Family!
Welp it is now once again this time of week to write the letter, everything has a place and time, and its 2pm here at scc in centro santiago on monday so it is the right place and the right time! This week seems like a blur all the days now are just meshing together, I couldn't tell you what day some of these things happened I just remember that they happened. So so this was a very "successful" week, we taught a lot, had a decent amount of investigators and less actives at church, we taught some solid lessons this week, yep Im really happy dito in baluarte. Oh first things first, dont email me about general conference this week no matter what happened or how awesome presidents hollands talk is. Just wait a week, because gen conference here is a week after it is there, so my gen conference is the 7th and 8th?...its for a couple of reasons, first they gotta translate it from english to tagalog...even though most people listen to it in english..even though there are tagalog rooms in the church they could go to here. Most Filipinos can understand english alright...most filipino missionaries prefer the english b.o.m just cause the tagalog that they use is suuuuper deep and a lot of them dont even know the meanings! the other reason is because when it is the 31st for us it is still the 30th for you so of course our times are different then yours...i am kinda of jealous of you cause i have to wait another week before conference.
Well this is what happened as far as the people we teach, we taught Micah about the Restoration, the spirit was super strong during the lesson and she had lot of really good questions, we taught that if she prays to know if its true she will feel the spirit and come to know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and that we need to ask to receive. There is a popular phrase here...kung walang katanonang walang kasagutan..which means if no questions no answers. So we taught her that she needs to ask, she asked me, when I prayed about Joseph if I asked for a sign...so we taught her a little about the holy ghost, and explained the way he works. then the next lesson we taught about the b.o.m and we asked if she asked, she said she did and she felt something that she has never felt before and it felt good! she is so awesome she might be my new favorite investigator...i dont know if its a bad thing if missionaries have favorites...but until someone tells me its bad..she will be my favorite! she is just super sincere she really wants to know, most people just sit there and listen, she sits listens and listens to understand and if she doesnt she asks questions.
Sarani and Vivyean, they live at Tatay Pagbilaws...I think i wrote abou them last week, anyway, you will never guess what happened. They all came to Chruch...Japey the Apostate RM and his girlfriend, Jenny Pagbilaw and her boyfriend Sarani...I dont really understand them, our lessons with them are good, but during the lessons they dont seem that interested, but sarani has come to church 2 and vivyean basically forced japey to come to church! and they do all of the reading...i thnk during the lessons they are just kinda shy and think that they are supposed to just listen while we teach...basta they are keeping all of the commitments and they are solid. they just need to pray and ask if its true...its funny how everything hangs on one thing and thats them praying and asking...with a sincere heart. if they dont do it nothing will happen. even if they are baptized they wont last...you need that confirmation that its true.
Sister Leal....noooooooooooooooooooo (breath) noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo! She is moving to manila, to train to be a house maid so she can go work abroad and leave her family behind here in the Philippines....sorry but this really bugs me. Do you think that thats a better life for your family, leaving on the hope to get more money for them. I dont understand it, her husband napakapakapakpakayaw niya....(really really really doesnt want it). Anything that pulls a family apart cant be good, she will be gone in Manila and then find a job abroad. I guess the desire for worldy things will always look more appealing to people...i guess satans good at that, making less important things more important then the truely important things. The thing is, if she trusts in God, stays here with her family and relys on the Lord, he wont fail her, he will provide for her family....she just cant understand that though......but there is good news in all of this..we picked up a new investigator because of it and Brother Leal said that he wants to come back to Church.
When we were over at their house he told us about sister cause she was already gone, but he had ths 16 year old boy with him that we taught and got a return appointment too! So there is some hope there.
We werent able to teach vincent this week, his cell phone is down, and he lives malayo na malayo! (very far away) he lives in the mountains. So we dont really want to go out there unless we know he is there..once we walked all the way there and he wasnt there, it took like a hr and a half out of our day...for nothing just a very hard walk. anyway we still havent taught him in about 2 weeks.
Richard is still Richard. Love him, if I am sad, I love going to his house, he will cheer me right up. So funny, he thinks he has 3 girlfriends, i asked him if the bishops wife was his girlfriend, he said yes...replied in english pa! haha Love the man.
Sarah, still doesnt understand what a promise means...she cant keep a commitment to save her life. She said with no doubt she would come to church..wala! Nothing! Dropped her baptisimal date and she isnt even a progressing i anymore!
Hahah we taught this super old tatay, he is still strong, haha still works even though he is like 70. Anyway we taught him...and man that was a weird lesson. He is Inglesia ni Cristo, he thinks God is a Spirit and Jesus is a ordinary man like us. He was a old investigator I guess, he read like half of the B.o.M. and went to church back in the day. But he wont give up his old beliefs, he is about to be excommunicated from the Inglesia. We are gonna go back to teach him again....He has potential....if he will soften his heart.
Thats about it we had a great week, got a lot done. There was a small bagio here..i cant remember what its called in English...like a hurricane. Just rain though and minor wind it would have been like a small tropical storm. I cant remember anything else that happened...we went fishing earlier today...haha we had bamboo fishing pole is was awesome...didnt catch anything the place where we went to kinda sucked. Oh yea we also harvested some Palay..or rice this week. That was fun...hard work, the bukid workers make like nothing...they get 5 pesos per bag of palay that they harvest. And out of 10,000 sq. ft, they get about 100 bags...but if there are 5 of them working they only get one peso per bag, so its either you harvest 10,000 sq ft by yourself and get 500 or get some buds and get 1 peso....
oh yeah i forgot, so elder alfonso and I played a game last week, like on tuesday we only spoke english, and wednesday only tagalog, thursday english, friday tagalog...ect. and whoever with the most mistakes loses. And if he lost his punishment was a 2 meals without rice, if I lost it was i had to eat chicken intestines, there are all these little street bbq that see all this gross stuff, chicken blood, one day old chickens, chicken skin, chicken intestines, and hotdogs! i only ever got hotdogs...but i lost so i had to eat the intestines...grooss...i am sending some pics of it. it actually wasnt too bad...just a gross thought of it.
Mahal Kita
Elder James
p.s. cant believe the broncos got Peyton Manning that is ssiiiccckkk superbowl time baby!!!
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
cycle 3/week 3
Kumusta Pamiliya ko,
Well what can I say another great week, we had a lot success...did get punted a unusal amount which always is the pits, but okay lang! We went on splits twice this week because Elder Alfonso had a training meeting in cauayan and so I went on splits with the other district leaders companion, we did some good work, his name is Elder Andaya..he was kinda lazy, didnt do personal study, and listened to music...I didn't know what to do. So I just studied. It was good to get in 2 hours of Personal study cause we didn't do comp study either....im glad to have elder alfonso as a comp he is great...but I also have bad news there too. Yesterday President Carlos called us and said he wanted to talk to Elder Alfonso on pday so we went up to cauayan earlier and they talked and it turns out that some companionship in the mission isn't getting along and if they get emergancy transfered, one of the elders from there will come here and elder alfonso will get transfered out...I dont want that to happen, we are going good right now and I dont want something dumb like that happening. Anyways I also had splits on Friday with Elder Linellel he is newer then me so that was fun, having a couple of new missionaries, neither good at tagalog or teaching working together haha it was fun we still did good work and stuff. Our investigators we confused as why there are so many different elders haha.
Anyway on to important stuff like the baptism of Tatay Balagbagan, it went through Tatay is finally baptized after 1 1/2 years of investigating! He finally quit alcohol and cigerettes and was worthy for binyag! The baptism was great, he was definatly ready, for it, when he came out he was smiling and he was happy, its cool to see people after baptisms they look different. His testimony was great he was nervous earlier didnt know what to say daw. But his testimony was great, said he was happy to be baptized into the True Church, and that he knows the Church is true and stuff like that! Afterwards I was talking to him and he said that he just said whatever came into his mind! haha! We taught him about the Priesthood yesterday, he said he didnt quite understand so we gave him some reading in the D.O.C. to clarify, he is great with his reading, he started the book of Mormon 2 weeks ago and is already to Mosiah! And keep in mind that the tagalog book of mormon is longer then in English by 200 pages! He is loving it when ever we ask him about it he says he enjoys it and knows its true and always reads as soon as he wakes up in the morning, Nanay is to 2nd Nephi 19ish she says she reads a Chapter everynight and then prays and goes to bed! They are both doing great and tatay said he wants to go to the Temple in a year.
Tatay Pagbilaw I dont think I have told you about him yet, he is this old Branch President that took out his name about 6 years ago cause he was mad with the leadership in Baluarte and he was so mad he took out his name. We have been visiting him for a while, and on friday he was like "Elders can I open up to you," we were like ya of course. He said he really really wanted to return he felt horrible for leaving, he took alot of people with him, and he knows the Church is true still, he was just mad and let his emotions get carried away. He wants us to re teach him and he wants to come back to church and he wants to be re baptized. We told him that we could definatly help, we are gonna start teaching him the lessons, find a friend for him, cause he is afraid of coming back to Church cause he is afraid that the members there wont accept him after all he did. We've talked to people about it in the ward trying to get as much support for him as possible. He hopes that his family will return with him and that his son will still go on a mission. So all of his intentions are right its now just the long process, unless I stay here for a while longer, he probably wont be baptized while I am here...but we are gonna get him started on the way there.
Vincent is great still, he really understood the need for Prophets and he understood everything in the Saviors Earthly minsitry and that the true church needs Prophets, authority and Revelation to be true. He really wants to be baptized, but he still has a long way there, needs marriage and to quit smoking. Said he wants a great wedding celebration so their date is in like a year so they can save money and have a good Celebration..we are gonna try to talk him out of that and just have a simple Free wedding at the Church! Bishop can totally to the ceremony too.
Sarah, we continue to have good lessons with her and she continues to not come to Church! So her progression has hit a wall!!! This may not be the right time for her in her life, she is super busy and the Church is on the bottem of her list it seems. Only so much we can do. I'm sure in the future she will accept the gospel and stuff, if its not now!
We have been having some really solid lessons with less actives, but they still havent been coming to Church!! Its super frustrating...its like what else do we need to do to get them where they need to be!
Well thats about all that happened this week we had somegreat times sorry thats it I am running out of time.
Mahal ko kayo
Elder James
p.s. sorry no pics, next week na lang
Well what can I say another great week, we had a lot success...did get punted a unusal amount which always is the pits, but okay lang! We went on splits twice this week because Elder Alfonso had a training meeting in cauayan and so I went on splits with the other district leaders companion, we did some good work, his name is Elder Andaya..he was kinda lazy, didnt do personal study, and listened to music...I didn't know what to do. So I just studied. It was good to get in 2 hours of Personal study cause we didn't do comp study either....im glad to have elder alfonso as a comp he is great...but I also have bad news there too. Yesterday President Carlos called us and said he wanted to talk to Elder Alfonso on pday so we went up to cauayan earlier and they talked and it turns out that some companionship in the mission isn't getting along and if they get emergancy transfered, one of the elders from there will come here and elder alfonso will get transfered out...I dont want that to happen, we are going good right now and I dont want something dumb like that happening. Anyways I also had splits on Friday with Elder Linellel he is newer then me so that was fun, having a couple of new missionaries, neither good at tagalog or teaching working together haha it was fun we still did good work and stuff. Our investigators we confused as why there are so many different elders haha.
Anyway on to important stuff like the baptism of Tatay Balagbagan, it went through Tatay is finally baptized after 1 1/2 years of investigating! He finally quit alcohol and cigerettes and was worthy for binyag! The baptism was great, he was definatly ready, for it, when he came out he was smiling and he was happy, its cool to see people after baptisms they look different. His testimony was great he was nervous earlier didnt know what to say daw. But his testimony was great, said he was happy to be baptized into the True Church, and that he knows the Church is true and stuff like that! Afterwards I was talking to him and he said that he just said whatever came into his mind! haha! We taught him about the Priesthood yesterday, he said he didnt quite understand so we gave him some reading in the D.O.C. to clarify, he is great with his reading, he started the book of Mormon 2 weeks ago and is already to Mosiah! And keep in mind that the tagalog book of mormon is longer then in English by 200 pages! He is loving it when ever we ask him about it he says he enjoys it and knows its true and always reads as soon as he wakes up in the morning, Nanay is to 2nd Nephi 19ish she says she reads a Chapter everynight and then prays and goes to bed! They are both doing great and tatay said he wants to go to the Temple in a year.
Tatay Pagbilaw I dont think I have told you about him yet, he is this old Branch President that took out his name about 6 years ago cause he was mad with the leadership in Baluarte and he was so mad he took out his name. We have been visiting him for a while, and on friday he was like "Elders can I open up to you," we were like ya of course. He said he really really wanted to return he felt horrible for leaving, he took alot of people with him, and he knows the Church is true still, he was just mad and let his emotions get carried away. He wants us to re teach him and he wants to come back to church and he wants to be re baptized. We told him that we could definatly help, we are gonna start teaching him the lessons, find a friend for him, cause he is afraid of coming back to Church cause he is afraid that the members there wont accept him after all he did. We've talked to people about it in the ward trying to get as much support for him as possible. He hopes that his family will return with him and that his son will still go on a mission. So all of his intentions are right its now just the long process, unless I stay here for a while longer, he probably wont be baptized while I am here...but we are gonna get him started on the way there.
Vincent is great still, he really understood the need for Prophets and he understood everything in the Saviors Earthly minsitry and that the true church needs Prophets, authority and Revelation to be true. He really wants to be baptized, but he still has a long way there, needs marriage and to quit smoking. Said he wants a great wedding celebration so their date is in like a year so they can save money and have a good Celebration..we are gonna try to talk him out of that and just have a simple Free wedding at the Church! Bishop can totally to the ceremony too.
Sarah, we continue to have good lessons with her and she continues to not come to Church! So her progression has hit a wall!!! This may not be the right time for her in her life, she is super busy and the Church is on the bottem of her list it seems. Only so much we can do. I'm sure in the future she will accept the gospel and stuff, if its not now!
We have been having some really solid lessons with less actives, but they still havent been coming to Church!! Its super frustrating...its like what else do we need to do to get them where they need to be!
Well thats about all that happened this week we had somegreat times sorry thats it I am running out of time.
Mahal ko kayo
Elder James
p.s. sorry no pics, next week na lang
cycle 3/week 2
Dear Family
This week has been pretty awesome, had some cool experiences and some good...and kind of bad news. I shall start with the investigators and less actives that we have been focusing on this week.
The first one is the Balagbagans. They are doing great! I couldn't be happier with them. They are a great miracle that I have had the oppertunity to be apart of. They have been taught by over 10 missionaries and they are finally doing the things needed to gain eternal life they are truly a miracle. So on to the news Tatay Balagbagan has been good in the drinking department since Feb 3 and said that he is never gonna drink again. He passed his baptisamal interview and is going to get baptized on March 10! I've told all the missionaries that are still in the field that worked with him back in the day..and they're blown away that he is getting baptized! They all said that they didn't ever think that he was going to get baptized. It goes to show you that the Lord does open a way for His children to return back to Him! President told us that we need to try to get members to do the baptizing. And when he told us that I was like, "Yeah thats a good idea," now that Balagbagan is getting baptized I am a little jealous that I don't have the opportunity to baptize him. But thats okay...the bishop is gonna baptize him...there can't really be anyone better in the ward then the bishop to baptize him...deep down in my heart, I wouldn't mind if bishop didn't show up so I could baptize him, cause Tatay said that if bishop couldn't make it he wanted me to. So...I wouldn't mind for bishop to not show up..but in the end it'd be the best for tay to be baptized by a member of Baluarte!
We have really been focusing on the inactives this week. We contacted 8 of the 15..we didn't get to teach all of them but we got some good face time and started a good relation with them. Most of them aren't off the path by far, something small is holding them back. We have been taught to re-teach the doctrine because there is probably a piece of doctrine missing from their testimonies. And true doctrine understood changes behavior. We are also counceled to get them reading the Book of Mormon again. Alot of the people we visit say that they read the Bible everyday, thats great, but we want them to read the Book of Mormon, cause that is the keystone of our Religion, no other religion has anything like it and if they read it they will strengthen their testimonies and hopefully regain that desire to come back to Church....whats sad is that out of the 15 names probably 10 of them are rm's! I told Philip, that after his mission if I find out he went inactive I will come back to the Philippines and beat him up till he comes back to Church.
We gave Sarah a date this week for March 31, I don't think that is gonna work out she isn't coming to Church..and I really don't see much desire there.
Vincent, he is donig great, he understands the doctrine very well, comes to Church, talks more then we do during the lesson which is great, he is a great kid, we just need to clear up a few minor problems like him living with his girlfriend and his smoking problem. haha that should be fun.
So something weird happened this week, kind of eery...so Nanay Melgapo this old Nanay that is just pathetic she cant walk cant really talk and is just kinda miserable, but her faith is amazing, she loves and knows the Gospel is true. Everytime we go there she loves it..she lives with her kid kinda, her kid has a small hut/house and nanay lives on the outside of it on a bed, they did put a cover over for her and so she is kinda protected from the weather... anyways we were gonna visit her on thursday we walked by and saw her asleep, I know she was asleep cause her chest was going up and down. So were are like oh well we will just comeback a different day, didn't want to wake her up. This was 3 in the afternoon, we continue on to our other appontiments. Later that day we have dinner at Bishops and he tells us that Nanay died. I was shocked cause I saw her that very day and she was alive! He said that her daughter tried to wake her up around 4ish but she didn't wake up, she died in her sleep! So basically I saw Nanay an hour before she died. My comp says that we should have tried to wake her up when we were their cause she was still alive. I personally am glad we didn't she is in a 100x's better place, she is probably actually happy right now! I am happy for her. I know that might sound weird, but she truly is in a better place!
So on to other news, we heard from the 2nd counceler in the in area presidency in Cauayan on saturday. He came to the mission home and gave us some training. He talked about how our investigators need to receive revalation and how they need to read the bom and how they need to be retaught the doctrine and then he answered any questions we had, it was great! He was super powerful, his wife was even better, talked about loving our compainons and fellow missionaries. Elder and Sister Nelson were great! Sorry I cant give you more details I am running out of time.
So for pday we went up to some falls in Maddela the lowest area in the mission, I am in Baluarte and that is about 1 hour by van to Maddela. Man the van ride on the way there and back is horrible...the fit 19 people into one regular sized van! I counted...it was 19. You come very close to those next to you. Anyways we had a great time, I was the only American in the group, it was great haha. Filipinos are great they are always happy and fun...I couldn't understand everything they were saying but...it was still fun, the water falls were beutifu;...well I am running out of time and got to go.
Love you
Elder James
This week has been pretty awesome, had some cool experiences and some good...and kind of bad news. I shall start with the investigators and less actives that we have been focusing on this week.
The first one is the Balagbagans. They are doing great! I couldn't be happier with them. They are a great miracle that I have had the oppertunity to be apart of. They have been taught by over 10 missionaries and they are finally doing the things needed to gain eternal life they are truly a miracle. So on to the news Tatay Balagbagan has been good in the drinking department since Feb 3 and said that he is never gonna drink again. He passed his baptisamal interview and is going to get baptized on March 10! I've told all the missionaries that are still in the field that worked with him back in the day..and they're blown away that he is getting baptized! They all said that they didn't ever think that he was going to get baptized. It goes to show you that the Lord does open a way for His children to return back to Him! President told us that we need to try to get members to do the baptizing. And when he told us that I was like, "Yeah thats a good idea," now that Balagbagan is getting baptized I am a little jealous that I don't have the opportunity to baptize him. But thats okay...the bishop is gonna baptize him...there can't really be anyone better in the ward then the bishop to baptize him...deep down in my heart, I wouldn't mind if bishop didn't show up so I could baptize him, cause Tatay said that if bishop couldn't make it he wanted me to. So...I wouldn't mind for bishop to not show up..but in the end it'd be the best for tay to be baptized by a member of Baluarte!
We have really been focusing on the inactives this week. We contacted 8 of the 15..we didn't get to teach all of them but we got some good face time and started a good relation with them. Most of them aren't off the path by far, something small is holding them back. We have been taught to re-teach the doctrine because there is probably a piece of doctrine missing from their testimonies. And true doctrine understood changes behavior. We are also counceled to get them reading the Book of Mormon again. Alot of the people we visit say that they read the Bible everyday, thats great, but we want them to read the Book of Mormon, cause that is the keystone of our Religion, no other religion has anything like it and if they read it they will strengthen their testimonies and hopefully regain that desire to come back to Church....whats sad is that out of the 15 names probably 10 of them are rm's! I told Philip, that after his mission if I find out he went inactive I will come back to the Philippines and beat him up till he comes back to Church.
We gave Sarah a date this week for March 31, I don't think that is gonna work out she isn't coming to Church..and I really don't see much desire there.
Vincent, he is donig great, he understands the doctrine very well, comes to Church, talks more then we do during the lesson which is great, he is a great kid, we just need to clear up a few minor problems like him living with his girlfriend and his smoking problem. haha that should be fun.
So something weird happened this week, kind of eery...so Nanay Melgapo this old Nanay that is just pathetic she cant walk cant really talk and is just kinda miserable, but her faith is amazing, she loves and knows the Gospel is true. Everytime we go there she loves it..she lives with her kid kinda, her kid has a small hut/house and nanay lives on the outside of it on a bed, they did put a cover over for her and so she is kinda protected from the weather... anyways we were gonna visit her on thursday we walked by and saw her asleep, I know she was asleep cause her chest was going up and down. So were are like oh well we will just comeback a different day, didn't want to wake her up. This was 3 in the afternoon, we continue on to our other appontiments. Later that day we have dinner at Bishops and he tells us that Nanay died. I was shocked cause I saw her that very day and she was alive! He said that her daughter tried to wake her up around 4ish but she didn't wake up, she died in her sleep! So basically I saw Nanay an hour before she died. My comp says that we should have tried to wake her up when we were their cause she was still alive. I personally am glad we didn't she is in a 100x's better place, she is probably actually happy right now! I am happy for her. I know that might sound weird, but she truly is in a better place!
So on to other news, we heard from the 2nd counceler in the in area presidency in Cauayan on saturday. He came to the mission home and gave us some training. He talked about how our investigators need to receive revalation and how they need to read the bom and how they need to be retaught the doctrine and then he answered any questions we had, it was great! He was super powerful, his wife was even better, talked about loving our compainons and fellow missionaries. Elder and Sister Nelson were great! Sorry I cant give you more details I am running out of time.
So for pday we went up to some falls in Maddela the lowest area in the mission, I am in Baluarte and that is about 1 hour by van to Maddela. Man the van ride on the way there and back is horrible...the fit 19 people into one regular sized van! I counted...it was 19. You come very close to those next to you. Anyways we had a great time, I was the only American in the group, it was great haha. Filipinos are great they are always happy and fun...I couldn't understand everything they were saying but...it was still fun, the water falls were beutifu;...well I am running out of time and got to go.
Love you
Elder James
cycle 3/ week 1
Kamusta kayo,
So this week was one of the weirdest, Elder Kelson went home, and I got my 2nd companion! Its weird without Elder Kelson here. Don't get me wrong my new comp is awesome! His name is Elder Alfonso, he is from Pangisinan, which is in the Philippines. So I got my first new Filipino comp. He is sweet, I couldn't be happier, he is hard working, a great great teacher, connects well with the members and the investigators, he is funny, taught me that I have been washing my clothes wrong the whole time pala! So this morning I learned the real and best way of how to wash clothes...hopefully my clothes will get a little cleaner then usual. My shirts are already really gross, there like a gross off white, like a light yellow...oh he also is teaching me how to cook Filipino food, which is nice cause Filipino food is delicious. I was talking to him about it and as Filipinos they have to have rice, every single meal! even breakfast, and he said that Americans have to always have bread or pasta...which is kinda true. We do eat a lot of pasta's and bread. Filipinos think that if there is no rice it is just a snack..so apparently in their eyes most Americans just snack their whole lives. Haha. Anyway Elder Alfonso is awesome, I'm already getting better at Tagalog, sometimes its hard with Tagalog, cause sometimes I will be able to have, and be able to carry a convo with someone, and I am like...oh pala I actually am not that bad a tagalog...then other times I have no clue what someone is even saying to me! and I feel like I suck at Tagalog...right now honestly I mostly just need to enlarge my vocab.
Anyway, this week what happened is, first on tuesday, Elder Kelson went around saying goodbyes to people and giving stuff away that he doesn't need anymore. Then Tuesday night we made a big fire and threw a whole bunch of trash and stuff away that Elder Kelson doesn't need anymore. A little cultural fact is, yeah Filipinos do have "trash people." But a lot of the trash they just burn, so the air is always dirty, and sometimes you'll look out and it looks like their is fog...no its smoke! Anyways so elder Kelson finished packing tuesday and then on wednesday he went to cauayan in the morning, I stayed in Santiago and went on splits with the ZL's but...elder Valdez was getting transferred, so he went around saying goodbye to people. Then later that night we had the departing missionaries farewell up in Cauayan. Then the next day was transfer day in Cauayan, that was nice seeing my other batch mates and other missionaries. Then I got my new comp, and we went home! Now finally Friday, back to normal schedule we were able to go out and teach and such. We kinda got punted on Friday and Saturday but that is okay the lessons we did teach were solid, Elder Alfonso is a great teacher!
To our investigators, So the Balagbaggans are doing good, I am kinda concerned for Nanay Balagbaggan, she really misses Elder Kelson, and I hope that doesn't affect her activity. She has a solid testimony and such. So right now I am really trying to involve her in lessons and make sure she still feels loved. What she really needs are hometeachers and more friends at Church. So Elder Alfonso and I talked to Philip about getting her those things. Tatay is doing great, he in two days has read like the first 20 chapters of the AnM, its pretty sick that he is doing that great!
We had a solid lesson with the Crisologo's this week, it was actually one of the cooler things thats happened so far since I have been out. It was Sunday and the Crisologo's live close to the Balagbaggans so after the lesson on the way out of the Balagbaggans I told Elder Alfonso that I wanted to stop by the Crisologo's before we left, and so we headed over there and they were both home and we asked them when we could come back and teach them, and Brother said that everyday but Sundays he's at the bukid. So Elder Alfonso was like could we teach you now. They reluctantly said yes...they are kind of mad at us because it had been such a long time since we visited, but they let us in, you could tell that neither one wanted us there. But they were to nice to say no. So we taught about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Spirit was super strong, it was such a great lesson. Then at the end we asked if they had any questions, and sister was like ya, she looked at her husband and...I thought she was gonna say she didn't want us to come back but nope she was like, "We have had a lot of missionaries here and we've been taught a lot, we couldn't get baptized cause we weren't married yet, but now we got married, and so we were wondering if we could get baptized!" We were like...whaaa, totally caught me off guard, then we talked about their marrige a little bit..apparently it was invalid, but what elder Alfonso and I are thinking is, if they start coming to Church and strengthening their testimonies, we can probably do a wedding before the baptism, because Bishop Pulido has the lisence to be able to Marry people and so the marriage would be free, we could have other members cook and such...so we could have a pretty legit marriage and baptism...depends on if we could teach them and if they come to church and ya...it was awesome. It showed me that if you follow the promptings of the spirit he will lead you to those who are ready. Cause the Crisologos weren't on our schedule and I wasn't thinking about visiting them until after the Balagbaggans...so it was a cool experiance...
Anyways other then that not much has happened just the same old same old. I am excited to keep on doing work, we already had someone come back to Church for 4 weeks..cause the rule here is, that if an inactive comes to Church 4 weeks in a row they are active again! So its cool to already see the success. The Gomez's are close to being active too!
So all in all everything is going good out here and I am happy to be a missionary. Oh I had a realization this week that was really cool! We were walking and I was leading cause I know where everyone is, and I had my head looking down at the ground cause it was really uneven, a lot of rock, muddy and a lot of "stumbling blocks", and it was dark. And I wasn't really watching where I was going, and we passed the street that we were supposed to turn on, and we walked quite away past the street. Then I looked up and realized how far away were. And had to go back. I realized that, sometimes thats what life is like, sometimes we are looking down, focusing on the rocks and mud, or the as a parallel the trials and hardships, and we get lost in them, just cause we don't look up at whats ahead. Always look up, no matter what, you don't want to miss things in your life just cause your focusing on the hard parts of life!
Mahal ko kayo lahat, patuloy yung pananampalataya ninyo at tandaan ninyo yung pagmamahal ng Diyos sa inyo sa puso ninyo palagi! (I love you all, continue in your faith, always remember the love of God for you in your hearts.)
mahal kita
ingat kayo
Elder James
So this week was one of the weirdest, Elder Kelson went home, and I got my 2nd companion! Its weird without Elder Kelson here. Don't get me wrong my new comp is awesome! His name is Elder Alfonso, he is from Pangisinan, which is in the Philippines. So I got my first new Filipino comp. He is sweet, I couldn't be happier, he is hard working, a great great teacher, connects well with the members and the investigators, he is funny, taught me that I have been washing my clothes wrong the whole time pala! So this morning I learned the real and best way of how to wash clothes...hopefully my clothes will get a little cleaner then usual. My shirts are already really gross, there like a gross off white, like a light yellow...oh he also is teaching me how to cook Filipino food, which is nice cause Filipino food is delicious. I was talking to him about it and as Filipinos they have to have rice, every single meal! even breakfast, and he said that Americans have to always have bread or pasta...which is kinda true. We do eat a lot of pasta's and bread. Filipinos think that if there is no rice it is just a snack..so apparently in their eyes most Americans just snack their whole lives. Haha. Anyway Elder Alfonso is awesome, I'm already getting better at Tagalog, sometimes its hard with Tagalog, cause sometimes I will be able to have, and be able to carry a convo with someone, and I am like...oh pala I actually am not that bad a tagalog...then other times I have no clue what someone is even saying to me! and I feel like I suck at Tagalog...right now honestly I mostly just need to enlarge my vocab.
Anyway, this week what happened is, first on tuesday, Elder Kelson went around saying goodbyes to people and giving stuff away that he doesn't need anymore. Then Tuesday night we made a big fire and threw a whole bunch of trash and stuff away that Elder Kelson doesn't need anymore. A little cultural fact is, yeah Filipinos do have "trash people." But a lot of the trash they just burn, so the air is always dirty, and sometimes you'll look out and it looks like their is fog...no its smoke! Anyways so elder Kelson finished packing tuesday and then on wednesday he went to cauayan in the morning, I stayed in Santiago and went on splits with the ZL's but...elder Valdez was getting transferred, so he went around saying goodbye to people. Then later that night we had the departing missionaries farewell up in Cauayan. Then the next day was transfer day in Cauayan, that was nice seeing my other batch mates and other missionaries. Then I got my new comp, and we went home! Now finally Friday, back to normal schedule we were able to go out and teach and such. We kinda got punted on Friday and Saturday but that is okay the lessons we did teach were solid, Elder Alfonso is a great teacher!
To our investigators, So the Balagbaggans are doing good, I am kinda concerned for Nanay Balagbaggan, she really misses Elder Kelson, and I hope that doesn't affect her activity. She has a solid testimony and such. So right now I am really trying to involve her in lessons and make sure she still feels loved. What she really needs are hometeachers and more friends at Church. So Elder Alfonso and I talked to Philip about getting her those things. Tatay is doing great, he in two days has read like the first 20 chapters of the AnM, its pretty sick that he is doing that great!
We had a solid lesson with the Crisologo's this week, it was actually one of the cooler things thats happened so far since I have been out. It was Sunday and the Crisologo's live close to the Balagbaggans so after the lesson on the way out of the Balagbaggans I told Elder Alfonso that I wanted to stop by the Crisologo's before we left, and so we headed over there and they were both home and we asked them when we could come back and teach them, and Brother said that everyday but Sundays he's at the bukid. So Elder Alfonso was like could we teach you now. They reluctantly said yes...they are kind of mad at us because it had been such a long time since we visited, but they let us in, you could tell that neither one wanted us there. But they were to nice to say no. So we taught about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the Spirit was super strong, it was such a great lesson. Then at the end we asked if they had any questions, and sister was like ya, she looked at her husband and...I thought she was gonna say she didn't want us to come back but nope she was like, "We have had a lot of missionaries here and we've been taught a lot, we couldn't get baptized cause we weren't married yet, but now we got married, and so we were wondering if we could get baptized!" We were like...whaaa, totally caught me off guard, then we talked about their marrige a little bit..apparently it was invalid, but what elder Alfonso and I are thinking is, if they start coming to Church and strengthening their testimonies, we can probably do a wedding before the baptism, because Bishop Pulido has the lisence to be able to Marry people and so the marriage would be free, we could have other members cook and such...so we could have a pretty legit marriage and baptism...depends on if we could teach them and if they come to church and ya...it was awesome. It showed me that if you follow the promptings of the spirit he will lead you to those who are ready. Cause the Crisologos weren't on our schedule and I wasn't thinking about visiting them until after the Balagbaggans...so it was a cool experiance...
Anyways other then that not much has happened just the same old same old. I am excited to keep on doing work, we already had someone come back to Church for 4 weeks..cause the rule here is, that if an inactive comes to Church 4 weeks in a row they are active again! So its cool to already see the success. The Gomez's are close to being active too!
So all in all everything is going good out here and I am happy to be a missionary. Oh I had a realization this week that was really cool! We were walking and I was leading cause I know where everyone is, and I had my head looking down at the ground cause it was really uneven, a lot of rock, muddy and a lot of "stumbling blocks", and it was dark. And I wasn't really watching where I was going, and we passed the street that we were supposed to turn on, and we walked quite away past the street. Then I looked up and realized how far away were. And had to go back. I realized that, sometimes thats what life is like, sometimes we are looking down, focusing on the rocks and mud, or the as a parallel the trials and hardships, and we get lost in them, just cause we don't look up at whats ahead. Always look up, no matter what, you don't want to miss things in your life just cause your focusing on the hard parts of life!
Mahal ko kayo lahat, patuloy yung pananampalataya ninyo at tandaan ninyo yung pagmamahal ng Diyos sa inyo sa puso ninyo palagi! (I love you all, continue in your faith, always remember the love of God for you in your hearts.)
mahal kita
ingat kayo
Elder James
Week 12
Kumusta!
This was a great week! Elder Kelsons last full week too! Man I'm getting a new companion this week, I'm not nervous....I am pretty positive that he is gonna be a Filipino, which is fine, I just don't know if I am ready to speak tagalog 24/7! This next coming cycle if I do get a Filipino comp I will probably learn tagalog faster and be better at it. Elder Kelson was a great missionary and everyone in the ward loved him so I hope I can kinda fill his shoes...We shall see. Honestly I've learned out here, things are only gonna be as good as you make them, if you want something to turn out good you have to put it all in. I decided this last week that I no matter what at the end of my mission I want to have no regrets, so every time I don't want to study or don't want to do what ever I think if I will regret the choice or not. It was during study I kinda looked back on my life and thought of some things that I wish I would have done, and decided that I am not gonna have anymore regrets like that! The Lord promises blessings but only if you are will to put in the effort to obtain them! That's something I have learned these first 12 weeks. Especially Tatay balagbaggan, he wants to be baptized but he cant receive that blessing until he does what it takes to quit drinking!
So on to our investigators, we had of course the baptism of Nanay Balagbaggan, that was awesome! First baptism of the mish! It was great the spirit was there and it was strong! The service went great, Kelson baptized her, I talked to her a little after the baptism and she said that she was happy and felt good now. I talked to Tatay, he said that he couldn't wait for his baptism and he said that he couldn't wait for his baptism and that he was happy for his wife! He isn't mad anymore just cant wait for his own baptism. He hasn't drunk for 2 weeks and is going into his 3rd week. Man after Nanays baptism she is so happy, every time I see her she is always smiling. Before she was a lot shyer and didn't smile as much, its cool to see how her heart has changed. She didn't even listen to the lessons back in the day she barely started listening before I arrived, and we have been teaching the Balagbaggans for over 1 1/2 years! The relief society did a great job fellow-shipping her too!! When we went over to their house on Sunday she kept on talking about all of the Relief Society activities coming up. Their family is changed so much. Tatays baptism is March 10 and we are gonna baptize their one of their kids too. She is 13 and she has come to Church 5 or 6 times and she went to the baptism and I think that we are gonna try to start teaching her the basics and baptize her with Tatay!
Rosanna, well we keep on having great lessons with her, and she is very interested, the only problem is that she is moving back to her parents house for a few months, and she moved on saturday so we lost her.
Sarah is doing good, she didn't go to church, I don't know why, all of our lessons with her have been pretty solid and she usually keeps all of her commitments.
The Leals, I don't really get them sometimes they are very into the lesson and sometimes they really get it, other times they don't even listen to us. The like it when we come over, and they like talking to us, and at different times both of them have said that they need to go to church...they just then never end up coming...so that kinda stinks..
The Gomez's might have become my favorite family this week, they are both super solid. They both listen and participate great in the lessons, Tatay said that he wants to go to the temple and they are both super nice. They love coming to Church...Nanay said that she is sad when they don't come to Church! They didn't come to Church this sunday though because it rained...it would amaze you how many people don't come to church...because of the rain...even if it is just a little mist.
We started teaching this one kid named Carmichael, he is the same age as Daniel a recent convert so like 16. Anyways we were teaching him this week, every now and then we stop by his house and teach him and this week he told us that he wants us to teach him more because he wants to be better and he wants to serve a mission. He received the Priesthood right before I got to Santiago. Then he went inactive and started drinking and kinda to a turn for the worse. But he wants to be better so we are gonna start teaching him and stuff. Strengthening that testimony!
That's most of what happened this week, we had zone conference on thursday, we learned more about the doctrine of Christ (2nephi 31). We also talked about the new program and how it is working and how we can improve it in our wards. It was combined Santiago Zone and Nuave Viscaya Zone and Elder Allen my old comp is in Viscaya so I got to talk to him. He has had 2 pasuway (disobedient) comps in a row...I kinda feel bad for him because I got a pretty good comp and a good area, everyone is telling me how spoiled I am in Baluarte and how when I go to a different area I will have a wake up call. Just cause the work is pretty good here, the ward is run pretty good and its close to Santiago a big city! I'll kinda of be disappointed when I get transferred out of it, so hopefully I will be here a little while longer! I am hoping for at least two more Cycles or..12 more weeks.
Our ward also had a farewell party for elder Kelson because he has been in the area for so long. It was great we played games, people sang some songs and then at the end people came up and said why they were greatful for elder kelson. Then elder Kelson said kinda a goodbye at the end and said thanks to everyone. Then we took pictures and left, about half the ward was there.
Not much happened other then that....for pday we didn't really have much to do, so we hooked up with the zone leaders in santiago and the ap's and we made a ton of water balloons and water ballooned some unsuspecting elders...we all got wet, I am still soaked right now as I email this.
Oh yeah yesterday too we got sooo soo stuffed. Because after church we went back to the Apartment had a snack their, went to this Nanays who always makes us lunch on Sundays. We then went to the Balagbaggans and they fed us their, then we went to Daniels and he gave us a snack their, then we had a appointment..we didn't get fed at (thank goodness) then we went to our dinner appointment at the Magallano's. And they always always make me eat sooo much, but I was already stuffed!
So anyways thanks for everything all the support and love, I guess next week when I email I will have a different companion!
Ingat kayo palagi
Mahal Kita
Elder James
This was a great week! Elder Kelsons last full week too! Man I'm getting a new companion this week, I'm not nervous....I am pretty positive that he is gonna be a Filipino, which is fine, I just don't know if I am ready to speak tagalog 24/7! This next coming cycle if I do get a Filipino comp I will probably learn tagalog faster and be better at it. Elder Kelson was a great missionary and everyone in the ward loved him so I hope I can kinda fill his shoes...We shall see. Honestly I've learned out here, things are only gonna be as good as you make them, if you want something to turn out good you have to put it all in. I decided this last week that I no matter what at the end of my mission I want to have no regrets, so every time I don't want to study or don't want to do what ever I think if I will regret the choice or not. It was during study I kinda looked back on my life and thought of some things that I wish I would have done, and decided that I am not gonna have anymore regrets like that! The Lord promises blessings but only if you are will to put in the effort to obtain them! That's something I have learned these first 12 weeks. Especially Tatay balagbaggan, he wants to be baptized but he cant receive that blessing until he does what it takes to quit drinking!
So on to our investigators, we had of course the baptism of Nanay Balagbaggan, that was awesome! First baptism of the mish! It was great the spirit was there and it was strong! The service went great, Kelson baptized her, I talked to her a little after the baptism and she said that she was happy and felt good now. I talked to Tatay, he said that he couldn't wait for his baptism and he said that he couldn't wait for his baptism and that he was happy for his wife! He isn't mad anymore just cant wait for his own baptism. He hasn't drunk for 2 weeks and is going into his 3rd week. Man after Nanays baptism she is so happy, every time I see her she is always smiling. Before she was a lot shyer and didn't smile as much, its cool to see how her heart has changed. She didn't even listen to the lessons back in the day she barely started listening before I arrived, and we have been teaching the Balagbaggans for over 1 1/2 years! The relief society did a great job fellow-shipping her too!! When we went over to their house on Sunday she kept on talking about all of the Relief Society activities coming up. Their family is changed so much. Tatays baptism is March 10 and we are gonna baptize their one of their kids too. She is 13 and she has come to Church 5 or 6 times and she went to the baptism and I think that we are gonna try to start teaching her the basics and baptize her with Tatay!
Rosanna, well we keep on having great lessons with her, and she is very interested, the only problem is that she is moving back to her parents house for a few months, and she moved on saturday so we lost her.
Sarah is doing good, she didn't go to church, I don't know why, all of our lessons with her have been pretty solid and she usually keeps all of her commitments.
The Leals, I don't really get them sometimes they are very into the lesson and sometimes they really get it, other times they don't even listen to us. The like it when we come over, and they like talking to us, and at different times both of them have said that they need to go to church...they just then never end up coming...so that kinda stinks..
The Gomez's might have become my favorite family this week, they are both super solid. They both listen and participate great in the lessons, Tatay said that he wants to go to the temple and they are both super nice. They love coming to Church...Nanay said that she is sad when they don't come to Church! They didn't come to Church this sunday though because it rained...it would amaze you how many people don't come to church...because of the rain...even if it is just a little mist.
We started teaching this one kid named Carmichael, he is the same age as Daniel a recent convert so like 16. Anyways we were teaching him this week, every now and then we stop by his house and teach him and this week he told us that he wants us to teach him more because he wants to be better and he wants to serve a mission. He received the Priesthood right before I got to Santiago. Then he went inactive and started drinking and kinda to a turn for the worse. But he wants to be better so we are gonna start teaching him and stuff. Strengthening that testimony!
That's most of what happened this week, we had zone conference on thursday, we learned more about the doctrine of Christ (2nephi 31). We also talked about the new program and how it is working and how we can improve it in our wards. It was combined Santiago Zone and Nuave Viscaya Zone and Elder Allen my old comp is in Viscaya so I got to talk to him. He has had 2 pasuway (disobedient) comps in a row...I kinda feel bad for him because I got a pretty good comp and a good area, everyone is telling me how spoiled I am in Baluarte and how when I go to a different area I will have a wake up call. Just cause the work is pretty good here, the ward is run pretty good and its close to Santiago a big city! I'll kinda of be disappointed when I get transferred out of it, so hopefully I will be here a little while longer! I am hoping for at least two more Cycles or..12 more weeks.
Our ward also had a farewell party for elder Kelson because he has been in the area for so long. It was great we played games, people sang some songs and then at the end people came up and said why they were greatful for elder kelson. Then elder Kelson said kinda a goodbye at the end and said thanks to everyone. Then we took pictures and left, about half the ward was there.
Not much happened other then that....for pday we didn't really have much to do, so we hooked up with the zone leaders in santiago and the ap's and we made a ton of water balloons and water ballooned some unsuspecting elders...we all got wet, I am still soaked right now as I email this.
Oh yeah yesterday too we got sooo soo stuffed. Because after church we went back to the Apartment had a snack their, went to this Nanays who always makes us lunch on Sundays. We then went to the Balagbaggans and they fed us their, then we went to Daniels and he gave us a snack their, then we had a appointment..we didn't get fed at (thank goodness) then we went to our dinner appointment at the Magallano's. And they always always make me eat sooo much, but I was already stuffed!
So anyways thanks for everything all the support and love, I guess next week when I email I will have a different companion!
Ingat kayo palagi
Mahal Kita
Elder James
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Week 11
Kumusta kayo,
This week was great...we getting busier and busier cause elder kelson is getting ready to go home and so he has alot of stuff to do. Ha members keep asking him for stuff. He said that he is gonnna get rid of some of it, like shirts and ties and stuff he doesn't really need to take home, but at the same time it is kinda annoying to him cause people keep asking him for stuff! That reminds me, the begging here is so ridiculous so many people come up to us and ask us for money...no all they do is stare at you and stick out their hand...i would like to help them but at times it like their almost just demanding money. Oh well they do have hard lives here but we aren't as missionaries allowed to give money out.
Anyways I have some very very very awesome news!! I will start at the beginning, Elder Sarignaya and I were together on splits this last tuesday in Baluarte, I was a little nervous for this mostly because Nanay Balagbaggan asked about what tithing was...and Elder Kelson wasn't going to be there to lead the lesson so I had to lead the lesson. So we got there and we started and we just used the Pamphlet to teach, so it could be a little more clear..we teach them the lesson go alright, I tell them that you dont pay tithing until you get baptized, and said that if they get baptized will they follow the law of tithing. They said yes, a couple days ago though elder kelson told nanay to pray about whether she was ready or not to get baptized..so on tuesday when we were over there I asked if she prayed, she said yes, I asked her what she felt and she said...she would tell us tomorrow...okay...? Anyways Elder Kelson and I go back on tuesday and honestly I cant even remember what we taught about...i think moroni 7:32? about how you can accomplish anything if you have faith. Anyways after the lesson elder kelson asks if Nanay got her answer..she said mamaya..which means later..we were like okay...talked to them a little, then right before we left nanay went up got a envelope said it was a "sr" or simple remembrance. We were like...okay thanks..? Then when we left elder kelson and I were like I think she wrote us letter about getting her answer!! And yup..we walked a little further sat on the road next to the bukid and read the letters, she said thanks for everything and our love patience and diligence, then said that she wanted to be baptized before elder kelson leaves!! so we are having a baptism for her this saturday the 18th! Tatay is very upset that she is getting baptized before him, on sunday we went over there and we talked about it and, before this he hadn't drunk for a whole week! Then on sunday he said he was so mad that she was getting baptized before him that he was gonna go drink when we left. Hahaha....oh Tatay. So elder kelson was like, if we have to sit here all night so you dont go drink we will...so thats excatly what we did, we arrived there at 5pm and we left at like 7:30ish...I played chess with his son and got rocked both times, we also talked to them got to know them a bit more...and best of all tatay didn't go drink! haha...i wouldn't really label that as a waste of time...but later elder kelson was like...Did we just take away his agency...idk! Other then that honestly not alot happened with our investigators this week, cause thursday we weren't able to work in our area cause elder kelson had career day in Cauayan at the mission home, so I went on splits with one of the elders in Santiago Elder Garcia. Then friday we had to weekly plan and wash clothes...by hand so that takes like 2 to 3 hours. Then saturday elder kelson is the district leader and so he had to go do a bunch of baptismal interviews...so we were out of our area a lot this week! The splits in Santiago were great though, we taught a bunch of solid lessons, its a bit different working with Filipinos then Americans...but most filipinos are great to work with their all funny!...most of them anyways haha!
Anyways hmmm not else much happened this week, last week I got this cool backpack made out of bamboo, or in tagalog its called Cauayan....hey our mission name is Cauayan...so in English we would be the Bamboo mission! Elder Kelson is in Banue... you should look up banue on google images , its awesome all the missionaries get to go there some point since its in our mission...it used to be considered a wonder of the world, i am here on splits again with sarignaya...oh i do have a funny story about him. So I have a wart on my hand and he saw it and was like hey I can get that off....I've been wanting to get rid of it for quite a while so I was like okay! So last night we were at the ZL's apartment that way elder kelson and valdez could get up early and just head straight up to banue since its such a long drive. So anyways we were at their house last night and what he did was he takes my hand sticks a needle in the wart and then takes a candle and heats up the needle! The needle was on fire and in my hand...it hurt so much...but after like 4 more times of him doing that..it started to ooze and he said that it should just fall of by Wednesday! It better that hurt so much for it not to work haha!
Anyways thats it for this week thanks for everything!
Mahal Kita Elder James!
This week was great...we getting busier and busier cause elder kelson is getting ready to go home and so he has alot of stuff to do. Ha members keep asking him for stuff. He said that he is gonnna get rid of some of it, like shirts and ties and stuff he doesn't really need to take home, but at the same time it is kinda annoying to him cause people keep asking him for stuff! That reminds me, the begging here is so ridiculous so many people come up to us and ask us for money...no all they do is stare at you and stick out their hand...i would like to help them but at times it like their almost just demanding money. Oh well they do have hard lives here but we aren't as missionaries allowed to give money out.
Anyways I have some very very very awesome news!! I will start at the beginning, Elder Sarignaya and I were together on splits this last tuesday in Baluarte, I was a little nervous for this mostly because Nanay Balagbaggan asked about what tithing was...and Elder Kelson wasn't going to be there to lead the lesson so I had to lead the lesson. So we got there and we started and we just used the Pamphlet to teach, so it could be a little more clear..we teach them the lesson go alright, I tell them that you dont pay tithing until you get baptized, and said that if they get baptized will they follow the law of tithing. They said yes, a couple days ago though elder kelson told nanay to pray about whether she was ready or not to get baptized..so on tuesday when we were over there I asked if she prayed, she said yes, I asked her what she felt and she said...she would tell us tomorrow...okay...? Anyways Elder Kelson and I go back on tuesday and honestly I cant even remember what we taught about...i think moroni 7:32? about how you can accomplish anything if you have faith. Anyways after the lesson elder kelson asks if Nanay got her answer..she said mamaya..which means later..we were like okay...talked to them a little, then right before we left nanay went up got a envelope said it was a "sr" or simple remembrance. We were like...okay thanks..? Then when we left elder kelson and I were like I think she wrote us letter about getting her answer!! And yup..we walked a little further sat on the road next to the bukid and read the letters, she said thanks for everything and our love patience and diligence, then said that she wanted to be baptized before elder kelson leaves!! so we are having a baptism for her this saturday the 18th! Tatay is very upset that she is getting baptized before him, on sunday we went over there and we talked about it and, before this he hadn't drunk for a whole week! Then on sunday he said he was so mad that she was getting baptized before him that he was gonna go drink when we left. Hahaha....oh Tatay. So elder kelson was like, if we have to sit here all night so you dont go drink we will...so thats excatly what we did, we arrived there at 5pm and we left at like 7:30ish...I played chess with his son and got rocked both times, we also talked to them got to know them a bit more...and best of all tatay didn't go drink! haha...i wouldn't really label that as a waste of time...but later elder kelson was like...Did we just take away his agency...idk! Other then that honestly not alot happened with our investigators this week, cause thursday we weren't able to work in our area cause elder kelson had career day in Cauayan at the mission home, so I went on splits with one of the elders in Santiago Elder Garcia. Then friday we had to weekly plan and wash clothes...by hand so that takes like 2 to 3 hours. Then saturday elder kelson is the district leader and so he had to go do a bunch of baptismal interviews...so we were out of our area a lot this week! The splits in Santiago were great though, we taught a bunch of solid lessons, its a bit different working with Filipinos then Americans...but most filipinos are great to work with their all funny!...most of them anyways haha!
Anyways hmmm not else much happened this week, last week I got this cool backpack made out of bamboo, or in tagalog its called Cauayan....hey our mission name is Cauayan...so in English we would be the Bamboo mission! Elder Kelson is in Banue... you should look up banue on google images , its awesome all the missionaries get to go there some point since its in our mission...it used to be considered a wonder of the world, i am here on splits again with sarignaya...oh i do have a funny story about him. So I have a wart on my hand and he saw it and was like hey I can get that off....I've been wanting to get rid of it for quite a while so I was like okay! So last night we were at the ZL's apartment that way elder kelson and valdez could get up early and just head straight up to banue since its such a long drive. So anyways we were at their house last night and what he did was he takes my hand sticks a needle in the wart and then takes a candle and heats up the needle! The needle was on fire and in my hand...it hurt so much...but after like 4 more times of him doing that..it started to ooze and he said that it should just fall of by Wednesday! It better that hurt so much for it not to work haha!
Anyways thats it for this week thanks for everything!
Mahal Kita Elder James!
Week 10
Kumusta Pamilya!
Well the weeks are getting faster and faster, Elder Kelson is running out of time, and we are getting busier. Elder Kelson has to do a whole bunch this week, we are doing splits one tuesday, I'll go with Elder Sarignaya a new Filipino Zone Leader, (Elder Vinyas the old zone leader in santiago got emergency transferred, because him and elder valdez weren't getting along at all!) Elder Sarignaya is legit though I am excited. Then on thursday I am doing splits with Elder Cajumba one of the Ap's because, they do a career day for all of of the departing missionaries and since elder kelson and elder katoa (the other ap) are leaving soon, they are gonna go to the career day up in cauayan and elder cajumba and I are gonna stay in Baluarte. So ya alot of splits this week. Lucky for me they are both solid missionaries obviously. Their both pretty sick I am excited to go with them, kinda nervous cause I will have to be the one who knows the area and such.
Oh also this week we had zone day, so on tuesday our whole zone went to Cauayan and, it was mostly just a day to relax, we made this sick Filipinos food, called tortalnalon...or something like that, ya bbq the eggplant then peel it then throw her on a pan over the stove then ya put some onions and peppers and wisk up some eggs and put that on there too, and ya got tortatalone. Then we also had this delicous Filipino dessert, called grayham, oh man it was sooo good, i have no idea how to explain how to make it but it was great! Anyways that day we also had interviews with President, then we watched 17 miracles a new church movie. Then we went back to our areas. By the time we got back, it was late and we were only able to teach the balagbaggans. Oh I also found out in my interview that my next companion is probably gonna be a Filipino and the new district leader...probably...not 100% right now!
This week was pretty disappointing, with a couple of our investigators, but at the same time we had some great lessons and we picked up a great new investigator and had a fun adventure too! So anyways on to the bad news first. Richard finally asked his dad if he could get baptized, but his dad said no, because Richard was baptized when he was a baby in the Catholic church and his dad doesn't think that he needs to be. When Richard told us that he acted really sad and ya all we could do was encourage him to keep going to Church. Right now Elder Kelson have no clue what to do with Richard because I personally have never seen Richards dad he has never been home when I have been home, and so we cant talk to him, and Richard doesn't know really what to say....so for now Richard isn't getting baptized.
Then John Nicole our next investigator moved back to live with his parents so we cant teach him anymore and he isn't going to get baptized with us. I think the Rizal sisters are gonna continue teaching him and hopefully baptize him some day. Also hopefully the sisters will be able to teach the whole family, since john nicoles family aren't members.
Sarah is doing good we were able to teach her this week, and she read the entire pamphlet and when ever we asked her any questions all of her answers were very good. We had a very good spiritual lesson with her this week, we challenged her to Pray about Joseph Smith, and she said that she didn't think that the Lord would answer her prayers since she hadn't been to Church in awhile and didn't feel like she deserved an answer. We told her that the Lord wants her to go to Church, we told her that we know God wants her to ask Him, and will answer her pray as long as she has a sincere heart (or taos puso, in tagalog!) She also came to Church this sunday.
Next Sister Villanazo, we haven't been able to teach her this week and she didn't come to Church, so hopefully we will have better luck teaching them this week.
Next the Leal's they have been good this week, we had some solid lessons with them, def could feel the spirit, sister leal said that she needs to go to Church, Brother Leal I think is still afraid to go back.
The Balagbaggans have been great this week, we taught them about the Plan of Salvation. Very slowly we went over it, and we taught it simply and tried to make it as clear as possible. They both understood it, and a big lesson that we had with them this week was when we were talking about our life on earth and the atonement, we talked about how when we are on earth we need to prepare to meet God and do the things in this life to be able to gain salvation. We said that through the gospel of Christ we can return, and the gospel of Christ includes Baptism...and Nanay Balagbaggan said to us that she wanted to make sure that she was ready for baptism and know that this Church is true before she commits to it. She also asked how she can get ready for baptism. She came to Church again this Sunday and stayed for all three hours again. So she is progressing quite well. Tatay is doing okay, the he didnt drink all week daw. He said that he wanted to baptized but we wont let him, haha we want him to obivously but he needs to quite drinking...oh pala i forgot about yesterdays lesson it was great. We show up with Philip around 3:30 and when we got there we were looking for Nanay but she wasn't there, then finally Tatay finds her and she comes in and sits down...I looked at her and you could tell that she had been crying earlier. We ask her how she is and she starts crying!! We asked Tatay what happened he didnt know, and Nanay wouldnt tell us. We were gonna share Ether 12:6 about the trial of our faith...but we decided that we should probably change our scripture so we shared Alma 40:3-4 I think, about how through faith and this religion we could get through anything. Then Philip, Kelson and I all testified about how the gospel has blessed our lives and we testified about the Atonement and through it we could get through anything. The spirit was so strong. I think it was just what Nanay needed to her, she was smiling again by the time we left! So that was a great lesson.
Daniel a recent convert of Kelson's that was baptized right before I arrived, anyway we teach him everynow and then and we are trying to point him towards a mission, he is only 16 but he has a very strong testimony and he always invites is less active friends to Church. Yesterday he bore his testimony, and elder kelson started crying haha! He also bore his testimony it was super strong, I gonna miss him when he is gone thats for sure.
Anyways to our new investigator Vincent...i believe there is a pic of him, he is the one in the blue and his girlfriend is in the white. Anyway form the begining. They showed up to church last sunday and the brother said that he wanted to be taught, his girlfriend is already a member. Anyways he said that he wanted to be taught. They told us that they live all the way out in Purok 5 in Baluarte, so far away in the mountains. I had never been up the far before. So anyways we leave for there at like 2:30ish from the balagbaggans and we get to purok 5 and we ask around where they live, and no one even recognizes the name, so we are way up there we are walking on the main road and see some guy we ask him if he knows them, he says yes and tells us that we need to go back down the road again and turn. So we do and we are walking and we see them on the road, they were doing something with brothers Tricycle. Anyway we go back into their house and start teaching them. The lesson went great, Vincent is 19 and this girlfriend is 25, his girlfriend is already a member and they just moved in from manila. Vincent is very interested, he asked us when he could be baptized. haha. He is hard to understand because people from Manila have different accents and they speak faster. Anyways on saturday again we went back up there to teach them again and no one was home so we start heading back and we see him driving back up, but he is by himself, we talk to him a little bit and he says that he and his g.f. went to the hospital and she was apparently prego, but the baby already miscarried so early in the pregnancy. So I dont know how elder kelson and I are gonna handle this. Cause they obviously have a law of Chastity problem and I know that brother has a w.o.w. problem with cigarettes. So they will be fun to teach, very interested, the Lord der guided our paths to being able to find them, cause we might not have been able to find their house if they hadn't been out in the street when we were walking, and we also were able to talk to brother about the Pregnancy thing so ya...
Anyway we also were able to teach Rosanne this week, she is doing good, there weren't as many kids watching us this time. But she does have a gay Friend that sat in on the lesson...that was awkward. he said he was gonna come to Church too, and he was gonna show up to Church in a Skirt... thankfully he didn't..first time I didn't want someone to come to Church. As great as the members are I know that someone would have said something to him and offended him. Unfortunatly sister didn't come to Church either, but she has her hands full with a kid and she is buntis (prego) too! She too is very interested though.
Not much else happened this week, Elder Landeen and his comp had 9 baptisms on saturday, I am glad to see him having success. Even though it is hard when Elder Kelson and I work hard everyday and dont have quiet the same success. Thats okay though baptisms are great, but we cant get caught up in the numbers, and we cant get discouraged when we see other peoples success.
Well thanks for everything I hope you enjoy the pictures
Ingat po
Mahal Kita
Elder James
Well the weeks are getting faster and faster, Elder Kelson is running out of time, and we are getting busier. Elder Kelson has to do a whole bunch this week, we are doing splits one tuesday, I'll go with Elder Sarignaya a new Filipino Zone Leader, (Elder Vinyas the old zone leader in santiago got emergency transferred, because him and elder valdez weren't getting along at all!) Elder Sarignaya is legit though I am excited. Then on thursday I am doing splits with Elder Cajumba one of the Ap's because, they do a career day for all of of the departing missionaries and since elder kelson and elder katoa (the other ap) are leaving soon, they are gonna go to the career day up in cauayan and elder cajumba and I are gonna stay in Baluarte. So ya alot of splits this week. Lucky for me they are both solid missionaries obviously. Their both pretty sick I am excited to go with them, kinda nervous cause I will have to be the one who knows the area and such.
Oh also this week we had zone day, so on tuesday our whole zone went to Cauayan and, it was mostly just a day to relax, we made this sick Filipinos food, called tortalnalon...or something like that, ya bbq the eggplant then peel it then throw her on a pan over the stove then ya put some onions and peppers and wisk up some eggs and put that on there too, and ya got tortatalone. Then we also had this delicous Filipino dessert, called grayham, oh man it was sooo good, i have no idea how to explain how to make it but it was great! Anyways that day we also had interviews with President, then we watched 17 miracles a new church movie. Then we went back to our areas. By the time we got back, it was late and we were only able to teach the balagbaggans. Oh I also found out in my interview that my next companion is probably gonna be a Filipino and the new district leader...probably...not 100% right now!
This week was pretty disappointing, with a couple of our investigators, but at the same time we had some great lessons and we picked up a great new investigator and had a fun adventure too! So anyways on to the bad news first. Richard finally asked his dad if he could get baptized, but his dad said no, because Richard was baptized when he was a baby in the Catholic church and his dad doesn't think that he needs to be. When Richard told us that he acted really sad and ya all we could do was encourage him to keep going to Church. Right now Elder Kelson have no clue what to do with Richard because I personally have never seen Richards dad he has never been home when I have been home, and so we cant talk to him, and Richard doesn't know really what to say....so for now Richard isn't getting baptized.
Then John Nicole our next investigator moved back to live with his parents so we cant teach him anymore and he isn't going to get baptized with us. I think the Rizal sisters are gonna continue teaching him and hopefully baptize him some day. Also hopefully the sisters will be able to teach the whole family, since john nicoles family aren't members.
Sarah is doing good we were able to teach her this week, and she read the entire pamphlet and when ever we asked her any questions all of her answers were very good. We had a very good spiritual lesson with her this week, we challenged her to Pray about Joseph Smith, and she said that she didn't think that the Lord would answer her prayers since she hadn't been to Church in awhile and didn't feel like she deserved an answer. We told her that the Lord wants her to go to Church, we told her that we know God wants her to ask Him, and will answer her pray as long as she has a sincere heart (or taos puso, in tagalog!) She also came to Church this sunday.
Next Sister Villanazo, we haven't been able to teach her this week and she didn't come to Church, so hopefully we will have better luck teaching them this week.
Next the Leal's they have been good this week, we had some solid lessons with them, def could feel the spirit, sister leal said that she needs to go to Church, Brother Leal I think is still afraid to go back.
The Balagbaggans have been great this week, we taught them about the Plan of Salvation. Very slowly we went over it, and we taught it simply and tried to make it as clear as possible. They both understood it, and a big lesson that we had with them this week was when we were talking about our life on earth and the atonement, we talked about how when we are on earth we need to prepare to meet God and do the things in this life to be able to gain salvation. We said that through the gospel of Christ we can return, and the gospel of Christ includes Baptism...and Nanay Balagbaggan said to us that she wanted to make sure that she was ready for baptism and know that this Church is true before she commits to it. She also asked how she can get ready for baptism. She came to Church again this Sunday and stayed for all three hours again. So she is progressing quite well. Tatay is doing okay, the he didnt drink all week daw. He said that he wanted to baptized but we wont let him, haha we want him to obivously but he needs to quite drinking...oh pala i forgot about yesterdays lesson it was great. We show up with Philip around 3:30 and when we got there we were looking for Nanay but she wasn't there, then finally Tatay finds her and she comes in and sits down...I looked at her and you could tell that she had been crying earlier. We ask her how she is and she starts crying!! We asked Tatay what happened he didnt know, and Nanay wouldnt tell us. We were gonna share Ether 12:6 about the trial of our faith...but we decided that we should probably change our scripture so we shared Alma 40:3-4 I think, about how through faith and this religion we could get through anything. Then Philip, Kelson and I all testified about how the gospel has blessed our lives and we testified about the Atonement and through it we could get through anything. The spirit was so strong. I think it was just what Nanay needed to her, she was smiling again by the time we left! So that was a great lesson.
Daniel a recent convert of Kelson's that was baptized right before I arrived, anyway we teach him everynow and then and we are trying to point him towards a mission, he is only 16 but he has a very strong testimony and he always invites is less active friends to Church. Yesterday he bore his testimony, and elder kelson started crying haha! He also bore his testimony it was super strong, I gonna miss him when he is gone thats for sure.
Anyways to our new investigator Vincent...i believe there is a pic of him, he is the one in the blue and his girlfriend is in the white. Anyway form the begining. They showed up to church last sunday and the brother said that he wanted to be taught, his girlfriend is already a member. Anyways he said that he wanted to be taught. They told us that they live all the way out in Purok 5 in Baluarte, so far away in the mountains. I had never been up the far before. So anyways we leave for there at like 2:30ish from the balagbaggans and we get to purok 5 and we ask around where they live, and no one even recognizes the name, so we are way up there we are walking on the main road and see some guy we ask him if he knows them, he says yes and tells us that we need to go back down the road again and turn. So we do and we are walking and we see them on the road, they were doing something with brothers Tricycle. Anyway we go back into their house and start teaching them. The lesson went great, Vincent is 19 and this girlfriend is 25, his girlfriend is already a member and they just moved in from manila. Vincent is very interested, he asked us when he could be baptized. haha. He is hard to understand because people from Manila have different accents and they speak faster. Anyways on saturday again we went back up there to teach them again and no one was home so we start heading back and we see him driving back up, but he is by himself, we talk to him a little bit and he says that he and his g.f. went to the hospital and she was apparently prego, but the baby already miscarried so early in the pregnancy. So I dont know how elder kelson and I are gonna handle this. Cause they obviously have a law of Chastity problem and I know that brother has a w.o.w. problem with cigarettes. So they will be fun to teach, very interested, the Lord der guided our paths to being able to find them, cause we might not have been able to find their house if they hadn't been out in the street when we were walking, and we also were able to talk to brother about the Pregnancy thing so ya...
Anyway we also were able to teach Rosanne this week, she is doing good, there weren't as many kids watching us this time. But she does have a gay Friend that sat in on the lesson...that was awkward. he said he was gonna come to Church too, and he was gonna show up to Church in a Skirt... thankfully he didn't..first time I didn't want someone to come to Church. As great as the members are I know that someone would have said something to him and offended him. Unfortunatly sister didn't come to Church either, but she has her hands full with a kid and she is buntis (prego) too! She too is very interested though.
Not much else happened this week, Elder Landeen and his comp had 9 baptisms on saturday, I am glad to see him having success. Even though it is hard when Elder Kelson and I work hard everyday and dont have quiet the same success. Thats okay though baptisms are great, but we cant get caught up in the numbers, and we cant get discouraged when we see other peoples success.
Well thanks for everything I hope you enjoy the pictures
Ingat po
Mahal Kita
Elder James
Week 9
Kumusta kayo,
This week was great probably one of the fastest weeks so far! but great. We got some decent work done, a little disappointing at times. Either cause investigators not being home or not keeping commitments or what not. But thats okay it was still a fun week.
First things first Balagbaggan of course. Their doing alright, there is some good news then some bad with them it kinda been hard, cause Tatay Balagbaggan has hit a wall he isn't really progressing anymore and he is still having a problem drinking...like everynight, he said its hard cause if his knees weren't messed up he could keep busy, but he cant do anything cause his knees are jacked. So he sits around everyday and is always bored. Then when his buds come around and ask him if he wants to drink he does because its better then sitting around. We don't know what to do with him, and now we are at the point where we cant drop him, 1. because we love him and dropping him would be so stinking hard for us, 2. because Nanay is just boosting forward in her progression. and if we dropped Tay we couldn't teach Nanay anymore! Nanay is doing so good, she has come to Church 3 weeks in a row, she tells the other missionaries that come to her house to go away. And yesterday when we were teaching them about baptism, we didn't really commit them to a date but we told them about it told them that it was necessary. So we taught them about that then Nanay before we left said that if she was to be baptized she would have to be sure that this is the true Church. She says she thinks it is but isn't 100% percent sure, cause she doesn't want to baptized just to be baptized, she wants to make sure its what she wants, so she doesn't flake out after she is baptized. So we were stoked when she said that, cause she is right she has to come to know for herself.
John Nicole, we weren't able to teach him at all this week, both times that we went over to his house he wasn't home. And he didn't show up to Church on sunday he went into Santiago to spend the weekend with his Fam, cause he is living in Balintacatoc with his Grandparents. So since he didn't come to Church, his baptizm date of Feb 18 is gonna have to be moved back. Because the rule here in the Philippines is you have to come to Church 4 times and you can't miss Church once or else you start the 4 weeks over.
Sister Villanazo wasn't home when we went to go teach her on tuesday or thursday, and she also didn't go to Church, so her date is getting moved back.
Sarah stayed with her aunt all week so we weren't able to teach her either, and she also didn't come to Church, so her date is gonna get moved back too.
Richard...yay good news, he asked his dad if he could get baptized, and his dad said yes. So were gonna dunk him the 18th. Since we gave him a date, he always says in his prayers now that he is gratful and excited to be baptized! So thats cool!
We picked a new investigator this week it was awesome, her name is Rosanna, what happened is we were going to Sarah's house to teach her, she wasn't there so we decide to head back to the apartment, and eat dinner. On our way back, this one lady yells, "Hey why haven't you returned?". I was like what, I have never talked to you before. Apparently Kelson and his old comp oym-ed her before and got a return appointment, but then when they went back they couldn't find her home. Anyways we turn around talk to her set up a return appointment, find where her house it and then on thursday we go back to teach her. We show up and start talking to her, and out of nowhere like 20 kids show up. And just stare at elder kelson and me, they start touching me and my hair, it was weird...I was like what are you doing?? Anyways we decide that before we start teaching we should just going inside, and teach her and her brother too! Anyways most of the kids leave, we start teaching a super strong and spiritual lesson, way solid. All of the kids eventually return, and actually come inside and just start staring again. Anyways we close it, get a return appointment and leave, that was a bazaar experiance, that has never happened to me before. All those kids stared at me like I was an alien haha, they just stood there, mouths open, eyes big, hands to the side, staring...haha. The life of a white person in a third world country! You literally cant go anywhere without someone saying something, or staring.
Now this week we also found that we have a mouse problem! There is mouse poop in our apartment and I saw it one time when we came in at night. So what we did was, one night we wanted to have a little taste test. See what it liked. So we got a piece of paper put some peanut butter, mayo, macaroni salad and a piece of sandwich on it. And we set it out at night to see what it liked. It took the whole entire sandwich, and some of the macaroni salad, none of the pb, or mayo. So then the next day we bought a mouse trap at the palanke. The first night we put macaroni salad on it, and some how it ate some of it without triggering the mouse trap. So then the next night we put a little piece of old chedder cheese on it, but it got all of the cheese without setting off the trap!! I dont know how, its a little wizard. Before we left the apartment this morning we set it up again, I hope we go back to a dead mouse! That'd make my pday.
Anyways for pday what we did was, Philip got a job at a local bakery. So he invited us to go and work with them him at the bakery this morning. So we went there and tried to help make bread, and failed, it was hard, I couldn't do it, it was fun trying though. We tried some Pandasal bread which is this super super tasty Filipino bread! So good, I am def gonna miss that bread. Anyways that was great the people who worked there were of course nice. They also fed us breakfast.
Welp thats basically the week for ya! Thanks for everything and all the support and stuff!
Mahal Kita
Elder James
This week was great probably one of the fastest weeks so far! but great. We got some decent work done, a little disappointing at times. Either cause investigators not being home or not keeping commitments or what not. But thats okay it was still a fun week.
First things first Balagbaggan of course. Their doing alright, there is some good news then some bad with them it kinda been hard, cause Tatay Balagbaggan has hit a wall he isn't really progressing anymore and he is still having a problem drinking...like everynight, he said its hard cause if his knees weren't messed up he could keep busy, but he cant do anything cause his knees are jacked. So he sits around everyday and is always bored. Then when his buds come around and ask him if he wants to drink he does because its better then sitting around. We don't know what to do with him, and now we are at the point where we cant drop him, 1. because we love him and dropping him would be so stinking hard for us, 2. because Nanay is just boosting forward in her progression. and if we dropped Tay we couldn't teach Nanay anymore! Nanay is doing so good, she has come to Church 3 weeks in a row, she tells the other missionaries that come to her house to go away. And yesterday when we were teaching them about baptism, we didn't really commit them to a date but we told them about it told them that it was necessary. So we taught them about that then Nanay before we left said that if she was to be baptized she would have to be sure that this is the true Church. She says she thinks it is but isn't 100% percent sure, cause she doesn't want to baptized just to be baptized, she wants to make sure its what she wants, so she doesn't flake out after she is baptized. So we were stoked when she said that, cause she is right she has to come to know for herself.
John Nicole, we weren't able to teach him at all this week, both times that we went over to his house he wasn't home. And he didn't show up to Church on sunday he went into Santiago to spend the weekend with his Fam, cause he is living in Balintacatoc with his Grandparents. So since he didn't come to Church, his baptizm date of Feb 18 is gonna have to be moved back. Because the rule here in the Philippines is you have to come to Church 4 times and you can't miss Church once or else you start the 4 weeks over.
Sister Villanazo wasn't home when we went to go teach her on tuesday or thursday, and she also didn't go to Church, so her date is getting moved back.
Sarah stayed with her aunt all week so we weren't able to teach her either, and she also didn't come to Church, so her date is gonna get moved back too.
Richard...yay good news, he asked his dad if he could get baptized, and his dad said yes. So were gonna dunk him the 18th. Since we gave him a date, he always says in his prayers now that he is gratful and excited to be baptized! So thats cool!
We picked a new investigator this week it was awesome, her name is Rosanna, what happened is we were going to Sarah's house to teach her, she wasn't there so we decide to head back to the apartment, and eat dinner. On our way back, this one lady yells, "Hey why haven't you returned?". I was like what, I have never talked to you before. Apparently Kelson and his old comp oym-ed her before and got a return appointment, but then when they went back they couldn't find her home. Anyways we turn around talk to her set up a return appointment, find where her house it and then on thursday we go back to teach her. We show up and start talking to her, and out of nowhere like 20 kids show up. And just stare at elder kelson and me, they start touching me and my hair, it was weird...I was like what are you doing?? Anyways we decide that before we start teaching we should just going inside, and teach her and her brother too! Anyways most of the kids leave, we start teaching a super strong and spiritual lesson, way solid. All of the kids eventually return, and actually come inside and just start staring again. Anyways we close it, get a return appointment and leave, that was a bazaar experiance, that has never happened to me before. All those kids stared at me like I was an alien haha, they just stood there, mouths open, eyes big, hands to the side, staring...haha. The life of a white person in a third world country! You literally cant go anywhere without someone saying something, or staring.
Now this week we also found that we have a mouse problem! There is mouse poop in our apartment and I saw it one time when we came in at night. So what we did was, one night we wanted to have a little taste test. See what it liked. So we got a piece of paper put some peanut butter, mayo, macaroni salad and a piece of sandwich on it. And we set it out at night to see what it liked. It took the whole entire sandwich, and some of the macaroni salad, none of the pb, or mayo. So then the next day we bought a mouse trap at the palanke. The first night we put macaroni salad on it, and some how it ate some of it without triggering the mouse trap. So then the next night we put a little piece of old chedder cheese on it, but it got all of the cheese without setting off the trap!! I dont know how, its a little wizard. Before we left the apartment this morning we set it up again, I hope we go back to a dead mouse! That'd make my pday.
Anyways for pday what we did was, Philip got a job at a local bakery. So he invited us to go and work with them him at the bakery this morning. So we went there and tried to help make bread, and failed, it was hard, I couldn't do it, it was fun trying though. We tried some Pandasal bread which is this super super tasty Filipino bread! So good, I am def gonna miss that bread. Anyways that was great the people who worked there were of course nice. They also fed us breakfast.
Welp thats basically the week for ya! Thanks for everything and all the support and stuff!
Mahal Kita
Elder James
Week 8
Kumusta pamiliya ko,
This week was great, probably one of the best, sooo much happened! i hope i can remember it all!
First of all our investigators! Tatay Balagbaggan this week told us that he has been drinking every single day for the past two weeks, he was def drunk when he told us that too, that literally crushed us. Cause we just came from the villinazos and we were like before we go to din lets stop by balagbaggan cause earlier that day he wasn't there when we stopped by. So anyways we were walking and we head in to the path way to his house and we look to the right and there are a bunch of people drinking and we were like "is tay over there??" but to our great relief he wasn't. so we were like "Ya tay is staying sober." Not so. We go to his house and we walk in and say hi sit down..elder kelson does his joke he says every time, kumusta ka? buhay pa? which means how are you? still alive? haha i don't know why that's funny but everyone always laughs. anyway we sit down and start..after a while elder kelson leans over and was like "I can smell alcohol in his breath." boom game over, we asked and he said that he has been drinking everyday! gaaaaa! means tay isn't gonna get baptized before elder kelson leaves. But! I do have some good news nanay balagbaggan came to church again, the lesson we committed her was bonkers. We read her alma 37:17 and say that the Lord promises us blessings when we keep the commandments and going to church is a commandment. He promised her that if she doesn't go to the palanke (market) and sell, and comes to church instead that the next time she sells she will ubos. (sell everything) she was like i need to sell or else i cant feed my family. We were just like do you trust in God, she said yes, then we were like well then show him, exercise your faith and come to Church...and that is what she did she came to Church! We are going back tomorrow to follow up and everything. The crisologo's have been a bit hard recently, idk why, cause every lesson we have is super solid and they say every time that they can feel the spirit and that they know the Church is true, but then brother crisologo is never home, always working in the bukid and then when we did get to teach them this week they weren't really interested...i don't understand it, we cant teach them once every week or two. we gotta find out something better. Next sister Villenazo, she is doing alright, it is also hard to teach her cause her husband is always working too, and so we cant teach her alone. We went over to her house this week and she said that she was going to get baptized before elder kelson leaves. And she might her date is feb 18 and she has been to Church 2 weeks in a row. We just gotta keep on teaching her, she has already been taught, but we figured that we should teach her again so one we could build her faith two she can just have a solid knowledge of everything. But thatd be awesome if she was magpapabinyag (baptized). John nicole is prob our best investigator, he is keeping commitments finally and he comes to church every sunday and we just taught w.o.w. He doesn't have any problem there thank goodness! Then there is sarah she is doing alright. We were able to teach he twice this week and she is doing alright. Didn't come to church. So prob isn't gonna hit her date of feb 18. Richard..well is richard still. He is def handicapped. This week we were teaching him and he prayed and all he said was "O Diyos, Richard velasco sa akin, salamat po sa akin. Amen" hahaha all that is, is "Oh God, I am Richard Velasco, and I am thankful." haha good ol Richard. Once he yelled while praying I couldnt stop laughing. Usually we try to get he brother in on the lessons, that's the biggest reason why we are trying to teach richard is cause his brother is interested he just, isn't always home when we go over...even though richard is. But ya richard is def gonna be baptized on feb 18 as long as he keeps on coming to church..and so far he hasn't missed one since I have been here. We picked up a new investigator this week too...sorry I cant remember his name..some hard Filipino name...Anyways there is a good story behind that. So his family just moved into Baluarte and in Bishops office during Church we met them. The wife is a member and so is the Mom, he isnt but he wants to be taught. So after Church we go with them and they kinda showed us where they live. We were walking with them and sister pointed and was like "Yung bahay namin doon" Which means thats our house there. We saw this little house just surrounded by the bukid (rice patties) and we were like...okay...it was this little beat up worn down shack...so we were like okay we will be back at 3:00 sa hapon (afternoon.) We return with Philip a member. And we go to the shack...and it is in the middle of the bukid and we get there and we are like there is no way that this is their house,it was completely run down and had stuff growing in it. So instead of doing the smart thing and going back on the solid path road thingy. We were like lets just go through the Bukid. Which is super muddy and wet..but they have these little strips of "solid" pathway to walk on. Should have been easy, we were gonna save us some time....nope! We were going and the "solid pathways" were super super muddy and I fell in the muddy bukid a couple times...then eventually took off my shows and rolled up my pants. End of the story is that I was super muddy, pants shirt, tie, hands, legs, everything. We got to the investigators house eventually and they started laughing and said that there is a good part of the canal that we can wash off in...so we went washed off and taught a weird lesson...mostly cause they were both breastfeeding during it..which is normal here.... Its weird cause in the middle of a lesson boom! they will just start. My comp is like eyes in the skys, when that happens...bleh! Gross!
Oh one of the best parts of the week too! So what our ward council decided to do during ward council, is for all of the in-actives we were gonna do a fhe with them. So on Saturday we went to the Gomez's house and had a solid fhe, played games had some great spiritual thoughts!...by the members too. (People rely alot on the missionaries here.) Anyway at the end of the Fhe, I was saying bye to Tatay Gomez and he was like see you in Church tomorrow. And he came too. Tatay is great, he is this old man who is blind as a bat and his knees are junk. But he has a ton of faith, and he is a ex-drug dealer. He was one of the biggest one's in Santiago in his day...not anymore ha! Anyway they have this guy named "Preacher Mike" who is the bible baptist guy who always stops by and teachs them. Tatay knows they are wrong, but Nay goes to there prayer meetings...well she used too. On sunday in gospel essentials they talked about going to the Temple alot!
Also this week I did something kinda of scary...first time. Elder Kelson had a leadership meeting in Cauayan, but I stayed in Baluarte with Elder Cruz..this weird pasuay (disobedient) filipino, anyways we stayed in Baluarte and I was the Senior comp for one day! Which means I lead all lessons and decide where we are going to go and everything really...Elder Cruz didn't really do much...And he asked alot of weird questions like, "How many Justin Biebers there are in America?", ummm one...why? Anyway ya that day was hard, it was cool we still got in 3 lessons and did some tracting...Elder Cruz kept on saying, "When are we going back to the apartment...gahh! Anyways that day actually wasn't too bad as far as teaching. Oh one cool thing that happened is that we went to teach Nanay Melgapo, this old old Nanay who we are trying to help her Magtiis hanggan sa Wakas, endure to the end. But she is great has great faith. Just always talks about how she cant go to church and how she really wants too. Anyways we showed up to her house thing, and she was on the ground...she has a little sun bathing thing as a bed..one of those chairs that they have at the swimming pool..it goes all the way back...anyway thats her bed and she is usually on that. And we showed up and looked over and she was one the ground, naturally her kids or anyone didn't help her get up..she was on the ground crying. We get there and were like Nay what happened. She was trying to walk somewhere and fell. And has been one the ground, so elder cruz and I helped her get back on her bed. And she said that she is glad we came she prayed that someone would come and help her. And then we showed up!! So that is cool, how the Lord is always directing our paths even when we dont know it. So yeah that was that day.
Now pday, or well today, that was nuts. We went to some caves! And goot muuuuddddyyy! We went to this cool, cave place and went into 6 different caves. We had a guide of course. But it was great, we walked through them, there were these weird looking spiders everywhere who have no eyes and these weird sensor things. There were bats everywhere, stalagmite and such. We had to crawl through some super tight spaces a few times. One was this little crack in the ground that went for 75 yards and to get through it we had to army crawl...got super super muddy. It was great. I bought some sweet under armor compression shorts from a second hand store for like 2 bucks, when in America they are 50 bucks! And I wore those, so my garments didnt get destroyed. Everybody kept on saying to me "Hindi kashya yung puit mo." Which means your but isnt gonna fit. haha, proved those suckers wrong. We did some hiking in the jungle too, to get too the caves. There was a trail though. But you look to your left and right and it was straight up on tamed jungle. So cool, couldn't see for very far. Then when we finally got out of the last cave, and we got back on the trail that lead to the exit, there was a giant giant tree along the way. Like a tarzan tree. So we climbed to the top of that and swung on the vines a little. Kinda... it was scary! Worth it though the tree was great, soo old.
Anyways this week has been great, we got to give 3 blessings. And I did one...in english pa. They for the most part understand english, they just cant speak it very well. Kinda like me with tagalog, haha.
Anyways thanks for everything.
Ingat
Elder James
This week was great, probably one of the best, sooo much happened! i hope i can remember it all!
First of all our investigators! Tatay Balagbaggan this week told us that he has been drinking every single day for the past two weeks, he was def drunk when he told us that too, that literally crushed us. Cause we just came from the villinazos and we were like before we go to din lets stop by balagbaggan cause earlier that day he wasn't there when we stopped by. So anyways we were walking and we head in to the path way to his house and we look to the right and there are a bunch of people drinking and we were like "is tay over there??" but to our great relief he wasn't. so we were like "Ya tay is staying sober." Not so. We go to his house and we walk in and say hi sit down..elder kelson does his joke he says every time, kumusta ka? buhay pa? which means how are you? still alive? haha i don't know why that's funny but everyone always laughs. anyway we sit down and start..after a while elder kelson leans over and was like "I can smell alcohol in his breath." boom game over, we asked and he said that he has been drinking everyday! gaaaaa! means tay isn't gonna get baptized before elder kelson leaves. But! I do have some good news nanay balagbaggan came to church again, the lesson we committed her was bonkers. We read her alma 37:17 and say that the Lord promises us blessings when we keep the commandments and going to church is a commandment. He promised her that if she doesn't go to the palanke (market) and sell, and comes to church instead that the next time she sells she will ubos. (sell everything) she was like i need to sell or else i cant feed my family. We were just like do you trust in God, she said yes, then we were like well then show him, exercise your faith and come to Church...and that is what she did she came to Church! We are going back tomorrow to follow up and everything. The crisologo's have been a bit hard recently, idk why, cause every lesson we have is super solid and they say every time that they can feel the spirit and that they know the Church is true, but then brother crisologo is never home, always working in the bukid and then when we did get to teach them this week they weren't really interested...i don't understand it, we cant teach them once every week or two. we gotta find out something better. Next sister Villenazo, she is doing alright, it is also hard to teach her cause her husband is always working too, and so we cant teach her alone. We went over to her house this week and she said that she was going to get baptized before elder kelson leaves. And she might her date is feb 18 and she has been to Church 2 weeks in a row. We just gotta keep on teaching her, she has already been taught, but we figured that we should teach her again so one we could build her faith two she can just have a solid knowledge of everything. But thatd be awesome if she was magpapabinyag (baptized). John nicole is prob our best investigator, he is keeping commitments finally and he comes to church every sunday and we just taught w.o.w. He doesn't have any problem there thank goodness! Then there is sarah she is doing alright. We were able to teach he twice this week and she is doing alright. Didn't come to church. So prob isn't gonna hit her date of feb 18. Richard..well is richard still. He is def handicapped. This week we were teaching him and he prayed and all he said was "O Diyos, Richard velasco sa akin, salamat po sa akin. Amen" hahaha all that is, is "Oh God, I am Richard Velasco, and I am thankful." haha good ol Richard. Once he yelled while praying I couldnt stop laughing. Usually we try to get he brother in on the lessons, that's the biggest reason why we are trying to teach richard is cause his brother is interested he just, isn't always home when we go over...even though richard is. But ya richard is def gonna be baptized on feb 18 as long as he keeps on coming to church..and so far he hasn't missed one since I have been here. We picked up a new investigator this week too...sorry I cant remember his name..some hard Filipino name...Anyways there is a good story behind that. So his family just moved into Baluarte and in Bishops office during Church we met them. The wife is a member and so is the Mom, he isnt but he wants to be taught. So after Church we go with them and they kinda showed us where they live. We were walking with them and sister pointed and was like "Yung bahay namin doon" Which means thats our house there. We saw this little house just surrounded by the bukid (rice patties) and we were like...okay...it was this little beat up worn down shack...so we were like okay we will be back at 3:00 sa hapon (afternoon.) We return with Philip a member. And we go to the shack...and it is in the middle of the bukid and we get there and we are like there is no way that this is their house,it was completely run down and had stuff growing in it. So instead of doing the smart thing and going back on the solid path road thingy. We were like lets just go through the Bukid. Which is super muddy and wet..but they have these little strips of "solid" pathway to walk on. Should have been easy, we were gonna save us some time....nope! We were going and the "solid pathways" were super super muddy and I fell in the muddy bukid a couple times...then eventually took off my shows and rolled up my pants. End of the story is that I was super muddy, pants shirt, tie, hands, legs, everything. We got to the investigators house eventually and they started laughing and said that there is a good part of the canal that we can wash off in...so we went washed off and taught a weird lesson...mostly cause they were both breastfeeding during it..which is normal here.... Its weird cause in the middle of a lesson boom! they will just start. My comp is like eyes in the skys, when that happens...bleh! Gross!
Oh one of the best parts of the week too! So what our ward council decided to do during ward council, is for all of the in-actives we were gonna do a fhe with them. So on Saturday we went to the Gomez's house and had a solid fhe, played games had some great spiritual thoughts!...by the members too. (People rely alot on the missionaries here.) Anyway at the end of the Fhe, I was saying bye to Tatay Gomez and he was like see you in Church tomorrow. And he came too. Tatay is great, he is this old man who is blind as a bat and his knees are junk. But he has a ton of faith, and he is a ex-drug dealer. He was one of the biggest one's in Santiago in his day...not anymore ha! Anyway they have this guy named "Preacher Mike" who is the bible baptist guy who always stops by and teachs them. Tatay knows they are wrong, but Nay goes to there prayer meetings...well she used too. On sunday in gospel essentials they talked about going to the Temple alot!
Also this week I did something kinda of scary...first time. Elder Kelson had a leadership meeting in Cauayan, but I stayed in Baluarte with Elder Cruz..this weird pasuay (disobedient) filipino, anyways we stayed in Baluarte and I was the Senior comp for one day! Which means I lead all lessons and decide where we are going to go and everything really...Elder Cruz didn't really do much...And he asked alot of weird questions like, "How many Justin Biebers there are in America?", ummm one...why? Anyway ya that day was hard, it was cool we still got in 3 lessons and did some tracting...Elder Cruz kept on saying, "When are we going back to the apartment...gahh! Anyways that day actually wasn't too bad as far as teaching. Oh one cool thing that happened is that we went to teach Nanay Melgapo, this old old Nanay who we are trying to help her Magtiis hanggan sa Wakas, endure to the end. But she is great has great faith. Just always talks about how she cant go to church and how she really wants too. Anyways we showed up to her house thing, and she was on the ground...she has a little sun bathing thing as a bed..one of those chairs that they have at the swimming pool..it goes all the way back...anyway thats her bed and she is usually on that. And we showed up and looked over and she was one the ground, naturally her kids or anyone didn't help her get up..she was on the ground crying. We get there and were like Nay what happened. She was trying to walk somewhere and fell. And has been one the ground, so elder cruz and I helped her get back on her bed. And she said that she is glad we came she prayed that someone would come and help her. And then we showed up!! So that is cool, how the Lord is always directing our paths even when we dont know it. So yeah that was that day.
Now pday, or well today, that was nuts. We went to some caves! And goot muuuuddddyyy! We went to this cool, cave place and went into 6 different caves. We had a guide of course. But it was great, we walked through them, there were these weird looking spiders everywhere who have no eyes and these weird sensor things. There were bats everywhere, stalagmite and such. We had to crawl through some super tight spaces a few times. One was this little crack in the ground that went for 75 yards and to get through it we had to army crawl...got super super muddy. It was great. I bought some sweet under armor compression shorts from a second hand store for like 2 bucks, when in America they are 50 bucks! And I wore those, so my garments didnt get destroyed. Everybody kept on saying to me "Hindi kashya yung puit mo." Which means your but isnt gonna fit. haha, proved those suckers wrong. We did some hiking in the jungle too, to get too the caves. There was a trail though. But you look to your left and right and it was straight up on tamed jungle. So cool, couldn't see for very far. Then when we finally got out of the last cave, and we got back on the trail that lead to the exit, there was a giant giant tree along the way. Like a tarzan tree. So we climbed to the top of that and swung on the vines a little. Kinda... it was scary! Worth it though the tree was great, soo old.
Anyways this week has been great, we got to give 3 blessings. And I did one...in english pa. They for the most part understand english, they just cant speak it very well. Kinda like me with tagalog, haha.
Anyways thanks for everything.
Ingat
Elder James
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