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!