4.13.15

Conference Week
This week was a pretty normal week! Nothing too crazy happened other than General Conference. It was awesome! President Ferrin had pizza for all of us missionaries for between sessions! He loves us! It was so good! Also worked great since we didn't bring any food with us!

I really enjoyed this conference! There were lots of great quotes and things talked about! I enjoyed the statement "Just hang in there is not a principle of the gospel!" I loved Elder Hollands talk as well about the arms of our brother who saved us from our certain death! Our life has so much more to it than us just living than dying. Christ is our savior and through is atoning sacrifice we can live beyond the bands of a physical death! We can return to live with our Heavenly Father is we live the gospel! But just like President Uchtdorf said, "we don't buy our salvation with good works." It helps us along the path, but we can't just buy our salvation. The first law of heaven is obedience. We are obedient to the commandments because our Heavenly Father told us we need to be, and by doing so we show our love and faith for all that he hath given is! Conference is so amazing! I find myself losing focus about mid-way through the Sunday afternoon session, but it's all good! There's so much information packed into 10 hours of conference it's amazing! I hope one of these next conferences we have a Filipino speak in their native language! That would make it awesome! haha

Well we have dinner appointments scheduled for every night this week since Elder Alfeche goes home on Saturday, so that's awesome! We also have dinner with President Ferrin on Wednesday! So that's sweet! Elder Pack is going to be my companion for Saturday and Sunday, so that's going to be sweet. For those of you who don't remember, and for those that do, he was my companion in the MTC! Going to be good time!

Love you all have a great week! :)

4.6.15

ASL!
So this week was just another week in the Bacolod 2nd Ward! But it was fun! I went on exchanges with Elder Brinton again, but this time in 2nd Ward! He had an absolute blast when we taught Christine, in sign language! He thought it was awesome! After our exhanges we had dinner with the Petero family, I love them! They fed us because we ran out of support and we had like no food in the house, so that was sweet! haha

We set two more baptismal dates this week! As of now we have 6 people committed to be baptized in the next 4 weeks! I'm super excited. The younger sister of Ching-Ching, our RC, has finally started listening and showing an interest as well! She never would join us last transfer but now she joins us, she'll read if we ask her too, and she's been to church for 3 weeks in a row! The first two we just to witness the confirmation of Ching-Ching and after sacrament she just went home. Then on Friday we had two members work with us and one of them is a 17 year old girl, she bore her testimony and cried, and then Joy went to church again, and she attended all 3 hours of class! It was awesome! She was one that I really wanted to baptize, now we just need to get her a baptismal date! :)

Yesterday at church we had a really awesome experience. It about brought tears to my eyes. We had promised ourselves and the member who joins us to teach Christine that at this Fast & Testimony meeting that we would bear our testimony in Sign Language (hence the ASL title). So that is what we did. I was so nervous, but I knew I needed to do it. So I walked up to the podium, and I pulled out the step to make me taller, which I obviously don't need to do. Then the 1st Counselor asked me "Elder, what are you going to do?" Then the members began to laugh! Then I explained to them in Hiligaynon why I was standing on the latter and how they have a new member in their ward who cannot hear but needs to understand what we're talking about. Then I spoke English as I bore my testimony. THe faces of the members were priceless. They were so amazed and so happy . Christine as well had a giant smile on her face and almost cried, just as I did. It was so awesome. Christine told Mary Jane that she was so happy because it was the first time that she actually understood and enjoyed Sacrament meeting. I encouraged the members to try and learn and communicate with her to help her feel more loved. It was just so awesome. I'm truly going to miss Christine and being able to speak ASL with her! It's so fun!

Well Elder Alfeche goes home on April 18. 4 days early so that means I'll have a new companion for a few days before transfer day on the 20. Should be interesting to see what happens! All is going well! I love you all! Have a great week!

3.30.15

First time in English
This week was just about the same as last week! We had our Special MLC on Wednesday and talked about the reasons why our missions numbers are on a heavy decrease right now and hopefully we can pick them back up in the next few weeks! Our numbers are still very good he continues to remind us, but they have been even better in the past! Our zone training meeting on Friday was a bit interesting. I felt as though we were chastising the missionaries for having low numbers, it was kinda weird, because we don't have super high numbers either!

Our streak of weekly baptisms came to end this weekend :/, but we confirmed 2 yesterday! We will pick back up with weekly baptisms on April 11! Yesterday I confirmed Christine. She is our deaf investigator. So just picture how that would go in your mind for a second. She can't hear, yet you're giving her a blessing. So what we did was rather than take forever and try to have Sister Mary Jane sign what I was saying, we got President Ferrin's permission to record the blessing and tomorrow i will type it up and give it to her so that she can read it and understand what was said! I also gave the entire blessing in English. Which was the first time that I've ever confirmed someone in English. You would think that that would make it easier, but it almost didn't. It just felt weird! It was pretty awesome though!

Our work is progressing here in the Bacolod 2nd Ward, and I love it! It is all because of members. Most of our progressing investigators are referrals or are from part member families so they already have an instant support system. That is the "better way" of missionary work that President Hinckley talks about in Preach my Gospel. Missionary work is not very successful when we're knocking on doors, members are the true key to success! They find, we teach! * Finding + Teaching = Baptism! * That's how it gets done!

Nothing else too exiting going on here! Hope you all have a great week! I love you all and can't wait to see you beautiful faces in a couple months! :)

3.23.15

Tapos na naman ang Simana!
This week was a very interesting week. I started off going on exchanges with Elder Brinton again! While on the exchange Elder Brinton enlightened me on some of the things his companion had been doing that he shouldn't be. I also became aware of communication he had with other missionaries in the mission that are outside our zone and tried to fix that myself, but one of the missionaries I corrected did not take it very well and made some pretty rude comments in return. So I scheduled an appointment with President Ferrin before we switched back to our normal companions, and we talked it all out. In result of my conversation with President, he has called an emergency/special MLC this next week to discuss rules and other problems that have been happening within the mission. President also asked me if we should take that missionaries phone. The decision was all up to me. I decided to give him another chance! But we'll see what happens in the upcoming weeks.

Other than that crazy incident, nothing too much happened this week. Our numbers went down a bit, but we still had a baptism and still have more scheduled! The members here in the Bacolod 2nd Ward are such a great help to the success of missionary work, I love them! We would not have much success at all if it wasn't for all their help! This week was the Baptism of Charlie Lantape. We've now baptized the father, mother, and 1 of the 2 kids in that family. Their daughter, Cherry Pie, is 21 years old and wants to be baptized, but she works everyday which doesn't allow her to attend church. She told me after the baptism of her brother that she wants me to baptize her before I go home. So that doesn't give her too much time to find a new job! I hope she can pull through because I would really love to be able to be here and be the one to baptize her as well!

I love you all and hope that you continue with your Book of Mormon reading! I am now in Alma 34! I only need to read 3.3 pages a day to finish on time! I hope you all can finish too!

3.16.15

Vacation?

So this week was crazy! Elder Alfeche goes home this next transfer but he's awesome! He wants to work and told me to help stay focused so I'm super pumped about that! Our work this last week was pretty good! We also had 2 baptisms yesterday! One was for Christine, our deaf investigator! We also learned a ton of sign language this week so teaching her was much easier. We're going to suggest to bishop that we have a sign language class at church on Saturday's so that members can learn so that they can interact with Christine as well! The baptism was so awesome!

Saturday though however was our vacation! We got to go to..... Manila! It was sweet! We need to get fingerprinted before we can leave the country so they took 21 of us foreigners up to the Area Office in Manila. We left Bacolod on an 830am flight and got to Manila around 930 and then our flight back to Bacolod from Manila left at around 530pm. Manila is so much more civilized than Bacolod! haha The temple was unfortunately closed for cleaning, but we got to see it across the street and take pictures! It was also really cool to see missionaries that we were in the MTC with who are serving in other missions while we were at the Area Office! After fingerprinting we went to a US War Memorial in Manila. It was really cool and peaceful. It was were President Hinckley dedicated the Philippines for the preaching of the gospel. It was super awesome! I also got to hang out with Elder Pack, Carver, and Minson for the last time. We'll never all be in one place again while serving our mission! Kinda weird to think about!

The work goes forward. I love you all! Have a wonderful week! :)

3.9.15

Week 4!

The streak of weekly baptism continues! We should be able to get to week 6 the way it's looking. Not sure if we have one for week 7! It's just so amazing to see the work of the Lord going forward in such haste!

Elder Babida transferred this morning. I was hoping that would help me to get a new companion with a greater desire to work. But that isn't what I got. I got a companion who goes home in 6 weeks. So hopefully this works out! I'm the senior in the area so he has to follow my lead! haha It should be alright though! The work never gets easier. Up until the day you leave missionary work is still hard!

We had an unfortunate loss this past week. On Monday our recent convert Tatay Rolando suffered a stroke which ended up taking his life just yesterday morning. We were able to visit him at the hospital on Friday, but it was as if he was not conscious. We knew he didn't have long. It is a tremendous blessing that he was able to join himself with the church and be baptized just this last January. Elder Lopez and I were the ones who interviewed him when I was still assigned in 1st Ward. He was an awesome old man. He always made us laugh. Now he's doing the same in the next life I'm sure! He will be missed.

Some may look at it as though "Look, he was baptized and then he died." But the true fact is that the Lord new his time was coming to an end. So he put the gospel into his life before he was taken. The Lord knows what we need it and when we need it. He goes before us, behind us, and beside us. He is our strength and our salvation!

I hope you all have a wonderful week! Say your prayers and read your scriptures. As we keep the commandments, we prosper. It says so 34 times in the Book of Mormon. Put it to the test! ;) LOVE YOU PO! ;)