May 28 email

Member missionaries with amazing conversions

there are two members,Jonard and israel, that works with us every sunday. they both have super cool stories! it seems like their conversion story was full of faith and miracles! before they were both taught by the missionaries they were both addicts. Bro. Israel couldn't go a day without smoking 4packs of cigaretts! he told us that after the first time he went to church he tried to light a cigaret but he said the smell/taste was different and that it had lost its apeal to him. he became completely cigarette free to this day!!!! Brother Jonards story is similar. he was also an adict. he told us he used just about everything from cigaretts-drugs. also he had a bad anger issue. but once he accepted the gospel it gave him the strength to change! unlike brother Israel it didn't happen instantly but over time as he continued to apply the gospel to his life and repent. he was baptized as well with brother israel last 2014. both their testimonies invite the spirit and when they tell investigators that they know the church is true and that the gospel changes lives we could feel the power of their words! haha! working with members truly is the most effective way to go about this work!

Blast from the Past

another blessing: this week i was able to go on exchanges with elder Hontanosas! haha he is in our district again! haha! it was super fun to work with him again! he is super fun and loves the people i am always learning from him about how to build trust with others. we had an experience that i will never forget! because it has never happened to me! until now! we had a guy come out of his house and...."Yell at us! he yelled at us to leave! multiple times! we tried to ask what the problem was but he just kept saying "Alis Kayo!" after this experience we were kind of put down. haha! then i realized... this is the first time! haha i wonder if it will ever happen again! what was once a trial actually turned out to be a blessing because it gave me a little bit of perspective of my mission! haha! i have been sooo blessed my entire mission to be serving the people here! they are so humble and kind! i don't know what i would do if i was sent to Greece, Texas, or Portugal! or anywhere else! haha

Zone Activity

another blessing: we also had a zone activity this week! it was super fun! we went to the beach/church in Bugey. we played games(bull rush,missionary tag,portrait,poison!haha) and we also had a sand castle making contest! haha! our zone is super cool most are Philappinos but they are all obedient and willing to work together. i will send you some pictures.

Lots of Pictures

Someone's Lunch, a grub, a zone activity, new apartment, sand temple

Baptismal Interviews and Hot Exchanges

Highlights from the week

1. i got to interview a young part member boy. he was really shy but he has a great knowledge and testimony of the gospel. His grandpa is the only other member in his family. He was also baptised this week. it was cool to see his grandpa baptise him. it is always hard to do something on your own especially be the only member of this church in your family. I know they will be a great support for eachother! His baptism will bless both thier lives and the lives of thier family members. hopefully they will also be able to come to have the testimony of that young boy.

2. the zoneleaders came down to Interview Prince! Wahoo! just before we reviewed the baptismal questions with him. he had a hard time remembering a few things like the steps or repentance and he kept mixing up LOC and WOW. haha i was a little worried he would get nervous in the interview and forget it or be too shy to try. haha but he passed! so next saturday he will be baptized!  He is also a PM. his older sister is the only member of their family. haha she reminds me allot of natalie. haha. she is always watching out for her little brothers and teaching them about the church and helping them out with their school work and other parts of their life.

3.I went on exchanges with Elder gamboa. he took me around in his area. he is going home this next transfer. He is super inteligent and very thoughtful. he taught me a lot about working with members and less actives. Haha I have noticed that even though i am the district leader i am usually the one that learns the most from the other missionaries! haha! it was a fun day. even though it was super hot and we walked a ton! haha.(this week it was in the 90s everyday. the highest was around 98! haha everyone is a  little bit more sunburnt each time we come home! haha)

At the beach and computer shop :)

General Conference!

General Conference

this week we were able to watch General Conference. I feel like i have like Joseph been improving on my ability to pay attention. I think it is mostly due to the knowledge and testimony i have gained on my mission of prophets and apostles. it was also partly due to my desire to become a better teacher, to help and inspire those we teach, and to help our area progress. I know that through callings/responsibilities we are pushed to be better than we would have ever pushed ourselves to be on our own. the Lord has a plan and a vision for us. I truly feel blessed to be found worthy enough to have been called on a mission. I feel as if i have grown so much, but at the same time i felt my pride cut down by the talks of General Conference.

Grace

I was especially inspired by Elder Uchtdorf's talk on Grace. I felt like it applied directly to me. my whole mission i have been so focused on being perfect, never breaking any rules, which is not necessarily bad, but I was convinced that through my obedience i would win myself the Spirit, strength and understanding. Elder Uchtdorf stated simply "Salvation cannot be bought with the currency of obedience; it is purchased by the blood of the Son of God...Brothers and sisters, we obey the commandments of God—out of love for Him!"... I have never been more suprised at a general conference! haha! it seemed like my whole understanding of the Gospel was flipped over and emptied out! haha! it was actually very stressful at first. for some reason i had never thought of it that way. Elder Uchtdorf then continued "Grace is a gift of God, and our desire to be obedient to each of God’s commandments is the reaching out of our mortal hand to receive this sacred gift from our Heavenly Father." I know now after prayer and another go through of his talk that what he taught is true! we are saved, we recieve the spirit, and blessings because of GRACE. not because of our obedience, but we are still obedient because we love the Lord, because we want to show him we are grateful for his love,guidance, and blessings. when we are obedient, like Elder Uchtdorf said, " is the reaching out of our mortal hand to recieve [these] sacred gifts"

this new knowledge has helped me understand doctrines like Faith, repentance, and baptism as well as The Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. I have seen from the time that i listened intently to Conference that i have recieved so much Grace in my life! I love the Lord and i will be as obedient as i can be because i love him. not because i want to buy myself into his presence. because i want to make him happy. not to make others happy.

Another Packed Easter Week

Working with the Members

we have a ton of great members who work with us all the time. this week a RM came with us to work. he was super good. he knew all the doctrine and knew how to support our teaching. he was great. we also had a couple of youth who are preparing for thier missions come with us. i love working with the members! they make it so much easier for our investigators, RC, and LAs progress. we saw the evidence of  that when a bunch of the YSA who went around to the less active youth this week. there was one reacent convert who has also gone less active (paolo) that they visited. then with our BML we were also able to visit him. then yesterday he came to church! it has probably been more than 6 weeks since he last came to church!

General Conference

to answer some of your questions. we haven't been able to watch general conference yet. but they will have the CD by next week so we are getting excited to see it! it seems like the last general conference was just last week! haha time is flying!!!!! it seems like the longer i get on my mission the more and more i love being here, teaching the gospel and helping others come closer to Christ. It makes me sad sometimes that i am already more than halfway done with my mission! but it is good because it just makes me want to work even harder!

Easter

Easter Here they call it Holy week or Semana Sta. basically they celebrate thursday-sunday. for each day ( i forgot thursdays,Good friday, Black saturday, and i also forgot sundays name) mostly all they do is go to church, pray, walk around praying to all the statues that they have put up around the cities. they also made big stages out of tree branches for skits of christs crucifiction. h

Another Baptism and Getting Locked out

other than that this week we had a bunch fun. the sisters in our district had a baptism. i was the suprize baptizer again! so i got to wear the ninja baptizing suit again ahaha! also both our bikes are starting to break/ parts are falling off! haha! we also accidentaly locked our  only keys inside the apartment once! haha. we used a long stick which we put through the window to snag the keys on our desk! haha! i will try to send some pictures.

1. Locked out of apartment

1. kung fu with Brian Salvador

2. some guys burning off the hair of goat to prepare it to be cooked!

Kung Fu Baptism Suits

Rambutan
the fruit with "red spiky exterior that you remove before eating the white flesh before removing the hard nut inside". is called Rambutan! it is super good! you should deffinetly look out for it the next time you go to a asian market,  just to try it. haha. they are one of my favorite fruits. haha.

Rapacon got baptized
Sister Rapacon... did get baptized!!! it was a great baptism. haha. the member that was assigned to baptize her forgot so last minute they asked me to baptize her instead. haha. i had to use one of those kung fu baptizing suits because we didn't have time to go back to the apartment. haha. they almost didn't have one big enough for me! haha! i will send you a picture! haha. after the baptism we also had a branch FHE. it was also really good. allot of members showed up and it made sister rapacon's baptism a little more special. haha.

Bikes
this week was also really cool because we got BIKES! again. haha!!! but because Vigan doesn't really have any dirt roads our bikes are the nice street/racing bikes with the thin wheels. haha. we have been having a lot of fun on them! haha! they are like the average philippine bikes after one or two days pieces start falling off. haha. one of my back break pads fell off and elder hoopes peddles fell of too. haha. we are going to fix them today.

Pictures of Baptism and bikes

Good news of the Gospel and people getting baptized!

Zone Conference
this week was really good. we had zone conference on tuesday. so we went again to laoag. haha. It was super good. our Pres. Barrientos gave traingings on having the spirit with us. i learned a lot! most of it was about obedience. after i saw my past compainios. (E. payne, felices, pingol, Hontanosas, Marsh and Pacala.) they are all doing well. except for maybe elder pingol(my trainee) he recently fell off a trycycle and hurt his head and neck really bad. he told me he had to wear a neck brace for a while. haha! but he is doing better now. haha.

Rapacon
also this week nanay Rapacon got interviewed for her baptism! she passed! wahooo! haha. she has been an investigator for almost 30 years! haha! she always new that this church is true but she was always afraid to be baptised because of her nieghbors. haha. not that they are bad people but she was afraid that they would treat her differently/gossip about her. but she is soo ready to be baptised. she is one of the best people i have ever met on my mission. ever since she was young she has been very religious and has always relied on Christ to help her through her trials. she has no problems with Wow, LOC, or any other commandment. haha. all the members are really excited that she will finally be baptized! haha! and it is because of them that she finally decided to be baptized. haha! so now we are excited for saturday. we will send you a picture of it.

Exams
other than that it is summer here. the school years here are all about to end. allot of the members and allot of our investigators are studying for thier exams this week and allot are graduating so everyone seems busy. haha. it makes it challenging for us to get fellowshipers and teach our investigators. haha. but we can do it. one thing that we were taught at zone conference is that we shouldn't just work hard but to work smart. it reminds me of the story of the wood cutter with a dull ax. haha.

Time in Manila

to answer questions:
1. our area is mostly suburb 2.we dont usually sport contact.(only allowed in the morning-its tuff to get up! haha) 3. something i learned about in personal study: i read Alma 30. this is where Korihor is brought before Alma. Even though i have read this chapter many times i was reminded of the testimony of Alma. He tells Korihor that all things testify that there is a God. and rebukes Korihor for teaching otherwise. this chapter came at the perfect time. one of our investigators seems to be trying to teach us that the BOM isn't true. even though i know it is and he couldn't convince me otherwise, i will admit it was a little frustrating. when i read Alma 30 i think it was alma's patience that i have most learned from. this church is true, the book of mormon is true. we shouldn't get frustrated with those who have yet to learn that. no matter how many times or how many of them say that it isn't true it will never change the fact that it is true.

Hot Showers in Manila
thanks for the emails! this week was pretty crazy actually haha! i think it was tuesday when the travel elder texted and told me+ all the foriegn missionaries going home from june to sept. he told us we all had to take a suprize trip to MANILA!!!!!! haha! it was so we could fix some things for our visas. we took a plane of friday in the afternoon. it was a ton of fun. haha we got to stay in a really nice hotel with good food and...... HOT SHOWERS!!!!!! hahaaha! it was soooo nice! haha! i will never forget how blessed we are in america! before i never really apreciated most of the things that we have including (aircon,warm water, light) I will send you some pictures of manilla. we got back saturday afternoon.

Prince
Manila was super fun but it made it really hard to teach our investigators this week. we lost a lot of proselyting time this week. even though we hardly got to teach we still saw some progress in our area. Prince came to church again. he is getting really close to his baptismal date. his only concern is that we still need to finish his lessons and he lives super far away. the only way we can get to him is if a member takes us to him in a car or tryce. so this week we are going to do all we can to schedule members to take us. haha.

Manila pictures