Magtratrain na ako

Well it's been another transfer! And I got some news just the other night, that I'm going to be training a new missionary starting this transfer. I go on Wednesday to the Mission Home to pick him up, so he will be from the Manila MTC. That means he will be Filipino or Polynesian most likely, but I just have to wait a couple more days to find out! I'm way excited but also a little nervous, but I know it will all work out because that's what I've been called to do for the next two transfers. So that means I'll be stayin in Paracale for at least another three months, which is ok with me because we did some work this week.

The highlight of the week may be Anghelo, who has only been an investigator for about a week and a half now. When we went to visit him on Tuesday, our second visit,he said "Sorry Elders, I only made it to 2 Nephi so far. It had been four days. Another day, he said he was having a hard time praying because he scared of Satan or something. We offered to give him a blessing of strength so he could resist temptations and such. We came back the next day and he told us that the blessing worked and he felt strength. He hadn't left his home for about a month, but he felt strong enough to go outside and walk around. We told him all he needs to say when he feels temptation is "I am a child of God, and Satan doesn't have power over me." He said he's been doing that and it works. So he's still progressing way fast, we just need to get him to come to church now!

We were also able to finally teach our investigator Maria. She is set to be baptized at the end of the month. She's been out of town for a while now, but we finally got the chance. She has still been reading, which was her big problem initially, and now she's doing better than ever. Her mother, Victoria, we will probably have to stop teaching soon. We've spent about 3 weeks with her trying to help her give up her little statues of saints, but she won't do it, even though she knows the Book of Mormon is true. She's kind of stuck where she is right now, and can't progress anymore. We are going to give her another chance, but my trainee and I will have a lot more work to do.

We were also able to invite a couple to be baptized in March, and they accepted! They are both so nice and are very excited about the possibility of an eternal family. They have three little kids, all under 4 I think. As soon as they start coming to church and get married, they will be prepared for baptism!

This week was an awesome week for some of our investigators, and I'm even more excited to see how next week goes with my new companion! We are gonna do some work and baptize all of Paracale! Thanks everyone for everything and I hope you have a good Valentine's Day!

Elder Van Boerum

2/9/14

 One of the member's kids

His name is Abinidi, Abi for short

 Innah, our part member family investigator.  She has been taught for a couple years now and wants to be baptized, but can't yet because her father won't give permission.  Her mother is a member.  We sometimes get to teach her right there on the beach!

 Noriel, Elder Llanera, and Tatay Umerez.  Noriel and Tatay Umerez work with us all the time!

 Us and some of the members

 Climbing the buko tree

 Nametag pictures!

Fiesta!

Well for the past two weeks we have had a Fiesta here and Paracale, which means a big party and a bunch of parades and stalls on all the streets selling really cheap stuff! It was fun seeing all the people coming to Paracale to be at the Fiesta, but it ended up getting in the way a lot of the time for us to teach. A lot of people said they were preparing for the fiesta and were busy, and stuff like that. But we still had some amazing experiences. 

One of them was contacting a referral named Anghelo. About two weeks ago, we got a referral from a member about her friend Marcy. So we went to go contact Marcy. Her neighbor came out first and said she's home. Then Marcy answered, but she basically blew us off and said "Oh yeah you can come back. I'll just let Tess (the member) know when I'm available." But we never heard from her again. So that pretty much means she's not interested. We ended up leaving, thinking that we didn't get anywhere. Then last week Sister Tess tells us that Marcy's neighbor, Anghelo, wanted us to come and visit him. So we went back, wondering why he wanted to talk with us. I ended up feeling prompted in the lesson to ask him why he wanted to listen to us. He ended up telling us the story of how he and his wife got together when they were 18 (he's 24 now), had a few kids, but it ended up going bad and now they are separated. He said his friends were having a really bad influence on him, so he was avoiding them and felt alone. He prayed to God for a sign to find the way to change his life, when he saw us and thought we could be the sign. We ended up having a really good lesson on the Restoration with him, and he said it all made sense and he was very willing to pray about it! I think he will progress so well and I'm so happy we got the chance to help him!

That was probably our miracle of the week. We had a couple other really good experiences, but now I'm out of time! Sorry but I'll try to get more time next week! Love you all and hope you're doing great!

2/2/14

Watching the Parade

 One of the members, Noriel. He leaves for his mission next month!

 Me and one of the members

Part of the street dancing parade

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)

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