Many Names

Sorry, there's not a whoooole lot to talk about this week! It was just
packed with a 3 zone conferences in a row (meaning Meet the Mormons
three more times. By the third, we just sat and talked with President
and Sister Reeder while the missionaries watched the movie), and some
follow up training for the new missionaries that arrived 4 weeks ago
and their trainers, and they all seem to be doin just great! Then of
course the best part of the week was Ariel's baptism on Friday.
President and Sister Reeder came, and seemed to enjoy themselves.
Ariel gave an awesome testimony at the end, recounting his ups and
downs in life with his family, drugs, work, and a bunch of other
stuff. He was ready and it all went great. We ended the night by
attending the wedding reception for one of the members in our ward.
And we got some free food so that was a bonus. Sunday we lucked out
because Ariel got his 18 year old daughter to come to church, and she
hasn't been too open to us up to this point, but this could be a great
beginning for her. And then Tupe came again! We didn't even have time
to visit Tupe over the week, but he still came and it was great. After
church we presented the Because He Lives video to the ward to try and
get them excited and involved. We'll see how that goes...
But that just about sums up the week. I also got my package, and it's
great so thanks again for that! Mom, Happy Birthday this week! I love
you so much and I'm excited to go hang in Newport when we get back!
And to get Torben off your back haha. I love you all and hope you have
a great Holy Week, because we will be shut in with all the craziness
happening this week! (We almost got trapped by a huge procession of
Catholics marching down the street with a float with Christ and a
cross on it. We barely made it to the car and got out of there in
time, or we would have been there for who knows how long...haha)
Oh, last thing. Because Anika included a list of the names she's
picked up, I thought I would add my own (Some of these are almost the
same, because Filipinos often get B and V mixed up...):
Elder Van, Ban, Von, Bon, Boerum, Van Bo Ehrum, Ban Bweroom, Van
Voroom, Van Buko, Spicy, Kwan, Elder Ano Iyan (What's that), Vanny
Pacquiao, Van Broom Broom, Elder Marlboro (I feel like this last one
needs an explanation. Our recent converts son has some sort of mental
disorder, like a psychosis or something, to small degree. He's also a
chain smoker. We talk to him a lot to try and help him out. Well, he's
never been able to remember my name, so the closest thing he could
think of to Van Boerum is Marlboro... don't know why.). There's others
too, but I can't remember them all.

Exchanges...and more Exchanges!

Well you probably figured out from the subject that we had a LOT of exchanges this week. 4. Four exchanges with zone leaders and our district leader and it was crazy. We started burning through our teaching pool so just ended up finding and talked with a bunch of people. It was really fun getting to work with all of them, mostly in our area. Though I’m pretty sure we’ve been through our whole area by this point. It is SO small. But we saw some really great progress with a couple people we’ve been teaching. Ariel is doing great still and passed his baptismal interview and will be baptized this Saturday as long as everything works out. So pray for that please. Probably my favorite part of the week was a less active, Tupe, that came to church on Sunday for the first time in FOREVER. He’s not even in our area, but some sister missionaries asked us to work on him. He’s been taught for a while now, without much effect. We just felt impressed to teach some simple lessons on love, faith, and hope, and he finally came! They were all great lessons, and he seemed to enjoy himself once he was there. Now the only trick will be to help him keep it up and get the rest of the family on board. His family has all been members for a long time now, and were actually sealed in the temple, but Tupe’s father (the elder’s quorum president) is less active right now.

Besides that it was kind of crazy with some other stuff that was going on. Wednesday we had to get 41 missionaries to the airport to go all the way to Manila just to have their fingerprints taken. Why it had to be done in Manila? I have no idea. It was just a headache to organize. I would have had to go with them had I not done it over a year ago (I don’t know why I did it so early, it usually doesn’t happen until your last transfer). They all went to the biggest mall in Asia and had fun, but I’m just glad nobody got lost. Bonus was they brought back Krispy Kreme. Haha.

Sorry this email was a little late! During P Day yesterday we had an meeting with President Reeder to talk about an emergency transfer that went smoothly today, so luckily that worked out. That mostly sums up my week! But I love you all!

Meet The Mormons

Not much of a week for us!

We ended up super busy for the whole week with exchanges and zone conferences. We went from one end of the mission to the other within 2 days, so it was kind of crazy! Pretty much 4 days straight of no work in our area... So that was the bad part. But the Zone Conferences were awesome! That's where we get to go with the Reeders to visit the various zones in the mission, have a meeting and workshops and stuff. Always way fun to see my friends in the mission. And this time, we had a surprise for all the missionaries... Meet the Mormons! President Reeder finally got a copy of it a few weeks ago and has been saving it for these kinds of meetings. I think everyone enjoyed it, and I'll still be watching it another 3 times before the end of the transfer. President Reeder also gave us a workshop/discussion about the Atonement, based on Elder Christofferson's talk "Free Forever to Act for Themselves", with a focus on the justice and mercy aspect of the Atonement. It was really cool all of the ideas that missionaries were contributing. I liked the quote that freedom comes not from resisting eternal law, but from applying it. It's like trying to fly a plane. Planes don't fly because the pilot will's gravity into non-existence, but by applying physical laws in such a way as to create lift. Same with eternal principles. Resenting commandments doesn't change the fact that we are blessed for following them. After the second zone conference, we just had exchanges in the farthest south zone and saw the Mayon Volcano, pretty close up, so that was cool. As for our area, we really weren't in it all that much, but Ariel came to church and is pretty much ready for baptism at this point. We are moving Carlito's baptismal date, but hopefully it will all be ready for April.

Love you all!

Madi, congrats on the wedding! It looks like it was awesome and went great!

And happy birthday Dad, you old man! Love you, and I'm so pumped to get back and hang and cycle and ski (if there's snow next year...) and all of that!

Have a great week everyone!

Hellooo

Helllooo. 

Well to be completely honest, not a whole bunch happened this week. We were busy, but none of it was really exciting. We did have a great Mission Leadership Council about finding and we got to discuss a bunch of things about the mission, like improving our teaching and all that. So that was cool to hang with some of those missionaries. Then we did our usual exchange up in the far zones (still haven't broken the speed record...yet). And those all went just great. I came really close to beating a burger challenge, but ran out of time with only 1 patty to go (out of the four that came on the burger). Then it was all the way back here to Naga for Zone training and hopefully to get a bit of work in. When we finally did get to work in our area after all of that, it went pretty well, and some of our investigators are still pushing along and progressing, while others still seem stuck in the same place.

 Ariel came to church again, and we had a couple great lessons with him. His work will be up by the end of the month, and he doesn't really know what to do to support his family yet. He was offered a job driving buses long distance, but that would take him away from his family and the church, so he knew he couldn't do that, and he's still lookin out for anything else he can do. Carlito is struggling a little bit lately because of some crazy love mix-up that's going on with a recent convert from another area. I may have mentioned that divorce does not exist in the Philippines. Legally, you cannot do it (this creates worlds of problems for trying to get people baptized because many of them leave their spouses and just get hitched to someone else, without ever being able to divorce from the first one. I'll have to explain this all another time, or when I get back because it leaves us with a bunch of stuff to sort through before anyone can qualify for baptism). Anyway, Carlito was abandoned by his legally married wife, and now can't get with anyone else, because he would be unqualified for baptism if he did so, seeing as he cannot legally marry another person until the first wife dies. Well this other recent convert has been leading him on (all the time, she has known the law of chastity) and we are just worried that something might happen. It's a big mess, but it's starting to clear up a bit.

Well I hope you will have a great upcoming week. We should hopefully be pretty busy again with zone conferences and exchanges and everything, so it's looking up for us! Love you all.

After MLC, last week, we had to drive a couple companionships up to their areas in the far zones and then have exchanges there. On our way, we went to this restaurant that's right on the beach. they just built an extension (this boat) that's on the sand and all that. So these are just a bunch of pictures we took while we were there.

Found my way back to Roseville

My Challenge Burger
I had 3 minutes to finish the whole thing...including the fries.
The cheese was boiling hot too.

My Exchanges in Daet

1 Transfer Down

So I finally completed my first transfer here in the office! And it went by super fast. So I think I'm starting to get an idea of how fast the next few will go. We are going to be even more busy this transfer with 2 Zone Conferences a week, exchanges, other meetings, and hopefully baptisms! Last week alone was full with taking the departing missionaries to the airport, having the transfer day, and picking up the new missionaries. We only got 5 new ones this transfer; 3 Filipino/Filipinas and 2 foreigners. One of those is a big guy from New Zealand who has been playing professional rugby for a year or so. Really awesome guy, smiling the whole time. I was hoping to play a bit of rugby with him, but he got sent up to the farthest area of the mission so that probably won't be happening anytime soon. haha. It was sad taking all of the missionaries home, and I'll miss all of them, but it seems like their already doin great back home. 

As for this week, there's still a ton for us to do. Tomorrow we have Mission Leadership Council, 2 exchanges in the far zones again (I'll try harder to break the record this time), and a zone training. It's going to be super tiring I think, but I'm still excited for it.

Anika said last week she hit her four month mark in the mission. Well, yesterday I hit my four month mark too...but mine is for time I have left. That's so close and weird to think about. But I'm glad we still are doing a ton to keep busy so I'll try not to think about it too much. Yesterday we also had stake conference and heard some great talks. A few of our investigators came to church as well, and 2 of those we were really surprised to see. One of them was the wife of our investigator Rafael. Until this point she hasn't really been open to hearing from us, but apparently she volunteered to come to church the other day with her husband and kids! So there's some potential there we think, we just haven't taught her yet. We also made the decision to have Carlito's daughter baptized on the same day as him so they can work together on preparing forMarch 28th as their date. We just need to find the time to teach them!

Hope you're all doing great. Love you all and have a great week!