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