Strengthening the Branch in San Fernando

Hey everyone!

Short on time this week. We spent the morning building a house for a member, so we had to cut our time down on everything in our schedule.

We had another pretty good week. We felt like a lot of our less actives have been making some great progress, so we decided to try out some more finding. We got a lot of Filipinos hiding and running away, but we tried not to get too discouraged. We ended up talking to several people who were really nice and seemed like they could really benefit from the Gospel, so now we are just working on following up with them. Things are pretty much all settled down here in our area, so I don't have a whole lot to talk about. Just keep working away here in San Fernando. It's been a pretty rough area, but we have seen a lot of progress, not in terms of investigators, but mostly just in strengthening the branch. We still get a little opposition at times, but I feel like everything we've done has been for the best, so we just trust in God and keep movin on and doing what we were sent here to do. Anyway, Love you all and hope you're doing great!

8/25/14

The Benefits of Service

Hey everyone! This week wasn't too bad. We kept ourselves pretty busy with service and stuff. Last Wednesday, a lot of the priesthood got together (even a few less active members) and took a hike up into the mountains to cut down some bamboo and other wood to rebuild the house that I mentioned last week. It took most of our day up, but ended up being a great chance for everyone to fellowship each other and provide service for a family that really needed it. It turned out to be super successful, because the family that we cut all the wood for came to church on Sunday! I haven't seen some of them at church since I've gotten to the area, so that's great news for them. We also did some more service on Saturday for another family whose house got trashed by the typhoon. They were all super grateful, and we had a good time doing it. After the service we got to attend a baptism for some investigators I interviewed a couple weeks ago, and they were both super happy. I was really excited for them. We finally have power again also in most of our area, so we are pretty much back to the regular schedule now, no more curfew. It's great because that was a huge limitation. Most fathers weren't getting home until around our curfew time, and we can't go into houses without any males, so we should start to pick up work again soon. This next week should be a little bit better, and I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks and I hope you're all doin great!

8/18/14

Priesthood

Hey Everyone!

So we had another pretty good week. We spent a lot of it running around coordinating branch efforts to rebuild a house for a member family whose home was destroyed during the typhoon. It took a lot of time, and the week started off kinda rough, but finally we got it all worked out. The priesthood was able to come together yesterday and finalize plans for getting all of the materials, which will be donated by a member, from the mountains, then bringing them back down to where the house is and spending the day repairing everything we can. I'm so happy the branch is finally taking the lead on this, and I'm so proud of the progress they have made. This family has been struggling since the typhoon, so it's been great to see things finally working out for them. All of the priesthood will be participating and a lot of the Relief Society too. We also got together the auxiliary presidents for a Family Home Evening last Saturday for a less active family. It was a really great time, and the family was asked to bear their testimonies at the end, and they talked about how they love the church, and know they need to come back to activity. And they did show up for church on Sunday! We had one of the highest attendances we've had since I've been in the area and 8 less active members came from our area. It's been such a struggle, but Sunday felt like such a successful day and I think we finally got our branch out of the tough place it was in and moving forward. The leaders of the church are now really working together and are leading efforts to fellowship and reach out to less actives. I think we are laying a great foundation for the next missionaries to come through here.

Besides that, our work was mostly just visiting other less active members. We are still having a tough time with a couple of them, but I feel like there is still some little progress. Now we are ready to start shifting back towards investigator work. Hope you're all still doin great, and I love you all! 

8/11/14

8/3/14 No email!

Elder Lakopo Faipolo

Hey everyone.

So this week was another pretty slow week. We spent most of it trying to finish the clean up for our area. So this just meant a ton of service projects. It ended up making it super tough to have any teaching, especially with our 6 p.m. curfew still. We have an early curfew right now because of the power outage. We are still without power and running water, and probably could be for another week or so. We just barely saw the first electrical workers in our area this morning, so at least that is a good sign. Hopefully they can get it up and running soon.

We also have transfers this week, but we found out we will both be staying in the area for another 6 weeks. I'm kinda sad, but also happy. It's a super tough area, but I feel like we are beginning to see some good progress among the members and we were able to serve a ton of them over the past couple weeks. One of the old couples kept telling us that they will never forget us, because we have been so good to them. All of their children are gone, so they didn't really have anyone to help them after the typhoon, so we were there a ton to help them out. They are some of my favorite members in the area.

Hopefully I'll have more to report on next week! Love you all!

Elder Iakopo Faipolo

(My Samoan name. My companion has started teaching me and I'm gettin ok.)

7/27/14

Typhoon Aftermath

I'm just copying my email this week from a letter to my mission pres. 

As you know, our area was hit very hard by the typhoon. After spending the night in Milaor, Elder Lapana and I felt that we needed to go straight to visit the members in our area. I don't think that anybody had warned them of what was coming or that they could evacuate. We stopped briefly at our apartment to make sure there wasn't too much damage, then immediately went back out. Luckily, none of our members were hurt, but some of them received some really serious damage to their homes, so we immediately went to work cleaning and doing what we could. Wednesday was mostly spent visiting as many members as we could so we could assess who needed the most help soonest, and we based the rest of our week on what we saw. We spent every day out cleaning up the damage for our members, and despite not getting any lessons, I feel the work we were able to do was just as important. Several members were extremely grateful for our efforts and it was a great chance for us to show our love for them. We had some really great experiences, and one of the elderly members couldn't stop talking about us being their strength after the storm.
As Sunday was coming, we knew we were going to be the speakers in church. We had picked topics that we thought would help the branch, mine being gossiping. But in the aftermath of the typhoon, I felt impressed to change it. We've felt a lot of contention in the branch between members and even towards us at times. So I chose a new talk. I wanted to base it on President Uchtdorf's talk "The Merciful Obtain Mercy". I talked to the members about how now, more than ever, it is so important for them to come together and be one by putting aside old grudges and personal problems and recognizing that no one is perfect, especially us missionaries, and that we all rely on Christ. I began by saying I had prayed a lot about this, and that I wanted them to try and feel the spirit as I spoke plainly to them. I asked them to forgive us for anything we may have done to offend them, and to forgive the other members for their mistakes. At first I felt there was no effect from my talk; one member did thank me, but one Tatay was still angry with President Paloma for not taking action before the typhoon and not visiting the members after and we still felt a little bitterness towards us from the branch president. But during priesthood meeting, it was decided that we needed to all visit the members as a priesthood body. When some made objections that their were no vehicles, one member offered to drive us all in his car. So after church, we got together to visit. I could still feel some slight discomfort among the brethren. I still feel like what happened after is a small miracle. As we went from house to house, visiting with the members and seeing the damage done, I saw them all becoming close and interacting with each other. Some who earlier that day would hardly speak to each other were now laughing with each other. They began to make plans together for how to aid each member that was affected and when and how to start, they being the ones taking charge instead of relying on us. When we visited the Tatay who was mad with President, he took President Paloma aside and apologized to him for his behavior earlier and showed so much gratitude for the service we had given earlier in the week and for the visit from the priesthood. One of the counselors took an especially active roll, and I think he and President Paloma resolved their differences over the day. I don't believe that I said anything particularly significant during my talk, but I did feel the Spirit testifying to me of it's truth, and I think the members felt it to. I'm so grateful for the support that the Lord gave us yesterday in uniting us as priesthood brethren in San Fernando and helping us feel the Spirit. I think this may be one of the biggest steps forward I've seen in the branch here, and this is just a starting point. They were already discussing plans for future visits and work together and with us. It's hard for me to explain in so short a space what happened, and I apologize for the length of the letter, but it was such an uplifting experience that I don't think I will ever forget. It was a miracle.

7/20/14

 Getting a ride in a dump truck!

Rat Hunting!

Hey Everyone!

So this was a kinda slow week. Didn't get a ton of lessons, but that was somewhat intentional. We decided we wanted to find and meet every less active in our area, even if we don't really get a chance to teach them. This turns out to be a lot bigger of a task than you would think. Here, people don't actually have addresses, so you just go to an area and ask around. So we separated our area into pieces and have started going to each place to find the members there. The lucky thing is we usually have at least one active member there to ask about the less actives. Problem is, we found out a bunch of them have actually moved away, but are still on our list for some reason.

 Me and my district rat hunting!

Rats on Rice

Saturday was a super rough day though. We planned our whole day around a Family Home evening that the branch had set up with a less active family to work on activating them. Then we get there and not one member showed up. We tried texting and calling everyone, but nobody replied. We did have a couple lie to us and say they were busy. Then we visited them, and they weren't actually doing anything. haha I love this branch.

Highlight of our week was probably Sunday. Despite the FHE falling through, that family still came to church. We had 9 less active members attending church, the highest number I've had since I got here. They all seemed genuinely happy to be there too, although it was just as chaotic as usual. Philippines sacrament meetings are basically a free for all. Then afterwords I went and interviewed a family for baptism, which went great. We then returned to our area and were able to teach a couple lessons, one to a less active member that killed her husband. I'm still not sure whether it was an accident or on purpose though...She lives up in the mountains and sometimes people there are crazy.

Found this in the middle of nowhere!

At the beach

So all in all it was a pretty good week. We spent most of it without a fridge, because ours broke 2 weeks ago, but we finally got a new one. So now we are just preparing for the hurricane tomorrow. Love you all and hope you're doing great!

Elder Van Boerum

7/14/14