Kid Investigators

So this week wasn't anything too special! But it sounds like all of you are still doing great which is awesome. As for our week here,

We are still doing some pretty good work! Like I said last week, some of our investigators right now are kids, and even though they are hard to work with sometimes, they keep inviting new friends to come to our lessons! And they even came to church yesterday, all five of them. Besides that, we are extending baptismal invitations to a couple of them who should be prepared in only a couple more weeks to be baptized! All of our hard work is at least paying off for them! They hard part for the past week was two of our investigators that have up until now been progressing, one even set to be baptized this next week. Problem is, one of the disappeared for the past week and the other doesn't quite understand the connection between knowing the commandments and having to keep them. It's not like an addiction for her or anything, but we taught her the 10 Commandments. Super basic. Problem is, the Catholic Church here changed them to not include the 2nd one about engraven images. So a lot of people here have little statues of saints and Mary that they worship. And even though this investigator, Victoria, knows everything is true, she doesn't want to give up her statues. So we've had a pretty big problem with that for her, but we've almost got it worked out! During our lesson, we were trying to think of a scripture to share with her and ended up opening to the same scripture at the end of 2 Nephi 31 where it says that Christ is the only way to attain salvation. Hopefully she will get over this problem soon! We've also found a few other investigators that have loads of potential, asking great questions and really seeing how the Gospel can help their lives.

I'm glad everything is going great back home! I wish you had more snow, but then I guess I'm not missing out much! I'm glad Jon and Will are doing great as well! Love you all and I will talk to you again next week!

1/26/14

 The popular thing for the kids here right now. Chicks that have had their feathers colored into really bright colors like orange, green, purple, and others.

 Monkey eating the cracker I fed him

Teaching Kids

Sorry I don't have a lot of time today, but that's ok because not a whole lot happened this week! 

This week we spent a bunch of time tracting and trying to find new investigators, because our teaching pool has been so small! We also had to drop a couple investigators because they aren't progressing anymore and won't go to church or read our assignments. But hopefully some of the people we found this week will make up for that! We found quite a few people this week, even some previous investigators that we didn't even know about, and they still had an interest in the Gospel! I also learned this week that I don't think I could be a school teacher, because some of the investigators we are teaching right now are kids and keeping them focused is super hard. So I've had the idea to make a sticker chart for their Book of Mormon reading with a prize at the end. I also have to bring candy to the lessons to keep them focused at times. But it should pay off soon! This week I also almost fell into the water because a bridge broke on me. There are some houses here that are on stilts because when it is high tide, the ground gets covered with water. So they use planks to get from the mainland to their houses, and I guess I was too heavy and one of them snapped so I almost fell in! But luckily I caught myself.

We have also started trying to find some new ways to find investigators, so we may be opening a Scripture study or English Class soon! Pretty exciting.

Highlights of the week were our Zone Conference, where we got to here some awesome messages from President Reeder and the Assistants, but I will share more on that next week. We also got to attend a baptism this week which was really cool! Well I have to go now, but I love you all and will send more next week!

1/19/14

Pulang Daga, or "red earth".  In the local dialect and where we do our baptisms

Getting Used to Paracle

Well I've finally gotten settled into the new area, Paracale. I'm pretty used to the area now and know all of the investigators and everything. I'm pretty excited to work in the area now, especially since it has so much potential and we have a lot of member support.

Nothing too spectacular happened this week, but we did have a surprise trip to Naga on Wednesday. Getting to stay in the Assistants apartment was nice. I got to have air conditioning and a hot shower, the first time for either of those since I got home. But don't think I'm getting spoiled. I'm back to using a bucket again so no worries. The trip was because of some problem that had happened here in the area before I was assigned to the area, so President Reeder sent us back with specific directions to be exactly obedient, so that was what we really worked for this week. It hasn't been to hard to do actually, especially since I had some new ideas about obedience this week.

But working toward that end has really helped us out this week. On Friday night, we finally got into the home of a part member family that we have been trying to work with for a while now. The problem was, the husband wasn't home, which means we couldn't teach because there was no adult male. It wasn't super hard to make the decision to leave, but we had really wanted to teach them that week in order to give their daughter more support at home. As we left the house we were thinking about how we would have to work things out with teaching them, when we saw our Branch Mission Leader out of nowhere. We told him what happened and he said "ok let's go teach her then." That lesson turned into one of the best lessons we have given here and had so much more of an impact than it would have had we blown off the rules and just taught. It really showed how we can be blessed if we are just obedient.

Which is why I'm so glad to have had the chance to get a new perspective on obedience. Some missionaries have such a hard problem with obedience, but I think it's because they don't understand why it's important. It's not just some arbitrary set of rules imposed by the President and General Authorities. And they aren't something to follow just to say we do. But when we look at them in the light of following them to become more Christlike, the entire motivation to be obedient changes. Are we obedient because we will get in trouble if we aren't? Do we follow the rules because we know we have to? Or do we do what we do because we are trying to become more Christlike and humble? 2 Nephi 31 says that Christ was baptized to show that he was willing to humble himself before the father and become obedient to his commandments, to show the example before us. Thinking in this way doesn't make it a question of is it right or wrong to do something, but rather is the choice I'm making helping me come unto Christ. And I think that makes choosing the right a whole lot easier. So that's my take on obedience for the week.

I love you all so much and thank you for your support. I'll talk to you again next week!

Elder Van Boerum

1/12/14

 The last night with Juben

Area 2!

So I finally made it to my new area. Paracale A. No big deal. Just a nice view of the ocean to the north and some green mountains to the south. It's pretty beautiful I guess. Kind of scenic for our ocean baptisms. Now I am at the far North end of the mission, about 7-9 hours away from Naga. I was reading our safety evacuation page in our area book where it talks about dangers specific to the area. They are NPA (the Philippines rebel group), tsunamis, mudslides/rockslides, and river flooding. My favorite part of that page is this, and I quote "River Flooding: Flooding coming in from the river, if such is the case, move to the apartment, sorry but you're kinda screwed. Go to Labo if possible." Obviously the area is great. They've got a pretty strong branch here with some great members. There is also a ton of potential for improvement here. My new companion, Elder Llanera, just finished his training, but apparently, they didn't work super hard in the area. But that's just fine by me! That means there are more people out here for me to find that haven't ever been talked to before. My chance to make an impression in the area and help these people come unto Christ. I will let you know next week a little more about the people we are teaching, because I'm still working on getting to know them all. 

So far this week, we have put in some pretty good work. We ended the week with a higher amount of total lessons than Elder Llanera said they had for most of his time here. So we are off to a good start, but we've still got a long way to go. We've already given out some baptismal dates, that hopefully will work out. One issue we have is that we need to get parental consent for some of the baptisms and the parents don't really want that. Also, the previous missionaries basically told the investigators the bare minimum requirements to be able to be baptized, so the investigators don't always aim to be truly converted, but to just reach baptism. Just more stuff to improve! We also found someone with a pet monkey which is pretty cool. I sent a picture of it.

I love you all so much, and will have more for you next week! Just trying to work out everything in the new area. 

1/5/14

We found someone with a pet monkey 

District Newsletter (click on pic to see a closer view)