and tripped on the ball every time i tried to drive. but i

kept trying and i am still trying and i am getting better and

better.(not that im good). it is the same for missionary work i have

found. after long days of finding, getting punted, and finnaly getting

a lesson.

you never know when you might succeed! so why don't you try. i think i

have told you this already, but once while finding we saw a group of

teenager guys (beenies, low pants, maybe a tatoo or two) and we were a

little hesitant to talk to them because we had already been punted a

lot. but they weren't doing anything so we went up to them and started

talking to them. they turned out to be pretty cool they were willing

to talk to us and listen to a short lesson. they accepted some

pamphlets and the commitment to read them. you never know when you

might succeed.

pictures: 

Oma and Opa's apron they sent

sketchy bridge to cool maze town

A New Companion and Getting Lost in the Work

New Companion

My companion grew up in Australia. haha yeah he has an aussie accent

and he calls things funny names like: fries=chips. yes he talks a ton!

haha! i think he is one of those people who feels awkward if it is

quiet. haha! But he is cool. he is really good at teaching. he is

completely fluent in tagalog and knows how to speak ilicano also.

sometimes it is hard to tell what everyone is saying in lessons

because they will switch from tagolog to ilicano then back again.

haha. He has taught me a lot. He came from St. Ana, which is pretty

much the farthest area in our mission. so now he is rediscovering the

niceties of living in the city! haha!

Lost in a New Area

this week was interesting haha! we didn't really go to any of our new

area's yet, except for our new city area's we used to only have a

small area in the city but now we have a really large area and lots of

investigators, recent converts, and less actives in our area. it has

been fun trying to find them! we spent most of the time lost! haha.

Yesterday we had two investigators come to church! One, Henry

Cristobal, has come three times in a row and loves our church! he is

kind of old but he is super humble. he loves having us over and has a

huge desire to follow christ's example! he has been so prepared by

heavenly father. He litterally has no concerns other than the fact

that we might not be able to teach him everything before his baptismal

date! It is true what everyone says we as missionaries really don't

convert people! we are just there to bring the spirit and give the

spirit a chance to bear testimony of the things that we say. I love

being a missionary of the lord, because i get to see the miracles that

the gospel brings to peoples lives, like Bro. Cristobal.

haha! no one here nows about the superbowl except those who have lived

in america.(our bishop and his brother)  they are the only ones who

are going to watch it. they said It is better here because the

superbowl here is on monday so they don't have to skip church or feel

guilty when they watch it. haha!

Johnny i really liked what you shared about Nephi. I just finished 1

Nephi a couple days ago and something that i always love about Nephi

is that he is so free. he is always an agent of himself because he

dosn't give up. he never lets doubts or trials stop him from following

God. I am not sure what chapter but the story where they all break

their bows and nephi breaks his iron bow is one of my favorite

examples of this. imediatly after laman and lemuel begin to complain

and point fingers of acusation. nephi is the only one to not give up.

He does the only logical thing that there was to do. he made another

bow and arrow. then he whent to his father to know where to go. When

faced with a trial or a challenge nephi does all he can then seeks

guidance from the lord.

I also love how Nephi never followed anyone blindly he always seeked

the lord to know for himself of the things his father taught.(not that

he didn't believe his father) He developed his own testimony. opposed

to laman and lemuel, who followed and complained never seeking to

develop thier testimonies or seeking to solve their problems.

well I am out of time! Mahal ko kayo! alam ko po na itong simbahan ay

totoo at mahal na mahal po tayo ng diyos. alam ko po na kailagan

nating palakasin ang pananampalantaya natin, araw araw sa pamamagitan

ng pagsaliksik ng Aklat ni mormon, panalangin, at pagsisimba.

Cool little bridge ;)

This is my comp.

this is Elder Moyle's new companion! they live right next to us. he is

super funny and keeps us all laughing! haha.

this area is actually one of the areas we lost to the sisters. sayang!

it is so pretty! haha but its ok i heard some of the areas we got are

super pretty too.

A New Companion and Some More Pictures

Transfers and New Companion

This week we got transfer calls.....................................

and i'm staying! haha My new companions name is Elder Del rosario. He

is philippino but he is from Australia. he is going to be the new

District leader. i heard he is funny and never stops talking! haha

should be fun! haha! we don't actually transfer until tomorrow. Elder

payne is going to an area called st. terresita. its in cagayan. so we

used to have 3 companionships in our ward but our president closed one

of the sister's area so we and the other sisters are spliting their

old area and adding it to our own. so our area's are both gettting a

lot bigger. it is going to be pretty crazy for a while. haha. not much

new happened this week. we had a really hard time teaching this week

because we had no fellowshipers and all of our appointments fell

through. agh! haha! Its cool though. we have a lot of great

investigators who have been super prepared for the gospel. I really

think that they will be ready to be baptized this transfer. i am glad

i will be here to see them make that commitment! I am also happy to

stay because the sisters supposedly have a lot of sweet investigators

in the area that we are inheriting! they told us about a lot of male

investigators that they could never teach becuase they didn't have a

fellowshipper. They were really happy to hear that we got them as

investigators.

something funny:

in all of the big stores here( kind of like walmart)

they have a ton of emoloyee's working all at the same time... and they

have songs that they made about their stores. haha and when they play

the songs all the employee's have to do a funny dance!(they just stand

there and move their hands) haha! they all look so miserable! haha it

is super awkward! because they  just stand there doing their little

dance while staring at us the whole time! haha well not much else

happened. have a great week everyone! mahal kita

More Pokemon and District T-shirt and 2 weeks of chicken

Answers to Questions and Pokemon

Answer to some of your questions:

The British guy's house cost about 93 million pesos...

He married someone who grew up in the little town by

his house and they are all related somehow. haha!

It is so quiet at his house! you can hear the birds but I haven't seen

any crazy ones yet.  He loves it there its but says its "bloody hot"

My investigators are doing good. We recently found a new family who

came to church on sunday. They are nice and have a lot of

questions about our church. We are very excited to teach them

more and help bring them closer to Christ.

Transfers are next week!!! augh! I want to stay,  but I also want

to go to another area. I am a little worried about who my next

companion will be.

I receantly read in 2nephi 4 it is all

about how to cope with being selfish, angry, depressed, our weaknesses etc. I have

found this scripture to be a great strength to me! I love reading the

scriptures! They always fill me with the spirit and a desire to work

as hard as I can( lI am not perfect and many times I know I

could have done more, talked to more people, and

shared my testimony more often. but this scripture helps me to pick

myself up again and try harder the next day!

Pokemon! I'm going to catch them all! (on my camera)

A Chef Abroad and Friends at Church

The Awe of Missionary Work

We taught the English guy this week! It was awesome!

When we got there he was wearing like a speedo and he was watering his

plants haha! He gave us some crackers and a coke. We just talked for a

while. It was so different talking to someone in English!  He was

really cool! He is a retired head director chef for some place in

London that feeds a lot of doctors and surgeons. Apparently it is on a

very famous medical street in London. He is loaded! His

house is soooo nice. he imports all of the things he has(even his

milk) from Britain or other places in the world. We ended up mostly

answering his questions about our church. He was super suprised at

our dedication to our church. He told us that he only went to church

on Easter. He was really interested in why we would spend two years

away from our family without a wage. He seemed very impressed at our

faith and knowledge of the gospel. We left him with a pamphlet and a

Book of Mormon. It was a very cool experience.

Investigators at Church!

This week we really focused on getting our investigators to church.

We have also been texting our investigators

every night to remind them about their commitments. This week 4 of our

investigators came to church!!! YES! We reacently found a family

(Lorenxzo) who are so wonderful. One of the girls reads the Book of Mormon

every night and texts us her questions. She and her sister came to

church yesterday, they are progressing super fast! I love this area!

If I get transferred, I will be sad! Our

investigators are finally progressing. We have had to push back all of

thier baptismal dates so now there aren't any dates before the

transfer date. I really want to stay until they are baptized!  It sounds

a little selfish but I do love them and want them to come closer to

Christ. Well anyway not much else happened this week! Mahal ko kayo!

Celebrating New Years in the Beautiful Philippines

New Years Eve in the Philippines

For New years eve we had 2 meal appointments! In the Philippines people  celebrate

 new years more than Christmas. We had to be in early because

 the Philippino fireworks are kind of dangerous. We made a good dinner,

 and our bishop brought us a lot of

food and a cake! The Philippino tradition here is to just light off as

many fireworks and create as much noise as they can! haha.. All night it

sounded like there was a war going on outside. At 12:00 it was so loud

none of us could sleep. we watched the fireworks a little bit out on

our balcony. I took a video and I will try to send it to you.

 

Beautiful Caaoagan

This week we also went out to our farthest area for the first time,

Caaoagan, it is right next to the sea and it is very pretty. The town

looks like a small beach town somewhere in San Diego. I will send

some pictures. We taught some really cool families out there,

they seem interested.    While we were in Pila, one of our nicer areas, a big

British guy on a little scooter drove up to us! We talked to him for

a little bit and he invited us to his house for "a small lunch and a

nice little chat" haha! I loved his accent and it was pretty funny!

haha we are going over to his house this wednesday! I CAN"T WAIT!

I am going to teach a BRITISH man while in the Philippines! ! It was also funny

because E. Payne and I had a  hard time talking to him because

we were so used to having small talk in Tagalog. we would say

something like, "where do you live, what time, what day/hou?". in Tagalog

then remember that he didn't speak Tagalog and have to translate it back.

Christmas in the Philippines

Basketball

We played basketball with one of our
fellowshipers and a few of his friends. He is a recent convert and he
is basically already a missionary he is super sweet. he reminds me a
lot of Hudson because he is super talented at a lot of different
things(beat boxing, basketball, teaching the gospel, drawing, dancing)
Phillipinos are so good at basketball. even though they aren't very
tall they are super good at dribling and shooting. its kind of funny
they play in flip flops too! i don't know how they do it. haha!

Christmas in the Philippines

Christmas here is different! haha no snow, its hot,
and there aren't too many decorations, they also celebrate christmas
like new years. they all wait till 12:00 christmas eve to celebrate
it. they also have a lot of fireworks. they are more like small bombs!
haha we had to be in early christmas eve. haha!
Our investigator Janine Maximo came to church again!!! just three more
times! haha! we know she is going to be baptized. when is the
question. its the same way with most of our investigators. they just
don't want to go to church.

Pictures

Christmas Eve Dinner

Christmas Package

one of the sisters took this picture. she gave each of the elders in
the picture this picture framed for Christmas.

Companion's Christmas Present

Christmas eve desert

we went to a fhe and one of the kids there made this for me! haha