No Money, No Honeys

Well I will finally be leaving Nabua. Really sad, because I had some awesome experiences here in Nabua and love all the members of our group. We have some investigators who have come so far and will finally be baptized next week, but by then I could be at the other end of the mission. That's all ok though. I got to say some goodbyes yesterday, and will again later tonight. I did get some great life advice from Brother Antonio, one of the old guys in our ward. He told me, "No money, no honeys." I'm going to carry that with me always. Wise words.

As for my last week in Nabua, it was pretty good! For Christmas Eve we went to the Antonio's house for dinner. Nothing too special but we had a good time just hanging out with them until our 7 p.m. curfew. Everyone here gets drunk and mess wigh fireworks on that day, so it can kind of get dangerous. We didn't get much sleep that night. Our Christmas dinner was also pretty good, because we went to one restaurant and got a full meal for about $5. Pretty great. Those days were pretty uneventful for us. Just work, work, and more work.

As for our investigators, they are still doing great. We taught Rudy the Law of Chastity and he immediately went into his room, got some bad pictures and through them out into the rain, saying he wants to be sure he's clean for his baptism. He's already planning for the day he can go to the temple and get married to a member he will find sometime in the future. He's had some cool experiences with Word of Wisdom. His friend came over to get him to smoke and he said he took a cigarette and thought about it, then a branch fell out of a tree and hit him on the head and he knew it was a bad idea. Juben also continues to stay strong. He shared a story of him going fishing and praying beforehand to catch a lot. He ended up catching twice as many fish as anyone else, meaning he could sell the extra and make some money. We even got to teach Juben's wife to try and help her understand that he needs to be married before he can be baptized. Hopefully she will listen. 

My last day here was pretty great. Rudy came, all dressed up, and Juben was there with his son again. I got to say some goodbyes to some great people here in my area. We got invited to dinner, all of us Nabua missionaries. We had a great time and heard a lot of funny stories from our members. I love them all so much and I'm sad to leave the area and an awesome companion, but I know there will be people waiting in my new area. I can't wait to find out where I'm going! I love you all and hope you had a great Christmas! and a Happy New Year! (Maligayang Pasko and Masayang Bagong Taon!) 

Elder Van Boerum

12/29/13

 Traveling through rice fields to get referrals 

 Random bridge in the middle of nowhere!

Brother Antonia saying goodbye

The Week Before Christmas!

This week was kind of a weird one. It's been weird watching the calendar get closer to Christmas but not seeing any snow. No skiing, no sledding, no Christmas music. Well no good Christmas music. The stuff they play here, not all that great. Haha. There will definitely be a different feeling to Christmas this year, but that's ok. We should be going to a member's house for Christmas at least and that should be pretty fun. And we may even have a dinner appointment for Christmas Eve! Which is great because lately we've just been goin with spaghetti a lot. 

On Monday, we didn't do a whole lot. Just a typical P Day. But we did buy some hammocks! We set them up inside our apartment so we've gotten to sleep in those a couple nights and it's been nice to have.

On Tuesday, we got to work with the new Senior Couple Missionaries for the first time. We took them to on of our less actives, Charita, and I had to translate everything for them because they don't learn the language before they come over. They had a great time though, and we even let them teach part of the Restoration in a first lesson we had with a potential investigator. Again I had to translate what they said and everything else, but they absolutely loved it and want to work with us again soon. 

Wednesday, we started off the morning with a service project for Charita by doing yardwork. This meant taking some machetes and hacking at bushes for a couple hours, but by the end, it actually looked pretty decent. She thanked us by making us a TON of food. But it paid off because she came back to church for the first time in years on Sunday!

Thursday was...Christmas Conference! The whole mission went to Naga for a party where we had food, a movie, and a talent show. Elder Asbell and I started off the day in Naga by stopping at the closest McDonald's, just so I could have a taste of American food and it was GOOD. Worth every peso. At the Conference, I got to catch up with all the other missionaries I know and it was a ton of fun. Afterwards, we stopped at the mall in Naga because I wore a whole through one of my rubber shoes. 

Friday was an interesting day of work. We went to an investigator's house to teach, and the lesson was going ok. He knows what we are saying is true, but basically he just wants to read and attend church. Not get baptized. What? Then he started randomly singing some Born Again Christian song out of nowhere. I'm not sure if he expected us to join in or not, but it was pretty weird.

Saturday was our Branch Christmas party. They bought a whole roast pig for the Branch and had videoke, games, and more. It was a ton of fun. We had to leave a little early to go try and get some lessons, but when we got to the house, the guy was drunk because it was his daughter's sixth birthday. But he invited us in and gave us some food, so it wasn't too bad. Then we walked into the middle of nowhere in pitch darkness trying to find a referral and ended up staying out way past when we can usually catch a ride back to central Nabua and we were about a 2 hour walk back. But then, while we were walking back, some tricey driver pulls over and says "It's me, your friend! Get in, no charge!" It turns out he saw us and felt like he should pick us up, because we were out "sacrificing". We had talked to him twice before this, but got interupted both times so we never got to the Gospel. We realized this was our chance to get his name so we could visit us and he seemed so happy to have us over! We will go back this week.

Overall this week was fun, and even had a couple unexpected little miracles. I'm going to miss all of you as Christmas comes up, but I'm so happy to be out here serving right now! Love you all so much, and I'm excited to see how your Christmas went next week!

Elder Van Boerum

12/22/13

Buko (coconuts) 

Sunset

Week of 12/15/13

Well this week was another great one! Nothing too incredible this week, but a lot of investigators really progressing and realizing the importance of the message this week. Many of them have taken time this week to express their gratitude for the message that we have brought to them and the truth that they have found because of our teaching. One group told us that they are always happy to see us coming up to their house to teach because when we are there, they feel something special inside. Juben has said that he feels a lot more peace and love in his life. He immediately accepted the law of tithing, knowing how important it is to sacrifice, even when he makes such little money. Victor has found a special interest in temple work for his dead wife. Rudy has already begun to turn his life around away from drinking and smoking, always asking us how he can do better. Any time we teach he seems to sense that what we are saying is true and that it can change his life. We also met another man who spent 27 years as a sailor around the world, so he asked us to teach him in English, which was hard for us at first because we are so used to Tagalog in lessons that we often couldn't think of the words we wanted to say haha.

We also got our new senior couple missionaries this week, the Gardners from Brigham City. They are both super nice and have told us that they want to help us in any way they possibly can with our work. This is their second marriage for both of them, because both of them lost their spouses several years ago. They can't speak any Tagalog, but when they gave their testimonies in sacrament meeting, the members still were able to feel their Spirit. This sacrament meeting was also probably the highlight of the week because we had three investigators show up to church, all potential priesthood holders. Juben even brought his father, who hasn't been to church since he was clipped by a bus and lost his leg 5 years ago; and he brought his son, JP. This wee we also found out Rudy used to be part of some secret organization that used to protect the president years ago. Kinda like the president's secret task force. Which is weird because he's so kind and funny now. But he has the tattoos to prove it.

Sorry I don't have a whole lot more, but I do miss you all, especially as we are coming up to having Christmas soon. Despite all the awful Christmas singing, and kids caroling to hit us up for money, it doesn't feel quite the same without the snow haha. But that's all right. I still love this time of year and the closeness of the people here. Our small group is really coming together and becoming strong in their faith. Really cool to see how just a few weeks can change a small Philippine group of members and investigators.

Love you all and I will talk to you again next week!

12/15/13

Waffle Iron

Well, I don't have a whole ton this week...the power stayed out until Friday. 8 days. So I didn't right a whole ton in my journal, but I will try to remember everything! The power was out because that company didn't pay their bill to the other power company. Again. 39 million pesos in debt I heard. Just grand. But now it's all worked out finally.

Last Monday we went to Naga! Really cool day there. Not a whole lot happened, but I did buy a waffle iron at the mall there! Too bad the power didn't come on until 5 days later. So I didn't get a whole lot of use from it until now. I'm takin that thing with me for my whole mission. Not super high quality or even safe. It burns you when you use the handle to lift the top to pull the waffles out. But it's still my waffle iron and I love it. One small luxury I have.

Wednesday was a cool day because we decided to work part of our area where we have never been before. When we tried to get the driver to drop us off at one road, he didn't hear us so took us to another. We figured we'd just go with it. We taught one family and tried teaching another old guy, but he for some reason was believing that Mormons and Catholics are the same. So we asked him if Catholics believed in the Book of Mormon and he said yes. So we kinda gave up on that guy. Then we kept goin down the road and turned down another that led through the rice fields. We eventually hit a dead end and turned around but on the way back, we hear some guy yell "Mormons?" so we turned around and some guy asks us to come talk with us. He tells us he always reads his Bible, but it's unclear to him so he wanted to hear what we have to say. Basically, we gave him the whole first lesson and a Book of Mormon. He read one verse and said "Wow! It's so much more clear!" So he, Rodie, is already starting to progress like crazy! That day we also finally got Juben's girlfriend to listen to us as we talked about temples and eternal families.

Thursday. Only thing really out of the ordinary was that we were walking down the street and some big lady was standing in the middle of the street and saw us and shouted "Wala!" which doesn't really make sense in the context in Tagalog, and she flipped us off. We just tried to walk past her but she kinda tried shoving us. We just think she was hungover from their fiesta the night before.

Friday was great because the power came back on and we celebrated with waffles! The celebration was also because we committed 3 investigators from the Group to be baptized! They seemed pretty confident in the decision so we are just going to keep working hard with them.

Saturday was another great day. We did try to visit Rodie, but when we got there he was drunk. He was really sorry though and kept saying he wanted to change his life and he knew we could help him. Later that night we visited Juben again and sung Hymns with him and his brother, then talked about Alma the Younger. We ended the night by visiting Matthew, an 18 year old that is working to become a cop. He is so quick on picking up the teachings, and says it all makes sense, asking awesome questions about prophets. He committed to pray about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon.

Sunday was kind of tough for us. Although we had Juben and Victor come to church (which they loved) the others that committed flaked out. We went to go pick up some investigators before church, but the little kids said "Wala siya daw." Which basically means "She said she's not here." So...she was home. Later we tried to go to Jerry, a 12 year old investigator, but we think his priest must have talked to him because he was originally very receptive, then became hard core Catholic all of the sudden. Too bad. We just told him we still love him and left. 

So this whole week had it's ups and downs, but I'm still so happy to be working here in Nabua! The work is great and is only getting better! Love you all and have a great week!

12/8/13

Happy Thanksgiving!

Sorry I gotta be short again this week! The power has been out for a good 4 days now in my whole zone. Gotta love the Philippines.

This week was another pretty great one! Nothing too special, just a lot of working! Because of the outage, we've had to adjust our schedule because we can't really teach much past 6 p.m. anymore. But luckily we were still able to get some solid lessons with a couple Juben, Victor, and a couple other potential investigators! We ended up walking a TON this week though because we ran out of money and couldn't withdraw our support money because of the outage.

For Thanksgiving, we went all out. Or as much as you can when there's no power and you don't have a lot of money. We went and got a whole barbecue chicken, a couple bunches of bananas, a few pineapples, ice cream, and some grapes, which are super expensive here because they ship them from the U.S. Like 320 pesos for a kilo.

For our investigators, Juben and Victor are still progressing well. Juben even asked if we could start singing hymns in our lessons because he felt the Spirit in sacrament meeting when we sang. We also contacted a referral in one of the farthest parts of our area: a 15 year old girl who ended up being really receptive to our message. We think she has a lot of potential to be baptized in the upcoming weeks. We also taught another lesson to Bert, some 19 year old we found in the middle of nowhere. The lesson went pretty well, we invited him to church, and didn't think a whole lot of it. But as we were walking home last night, he randomly saw us in Centro Nabua and said he actually went to church. One whole city over! He had come to Nabua to try and find our meetinghouse, but when he couldn't he just found a tricey driver and asked for the Mormon church and they took him a town over. He loved it!

 We saw a Canadian guy out in the middle of nowhere too, and he was pretty funny. He just called out to us and came to talk to us, probably because we are the only white people he's seen in forever. He's living here with what we think may be his Filipino family. He knew we were missionaries but said he wasn't interested in the message just wanted to talk. He kinda seemed like he hates living here though haha.

Well I have to go now, but I love you all! I'll have more time next week!

12/1/13

MIRACLES

So definitely this has been the best week of my mission so far. Without a doubt. It's a ton of stuff so all try to shorten it as much as I can, but it's worth it.

It all started on Tuesday, our transfer day. We all headed up to Naga to meet new companions and everything and it was great getting to see all of the Elders from my MTC District again and how well they've been doing in their areas! So then they started to announce our new companions, and my new companion is...Elder Asbell! He's been working as a finance Elder in the mission office for the past 9 months so he was so excited to get right to work and flip our area around! I was so excited to hear that, because I had been praying for a companion that would want to work hard! That night we didn't have much time to work, but we went to a lesson with Juben and committed him to be baptized on December 21! So as long as he keeps coming to church and he gets married before then, he will be totally prepared.

Thursday was probably the craziest day because of some incredible miracles! After a District meeting that morning, we headed out to a far part of our area to follow up on some contacts from last week. We stopped at a members house to see if he would teach with us and he said yes!  So we taught a couple lessons then began the 45 minute walk back to our apartment, planning on talking and teaching on the way. Most people didn't really want to hear much though. Then I remembered we had on contact from a couple weeks ago that was on the way. We stopped at his house, but nobody was home. Some guy was standing close by and he started talking to us. After we told him we were missionaries he said "Come with me. There's more people over here." He leads us into a room of about 10 people who call out to their neighbors and kids "Come here and let's hear the word of God!" So we are sitting there and about 20+ people and some more kids are sitting and listening to us talk about prophets, Jesus, and Joseph Smith and the Restoration, all of them totally agreeing with it and saying they felt something good inside. As we were teaching, even more people were showing up to listen that we couldn't even see because there was no space inside. We bore our testimonies and asked them all to pray about our message and as we left some of them even thanked us. 

Friday turned out to be crazy too! We were out working an area that we haven't really been to much and start following a random road into a rice field. We see some old lady stomping on rice stalks to get the grains out and go up to talk with her. She directs us into her small 8x8 hut where her daughter is. We start talking with her and she brings up that the missionaries taught her father years ago. "Ok so where is he?" "Just close by. Ask for Tony Della Cruz." So we figure we will go find this former investigator and start teaching him. But as we ask everyone, nobody knows who he is. All the sudden the daughter's two kids ride up on a bike and we ask where grandpa is. "Follow us." We end up following these two kids down the high way, one riding ahead to get grandpa while we follow the 7 year old on foot. We finally get to the house and start talking with this 70+ old Filipino and find out he's actually a Less active member! He was so happy to see us and asked us to teach him about Joseph Smith again and said he would start going to church again!

So Saturday night, we went to follow up with Victor, the guy we tried to contact when we met the group. We get to his house and he lets us in. "Ok Victor, did you read the Restoration pamphlet?" He says yes, the whole thing, and that he immediately knew it was true. So we start to kind of review the pamphlet just to be sure, and he stops us. "I already know it's all true." What?! So we pull out a Book of Mormon and start introducing it and give it to him. He tells us he already knows it's the word of God and true, before even reading it and that he had a beautiful feeling about it. We leave him 2 Nephi 31 about baptism to read and tell him we have a church in Nabua. Before we even say where it is, he says he'll go. We walk out of his house and head over to where we taught the group the first time. As soon as they see us, they sit us down and all gather themselves together again, with some that were new. We taught them all about the Book of Mormon and just the same as before, they all loved it and said they felt so good about it. We ran out of Books of Mormon for all of them! So we just had to promise we would bring more next time.

Sunday came and right on time, 71 year old Victor comes riding up on his bike ready for church. All the members welcomed him and he sat there smiling through the whole meeting. Later that night, we go to his house again and he's all ready for us. He had read the whole assignment and about 4 other chapters! We teach him about baptism and he committed to being baptized on Dec. 28! This was only our second lesson with him! One of his neighbors was sitting in on the lesson that had been in the group before and she said she felt a beautiful feeling during our lesson. We reviewed the Restoration with her and she said she felt great about it! And said she felt good about maybe being baptized!

So basically, we got a TON of new investigators this week! All praying, reading a Book of Mormon if they have one, and getting ready for us to teach them again! They were all so happy to be hearing our message and all said they felt peaceful during our teaching. This week has been such an amazing change from my last transfers as I really got to see what happens when we are out and working to share this Gospel with everyone we can! We have been going nonstop since transfer day and we are already planning on big things for our group, Victor, and Juben in the coming weeks! I'm so excited to see them all progress! I'm sorry for the long email, there were just so many amazing experiences! Thank you all for your support and I love you all and miss you so much!

Elder Van Boerum
11/24/13

 Goat on a stump

 Little House

Out in the fields

 Me, Elder Rujke, and some of the members

Crossing the bridge!

Week of 11/17/13

Bad connection, didn't have time to write a mass email!

Super Typhoon!

So you may have heard we had a typhoon this week...

But first, the previous week because I didin't do it last week. Ha.

That week really wasn't anything too exciting. We just had the Halloween celebration here which lasts both the 31 and November 1. And here, that just means we have a curfew of 6 p.m. I guess Halloween is a really big deal here because we went by a couple cemeteries and there were thousands of people there partying around the graves and getting drunk and everything. Meaning it's too dangerous for us to be out late. But usually drunks aren't too threatening here. They just give us high fives and speak in slurred, broken English. Then on Saturday we had the Primary Halloween party that we got to help out with. All the little kids came in their costumes and they had a costume and dancing contest in the chapel while the leaders played Britney Spears and Shakira in the microphone. My costume was a Santa hat because here in the Philippines it's already Christmas, just in case you didn't know. About 3 weeks ago the lights started going up and the music started playing.

Now for this week. As you've probably heard from the news and stuff we had a Super Typhoon (category 4+) here last week, like one of the strongest that has ever been recorded and for sure the largest ever here in the Philippines. Leading up to it, I was definitely underestimating it. But as I started to see how concerned all the people here in Nabua were getting, it finally started to hit me. And I started to even get a little excited to see what it would be like. 

On Thursday I had exchanges with our District Leader as just part of the routine. So he came to Nabua and I got to lead the area and our lessons for the day. But the new Nabua Sister missionaries also arrived that day, so we ended up spending most of the time showing them the areas we are giving to them, and they are taking most of our investigators because they get all of central Nabua while we will start working further out. By the time we finished showing them, it was dark and we didn't feel good about crossing the bamboo bridge to Juben's when it was already starting to rain and the current was so high. So we went back to centro and tracted for a bit. Everyone we talked to kept telling us that we should get home because of the coming storm, but we did end up leaving a short message with a couple people. Then at the advice of President Reeder, we went to stock up on food and water for our 72 hour kit. We got to the store and nobody was there. A bunch of the shelves were cleared of food as everyone was preparing. 

On Friday we were supposed to have Zone Training in Iriga, but it was cancelled because of the storm. We woke up to no power and some really strong wind and rain and decided not to finish the exchange that day because we didn't think it was safe to be outside. But we couldn't tell Elder Cawit because they had left the cell phone at our house, so they ended up coming back anyway. We then we stuck inside for the whole day in anticipation of the storm getting worse, but then...nothing. While it stayed pretty windy and rainy all day, it never really ended up hitting us. Later we found out that the storm had moved farther west. Lucky for us, but bad for the people in those regions. I just barely found out that the expected death toll is now about 10,000 people in the Visayas region of the country, with many more homeless. Luckily, all the missionaries there have finally been accounted for. Compared to the destruction there, we really didn't get anything. Just no power for a couple days.

On Saturday, we had exchanges with the Zone Leaders and another chance to lead the area. All of our lessons went great, and Salvador showed a ton of interest in what happens after we die. He has the idea that all happiness ends with death, but he seemed so happy to hear that's not true. I later found out one of his children was killed in a robbery a couple years ago. I'm sad that we will be losing him to the sisters in their new area. For Juben, we were initially told we couldn't teach him because he was sick after the strom, but when he heard we were there he limped out so we could teach him and we had one of our best lessons yet. Later, when we were tracting, some minister from Iglesia ni Cristo came to talk to us and tried inviting us to his church. So I just kept inviting him to join us for Sacrament meeting and to let us come over to teach him. Eventually he left, but it was really funny.

Finally, yesterday, we got a meetinghouse in Nabua! After waiting so long, we had our first meeting there yesterday. The Reeders and the Iriga District Presidency were all there and the even let Elder McBride, who opened Nabua, return to speak in the meeting. Right now the place is just a small concrete room, barely big enough for 50 people, but they are planning on expanding. And with the attendence we had yesterday and the enthusiasm the members were showing for the work, we may even become a branch soon! Nabua really is growing so much now and with the Sisters, it will accelerate.

So that was my week. A lot of build up to a storm that luckily didn't hit here, new sisters, and a new meetinghouse. I feel so sorry for the people of Visayas as I've gotten glimpses of the destruction there. Please keep them in your prayers for comfort as they try to recover. The destruction there is enormous, and I'm even surprised at some areas that I see here in Nabua. I only hope that the people there will be able to find comfort and that the missionaries there will be able to help the people as they rebuild.

I hope you all are doing great back home! The work here is going great and I know it can only get better! I've had my tough times this past few weeks, but the storm is also helping to keep it in perspective. It reminds me of the scripture Helaman 5:12, which is all about building ourselves on a sure foundation, so that when the Devil sends forth his storms and shafts in the whirlwind, he will have no power over us because of our redeemer, which is Christ. I love you all and hope you have a great week this week! and Merry Christmas!

Elder Jakob Van Boerum
11/10/13

This is spiderman, the biggest spider I've seen.  Hard to tell, but he's about the size of my face

 I won't be home for Christmas so here's my Christmas card

 Behind Juben's house

4th biggest spider I've seen, about the size of my palm!

 Outside the cemetery 

Primary on Halloween

 Inpatan, part of our area

Week of 11/3/2013

Sorry, No big email this week! Ran out of time. I'll have somethin special next week. And Pictures! Love you all!

Elder Van Boerum

100 Days Out

So this week I finally reached 100 days since I left! And it was probably one of the best days I've had so far in the mission. We had a mission tour with Elder Ardern from the First Quorum of the Seventy. So half of the zones of the mission headed to Naga for half of Thursday to hear from him. He's from New Zealand, served a mission in the France/Belgium mission and is probably one of the best speakers I've heard. He was hilarious. For the first bit, he would just have missionaries come up to the pulpit with a scripture and then he would go off for about 10-15 minutes about that scripture and everything we could learn from it. He had some really great insights about the Gospel and how to find new investigators and how to help the less actives. His whole talk was very interactive and he was always coming out to where we were all sitting in the chapel to do things with us. I forgot my notebook at the apartment, so maybe next week I will send out more of the stuff he said and there was a ton of really great stuff. So that was the highlight of the week.

Elder Esteves finally got his new companion too so no more threesome! His name is Elder Rujky from the Marshall Islands. His English is pretty good, but his Tagalog definitely needs some work. He was really surprised when in priesthood, someone tried to get him to teach, but luckily one of the old men started yelling about something, not really sure what, so then the whole lesson planned changed. I was just laughing way hard because the old guy stood up out of nowhere yelling at the member trying to teach. Everyone else was laughing too, but I think he was shouting at him because he was trying to get out of teaching by making Elder Rujky do it.

On Friday, we had Balut for Elder Rujky, my fourth time having it. So that was pretty good. I actually like it. If you don't know what it is, it's a duck egg that has developed for 18 days that they then hard boil, fetus and all. Tasty. We also attended a baptism that day for one of Elder Esteves' investigators so that was good.

Saturday was probably one of my best working days so far. And it's because we had exchanges with the Zone Leaders. So Elder Guila was my companion for the day and I got to lead. We had morning work and tracting for the first time my whole mission which was great because we contacted a ton of new people that seemed really interested in having us teach! I was really grateful for the chance to see what missionary work really should be like and we worked hard. I led a lesson with Juben on the Restoration and gave him a Book of Mormon and he seemed so happy to finally have one and for the chance to start reading. I'm just hoping that I can take this momentum into this week and continue to work. 

One thing that I remember that Elder Ardern taught that I've been thinking about a lot lately is about helping the less actives. And it's something President Eyring talked about too. A lot of times it is very frustrating to go and teach them and have them lie to us about being sick, hiding from us, or not keeping commitments. Sometimes, I found myself getting mad at them because we spend so much time with them but they didn't seem to care. But the thing that I liked about Elder Eyring's talk was that no matter how receptive they are to us, we still need to love them no matter what. And not just less actives, everyone. We always need to reach out to everyone and show them love, even if they are just pushing us away. So I've really been trying hard lately to think of them in a Christlike manner, as the 1 sheep that wandered away and that needed to be found.

Love you all and love hearing from you and I can't wait to get back on next week and see what's new!

Elder Jakob Van Boerum
10/27/13

Two Areas

On Tuesday, we taught Salvador but he is still too afraid to commit and offend his family. We have taught him nearly every lesson, and I feel like lately Elder Cawit has been kind of picking topics at random to teach him that really aren't addressing his fears, so I've been working on a list of scriptures to give him next time we visit. Then we went to visit Ramon, but he was busy working on a large order of gowns for later in the week. He even showed us some and they looked pretty good, all hand made. After we headed over to the other area to teach the Hosanah family about the Restoration and they seemed very interested and we gave them a couple Books of Mormon. At our lesson after that, (in one of the nicer houses I've seen here) when we went in and they had Shrek 3 playing on the t.v. so I was laughing really hard because we got to see a few minutes of it while we waited for the rest of the family and it's been a LONG time since I've had any humor like that. Then we had a great lesson about the Plan of Salvation.

Wednesday was pretty slow. All spent in Elder Esteves' area, but we had some good lessons. We went to probably the nicest house I've been in so far here. The member there is the Elder's Quorum president. We also were picking up some medicine for Fermin there because he can't really afford it himself. The member served in the U.S. Navy so he got a bunch of health benefits after he retired and had some leftover meds, some of them turning out to be the kind Fermin needed and I guess they are cool with sharing here. He also told us what the meds are for. Something to do with mental illness and schizophrenia so I guess Fermin's condition is worse than we thought.

On Thursday we went to drop of the meds to Fermin with Tatay Antonio, a member that lives on our street who was sort of friends with Fermin. Tatay also bought them a pie. Fermin was still just tied up and laying down, kind of out of it, but he was glad to see us. Then we went back to the Antonio's for a lesson with their grandson.

Friday was pretty uneventful. Mostly we just helped Elder Esteves prepare his investigator for a baptismal interview. Then we taught the Dellahestia family. They are working on their English so they all read the scriptures in English, while I read Tagalog. One of their sons clapped for me when I read at my turn as a joke. So then I clapped for him when he read English and everyone laughed. The mom was telling me she wouldn't have let me leave home so young because she would miss me, but I told her that my mom was sad too but that she knew I was doing a good work here.

Saturday was great. We did a service project at the Dellahestias by helping them weed their yard. They have a ton of pets too like parrots, rabbits, guinea pigs, geese, a turkey, and some other birds that we got to see but one goose kept trying to bite everyone. We had a cool experience at one of Elder Esteves' investigators later. His wife had been baptized, but his date had been pushed back because he was smoking still, but he finally quit. He told us that the other day, he had a dream of a man wearing a lose robe with a long white beard and all he said was "Come Again." They previous week had been his first time to church in a a while, so he took it as his sign to return. So on Sunday, there he was, smiling and super happy to be there again.

Sunday was frustrating after church. Elder Cawit decided to take a nap that went past the time we need to leave to make our appointments. When we got to the houses, we found out that the investigators had left just before we got there so we missed the chance to teach. And it almost made us late for Elder Esteves' appointments, but luckily we still made them and had some good lessons. 

I hope you all are doing great! I tried to respond to all of your emails, but if I didn't get to one I'm sorry! Sometimes I get a little rushed. Anyway, I love you all and can't wait to hear from you again! I will have a better message next week!

Elder Van Boerum
10/20/13

The Hospital; Look Up and Look Ahead

So this week I got to see a Philippine Hospital for the first time. The bad news is that it's because I was sick. On Tuesday morning I woke up not feeling too well so we didn't really do any work, and for the rest of the week was kind of feeling off. Headache and weird feeling in my stomach. Then Friday night I woke up at about 2 in the morning and spent most of the rest of the night in the bathroom throwing up. I don't know what it was that got me sick-water, food, weather, bacteria--but it was bad. I was so exhausted when the morning came, that we couldn't go to Conference for the Saturday sessions or priesthood. At about noon we went to a hospital a town over to see if they could figure out what was wrong. Basically, the E.R. was a small room with a couple guys sitting around that asked me a few questions, told me to eat some fruit, wrote up a prescription and sent me on my way. Not exactly as thorough as I felt it should have been. So then we came back to the apartment and I was out until Sunday morning. And now, basically I can't eat much and I still kinda feel sick, but better than I was the other night. So that was my fun experience for the week.

Besides that the week was pretty slow. It was the end of the first transfer so Elder McBride in our apartment was sent to the other end of the mission on Tuesday and Elder Estevez found out he would be training so he wouldn't get his companion until Friday. So he got paired with another Elder in our district and they both stayed at our place for a couple days. And they both spent a pretty good amount of time asking me about the U.S. because it's the other Elder's one dream to visit there or live there some day. Then on Thursday, E. Esteves found out his companion from the Marshall Islands never got his visa so he's still stuck at the MTC in Provo for another two weeks, so I am again in a companionship of three for the next little bit. It's tough because we have to try and work both of our areas and with me feeling sick, the work went pretty slow this week.

Our investigators are still struggling to progress. Salvador has had nearly every lesson now, but still is not willing to commit to baptism. We did continue lessons with Fermin's son this week and they went pretty well, but Fermin's health has been taking a bad turn lately. He got really sick somehow and the combination of that and some meds made him go a little crazy this past week, so his son had to tie him up so he wouldn't knock down the house. So his son, Juben, has largely been left to care for him by himself because the other brother isn't right in the head due to some drug use in high school. But in working E. Esteves' area we had some more luck. We had a couple lessons at a members house to some investigators and they said my Tagalog was getting better, which was a boost I really needed this week. We also helped another family commit to baptism last night.

What I have seen of Conference I really liked. My favorite talks were from Richard J Maynes, Elder Scott, and President Monson in the Sunday Morning session. Together with some of the reading I did this week gave me a message that's kind of a continuation of what I said last week. Bad things happen. Things are hard. As President Monson said, "Sadness and suffering are universal." But besides what in addition to what I said last week about learning from experiences, I just want to add to that and the words from Conference by saying how to bear trials, how to learn, and how to "become the rock the river cannot wash away" as Elder Maynes said. And all we have to do is "Look up" as Elder Adrian Ochoa said and "Look Ahead" as Elder Dube said. I finished reading Job this week, and the prevailing theme as they discuss trials and afflictions is that Job was patient in his afflictions. The book starts off by saying that Job was a perfect and upright man, but later he suffers the loss of all his family and possessions. He wasn't punished for any particular reason. Sometimes we suffer things for reasons that we can't understand. We may feel that we are about to be overcome and can't stand strong. But all we need to do is Look Up and "Learn to recognize the power of the Atonement in our lives" from Elder Scott. Fortify against the weak points and look to see where we can work to improve ourselves, and when we fall short, we Look Up for divine help. We Look Ahead with a hope that things will be better and we rely on the strength of the Savior to help us keep going until we get there. 

I've had a really hard week, and looking at some of the time ahead of me, I know it will continue to be hard. There are times where I don't feel strong enough and like I shouldn't be here. But in our monthly newsletter, our Mission President brought up that even Ammon and his brothers had these feelings. And look how they turned out. They converted an entire nation. And it's because the looked up to heaven for strength and looked ahead to the blessings that were in store for them and those that they would convert. So I'm grateful for the blessing of strength that we can receive if we just choose to seek it out, and look for the small ways that the Atonement blesses our everyday lives.

Love you all and I'm excited to hear back about how you are doing.

Elder Jakob Van Boerum
10/14/13

10/7/13 Week 5

So first I'd like to apologize about last week. I finally figured out what happened. I guess the company that supplies power to my region of the Philippines doesn't actually own a power plant so they have to get it through some other company in Manila. And somehow, someone forgot to pay Manila. So of course they just cut off the supply. I was only able to email because we traveled to another province for about an hour. It went down around noon last Monday and was out until around noon on Wednesday. And those were some long days. We don't have air conditioning so we have to use some fans to keep us cool. So we had to go two nights without those.  Then of course our water pressure went down so I couldn't get water to the roof to do my laundry. We just went and got a pizza because we didn't want to try cooking in the dark, so Elder Esteves kept saying we were having a pizza party. So almost no water and no power. I started laughing at dinner because it reminded me of the part in Dumb and Dumber when he says, "We have no money! We have no jobs! Our pets heads are falling off!" Nothing was going our way. Anyway, that was what happened last Monday.

The week before we went to Naga for the new missionary training which is kind of a follow up after our first couple weeks in the field. We just talk about how it's been and if we've been having any problems. Nothing to special but fun to see some of my batch from the MTC. Then we went to SM, the huge shopping mall there, for a few minutes to grab some things not available in my area. And I heard Christmas music. Without the break of Thanksgiving, there is nothing stopping them from celebrating early. So it's Christmastime already here in the Philippines. Don't worry. I bought a Santa hat.

As for our investigators we are still having a tough time. Salvador is still shaky on committing to baptism, but we keep trying. One cool experience was that we had a potential investigator that isn't really ever home because he is always working (driving his padyak) so we hadn't gotten a chance to follow up with him. On the way to his house we saw a huge storm coming and Elder Cawit was considering going back to the apartment. But I told him I felt like we needed to go see him that day and that he would be there. So we waited out the rain under some trees and it was coming down hard. But after it lightened up we hurried over and he was home! So we got to teach him some of the first lesson and now he wants us to teach his whole family. We are still having trouble working out times to teach him, but I think it will work out really well. We also had our first lesson with another potential investigator named Ramon. He's a Born Again. He makes gowns for a living. And he's gay. But he accepted the lesson and I gave him a Book of Mormon and he seemed very interested in it. The next day he even asked for one for his friend! We still are waiting to have our next lesson. Elder McBride in my apartment told us that they went to an investigators house and walked in on his funeral. They had no idea anything had happened to him! I haven't been as unlucky as that yet with any investigators. 

Last week we had zone training and I got the belts that I ordered from an RM in Naga! One is made of coconut, another Kamagong wood, and another is Carabao horn. And I got one for Elder Cawit. Later that day we went and looked at some stores around the area so I got to see a bunch of knock off stuff that was way cheap, but nothing I really wanted. I also found out that at our District Conference two weeks ago they had double the attendance from last year. So the Iriga District might finally become a stake after 19 years! And then we get to watch conference next week on Saturday and Sunday because the time difference makes it impossible to do it this past weekend.

As for me, nothing really new. I've been working my way through the Old Testament. Some of those books are a struggle. The Book of Numbers? Just a lot of numbers. Leviticus? The procedure for every sacrifice there is. Chronicles? A bunch of genealogies and names from Adam to David. So it's taken me a while, but I'm about halfway through now. Starting Second Chronicles today. 

This week was actually pretty tough with my companion. He's in the last transfer of his mission so there's a lot of times that I feel like we should be working but he just wants to go back to the apartment early without me really ever getting a say in what I think we should do. Also he doesn't like helping me a ton with the language. So I was feeling really down last night, and I decided to read D&C 122, one of the strongest and most powerful scriptures I've read, which is about how no matter what happens, it's for our experience. Christ humbled himself and suffered more than any of us ever could. Are we greater than him, that we think we don't need to have trials? And it made me think of the story by Elder Holland's son that Mimi and Bubba sent me for my birthday a few weeks ago about how sometimes we are led down a path, so that we can know with absolute certainty that that is the wrong path and we can go back and follow the right one with full confidence. That's how I feel right now. That I am being shown one way to do missionary work that isn't always as it should be, so that after this experience, I will know how I want to really do things and how I want my mission to be.

So that is my message for the week I guess. That things may be hard. You may be far from home, struggling with a new language. Or you may be just struggling to deal with college, or every day life. But everything we go through, everything that happens to us is for our benefit. We must choose how to come out of it and to learn from it and be patient in our afflictions and "hold on thy way...their bounds are set, they cannot pass" the second part meaning that no one and no thing can get to you and tear you down unless you let them.

I hope you are all doing well and I miss you all! Mahal ko kayo! 

Elder Jakob  Van Boerum

Mark 16:15 "...go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature."

Handmade Belts

Typical Jeepney

9/16/13 Week 3

Every day here I'm getting to see a little bit more of the Philippines. And most of the time it's hilarious. All of the Jeepneys here are painted crazy colors. There's even one I see sometimes that has part of it painted like the Irish flag and says "IRELAND" in big bold letters on it. The driver was definitely not Irish. Even a little. Also I saw my first cock fight. Just a couple of guys on the side of a road holding their roosters by the tail until they wanted to start. Then the other day I had the weirdest meal so far. It's called Dinubua, I think. It's basically pork cooked in it's own blood, and some other stuff. Not as bad as it sounds. Then I also saw some ten year old kid riding one of their water buffalo things they have here. Just going down the road like it was no big deal. All their pigs here are pretty disgusting too. They keep them in little pens with maybe 4 inches of space on each side. If the pig is lucky. That's also the scariest noise I've heard. Some pig screaming when it was pitch black and we were heading back to the apartment. Sounded like it was dying. I also think I've seen more dogs in my 3 weeks here than I have my whole life. There are hundreds, both strays and pets. And none of them are fixed, so they are only increasing. And most have fleas. Lovely.

So this past week was pretty good. Finally had a couple lessons with one of the Less Active families we've been going to every other day. They were an older couple and the husband seems like he didn't want us there at first, but he softened up at the end of the lesson. Then we had to walk through the rice fields to get home and I slipped into a river just calf deep. It turned out to be good though, because when we made it to a road, an old guy asked us why I was holding my socks. We got talking and ended up giving him a pamphlet and he said he wanted to hear what we had to say. So we will follow up with him. Also we gave another Restoration pamphlet to another guy who was just making a fence by choppin some bamboo down and laying it out. 

At nights in our apartment, we usually just talk about random things. Elder Esteves is always way interested in hearing about America. He was trying to convince E. McBride and I that pigs are dirty animals and chickens are great, while we were saying that chickens are stupid and pigs are the smart ones. He just laughed and thought we were ridiculous. He also likes to hear about the animals in America, like bears and mountain lions. Here, the only thing to be afraid of is mosquitoes. And the civil war that I guess broke out last week in the Southern part of the Philippines. But no one here seems to be taking it seriously, so I guess it's no big deal.

My quote for the week comes from Les Mis: "To love another person is to see the face of God" I was listening to my music and that hit me. I love all of the people here. Our investigators and the Less actives we teach. Tatay Pastoral still likes having me pray every time and we are wanting to ask him to get baptized this week. I am supposed to ask in Tagalog, so I hope I don't blow it. Ha. Fermin is still doing great. Always loves to see us. He gets such a big smile on his face which is pretty funny to see when a lot of his teeth aren't there. During one of our lessons with him this week, he tried speaking to me in English and I was trying so hard not to laugh. He would start off a sentence, get two words in then say "Ahhhhh, ano ba iyan? ano? (how they say what the heck, Literally, what is that)" Then he looked up to the sky, "God help me!" Then he would say some word in Tagalog or an English word that wasn't quite right for the sentence. He kept going in and out of English and Tagalog. Even Elder Cawit couldn't understand him! We also went to a baptism on Saturday for an investigator of E. McBride's. She was so happy and it was a cool experience. Squidward talked about enduring to the end. He looked at her and said, "It's dangerous to join the Church" then laughed, "but not in a bad way" Then he said it's because we are always tried in all things when we have the Gospel. We may be persecuted, or tempted. But that is how we become stronger. Her husband was there too and he finally has been off smoking for a week so he may have his own baptism soon. 

Then, yesterday we were out looking for someone that we got as a referral. While we were walking on the street some guy with six dogs following him came up to us, smoking, and shook our hands. He invited us to come sit down, without us saying anything. He had pretty obviously been drinking though. We told him we were from the Church and he said "Oh I have some questions." We gave him a pamphlet on the Restoration and he said, "this, this is good" He then went off about how he wanted to protect his family. At a couple points he would randomly stop talking and look at me and just smile. He also kept saying "Asamatteroffact..." slurred together like that. We knew we couldn't teach him while he was drunk like that so we told him we had to leave, but then he asked us to stay. We just told him we would come back. So know we have a drunk man as a potential investigator.

It's also weird to think that I've been gone 62 days now. Seems like forever ago, but the time has usually gone by fast. I still miss you all back at home. I can tell Elder Cawit is getting excited to go home too. He only has 8 more weeks. But he did tell me he just wants to get a wife and stay on a mission. He loves being out here. To all my friends, it sounds like you are all doing great whether you're in school, at the MTC, or already out serving. It's been awesome to hear from all of you and your different stories. To family, I can't wait until I get to skype you in just three months! I miss all of you and think about you every day. I love being out here and love all of the people so much. That's why I mentioned that Les Mis quote. There is something so special about the people here. There are always so happy even when they have so little. I've been working on translating Brock's quote about wishing he could tell people to be grateful for what they have. These people here really are so happy with what they have, even if it's just their family and a bamboo hut. I've had my hard times, but I've been praying and reading, almost finished the Book of Mormon again. That's helped a lot. I still struggle with the language, but I'm a little more confident each day. I love you all and miss you so much! Happy Birthday to Anika and Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad! Mahal ko kayo!

Elder Van Boerum

Here are a few pictures from the week:

A hut in the rice fields

 Crossing the bridge to Fermin's

 Jake's church building

 Jeepney ride in the rain

Panorama of the first floor in Jake's apartment