Busy Lang Po

So we were suuuuuper busy this week with planning for transfers tomorrow (the plans changed like 5 times over the week, partly because my Chinese friend is getting kicked out by the Philippines government earlier than anticipated. We celebrated with him on his last night though.), and so we didn't get a whole bunch of work in, so I thought I'll just put a little bit of an update on some of the people we are teaching right now.

Carlito:

Carlito is the nephew of one of our recent converts. He's about 27 and has one daughter that is 8 years old. Carlito has been awesome, coming to church pretty much every week and he loves it there. Carlito was left by his wife a couple years ago, with no hint as to where she went, and since then he has struggled a ton. His only source of income is pretty much just driving a padyak (you'll have to look that one up). He's doing awesome now though, our only problem is that he dropped out of high school so he never learned to read or write, so it's super hard to get him to remember the things we teach him. He still really wants to be baptized though!

Ariel: Ariel is the man. He's about 46 years old, and the son of a member in our area. In the past, Ariel became a Born Again minister, super strong in that faith, but eventually got disillusioned with the system because he said he saw ministers taking advantage of people and taking their money. He dropped off the whole religion thing for a while, looking for a better alternative, even checking out Islam, and not finding much he liked. He kind of got depressed and messed with alcohol, drugs, smoking, at which point he lost the trust of his family. Missionaries tried to teach him a little while ago, but he wasn't interested. Since then, he's had a huge comeback, deciding he wants to make things right with his family. He's been reading the Book of Mormon and picks everything up super quick, and has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, even defending both against a slightly antagonistic non-member that showed up for church yesterday. He said he knew they were both true and was so grateful for the clarity they both brought to his life. And, crazy thing is, the other day in our lesson (we had planned to teach baptism) he just up and asks us about tithing and says he wants to start paying (Who does that?!). So we just taught that instead. And he payed tithing yesterday. Pretty cool, right?

Elmer: I think I already talked a bit about him, so I won't have much right now, but he's 46, has 6 sons and has been reading a ton from the Book of Mormon and everything just seems to click with him. He has a hold of the doctrine of the Fall after reading 2 Nephi 2, and made all the connections himself. He says he wants to be a true Christian and says he feels that since we have started teaching, he feels cleaner and as though there is more of a clarity in his life. He feels like the church is true, but hasn't committed yet to be baptized. He also calls in his kids to listen in when we come and teach (this is so rare in the Philippines, that I can't even explain that adequately. Honestly it's rare enough to teach a male that is genuinely interested in finding the truth.)

Well that's most of our week I think. We just spent a bunch of other time in the office, and went out as we had time. Really sad to see Elder Zou go, the Philippines government is just trying to stick it to China or something. I don't really know. And then we got a bunch of other missionaries headin out tomorrow. It's going to be really sad to see them go, but they're all excited and I'm happy for 'em. As for me, I learned a ton this week about how important it is to have a correct understanding of God and how he works. That's kind of what most of our lessons came down to this week, was understanding God and His love for all of us. Because he loves us, we have an awesome plan that is meant to help us grow and develop through being humble and following Him. So it was a pretty great week!

Love you all! Here's a couple pictures that I liked.

Hellooooooo Family and Friends!! And anyone else reading.

Hellloooo Family and Friends. And anyone else reading.

We had a pretty solid week overall for our work here in Naga. Super busy because we were trying to finalize transfer plans, and they changed about a hundred times, but we got to have 4 exchanges with other missionaries and they all went great and we got some good work done for the most part. Lots of successes, some disappointments, but overall a great week. Starting with Monday, we had some missionaries come in from the far zones because we had a training meeting to do the next day. So I got to work with one of the missionaries that we welcomed here about 5 months ago and it was crazy! Really awesome guy, Elder Salmon from Canada. It was fun to work with him, just super weird to think that I had been that new only a little while ago. We got to teach Elmer, who had been reading parts of the Book of Mormon and had questions about it and who Moroni was and everything. It was pretty cool.

That led us into Tuesday with the actual meeting. We had all the new missionaries and their trainers meet up to discuss how everything was going, how they were getting adjusted, and what we could do to help them. It was cool talking to them about their purpose and trying to remember what it was like to be so new. 

Wednesday was exchanges again and we had some pretty great lessons. Our day got thrown off a bit because my companion had to translate for some missionaries that were having interviews with President about disobedience stuff, but it all ended up ok.

Thursday...exchanges again. This time we had to go out and visit a district to check up on them and see how they are all doin. We were pretty impressed with the work they were doing, and we got to work with a few for a couple hours. Then we had to go pick up some missionaries for an emergency transfer (a result of Wednesday's interview thing) and come all the way back again.

Friday, exchanges with my former comp Elder Sonderegger. He's goin home in just a week's time, so it was awesome to catch up with him and work with him again. We got to visit some people he knew so he could say goodbyes. Cool experience.

The rest of the time we just went out and WORKED. The majority of our lessons always seemed to come back to the Book of Mormon this week, and how big of a blessing it is that we have it. Awesome time getting to testify of it. Everyone we teach is so confused. They belong to one church, but don't know if it's true because they read in the Bible that it should be different, or they wonder why all these churches are different and it's great to give them a book that will answer all of their questions. Time and time again we got to talk about the importance of them knowing for themselves and trusting in God that he's going to give them what they ask for, if they do it sincerely. The Book of Mormon gives them a clarity that they can't get any other way. If they read it.

Hope you all have a great week and take time to read the Book of Mormon more and thank God for it. Love you all, and have a great week!

On exchange with Elder Balag from Mindinao

Our investigators son (the youngest of 11)

Random Kids

Crazy weather hear in Neuquen!!!

Mom's Cookies

My Valentines from Torb

To Daet and Back Again

Well we had another pretty great week out here in Naga. Well I guess I shouldn't say just Naga, because we spent a few days in another province. Like I said, we had another Mission Leadership Council last week, and it went just great. Elder Saddi and I gave the workshop on the Plan of Salvation and we both learned a ton from all the input everyone had about it, some of the main points being about why it's important for us to teach the plan. It gives people Hope by teaching them the Atonement, and it helps put everything else into context when you understand it. Anyway, it was cool to be with everyone again, and there was some new missionaries in there that did a great job.

A couple hours later, we were off to the far zone for our exchanges. We had to take it slow a bit, because the road was a little crowded and we didn't want the missionaries getting sick. We had an awesome dinner at a restaurant up there that's right on the beach. First time I've seen the ocean in almost a year! We were all so excited we ran out on the beach before we left. Then we had our exchanges and those went just awesome. We also got to stop by and talk with one of the missionaries that just arrived a couple weeks ago. They seem to be doin pretty well, he may just be shocked at being in the middle of nowhere haha. We also dropped off a package for him, and in it was toilet paper haha. I warned him about that. We then went into the second day of exchanges which went awesome as well.

The drive back home to Naga that night was crazy. Imagine driving on those canyon roads in the Cottonwood canyons (crazy sharp turns out of nowhere, and with worse road quality), pitch black, going above freeway speeds, with no other laws for the most part. Oh and to top it off, the people that live in the mountains that separate the provinces? Yeah they walk all over the road at night with absolutely no regard for cars that are coming down the road. I didn't break the speed record yet, but I got a good feel for the road so maybe next time.

Besides that, we kind of got killed for work this week because of everything that happened. But we still saw progress with a few of our investigators so that was great. We struggle a bit with one, Carlito, because he can't read or write and has a pretty weak memory. He's coming to church every week and his neighbors/family do a great job fellowshipping, and I think he really likes it though. Another guy, Elmer, is also doin pretty great. He has 6 sons, all above ten years old. He seems super interested and read the intro to the Book of Mormon that we left with him and had a ton of questions. He said if he ends up joining the church, he will be happy to be a real Christian. Pretty cool.

As for this week, pretty busy again. Meetings with the new missionaries, more exchanges, and other stuff too. We'll see how it goes. Oh and Valentine's Day! One of my buddies here in the office that we share a house with was Dear Johned by his girlfriend two weeks ago so we are trying to figure out something good to do, because now none of us here has a girlfriend so we aren't really expecting much on that day. If you have any ideas let us know haha. All we've got so far is goin out for pizza. Sounds fun right?

Anyways, Love you all and hope you all have a great Valentine's Day!

At the Airport

Getting ready to throw one of them into the rice field.

Just me and some random kids

Some of the Members that Worked with Us

Buuusy Week!

Buuusy week this past week, but it was still great. We kind of struggled with work, but still got some good stuff done. 

So just a quick summary.

Tuesday we had to meeting for all of the district leaders in the mission about the importance of what they do. It went super well, and I learned a bunch about leadership and the important role that all of the mission. And then there was a twist after the meeting. President Reeder asked us to have a meeting with him and told us about some stuff that had been happening in one of the far areas, involving one of the missionaries we had just worked with. So then we had to spend an hour or so planning an emergency transfer and who would move and when and how so it killed our work for that day. But at least it went smoothly.

Wednesday we got to spend the morning taking missionaries to the airport to get visa stuff done in Manila, then picked them back up on Thursday. It was kind of sad to see them at the airport, because they'll all be outta here in 3 more weeks. 2 of my companions were in that group of missionaries haha, so I'll miss them, but they all had a great time so it was cool. 

Overall, we didn't get a ton of work done because of other random things coming up, but we did have some great exchanges with some other zone leaders this week, including the zone leaders I mentioned last week, one of them being from China. He's soo nice and all the people we were able to talk to loved him haha. Basically, his mom was the first one converted in their family when she visited Hong Kong (They are from mainland China. Not much in the way of religious freedom there.) She then took her son there to have him taught, and he was converted. His church unit is a group of 12 people from his town that meet every in which he was one of 2 Melchizedek priesthood holders until he left for the mission. The law in his place is that the church there cannot receive funding from outside of China, so the church depends almost completely on the tithing of the members. The church also can only be presided over and attended by native Chinese. For a long time, he and his mom were the only members in the family. His dad was unable to join because he works for the government, which completely prohibits its workers from joining churches. But they are working out a way for him to be baptized so that will be awesome.

Anyway, everything else here is goin great and I love you all. We've got two more exchanges this week, this time in the farthest zones of the mission and I get to drive all the way out there! I've been asking around to see what the speed records and journey time records are for getting up there, so we'll see if I can beat it. Just pray that we make it safe! And there is some sort of burger challenge there that you have to eat in 3 minutes. So maybe I can win a free meal or something. NIce.

Love you all! Have a great week!