Week 4 in the Philippines

WEEK 4

Merry Christmas!

Kumusta, 

This last week has been pretty weird. It was Christmas week and so we actually didn't get to teach much. I went on splits with Elder Ilagan this Filipino Missionary who actually knows very good English by far the best English out of any Filipino I have met. We went around teaching his investigators, every lesson that we taught was about Keeping the Sabbath Day Holy so I got pretty good at giving that lesson haha. But it was great I enjoyed it. We have been punted by everyone this week just cause its Christmas and everyone is either busy with that. Alot of people weren't home and Tatay Balagbaggan was drunk one night when we went over then next day we went back and he was working in his bukid. We had our ward Christmas party this week and those are soo different then the ones at home. They last all day, they go from like 3-9ish. There are games, spiritual thoughts and food. It lasted all day and so that's all we did that day. And then on Christmas eve and on Christmas day when we went over to peoples houses they would just feed us and we were barely able to get and lessons in and when we did we either shared Luke 2, or Alma 7 10-12 which are both just about Jesus and his Birth. So none of our investigators were really able to progress this week. Something else that was weird is that on Christmas we had more in actives come then actives. Because all of the Active members went to the Stake center in Santiago for some reason, and some of the in actives came since it was Christmas. 

Christmas was great though, anyway. We got feed a lot, pretty much all of the same stuff too. A lot of fruit salad and a lot of Pancid, its like the Cheap party food for the Philippines. I also had my first experience with dog, we ate dog last night. We went over to our recent converts house, named Daniel, and his dad and all of his buds were over and they were all drunk, none are members though. But anyway they kept one telling us to eat dog...so we tried a little bit...it doesn't taste that bad but it is really tough meat. I never want to try it again, just cause of the thought of it. They don't really care to much about dogs here. Dogs are pretty much the rodent of the Philippines, they are gross and they are everywhere. Some are mean, most are just pretty pathetic.  we were walking to this members house and these two dogs came out of nowhere barking at us and one came right at me and looked like it was going to bite me so my first reaction was to just...stomp at it & yelled i didn't want to get bit cause all the dogs here carry rabbis and i def don't want to get bit. So he ran away and the other dog ran away too. 

Skype was great and I really enjoyed it, the computers here stink and we are always having problems with them when we get here. I am just glad that president lets us do it, cause a lot of other different missions aren't allowed to do it. This week is gonna be another interesting week. The work is gonna be back to normal hopefully. But this week is Rizal day and New Years, Rizal is their national hero, he is like our George Washington. He is the main guy that was able to get the Spanish out of the Philippines. The next it New Years and we are supposed to back in our houses at 6pm new years eve. President said it was okay if we go over to the Zone Leaders house and Celebrate the New Year with them so that is what we are going to do I think. The reason why we have to go in so early is just because there are soo many drunks that night and the dont want us to have a problem with them. So the tell us to go in at 6. 

Anyway everything is going great here. Love you all thanks for everything 
Ingat po
Elder James

Week 3

Kumusta pamiliya ko, 

This week was pretty great, we had so much stuff this week that we had to do so we couldn't go out and work as much. But we still put in a decent week of work. Nothing really amazing happened this week, a batch just went home, prez let them go home a month early for Christmas which is pretty nice. I wonder what Christmas is like in America right now, it honestly doesn't feel like Christmas here, cause its hot, and there aren't any lights and no Christmas movies or anything like that. Prez said though that if we let it this Christmas has the potential to be one of the best, because even though we are not with our families and the whole gift exchange is as big, we have the opportunity to pay alot more attention to the true meaning of Christmas. Which is great, and its great for missionary work too, cause when I go up and talk to someone I ask there name and where they are from then sometimes  say "Malapit ang Pasko, massiah ba ka" Which means Christmas is close, are you excited. They almost without fail say "Wala Christmas para sa akin, wala pera." Which means no Christmas for me, no money. That's when we can invite them to focus more on the true purpose of Christmas and testify of Christ. Its hard here though because there are so many poor people, and we aren't allowed to help them. When we eat at Macdo's kids outside will just come up and watch us eat. and that's hard for us cause you know that most of those kids are super hungry. Then when we are done and start to leave they come up to use and ask for money, but we aren't allowed to give any. Also something that is kinda of annoying is that kids will come by house to house in our neighborhood and start to carol, they only difference from doing that in America to here is that in America it is usually a service or doing it to be nice, but here they will sing until you come out and give them money. We either turn our lights off and they go away or we go out and give them pass along cards. 

I am excited for Christmas though this week is gonna be so busy. Tuesday my comp and I are going on splits so I will be up in Ramon a little town 20mins outside of Santiago, then on Wednesday we have our Ward Christmas party, Thursday we have our Zone Christmas party up in Cauayan we have to do a performance for that, so our zone decided that we are going to do the Haka Dance, a famous Polynesian dance, we have a couple of big poly's in our zone and they are teaching us the haka. Anyway on Friday we have our Stake Christmas Devo, that our district is going to sing a Christmas song at. Then its Christmas eve and we will probably go to Cauayan. Then on Sunday it is Christmas obviously, and when we go out and try to work and stuff, we will probably just get feed. Sooo ya idk how much work is going to be happening this next week, however much we can fit around 4 hours of study and then all of the activities. We study alot, cause they put all the new missionaries on this new training program where we do the norm 1hr of personal study 1hr of language, then we do 2hours of comp study, and they gave us all this stuff we study, and it is supposed to get us trained faster, its supposed to get us to where we can train in after 12weeks, or two cycles, now is that we don't train for only 6weeks now we train for 12weeks. 

Our investigators are still progressing pretty good, we gave Sarah a baptismal date, but their fam is going on a Christmas vacation for a couple weeks so we cant teach her so, we have to push back the date. Richard is doing pretty good, he is still super interested, but now we are just trying to get his fam interested and they are but we haven't officially invited all of them to pray to know it is true. Our next lesson with them I am hoping that we can do that. We had a great experience with Tatay Balagbaggan this week, on wednesday we went to visit him and he was heading out to the river to throw away a dirty diper (kinda gross way to throw it away) anyway when we got there he looked around and he has two caribou and one of them was missing, so we looked around for it and couldn't find it. So we went back to his house and we taught him about Joseph Smith again, then we asked them if they would pray to know if Joseph Smith was a true prophet and he didn't respond. He was super quite and so Elder Kelson was like what are you thinking and he was said about his lost carabou, he said he wasnt listening to us that whole time, haha cause he was worried bout his caribou. So we asked him to pray right there for Gods help in finding it, he said he would later, but we insisted now. Elder Kelson said to pray and he know God would help, he said to put God to the test and he would help. So Balagabaggan prayed for help, then we went back out and looked. Ha on our way there kelson was like "We gotta find this Caribou" anyway we went and looked around for a little while and couldnt find it, Tatay kept saying "wala" which means nothing. But we kept looking and finally found him in some random water hole, with some other caribou. Its weird though cause the last time we went looking we checked all over and didn't find it, but after we prayed we found it. So that was great, God does answer prayers haha! Tatay was really happy too, I hope that opened his eyes a little. But our next lesson with him we retaught Joseph Smith and asked him if he believed in him he said no, we asked him if he prayed about him and he said no, because he still doesn't believe God answers prayers cause he prays everyday for his knees to be healed but they are still really weak. We told him that if he prays about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon and our Church God will answer and then if he gains faith in that then he could pray again for help with his knees. I really think that if he can gain solid faith in Joseph Smith and our Church, then his legs can be healed, but not until he gains that faith. I told him that in the best tagalog I could...I hope that he could understand. Yesterday we went back to his house and watched the Joseph Smith story dvd I think that really helped him understand who Joseph was and just the basic history of him was. 

Welp life is good here, I think that I am getting more used to the culture and stuff. Anyway

Mahal Kita 

Elder James

Week 2 in the Philippines

Kumusta pamiliya ko!?

This week was pretty awesome, we got some sweet work done and I got to experience the culture a little more....

First our investigators are doing pretty good, we Nanay Balagabaggan told us that she knew that the gospel was true and that it was the right way for her to go in life...but she still didn't come to Church. Because she sells this kinda fruit in the Palanki everyday and thats the way that the Balagbaggans feed there fam, and the best time to sell is early in the morning, but Church is in the morning, so it is hard for her to come because she needs to sell. I think that if she comes once for just the first hour and then goes and sells that might work. Next lesson with her we are going to try to find a solution to get her to come to Church. Tatay Balagabaggan, I love him but he is super super frustrating once a week and that is also on Sundays. Because he was able to quit smoking cold turkey, but now we have to get him to quit drinking. And every Sunday his "friends" come over and get him to drink. So pretty much every Sunday he gets drunk. And I def don't want to drop him cause even though this is a reoccurring prob, he still has a great testimony, and he doesn't have much in life out of everyone I met his life is the hardest, and I know that it could help his life so much. On to different investigators, gave the baptism invite to Richards brother and he accepted, it was awesome we were gonna teach Richard w.o.w but his brother sat in and he had been sitting in on most, in fact two lessons ago he said that he prayed about it and knows its true...but ya so we asked him and he said he wanted to be baptized. We are gonna baptize Richard we just need to give him a date, he really wants it and he has a testimony...but his autism kinda makes it harder for him to understand everything. Prez Carlos said that he is probably already saved but it he wants to be baptized he can be. So we just need to give him a date, were thinking Jan 7. We also asked this one sister named Sarah she is like 21 and has been coming to Church for like a month and has been praying and reading, we just didn't give her a baptism invite. But this Saturday we invited her to be baptized and she said of course. It was pretty cool, I think we are gonna give her the same date as Jan 7 next time we see her. John Nicole has been being hard though, his is like 16 and we keep on asking him to read and pray and he does sometimes, but whenever we are teaching we ask him some questions at the end of our lesson and he cant answer them like we asked after we taught the restoration for the second time "So what did Joseph Smith do" and he said that he didn't know...it was a little frustrating. We are teaching some other families they just need to come to Church...thats most peoples big concern right now is just Church attendance... heck that's most of the Philippines problem is Church attendance. Inactivity is huge here in the Philippines, like we have 600 members of our ward but probably 100 come a week if we are lucky. If we had 400/600 members attend they would have to split the ward. Apparently the Philippines mission work is gonna get a huge change in January. We are gonna be changed to more reactivating missionaries instead of Baptizing missionaries. Basically from what I here is that we are gonna only go around reactivating people, and the only investigators we will teach are referrals..so idk if I am excited about that or not. Honestly though it is what the Philippines need. If we could reactivate even half of the less actives the Church here would grow way faster. Cause then they would have to make more wards and more stakes and maybe even more temples. So I am pretty stoked for it, but whats nice is that I think that after January I probably wont have to tract for the rest of my mission. 

Now a couple of things I did this week that...were fun?....First one was fun, I jumped on a Caribou or the Philippines form of a water buffalo. They are super chill though, you just jump on and itll walk around a bit, my comp took a pic, hopefully I can send that to you today. Also I got one of the worse things out right away and that was trying Balut. It is this fertilized duck egg that they stick in the ground for a few weeks and the duck inside is a little developed, anyway they then pull it out and eat it....and ya so I tried that Tuesday. It was def the grossest things that I have eaten in my whole life. We didn't have a din appointment that night and neither did the zone leaders so we went to macdo's and then they were like hey you should try balut tonight...and I was like nooooo, but they got me to do it...I fell to peer pressure on my mission..haha. We went over to this street vendor bought one for 13 peso's. You have to make a little whole in the shell then drink the fluid...idk what you would call it, it was nasty. But drank that, then cracked the rest of it open like a hard boiled egg. Then took the first bite and it was super super hard, cause it was the skeleton and the head and the beak, it wasn't completely hard, it was still chewable. Was able to muscle it down, and almost threw up. By this time a decent crowd had formed around us. To see the white American eat balut, it must have been pretty entertaining to them. Anyway i still had the other half left which was super soft and creamy, it tasted gross and the texture was gross but not as bad as the first part. The only bad part about it was the thought of it. Anyway glad I got that out of my way early, and I am not going to eat another again...hopefully I never have a dinner appointment where the feed us balut...that would be super hard. 

Anyway still enjoying it here in the Philippines, its beautiful here. Still cant understand anything anyone says for the most part..sometimes I can pick up on stuff. But for the most part I am clueless. I do have decent missionary tagalog though so I can add some into lessons. Other then that though, still cant speak very well tagalog. It should come though. 

Mahal Kita 
Ingat Kayo 
Elder James

Week 1 in the Philippines

Kamusta po ang pamilya ko!

Wooow!! Finally in the Philippines, after 9 weeks at the MTC finally made it. Its crazy bonkers here!! Its awesome!! Haha Where to begin....well when I got to Manila they took us to the Manila mtc and we crashed there for a few hours, then we got on a bus for Cauayan for 9ish hours, the whole way I needed the bathroom, but the bus never stopped so goooosh I was hurtin haha. But we got to the Carlos's house around 7ish in the morning on Thursday, and we Chilled there for a bit the let us relax and take a good couple hour nap, I was sooo jet lagged. It was no fun. But then we got a quick run down of everything from Prez and Sis Carlos. They are awesome, President Carlos is a funny guy, and he isn't a huge rule stickler, he basically says that if it 1. Takes away from the spirit don't do it, and if Its against the white handbook don't do it. But then we got our comps, at the transfer meeting. My Tatay or trainer is Elder Kelson I am his anak or Child haha  he is a pretty solid missionary though. My zone is Santiago and my area is Baluarte. After transfer meeting was over we headed to Baluarte, another hour drive! We got to the apartment and man it is basically a shack, the other missionaries said that it is the smallest apartment in the Santiago zone, its way small. We got a small study room, a small bedroom. Ha our beds are like 3 inches away from each other. Then we have a decent size front "living room?" Its pretty small. Anyway I am doing good here in the Philippines!! Its a way hard adjustment, harder then I was expecting, it is soooo frustrating when a Filipino is talking to me and I have absolutely no clue what they are saying. Its not even necessarily that I dont know what words their saying I know some of the words its just their accents are way tuff and they talk soooo fast. My comp has to feel more like a translator at times instead of a missionary, I kinda feel bad for him. We get alone pretty good though. He leaves in like 2 months. 

Now on to our REAL investigators, we got some solid investigators, we have Tatay Balagbagan and his wife, we have Richard who we think may have autism. We have Daniel who is 16 and way chill he is a recent convert though or rc. We got the magalano pamilya. We have the Crisologo family, and we have John Nicole. The lessons that we have had with them have been going pretty good. Tatay Balagbagan is this old tatay that I feel way bad for he works in the Bukid (rice patties) but his knees are way weak so its hard for him to farm, so he cant provide that much for his family. And his wife, she is killin us she said that in order for her family to eat she needs to work in the palanki (local strip mall, its more like the local flea market accept way more busy and crowed). So basically its hard for her to come to Church on sunday cause if she doesnt she wont have money to feed her family. John Nicole is pretty solid, he is 15 and he lives with his Grandpa who is the is in the Baluarte bishopric. So he has way good support, he just needs to read the Anklat ni Mormon. The Crisologo family I havent had much contact with them, and the Magalano family they are a part time family that just needs to come to Church. Richard is doing well, the only thing is that he more then likely has autism or something cause he doesn't understand alot. But I think that the big role that he is meant to play in this world is helping his family maybe hopefully accept the Gospel. They listen and the usually join the discussion, but they decline our invites to Church and reading the AnM. We have some investigators progressing but we could do better, I don't understand why we don't go finding more cause we could totally get some more investigators. We will see though. The big thing that needs to happen here is ward support, we have decent ward support, we have about 80 people who come to Church regularly. But honestly they could be better like Tatay Balagbagan needs a ward friend but no matter how we try people wont take some time just to talk to him and befriend him. 

Now a little about the Culture, people here are soo stinking nice, I haven't met a mean Filipino yet, they are all great, whats crazy is that most of them are poor and struggling but still put a smile on the face and are nice. All the ward members come up and talk to me and I can respond a little, then they ask "Kaya po ba mo Magsalita tagalog?" (Can you speak tagalog) Thats when I say Hindi, Hindi Magaling ako sa tagalog, bago ako sa Philippines. (No I'm not good at tagalog, new to the Philippines) Then they tell me that I will become good..haha. Oh also one of the first things that all Filipinos say to me is "your sooo white", and point to my super blond hair. haha its funny....kinda...Something else is everybody stares at us its funny, not because we are missionaries but because we are white. Transportation here is pretty cool too, they have these things called Tricies, that are just a motorcycle hooked up to a side wagon. Hahaha so we just jump on one of those to get where ever. And they are everywhere, thats probably the most used form  of transportation. The streets are sooo stinkin crazy, there are no traffic laws basically you do whatever you got to do to get to where you need to go. There are lanes though...thats a good thing. The food here is Delicious. Rice, and chicken, and sometimes so other weird stuff like, my comp had fish head the other day, I already ate cause I went on splits. But I'm really not kidding the food here is delicious, every meal has rice and you eat it with your hands. What you do is take a piece of meat and clump up a little rice and then scoop it into your mouth. Its great I love eating everything with my hands. Oh and there rice is soo good here, its nice and sticky and soft, not mushy but sticky...it sticks to the hands pretty bad. Oh and there fruit is way good. They have a ton of diff fruits here that we dont. And they have mangoo trees and coconut and banana trees everywhere. Oh and its kinda jungly I guess, in between all of the bukids and neighborhoods are trees. Honestly its pretty beautiful here though, once you get out of Santiago. Lucky for me we are just out of Santiago, so its not too far. Oh they also have a Macdo or Mcdonalds in Santiago, its pretty good, the prices aren't bad and the food is good. Cant complain. All in all, I am pretty happy here. Its been hard at first, the first day was way hard but I'm adjusting, and once I can start getting tagalog down then the mish will just fly. All I need to do is study and speak as much as possible, I cant be afraid to make a mistake, and I am not going to lie I kinda am, oym's are hard (offer your message), mostly cause the tagalog, the people arnt rude in fact they are too nice they cant decline to your face, but when you show up to there house they hid from us..if they dont want to hear us. 

Oh another Philippine culture note is, that any old person no matter whether you know them or not, you call Tatay meaning father, or Nanay meaning Mother. 

Anyway thanks for everything, I am glad to be here and cant stinking wait to learn tagalog haha. 

Ingat po kayo
Elder James

Week 9 Final Week in the States

Kamusta pamiliya ko?!

 

This week has been awesome, its gone by a bit slower then all of the other weeks, and I suppose my focus wasnt quite where it should be. But it is sooo hard to pay attention in class when you know that the next week you'd be in the philippines. But no this week was soooo cool, Thanksgiving was different, but amazing, the kept us busy and amused.

 

First of all monday was pretty boring, wrapped up our last lesson with Roy, and Willie, told him that we were getting transefered to Cauayan City and theyd be getting new missionaries. Oh I dont know if I told you this last email, but Willie is going to get baptised and is keeping up on allll of our commitments. Ha when we asked him to go to church he was like 'Ya, ummmm can I bring my family" we were like "Heck Ya!!" well in missionarie talk and in tagalog. But its nice to know that we will be teaching real investagators sooon. I know that it will take me a while to be able to understand them, and to be able to talk very well. But I am soooo excited to just get there, I wanna go talk to all the Filipinos even if all I can say is Kamusta Missionaro po ako para sa Ang simbahan ni JesuCristo ng mga Banal ng mga Huling Araw. and then let my comp take over hahaha. ohh by the way you may be wondering this to ng is pronounced nung and mga is pronounced munga mga pluralized things and ang ng sa put focus on a specific word...dependa on whether you want actor object or location focus...way diff from english...astig ito (its awesome)

 

Anyway to the good stuff, First of all we got TWO apostals this week!! Glad I was here over thanksgiving to here both of them. First one was on Tuesday and it was Elder Christofferson. That was most def the best talk I have ever heard live! It was awesome, he said that he had three things that he wished he had done differently 1. Remembered the end result, sometimes we get sooo caught up in doing the work that we forget the people and the conversion and just think about the #'s, soo you know we are still working hard, but we cant be sooo focused on the work that we forget about the people, we go out for CONVERT baptisms, not just baptism, its one thing to be baptised its another to be convert, conversion is a change of heart, and action and desire, without that a baptism alone will not keep one in the church. 2. He said that we need to be willing to aline our will with Gods. And not be afraid when we ask "What would you have me do, or be?" Cause when we ask God that sincerely we are becoming the type of person he wants us to become, Elder C. asked Why would we be afraid to put ourselves in the Lords Hands? Jesus only did the things Father wanted, we can do the same it will be harder for us and we will fail sometimes, but we can still do it! 3. We need the trust of the Members, that doesnt mean being buddy buddy with them but it means having their trust that we can teach people effectily and that we are willing to do whatever it takes to bring others to Christ. He said if the Members help us then we will get more referals and more baptisms. And we will be able to get the ward in on helping the missionary work....He also said a few specific things I liked like "Walk with him and he will sustain you." I tell you as one who knows, he knows you.¨ I dont know I really liked those two quotes that he said.

 

Thanksgiving was great, we had a morning Devo on thursday and the main speaker was Elder Nelson of the 12. He was pretty good! haha, he basically talked about giving thanks. Honestly it was a very very good talk and spiritual, but alot of it was stories and interesting facts, like the Literal transtlation for hallauha is ¨Praise to the Great Jehovah¨. He talked about how the russia was opened up to the missionaries and it was pretty amazing, showed how after all we can do the Lord will go to work, and make up for what we cant do.

The rest of thanksgiving was pretty good to, after the devo we had thanksgiving lunch, which obviously not as good as home, but it was still pretty good, the turkey was very good. After that we had a service project where we made first aid kits that are going to honduras. Then we watched the movie 17 micricals. So overall it was a very good day!

 

Now its on to packign and leaving for the Philippines tomorrow. I very excited and know it will be hard, but thats okay, hard things are good

Week 8

Kumusta Pamilyia!!

 

So ya its week 8 and not much really happened, nothing exciting, no big news...well actually..no...well ya...I guess this is important. I GOT MY FLIGHT PLANS FOR THE PHILIPPINES!!! :) Ahhhhhhhhhhh so excited!! We got them last night, we knew that they would be coming yesterday, we wernt sure when though so we checked like every few hours. Then at dinner our district leader came in and told us that we got our flight plans. When he said that...unbelievebly dinner was no longer important...we all just got up and went outside as fast as possible to open up our flight plans. It was so exciting, order of excitement these past few monthes has gone 1. Endowments 2. Getting Call. 3. Arriving at the MTC 4.GETTING FLIGHT PLANS. It was so awesome, we all started screaming like little girls, and all the other missionaries walking past us were like "whaaa, those guys are missionaries?" hahaha it didnt matter at that time what others were thinking, cause we got our flight plans and we were on the top of the world!! haha

 

Well anyways what are flight plans say is that we are leaving november 28 at 1:30pm from the mtc to the SLC airport, we are flying out at 4:55 and arriving inLos Angeles at 5:55. Its technically a 2 hour flight but because the time change from mountain to west coast it is only 1 hour...kinda interesting. Anyway we leave from Los Angeles 7 hours later at 12:05am...yup a 7 hour layover....haha oh well itll kinda be fun at first. Then our flight goes to hong kong from los angeles and we leave the los angeles airport 12:05 nov-29 arrive in hong kong 7:40am Nov30th I'm not excatly sure how long of a flight that is because of the time changes that will happen but I'm hearing from others that it should be about a 15-16 hour trip...uhhhh hahaha I have nooo Idea what I'm going to do for that long...study the language, study the gospel, study the inside of my eyelids...sorry that was cheesy..haha. Anyway we leave from the Hong Kong Airportat 9:05am nov-30th then arrive around 11:10am in the Manila Airport. Then someone is going to meet us at the airport...and take us somewhere, we are not exactly sure on that yet. We are gonna be in manila for a while I do know that I do know though that we are gonna be able to go do a session at the Manila Temple. So that will be very very awesome! Then I dont know when but sometime we are gonna start our 10 hour bus ride from manila to Cauayan City, where we will meet our Mission President. So yeah very exciting stuff!!

 

Now about calling you guys, only family is allowed, I'd love it if you know you, dad, nicole, nathan and mira were all there. I dont know but maybe after I call you guys if I have anytime left I can call Michelle and Jon thatd be awesome. We will see. However, I do need you guys to send me a call card. I dont know how much time you want to put on it...I honestly have no Idea how they work, maybe you could research that. But I will call you guys, would you rather me call you when I am in the slc airport sometime between 2:30 and 4:00 on the 28th or in the Los Angeles airport sometime after 6:55 on the 28th. It doesnt really matter to me about when to call, so let me know what time works best for you. Maybe I could call you guys at the slc airport then call michelle at the los angeles airport? Idk just let me know what you guys want to do.

 

Other then that this week has just been a normal week, our investagators are progressing quiet nicely, Roy was able to 1. Tell pamiliya siya (his family) about his baptism and they said that if its what he wanted then they will support him. 2. He said that he was able to go to church and switch work schdules with his work friend. We pointed out that the Lord was prepared a way for him. Cause when we told us that he had work on sundays we shared 1st Nephi 3:7 and said that God wants him to go to church and that God will open a way for him if he has faith in him...and what do ya know it worked haha!

 

This week Elder Callister one of the Presdients of the Quorem of the 70 came and talked to us. And he gave us a very very indepth run down of the apostacy. He said that it is so vital that we stress the apostacy to our investagators because if they dont understand the apostacy they arent going to understand the need for the Restoration and the need for Josheph Smith and if they dont come to a belief in Joseph Smith then they arent going to believe in the Book of Mormon. Sobrong mahalaga ang Apostasiya para sa umunawa sila. (the apostacy if very important for them to understand.) He apparently has a few books out there, and if they are anything like his talks then they are good, so I would really encourage you to read them.

 

Anyways Nagpapasalamat po ako para sa mahal ninyo para sa akin, at nagpapasalamat ako para sa oppertunidad mission ito, para sa Diyos alam siya ninyo at Mahal Diyos niya. Alam ko na totoo ang simbahan ni JesuCristo ang mga banal ng mga huling araw, at pagmamahal si JesuCristo sa atin. Alam ko na namatay po si JesuCristo para sa atin at Maarami Kasalanan natin. Mahal Kita!! 

 

(Thank you for your love for me, and I am thankful for this mission oppertunity. As for God, he knows you and he loves you. I know that the Church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints is true, and Jesus is loving of us. I know that Jesus Chrit died for our many sins. Love you.) 

 

Ingat Kayo

Mahal Kita

Elder James

Week 7

Kumusta ang Pamiliya ko!

 

Its starting to get a little cold here in Utah. Its gonna be a pretty weird transition from cold Utah to hot hot hot Philippines! The Philippines has two seasons, dry and hot, or wet and not quite as hot but its still really hot. So ya, big difference, Cold dry Utah, wet hot Philippines! That's okay I'm just uber stoked to get there!!!

 

This week was the weirdest week by far, for one reason, we are now the oldest district in the zone. That's so weird it literaly feels like we have been here for 2 weeks. Its weird thinking back to the oldest district that was here just  4 weeks ago and then now knowing that I am in their shoes...idk how to explain it, its just weird. There were 36 new missionaries to come into our zone!! That doubled the size of the zone its huge now!! The district of 4 is now gone, they have probably been in the Philippines for a couple days. They were so cool, I miss them, we have a lot of Samoan missionaries that are in our zone and the other Tagalog zone, and before the district of 4 left all of the Samoans sung a few songs for them. That was awesome, I didn't know that Samoans were such Good singers! Oh and apparently there are a few songs in the samoan hymn book that arnt in the English one. Anyway the good bye was hard but that's okay. Also I should be getting my travel plans next Thursday! I am very excited for that. I'll probably scream like a girl. Its gonna be awesome! Also from what I know is that my last week is gonna be thanksgiving week and usually missionaries are pretty down and stuff because they are away from home during thanksgiving...so usually the Tuesday before thanksgiving they have a apostle come and talk to the missionaries to liven us up...Thad be totally bonkers if that happen, especially if it were like Holland or Eyring or Monson....you know not a big deal or anything I guess.....just an apostle...haha joke long!

 

Our lessons with our investigators have been going pretty good! We taught Roy again this week and he told us that he was having a hard time telling his family that he was going to get baptised. So we tried to comfort him and committed him to telling his family. We read 1st Nephi 3:7 and told him that if the Lord gives a commandment like baptism he will provide us a way to get that done. He said that he would do it, even though he is afraid. I'm guessing his family is not gonna be too happy about it, pero (but) he needs to tell them anyway!!

 

Other then that everything at the mtc is going alright, just trying to keep a positive attitude about everything here. Its kinda hard sometimes when the date for us to leave is soooo close!! But I need to remember that yes you receive blessings when you work, but you receive even greater blessings when you work through the hard times, when you work through the times that you are tired and wore down and don't feel like continuing, when you work hard ALWAYS you will receive the greatest blessings. Kinda like, its okay to seek for good things, but its better to seek for great things, but its the best when you seek for the greatest thing. Well you can use that in everyday life, its good to work hard, but its even better to work very hard, but its the best when you work your hardest! Big thing is just gotta keep the attitude up and the desire high.

 

mamahal po ako ninyo! (I love you guys) 

Mamahal po ang diyos ninyo (God loves you guys) 

Ingat Kayo

Elder Ryan James 

Week 6

Kumusta Pamiliya!

 

So this was another astig linggo linggo (awesome week)

 

This mtc experience has been a pretty good one, we have had some great speakers good teachers, good district times. All and all the mtc has been pretty great, I am starting to get to the point though where I just want to get out of here and go teach some Filipinos! We here crazy stories from our teachers aboutthe Philippines every day. Some of them crazy some of them funny, either way its very obvious in all of them that Father is guiding us through everything. I'm not going to share the stories but just know that I am in good hands. The Lord watches over his servants. Something about the mtc that is well...how you say....different for me is, I have gained a ton of weight!!!!! Ive gained 18lbs!!! Im almost 180!!! Whats really confusing me though is that I'm not even eating as much as other people, and I've gained more weight then them!! hahaha, I guess my body isn't used to this much inactivity. Cause usually everyday I'm doing some sort of physical labor or exercise, but here at the mtc the basic schedule is wake up, eat, personal study, class, eat, language study, class, eat, more then gym...but I play 4 square which takes very little physical exertion...then back to the rez, shower, then relax and wind down a bit, then bed time....as you can see most the day I am sitting on my dairy air. (bum)

 

This week we had some pretty good lessons with our investigators. We gave our best lesson by far on Saturday, we were teaching Roy, we started off asking if he read Joseph Smith Kasaysayan he said that he did, he said though that he didn't receive an ansewer to his prayer. We asked though how he felt bout it when he prayed about it, and he said he felt really good, we explained to him that the Espiritu Santo works with feelings and that we may not receive direct words but that we get a confirmation of truth through the feelings we get from sa Espiritu Santo. Anyway all we wanted to do this lesson was give the baptism invite! So we read 2nd Nephi Kabanata 31:12-13 at 21! we talked about it then we gave him the invitation. To our dismay though he said that he didn't want to be baptised, we decided to ask again, he said no again, then he said that he didn't know if he believed in Joseph eSmith or Aklat ni Mormon, so my companion bore his testimony and it was really powerful and then I bore my testimony then asked him to pray tonight about whether our Church was true and if baptism was right for him. Then my companion said that if he received an answer would he be baptised. And he said yes he would. When we bore our testimonies that was probably the most spiritual moment in the mtc, I know that the gift of tongues was working, because I was able to speak without even thinking, the tagalog words just came out of my mouth. I honestly was not controlling what I was saying. And my companion who..has been struggling very much with tagalog, he had the same experience he was able to speak in tagalog and bear a great testimony. It was awesome, the crazy part was not only was Roy able to understand us but he said that he would pray bout it. So then our next lesson with him on Tuesday we asked him if he received and answer and he said he did and that he wanted to be bapitsed, he said that his family wasn't supporting him but he felt that he wanted to be baptised.

So  that was great news. And a cool side note to that story is that Brother Nuttle, our teacher who plays as Roy told us in a coaching missionary study (thats where our teacher takes us somewhere private and we talk about how we can improve our study) anyway he told us that that was one of the best lessons he had ever received at the mtc, and that Roy had a lot of concerns that disappeared when we bore our testimonies!! That made us feel good!! So ya! Our other investigator Ronnie is getting baptised on monday...so we wont teach him again. I'm gonna miss Ronnie, but we will pick up another investigator.

 

Something cool too, is that my companion and I are investigators now, and Sister Dennis and Sister Westover, the sisters in our district, they are teaching us now. And we got to make up fake people and ya its awesome I really like it. We also are teaching elders, we are teaching Earl and Norman aka Elder Proctor and Elder Nielsen. But ya its really neat being an investigator and being on the other side and seeing what it is like from their prospective!!

 

Something else is Watch out for a Landon Casten or Elder Casten, he is a Elder that is the cousin of Elder Fisher in my district and he just got sent to the Denver north mission. So he has for sure been in Broomfield church building and may have even talked to Elder Gross and Elder Usevitch, since they are the ap's.

 

Nakikita ko po ang patay mga tao...hahaha that means I can see dead people...haha joke long! (only joking)

 

Mahal po ang Diyos

Mahal Kita

Ingat Kayo

Elder James

Week 5

Kumusta pamiliya! 

 

I know I say this every letter, but this week flew by!! Its hard to even remember what happened this week cause monday seems like such a long time ago. But remembering back...nothing really new happened.

 

We taught Roy and Rani again this week, both those went pretty good. We taught Roy about faith and the Holy Ghost, that was probably our best lesson with him. We were able to tell him why the Holy Ghost was important, and how it could build his faith. It went so well that Elder Allen was going to ask him to be baptised pero (but) we ran out of time, we are only given about 30mins for each lesson. And Roy said thanks for teaching me but he had to "go to work" haha. Our lessons with Rani have been going good as well, we taught him about the Salita ng Hangaroon (word of wisdom) he said that he didn't drink alcohol or smoke but he loves coffee. We promised him the blessings found in the last 4 versus of Section 89 in the Doktrina at mga Tipan. He said he would quit, we meet with him again yesterday and he said that he hadn't had a lick of coffee....he's basically the perfect investigator. Boy its gonna be a wake up call when we get to the Philippines and our REAL investigators aren't as how you say..easy as Rani. Oh well it'll be awesome!

 

Brother Hallstrom, one of the Presidents of the 70's came and talked to us on Tuesday, that was pretty awesome. To begin his talk he said "Decide now what type of missionary you want to be right now". Dont put it off, or else when the time arises, and you are tested in the mission field you will already know what you are going to do and how you are going to react. He talked about the need to be strictly obedient. And how if we decide right now to be obedient that..again when the time arises and you are questioned with breaking the rules, you will have already made the decision to be obedient. Also he said that remember your loyalties. You main loyalties are to God, the Mission President then Companion. Also he said that we are always to be reverent, pero the definition of reverence is not to be quite, we are allowed to have fun and laugh and even be loud at times. The definition of reverence is that all of our thoughts, actions and words, should be in correspondence with God, and should mirror Jesus Christ's image, and that is how one we will be able to draw closer to God and two be able to show others through our example how they can come closer to God, So to be reverent is just to try our hardest to mirror the Saviors image. He said some other good stuff too.

 

Oh this week the district that has been here about 3 weeks longer then us, got the travel plans yesterday. We are really close to them, there all in the 20's but their all really chill. One is from Australia, haha he is probably one of the funniest people I know. He is really big and plays rugby, his uncle is a famous rugby player too. The rugby player that one of the apostles talked about in a few conferences ago is his uncle...idk who he is really and why he is so awesome, but its cool that I know his nephew. But no their district is really cool and I'm sad to see that their leaving in like 11 days. But I'm very excited for them I know that they will all be great missionaries. I guess their going from slc to san fran to Hong Kong toManila. And its collectively about a 18hr plane trip, and their traveling into the future. So....ya not really looking forward to the actual plane trip...just the part where ya get to the Philippines. Its crazy to think about it, but in just 4 weeks I will be leaving for the Philippines, be in a totally different culture and be REALLY teaching the gospel...its gonna be an adventure, and hopefully my emails are gonna be more exciting then this one.

 

Other then that this has been a uneventful week, more of the same ol same ol, just learning the Gospel, learning how to teach the Gospel and learning how to teach the Gospel in tagalog haha.  

 

Mahal Kita! Ingat Kayo!

 

Elder Ryan James